Seashell Eyes introduced their debut album with “Sunshine Girl”, a track blending lovely orchestral psychedelia, dreamy vocals, and a surprise Radiohead-esque intro. Check out our interview below to learn more!
Describe your sound in 3 words
Melodic. Honest. Psychedelic.
Tell us a few things about Seashell Eyes. What is the story behind it?
Seashell Eyes was created over several years. We never intended it to take that long, but life had other plans.
Early in the writing process, Birgitta suddenly began experiencing severe migraine attacks that eventually became chronic, changing everyday life for several years. Having just completed her bachelor’s degree in jazz vocals at the Grieg Academy and begun building a life as a full-time musician, everything changed almost overnight. For a long time, it felt as though life was happening around us while we watched from the outside.
Rather than stopping us from making music, those years became part of the album itself. Together with stories that stayed with us, they shaped its emotional foundation.
The record explores alienation, illness, grief and longing, but also resilience and hope. It’s about learning to live alongside things that cannot necessarily be fixed while still searching for meaning.
Little by little, the songs stopped feeling like individual pieces and became chapters within the same universe.
Adding to our previous question, what was the most rewarding and the most challenging part of doing it (writing and recording it) entirely yourselves?
One of the biggest rewards was the creative freedom. We wanted to take ownership of every part of the process, so almost everything was created by the two of us Ñ from songwriting and recording to production and the visual side of the project.
Because we’re a couple who live together and share a studio, making music isn’t something that happens during scheduled writing sessions. It’s simply how we live. Songs often begin at home, while travelling, after a conversation that stays with us, or from a single lyric or melody that suddenly appears.
The biggest challenge is that nobody tells you when you’re finished. Without deadlines or outside perspectives, it’s very easy to keep refining. Pablo decides the drums could be just a little better, Birgitta rewrites a lyric and records the vocals again and suddenly another month has passed.
You mention influences from classical composers like Bach and Debussy. Where can listeners hear those classical structural or impressionistic elements hidden within the indie-pop framework of Seashell Eyes?
The classical influences are probably more subtle than obvious.
One clear example is ‘Don’t Look Down.’ The song began with Pablo improvising around Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor. The chorus and vibe grew directly out of that atmosphere before gradually becoming a song.
You can also hear Bach’s influence in songs like ‘Carry On,’ particularly in the chorus and the harpsichord solo.
Debussy’s influence is perhaps more atmospheric. In the title track, ‘Seashell Eyes,’ we’re drawn to the way harmony can drift and dissolve rather than always seeking a clear resolution. We love that impressionistic vibe where colour, texture and emotion become just as important as melody.
Your name, Date of Birth, is really intriguing. It can be a rebirth, new beginnings, or a literal stamp of time. How did you settle on this name, and how does it reflect your identity as a duo?
It was as simple as when Pablo was filling out a form for a cell phone plan and came across the words ‘Date of Birth’. It immediately felt right.
On a personal level, Date of Birth came to represent a new beginning. During the years we were making the album, life changed in ways we never expected, and there were times when we weren’t sure what the future would look like.
To us, Date of Birth isn’t only about where life starts Ñ it’s also about the moments when we’re given the chance to begin again.
The name also reflects many of the themes running through Seashell Eyes. Songs like ‘Coral Castle,’ ‘Ghost’ and ‘Carry On’ explore grief, the afterlife and the spiritual questions we all carry with us: What happens when we die? Is there something beyond what we can see? We don’t try to answer those questions Ñ we simply enjoy exploring them through our music and lyrics.
Can you take us back to the moment you realized your individual styles clicked perfectly to create the Date of Birth sound?
We’ve been together for ten years, and we actually met through music. On our very first date, we stayed up until six in the morning playing each other the music we loved most. We were falling in love with each other as people, but also with each other’s musical worlds. It felt almost like a psychedelic experience, opening up an entirely new musical universe for both of us.
At the time, we were both active in Bergen’s indie scene, and Birgitta was working on her solo project, Birgitta Alida. Pablo gradually became involved in the demos and production, and writing together felt incredibly natural from the very beginning. After releasing music together for several years, it became clear that we weren’t making a solo project anymore Ñ we were becoming a band.
Around 2020, we began writing what would become Date of Birth.
We share many of the same musical foundations Ñ artists like The Beatles and The Beach Boys have shaped us both as songwriters Ñ but we approach songwriting from different angles. Birgitta often starts with melody and lyrics, while Pablo naturally thinks in rhythm, harmony, arrangements and production. Somewhere in that overlap, Date of Birth found its sound.
Your most honest and personal lyric from your album?
Every song on Seashell Eyes is very personal, but ‘Inside a Shell’ is probably the closest we come to writing in a diary-like way. The opening line says it all:
‘Can I be straight with you about things I’ve been going through? I’m feeling trapped inside a shell, can’t get out, oh I’ve tried.’
The song became our most direct reflection on feeling trapped while the world keeps moving around you. Pablo’s work in a psychiatric hospital also influenced the way we wrote about vulnerability, suffering and resilience.
If the music of Date of Birth was a film, which film would that be?
We’d probably cheat and say it would be a film that doesn’t exist yet.
A collaboration between Wes Anderson and David Lynch.
Can you share each other’s funny habits?
Birgitta lives a little in her own world. She’s a true dreamer who’s often so lost in her thoughts that she barely notices what’s happening around her. She’ll mysteriously discover bruises, drift off halfway through a conversation, and somehow manage to spill coffee in places that seem physically impossible. She’s also a vintage and makeup enthusiast, so parts of our home look more like a costume department than a wardrobe.
Pablo is a complete nerd. Every now and then he disappears into a new obsession Ñ cameras, animation, hiking gear or video editing Ñ but studio equipment and plug-ins are his true love. Add mechanical watches, and there are definitely two kinds of collecting happening in our home.
Thank you!
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