From Olso's techno parties to the life-changing/-affirming experience at Soria Gathering in the far flung reaches of a northern Norway this summer, Fredrik Bekkby does great things with his stock of Funktion-One loudspeakers. The founder of Shepherd Sound Systems has experienced, learned and grown with audio as his guide.

[Fragments, a forest rave in the Oslo woods. Photo by Filip Kolber]

What is the motivation behind Shepherd Sound Systems?

If I boil my soup of motivation down to its essence and look at what is left, I would say that joy comes to mind as the irreducible residue in everything that is Shepherd.
I believe joy is an essential component in a healthy mind and a peaceful heart.

In my travelling days abroad, I was so fortunate to have had the most wonderful and transformative experiences with sound! Bringing me to a place within myself I didn’t even know existed.

Facilitating such transformative experiences in my hometown is today what I take the most joy out of. Seeing the joy and outright surprise in people’s faces when they cannot believe the experience they are having out there on the dancefloor.  Rediscovering dance, play and laughter adds a scoop of levity to life. 

Shepherd is about bringing more of those good sound experiences to our Scandinavian scene. All we want is to help and also push our promoters and organisers to raise the quality of their productions to a level that meets productions in other more culturally developed European countries.

As a company and art collective we are youngsters in a relative sense and we are growing with our scene and enjoying every part of it. Picking up the tricks of the trade as we go. Shout out to Oslo for being one of the more vibrant post-covid scenes around.  

Is there meaning in the name?

There is a symbolic meaning to that name, although you could probably read it in many ways. I was somewhat inspired by William Blake’s Poems on innocence and experience. Seeing the shepherd as a shield or a kind of warden of innocence. The lamb of God is quintessence of innocence, symbolising purity, kindness, curiosity, humbleness and vulnerability. All necessary qualities for a peaceful and harmonious life.

When we think of the shepherd it might be easy to assume that he is a leader of the herd. In fact, the truth is rather contrary. The shepherd is more of a follower and protector.  Wherever his herds move, he follows. As they grace through the grasslands, he protects them from the wolf and the lion.

In our modern society we venerate the wolf and we do little to care for the innocent, so we are left with a dogged world where it pays to be ruthless. I don't believe our world can ever truly become 'divine' so to say, however, I believe we can (like the Shepherd does) create the conditions where our local communities have direct access to divine experiences. Protected spaces where peaceful minds and hearts can live unmolested by the predatory onslaughts of modern society. Little blue lagoons in an otherwise red ocean.

I believe this is the true promise of music, sound and vibration as well. The sound itself is our shepherd. It holds us and protects us from the predatory aspects of our own mind. The part of us that keeps us rooted in our separate physical form. Music holds the potential to open us up to direct experience without our human preconceptions. 

So, as we might go out for a bit of stimuli and entertainment, many come back home having had a religious experience on the dancefloor. What I believe is similar to what Tony Andrews refers to when he speaks about the 'audio moment'.

[Fredrik on the left with VJ and close colleague, Danny Arntsen. Photo by Filip Kolber]

How would you describe your relationship with Funktion-One?

I could probably talk for hours about my relationship with Funktion-One but I wanted just to share a bit of the above mentioned because I see divinity as a part of Funktion-One’s message to the world as well. I like the quote "people don't buy what you make, they buy why you make it." I see Funktion-One as a timeless statement and the way they go about making their products and doing their business reflects that. There seems to be a little heart present in every level of Funktion-One's value chain. It is such a refreshing thing to discover in the times we live in. So, the more I have worked with Funktion-One, the more I have become a devotee.

[Techno artists SNTS at a New Era party. Photo by Mikael B. Örtenheim]

What sort of work do you typically do and how did Soria Gathering compare?

We typically operate in and around Oslo, doing sound for techno parties and events. Soria is a grassroots organisation made up of affiliated communities around Norway, spearheaded by the team behind OMG Events. We started delivering sound for OMG in the autumn of 2022, doing the deep techno stage for Temple of the Moon at Salt on the docks of Oslo. 

In the summer of 2023, Berner [Garvik, OMG] took us along to re-ignite the Soria flame at Viking Village near Snartemo in the South of Norway. It was our first festival gig and a step up in terms of scale and responsibility. Yet still, it was nothing compared to what we went through at Værøy, Lofoten this summer. 

I can't even write about that experience without getting the goosebumps. We had established a beach head on the tip of this Island located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Under the spell of these gigantic mountains towering over us and the never-ending day. We survived the first storm and were rewarded with two magnificent days of bliss. Or there were no days actually, just an endless day at the end of the world. 

I awoke the third 'day' to Synne [Garvik, OMG] knocking on my door. The weather conditions were getting critical and we had to move out quickly. I was pretty destroyed in my body after a long period of non-stop work. We hit the road as fast as we could. Upon entering the festival site, one of the crew showed us images of our stacks on the ground. He told us that one massive gust from the sea had lifted both stacks simultaneously into the air. At the time we got this news I had no reaction. It was too surreal. We had surprisingly little damage to the gear. Just some broken Speakon connection points. Rigging equipment took the brunt force of the impact. 

The weather conditions were just getting worse by the hour, so we finally threw in the towel at the second stage as well and high tailed it out of there. It was outright dangerous to be out there. It took us a week just to get some rest and do a proper survey of the gear before we finally set course south again. 

How did you overcome the challenges of the location, transportation and weather conditions?

I have to be honest, we were awfully unprepared for what was about to hit us. We overcame a lot with sheer grit and determination; an unwillingness to give up, no room for weakness. When you are battling against mother nature herself you have no choice but to fight. I can only give you the perspective from the festival site itself; at times it was like a warzone and at other times like the place where heaven and earth meet. Something so raw, so wild and out of this planet. Something I'd never experienced. I felt like a sailor lost at sea.

What was the sound like?

Once we got both stages tuned and timed properly, I was pretty content with what we managed to pull off under the tight time schedule we had. We were delayed at the opening day due to the first storm, so the beach stage didn't really sound good until we came back there the second day and got some front fills up and the speaker placement in order. After that point, I found that the stereo image was quite intimate and enchanting.  

At the Sun Gate, we attempted to generate a sound image that harmonised with the stage so that the natural sweet-spot would converge with the alignment of the gate itself. We had some initial issues with the Infills, but once we got them on, timed and sitting happy with the rest of the system, I found the experience out there to be pretty powerful and breathtaking, like the sound came through the Sun Gate.

[Avem (LOKD, Laut & Luise) from Basel performing a live set at an Eindans event] 

Was the event a special experience for you?

It was a life changer. I have had my fair share of extreme experiences having spent time in the military and been into extreme sports, outback and wilderness experiences for many years. This was one of the most hardcore experiences of my life. In a certain sense it broke me. But now it feels like it just broke some parts I didn't need to carry anymore. It might seem a bit cliché, but it was transformative like that and there is just no other way to say it. One of those ineffable experiences too large for the human vocabulary. 

---

Soria Gathering: A Pilgrimage to the Land Where the Sun Never Sets