String picking is coming back Breim with a steaming fresh album and bluegrass in dialect!
Head over to Kolbeins and/or Frislidlada and catch Norway's most active, and by many considered the best, bluegrass band! This spring they released their new album "Neste steg".

Strengeplukk (formerly Strengeplukk & Felegnukk) is a bluegrass band that was established in Stavanger in the fall of 2015. It all started when the three bluegrass-curious guys Jakob Folke Ossum (guitar), Nikolai Storevik (fiddle) and Andreas Barsnes Onarheim (mandolin) started playing together. A few months later, Thorbjørn Bilstad Olsen (banjo) and Lasse Gjestrud (bass) also joined the party. After a great six months with the band, however, Gjestrud moved to the capital and handed over the bass helm to current bassist Vidar Starheimsæter. The band plays original bluegrass with lyrics in dialect and also has a large repertoire of traditional American bluegrass.

Since their inception in 2015, the band has toured Norway several times. They released their first album “Fjellvegen” to rave reviews in the summer of 2018. The single “Spiker eller fjøl” was released in the spring of 2020 and was followed by 2 digital EP releases that were collected and released physically on the LP “Nyslått Blågras” in November 2020. 

In the summer of 2021, after a year and a half with the pandemic, the band was finally back on a summer tour along the west coast. The following autumn they followed up by being the band for Judy Collins and Jonas Fjeld on their Norwegian tour with the album Winter Stories. A particularly successful tour where the group also appeared with their own number in the middle of the show.

In January 2022, the group went back into the studio and recorded the single “Du likar det” which was released in the spring of the same year, followed by a new tour. In the fall of the same year, several singles were released before the group's album, “Nålauget”, was released in March 2023. The album received good reviews both at home and abroad. The American “Bluegrass Today” wrote, among other things, that “It's obvious that Strengeplukk has a keen understanding of bluegrass music. By the same coin they're capable of crafting uniquely original material in that idiom”.

In autumn 2023, banjoist and co-founder of the band, Thorbjørn André Bilstad Olsen, announces his departure after 8 years on the road with Strengeplukk. He and the band parted as good friends and continued to jam and play together otherwise. In the same autumn, it was announced that Mikael Jonassen took over the helm as permanent banjoist in the band.

In April 2024, the band went into the studio with Tor Magne Hallibakken to record their fourth album “Neste steg”. New this time was that all band members were involved as lead vocalists and songwriters, which almost automatically led to “Neste steg” being the group’s most varied album to date. Over the fall of 24 and the new year of 25, the group released several singles from the album, which will be released on March 7, 2025.