This week; a Jæger mix one of the most instrumental DJ figures in Oslo, G-Ha. The facilitator behind what had been exported out of Oslo as the Skansen sound – taking its name from the club in which it gestated – G-Ha was one of the key figures in bringing House to Oslo and inspiring a whole new generation of producers and DJs in the city and beyond. His Skansen Music mix via Glasgow underground lives on in infamy as one of the most perfect representations of the sound of Skansen.
Where few DJs can lay claim to establishing a musical phenomenon like Śkansen, fewer still can boast two such phenomena in one career like G-Ha. As one half of the DJ power-duo G-Ha & Olanskii, G-Ha helped established one of the longest serving club nights in the city in the form of Sunkissed. Sunkissed was, and is, the barometer by which we gauge club music in Oslo, bringing the likes of Peggy Gou and LCD Soundsystem to the city before anybody had ever heard of them, and providing a platform for local DJ/Producers like Finnebassen and Vinny Villbass to break through on the electronic music scene in Norway.
Sunkissed led to Jæger of course, where G-Ha plays the weekly Frædag residency and provides that determinable bridge from one end of the evening to the next alongside a roll call of acclaimed guests or often just by themselves as G-ha & Olanskii. An unwavering talent and a resourceful DJ, G-Ha is able to adapt to any sonic style or genre to accommodate the night and the crowd, and is most often found playing in the micro-tonal sonorities of the micro-and tech-House genres where function often has to prevail.
On his second visit to the Jæger mix in as many years, G-Ha opts for the comforts of House, laying down a groove and a feel through Jayda G’s funked up Gospel, House opener. G-Ha keeps the energy uptempo and upbeat throughout the mix, never veering from syncopated hats and 4-4 kicks throughout with a more organic sound from the DJ than what we’ve heard from the DJ on the floor on a Friday night. Soulful and groovy, it’s a mix that draws closer parallels between the Skansen days. Traces of Disco and eighties Boogie dot the functional design of the tracks with G-Ha directing the dance floor rather than priming it in his usual precisionist kind of way; each track segueing into the next through some grander narrative only familiar to the DJ.