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Imagine, if you will, the musical equivalent of Bjork having dinner with Massive Attack after watching a James Bond movie, and you might be approaching the sonic gist of Norway’s Kate Havnevik. She spoke to me about working on the multi-instrumental tapestry that is her debut LP – Malankton – from deep in the heart of Scandinavia, and how a Melodica can be the life of a party.

Whereabouts in the world are you today?
I’m in Norway, actually … I’m in my home town, in my mum’s house! [Laughs]

Lovely! Has your mum had much of an influence on your musical career?
Well, maybe a little bit, because she is a musician, so … I grew up surrounded by music. She’s a flautist.

You play a number of different instruments. Who taught you to play those instruments, and how hard is the melodica to play?
[Laughs] Well first of all, when I was a child, I played a little bit of piano, and then I played the flute for a number of years – that was kind of the school marching band and so on. And both my parents are flautists, so that was kind of an obvious choice. Then I played classical guitar for a number of years, and electric guitar, and a little bit of bass. I briefly played a little bit of harp, but not a lot! [Laughs] And the melodica is actually … if you can play piano, it’s very easy to play, because it’s basically a tiny little piano that you blow into, and press the notes. But it’s really fun to play, and it’s easy to bring around. So it’s a pretty cool instrument, and, surprisingly, there are classical symphonies where they use the melodica in some places.

It sounds like a real “party instrument”, you know? Take your melodica around and have a few drinks …
I know! [Laughs] I was in New York a few weeks ago, and I did a few gigs. I had my melodica with me, and on a few occasions, I pulled it out … I wasn’t playing a show or anything, but it was kind of suitable for the situation! And everybody started laughing, because it just looked funny!

And were these really famous, A-list-type parties?
No, not this time – this time it was more [made up of] people like me! [Laughs]

On your record, Malankton … you play most of the instrument parts. Is that correct?
Well, I don’t play all the strings of course, and things like that, but I did a lot of the arrangements for it. I don’t play any brass instruments or string instruments, so I did most of the arrangements for the album, and some of the production … and some of the instruments as well.

That’s a very DIY-type approach. Is that because you wanted to do as much as you could? Or was there some other motivation – you couldn’t find people you wanted to do it for you, or with you?
I think it was a little bit of both. It was kind of like I had to do it myself, because I was doing the album on my own label, and I had to do as much as I could myself. And it was fun to challenge myself; to do things I hadn’t done before, like the string arrangements and so on. I mean, I had a couple of other people who did some string arrangements for the album, and it was just that I needed … there was a lot more that I needed, so I just sat down and started writing it myself. I really enjoyed it, because I really learned something.

How did you and Moby get together? Did you just send him an email?
Ah, no! [Laughs] It was basically through his management. He was looking for singers and things like that, and I have worked with Royksopp, and they have the same management.

How much of a community is there between contemporary music makers in Scandinavia? I know that you’ve performed at concerts opening for Sigur Ros, for instance.
Yeah, I think it’s big … compared to the populations, I guess it’s a big community for it. It’s small, but it’s there, and there’s an interest for it, and support for each other. Here in Norway, there’s a lot of music going on. There’s new things all the time. And a lot of people are collaborating with each other – they’re involved in several different projects and so on. So I think it’s a pretty positive sort of development of that sort of music, really.

Malankton is out now.

Listen to the full interview Below