Head to our stage in the backyard with some of our favourite live acts taking part at Musikkfest 2025
Musikkfest is one of the most anticipated events on the calendar at Jaeger. It’s a day all about the music, and more importantly, homegrown music. Oslo becomes a city of stages for one day, where both established and new acts get a platform to express their art.
Every year, we rig the backyard to take part in the melee to celebrate electronic- and club music. Our lineups run the gamut from Drum and Bass to Techno, with Live- and DJ sets starting from 14:00.
This year our live artists take precedence in what is possibly our busiest live schedule for Musikkfest in recent memory. From Why Kai to Charlotte Bendiks the majority of the day is taken up by live acts. It might get a bit difficult to navigate, so we’ve compiled a quick guide to the artists coming to our stage.
* Find out more about the event here.
Why Kai and Dunk
Fresh off a south-east Asian tour, master musicians and dance floor loving duo Why Kai are back on home soil, and reprise their role as the de-facto openers of Musikkfest at Jaeger. Kai Von Der Lippe and Elias Tafjord create a distinctive fusion of sound between Jazz, club-focussed rhythms and bubblegum melodies.
Last year’s Tourist LP, was a roaming success, with the pair travelling from Norway all over the world off the back of the release. The title track from the LP has already been instated as a Jaeger hit and we’ve witnessed the duo go from strength to strength ever since their first performance at Jaeger, oh so many Musikkfest days ago.
Bubbly synths and grooves you could step on, define their sound while latent earworms continuously dot their work. As a duo their live show is captivating with Kai on the keys and Elias’ energetic drumming bringing that definitive live dimension to their work, and it’s not merely contained to Why Kai.
The duo transform into a quartet at night, adding Markus Anskau and Thomas Antonio De Almeida Debelian as they become Dunk for the second session of the day. Why Kai’s effervescent earworms, make way for a more stripped down sound. This is the 3rd appearance of Dunk in a couple of years, and their club-focussed is one were very excited about this year.
Read our interview with Why Kai from last year for more on the band.
True Cuckoo (live)
Man with a beard turning knobs… you couldn’t find one better than True Cuckoo. The synth maestro is a powerhouse of synth and groovebox knowledge. Avoiding the usual introverted navel gazing of the synthesiser community, True Cuckoo’s exploits go from Drum and Bass to Pop, with his acute knowledge of these machines, often bringing an experimental flourish to his music.
As a YouTube creator, he is quick to feature new technology and delves deep beyond the obvious parameters of his machines in his exhaustive features and tutorials on his channel. Unlike most of his peers on YouTube, however, he is able to apply his menu-diving knowledge to the real world as a live performer and recording artist.
He’s just come back from uber synth messe, Superbooth, where as well as testing and presenting new equipment, he’s also played some live sets. His latest LP Non-Binary Code just hit shelves in its physical format and we’ve been informed that a lot of the source material from that record was taken during a live session at Jaeger. We haven’t been able to verify that yet, but hope to do so soon with an upcoming interview with the artist.
Ost & Kjex (live)
Truly a Norwegian treasure at this point, a Musikkfest at Jaeger just seems incomplete without a visit from the House duo, Ost & Kjex. Ost (Tore Jazztobakk), who has been appearing as Sex Judas more recently, is back in the company of Petter Haavik as Kjex and take to the stage as a duo.
The pair have been one of Norway’s most successful House music exports with releases on the likes of Diynamic, Crosstown rebels and Planet Noise. Lately their efforts have been focussed on their own Snick Snack music label with their 2022 LP, Songs from the end of the World coming via the busy imprint.
With Ost’s vocals often in the foreground and their musical programming always focussed on the groove and the floor, Ost & Kjex‘s sound is immediately recognisable and as a live act there are few that compare to that dynamism.
A while back we spoke to Ost & Kjex via this blog, and their rich history in music stretches all the way back to the nineties and incorporated everything from Death Metal to Rave, before they refined their sound in the House scene.
Afterword: Make sure to check out the upcoming Sadomaoistan release from Snick Snack Music, coming soon.
Vegard “Lil-Wolf” Dyvik (Of Norway)
Of Norway has just released another EP via Badabing.diskos, and on top of the 2 LPs they released in as many years, it has been a busy creative period for the duo. It seems Vegard “Lil Wolf” Dywik is not content however and with some spare time on hand, he will be going solo with an exclusive live show for this Musikkfest at Jaeger.
While Vegard is best known for his work with Carl Christian Steenstrup in Of Norway, he’s been something of an icon or more accurately an iconoclast on the Oslo scene. His previous club-night Iconoclastic, introduced a whole generation to club music in the city. During a time when electro-clash was dominating the club-scene, and alongside Dead Swan as a resident DJ, Iconoclastic featured live and DJ acts with a diverse musical identity.
Vegard might have dropped the Lil Wolf moniker post iconoclastic, but he has been as busy, if not busier, since. A day job working in the sound department of NRK doesn’t seem to fulfill all of his musical needs and he regularly plays live, records and DJs as Of Norway. Together with Carl, he’s played the likes of Berghain and E-werk and as one half Of Norway and regularly Djs in Jaeger’s sauna.
You can read an in-depth interview with Of Norway here.
Charlotte Bendiks
Charlotte Bendiks plays live! The DJ and artist has been a regular fixture in Jaeger’s booth as a resident, and this time she takes to the stage for a rare live performance. Having released records for the likes of Optimo, Hivern Discs, Love, Cómeme and more recently Multi Culti, the Tromsø-based artist has an extensive body of work to represent today.
Music tuned to the primordial impulses of the body, Charlotte Bendiks’ music thrives on the dance floor, but occupies that unique space, where it always welcomes close listening.
Polyrhythmic rhythm tracks combined with tastes for non-western musical traditions has distinguished her records, often crossing over into uncharted realms.
Her last two singles, Ima Flora and and Elektra have seen her interned in Thomas Von Party’s (Tiga’s lil brother) other label; Multii Culti. Inga Elektra finds her working with Plevna, an artist who much like Charlotte weaves in obscure musical traditions, both real and imaginary. With synthesizers and drum machines speaking in foreign musical languages, it blends science fiction with the obscure in something like one of Ursula K Le Guin’s literary musical creations.
When she’s not working on music she’s facilitating a scene, often helping her fellow DJs and artists to stages and DJ booths around Norway. You can read an interview with her and previous protege Rashidi (O.blom), and an earlier interview with Charlotte here.
Simon Field (live)
Basement records head honcho and uber-producer, Simon Field debuts a live show at Jaeger. A successful artist with millions of streams on Spotify both as a solo artist and producer for other artists, Simon Filed has had an extensive musical career, including one behind the scenes.
He’s no stranger to Jaeger’s basement with a monthly label event, but this will be the first time he plays live at Jaeger. With a foundation in House,and with a golden touch for production his music hits a singular nerve.
An extensive background in music starting with the bass guitar back in the nineties, it took Simon Field some time before he found his groove in House music, and then he seemed to perfect it in his own way. His debut LP only came ten years in the genre, and while today House music is at the forefront of his creative endeavours, he’s created music for film, written pop-songs, played at esteemed venues like Ministry of Sound, and worked with some of the best in our scene.
This will be a first at Jaeger and a much anticipated performance for Oslo. A while back we had the pleasure of sitting down with the man and getting to know him a bit better and you can read that piece over here.