Lene 3000 turns “digital witchcraft” into a world of her own
Norwegian synth-pop outsider Lene 3000 is stepping further into her strange, spellbinding universe with the announcement of her debut album, Greatest Swamp Hits, arriving October 2 via 10K Projects. The record lands alongside new single “Lights Off”, a dark, pulsing track that sits somewhere between haunting electronic pop and club music.
But there is nothing polished-by-committee about Lene 3000. Her sound grew out of experimenting in Ableton, embracing mistakes, drowning vocals in reverb and delay and turning happy accidents into a distinctive electronic world. Her “digital witchcraft” tag says it all.
Raised in a small town on Norway’s southwest coast and classically trained on violin from the age of five, Lene 3000 has taken a very different route from the traditional musician’s path. Her music now pulls together the isolation of growing up surrounded by dramatic weather and landscape with the hyper-connected world of the internet.
That contrast has already found an audience. Her music has passed 250,000 TikTok creations and 200 million views, while artists including Grimes and Duran Duran have shared her work.
We caught up with Lene 3000 to talk Greatest Swamp Hits, making music “the wrong way”, classical violin, love, loneliness and the strange magic of growing up in the Norwegian nowhere.
You describe your music as “digital witchcraft” — what does that mean to you, and how did that idea shape Greatest Swamp Hits?
Digital witchcraft is me using way too much reverb and delay on my voice, to lure people into listening to my music. That’s basically where it all started, doing everything wrong in Ableton and somehow making it work. I think that became a big part of my sound just by coincidence. Whenever I play live, it always feeds back a lot, but at this point it makes me uncomfortable without it.
The idea behind “Greatest Swamp Hits” came from a playlist I’ve had since I was 15. It’s a collection of the music that shaped my teenage years and young adulthood. It also has a big picture of shrek with stoner eyes. The songs on that playlist are so important to who I am today, so I wanted to use the same title for my first album.
“Lights Off” has this striking mix of haunting atmosphere and club energy. What were you trying to capture emotionally with the track?
I am trying to capture the vulnerability of love, and how the pursuit of it can make us cross boundaries that we never intended to cross. Also, how our need for attention can end up becoming something destructive. I think that’s also why I wanted to give the track this club energy. The club is kind of the modern equivalent of the prehistoric savannah, our modern take on the hunting ground for love.
You went from years of classical violin training to making experimental electronic pop. What did your classical background teach you that still shows up in your music today?
I think a lot of the melodies I make is connected to the violin. I also love to use quart intervals because it’s the tuning of the violin so it feels very natural.
Your music has already generated huge attention on TikTok and caught the support of artists like Grimes and Duran Duran. Has that reaction changed how you see yourself as an artist?
It feels surreal because it is the music I listen to and love, so it feels like I kind of can be a part of their universe. Even though I’m in the nowhere of Norway.
If Greatest Swamp Hits is an invitation into your world, what do you hope listeners discover once they step inside?
I want them to get a sense of what it felt like growing up where I come from. Going to school with only eight people in your class and spending a lot of time on the internet as a kid. As a Gen Z kid growing up in a remote place surrounded by a lot of bad weather and dramatic nature, I feel like my identity is tied to both the internet and the local nature of my birthplace.
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