Madrugada is one of the best things that has ever happened to the Norwegian music scene. Sivert Hψyem does the vocals, Robert S. Burεs plays the guitar and harmonica, Frode Jacobsen plays bass guitar while Jon Lauvland Pettersen plays the drums and percussion.

The story of the band started in 1993 when bass guitarist Frode Jacobsen and drummer Jon Lauvland Pettersen formed a band. The band was named Abbey's Adoption and featured, along with Frode and Jon, Marius A. Johansen on guitar and Jan Erik Svendsen as the vocalist. He was soon replaced by Sivert Hψyem. A couple of years later, Marius A. Johansen was replaced by Robert S. Burεs on guitar, a band line-up that has stayed intact until present day.

In Autumn 1995, the band, still going under the name Abbey's Adoption, moved from the cold north of Norway to the country's capital city, Oslo. The main object of the move was to focus entirely on the musical career. As Abbey's Adoption, the band released four songs on two different compilation albums, in 1993 and 1996; "Dry White Season," "Facts and Figures," "Salt Satan" and "Bittersweet Electric." The latter two are now known as the Madrugada songs "Salt" and "Electric," available on their first full-length album, "Industrial Silence."

The public first became aware of this young (all members are in their mid-twenties) and talented band, having changed name to Six Generations and then finally to Madrugada, in 1997. In the summer of 1998, the band signed to Virgin Music Norway, being given an amazing four-album deal, which is quite extra-ordinary in the modern world of music. Especially for a band that had yet to release anything at all except for fours tracks on compilation albums.

In 1998 the band released their first EP, simply called "EP." It was released as a limited edition of 750 copies plus an unknown amount of unnumbered promo copies. NRK Petre, one of the biggest radio channels in Norway, gave the EP a lot of airplay. The EP sold out in a matter of days, and the band has refused to press new issues of it since, making it a true gem for record collectors.

In Spring 1999 came the second EP, called "New Depression EP." It reached the seventh place on the Norwegian Top 20 Singles Hit List, and stayed in the charts for fourteen weeks. It re-entered the charts when the band's first full-length album, "Industrial Silence," was released in Autumn 1999. Both the EPs include four tracks each; "Belladonna," "Strange Colour Blue," "Oceanliner" and "Highway 2.000.000" on "EP," "The Riverbed," "Tonight I Have No Words For You," "Higher" and "1990" on "New Depression EP." "Belladonna" and "Higher" became radio hits and were be re-recorded, along with "Strange Colour Blue," for "Industrial Silence."

"Industrial Silence" is a true modern classic, as the thirteen songs on the record has boosted Madrugada's popularity all over Europe. After touring intensively all over Norway in Autumn and Winter 1999 and Spring 2000, the band went on a European tour that lasted from March until August 2000. The record received brilliant critics, and has sold more than 135.000 copies, more than 50.000 of those in Norway which earned them a Norwegian platin award for the album. On April 17th 2000, the record was released in Great Britain, and the band did a short British tour. The British release was expected to boost the record sales even further, as it is a very important country in the music business, but even with great critics not a lot of copies of the album were sold in Great Britain.

The thirteen songs on "Industrial Silence are; "Vocal," "Beautyproof," "Shine," "Higher," "Sirens," "Strange Colour Blue," "This Old House," "Electric," "Salt," "Belladonna," "Norwegian Hammerworks Corp." "Quite Emotional" and "Terraplane." The first 5.000 copies in Norway and an unknown number of the European release of the album were shipped in a special cover and included the bonus record "limited edition," which includes the three songs "Wheelchair," "Move" and "Sweet Simone." As mentioned earlier, "Higher," "Strange Colour Blue" and "Belladonna" are re-recorded versions, while "Sweet Simone" is a live demo version.

The quartet played most of the instruments on the album themselves, but got help from Bob Egan (Wilco, Freakwater and solo) who played various steel guitar on six tracks, Jon Terje Rovedal who played the hammond organ and the piano on five of the songs and Ohm who added with violin and saw. Apparently, Bob Egan was so impressed with Madrugada that he considered becoming a full-time member of the band. All music and lyrics on the record was written by the band and Sivert Hψyem. If you hear parts of The Doors, Nick Cave, Grant Lee Buffalo, Ennico Morricone, Chris Isaak, Jeffrey Lee Pierce of R.E.M. on the album, it is just co-incidental.

Before the band headed for Europe and the European tour in March 2000, they received Spellemansprisen in Norway on February 27th. Spellemannsprisen is the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammys. They won for Best Rock act.

To promote the European tour, the band released two new EPs, "Electric" and "Higher EP." The "Electric" EP features "Electric," "I'm Life's Wonderful Way Of Letting You Down," "Bill Skins Fifth" and "Mother Of Earth," the latter written by Jeffrey Lee Pierce and previously released in a slightly different version on the compilation album "Frozen - a selection of polarized country." "Higher EP" is a collection of previously released tracks, "Higher," "Tonight I Have No Words For You," "The Riverbed" and "Highway 2,000,000" and was released only in a few European countries.

After the European tour the band headed for America. Their second full-length album, "The Nightly Disease," was recorded at Waterfront Studios in Hoboken, New Jersey during an eight-week session starting on August 21st 2000. The band had originally planned to stay for six weeks. They produced the album themselves, with John Agnello, who mixed "Industrial Silence," as co-producer, technician and mixer, Chris Mazer as mixer and Rudyard Lee Cullers and Tom Unish as assistant technicians.

The initial mix turned out rather bad, so the band went back to America to stay one week on November 11th 2000. On the second mix, Sivert's voice sounds a lot stronger, and carries the weight of the music a lot better than on the initial mix. The album was finished mastered by Creg Calbi at Sterling Sound in New York City on January 10th 2001. Eric Hayward (Richard Bucker, Calexico and Son Volt) played steel guitar as session musician, while Siobhan Duffy from Gunga Din did some background vocals.

"The Nightly Disease" sounds quite different from "Industrial Silence." Some will say worse, others will say a lot better. The difference with this album is that they challenge their listeners a lot more on this album, for example by including a nine-minute song ("Sister") and putting a five and a half-minute song ("Hands Up - I Love You") as the title track of the first EP from the album. If you take the time to get into the mood of the album, you will be carried away and rewarded with a great listener experience.

The songs on "The Nightly Disease" are; "Black Mambo," "Step Into This Room And Dance For Me," "Nightly Disease Part II," "Lucy One," "Hands Up - I Love You," "A Deadend Mind," "The Frontman," "We Are Go," "Into Heartbeats," "Sister," "Two Black Bones" and "Only When You're Gone." The album was also released as a 2CD in a limited edition of 10.000, featuring a bonus CD called "The Nightly Disease Vol. II" which featured the songs "Nightly Disease Part I," "Big Sleep" and "I'm Sorry."

The album was released on March 5th 2001, and sold as much as "Industrial Silence" withing a couple of weeks. This album also debuted on top of the Norwegian Album Chart List, they were the first Norwegian rock band ever to do that with "Industrial Silence." "Hands Up - I Love You" was released as the first EP from the album on February 19th 2001, featuring three extra songs, "Ready To Carry You," "Run Away With Me" and "Ice-9." Sivert has written all of the lyrics for the new album, and has been influenced a lot by the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, from whom he borrowed a couple of lines from the poem "He Died At Dawn" for "Run Away With Me."

The band have made music videos for the songs "Higher," "Beautyproof," "Vocal" and "Hands Up - I Love You." Only the latter has received airplay worth mentioning. The video for "Vocal" was done by the French movie director Jean-Marc Barr, who got to use "Vocal" on the soundtrack for his independent movie "Too Much Flesh" and paid for the use of the song by making a video for the band.

The band did a three-week Norwegian tour to promote "The Nightly Disease," and will be playing at a lot of festivals throughout Europe from June to August 2001. The whole band is planning on moving to Berlin in Germany to gain new and different musical inspiration.