B°TONG’s “A Fleeting Moment Of Superabundance” is available now from the French record labels Force Majeure and Les Nouvelles Propagandes. The new release is out on black vinyl or digitally. Note that the vinyl comes with a download code and is limited to only 300 copies.

This album is quite a chance for the Swedish-Swiss project B°TONG, also known as Chris Sigdell. For the first time, he’sactually playing instruments and recording live. Before this, he solely used samples and recorded sounds to create his pieces. The album has three long, ambient songs and for the first time they can be played live.

Sigdell was part of the German band NID from 1995 to 2005. As B°TONG, he focuses on experimental sound, creating moody, dark soundscapes. When performing, Chris uses microphones, metal objects, and even kitchen tools. These sounds are then modified using effects.

B°TONG has some shows coming up to promote the album:

• 23rd Sep: GummiLyd 16, Drammen
• 26th Sep: Støberiet, Copenhagen
• 27th Sep: Haerverk, Oslo
• 28th Sep: Knust, Trondheim
• 30th Sep: Klikken V Festival @ Boksen, Oslo
• 14th Oct: Fab In 4 Festival, Lodz

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Coming up is Dødsmaskin’s “Ingenting” album via the dark ambient label Cyclic Law. “Ingenting” was first finalised in June 2015 and completed in almost complete secrecy. Being the Drammen (Norway) based act’s original debut it somehow never had a proper release.

It now finally gets its official release via Cyclic Law and you can order it right here.

“Ingenting” is actually a great introduction to this band thanks to the core elements of the Dødsmaskin’s sound which mixes noise, drone, power electronics, death industrial or yet dark ambient.

As it seems, urbane legend or not, the project’s members had a 1000-ton freight train powering over recording devices. Talking about extreme measures! The material was mastered at Black Knoll Studio by Rafael Anton Irisarri.

This official release comes in a very limited edition of 300 copies only packaged in a 4-panel digipak and counting 5 tracks with a running time of just over 40 minutes.

Check out the previews below. Read the review of ‘Ingenting’.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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(By our Nowegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange) The guitar player from Seigmen, Sverre Økshoff, has been holding on to an album for fourteen years. Now Seigmen super fan Otto Egil Sætre has started a Indiegogo crowd funding project to release the album, which will be a necessity to any Seigmen fan’s record collection. Here he gives us the background story:

OE: When Seigmen disbanded in 1999, guitar player Sverre Økshoff continued to explore a diversity of artistic directions. In addition to photography and painting, he also continued making music. And in 2002, he recorded an abstract / ambient album in Dan Heide’s (Zeromancer, Ljungblut) studio.

This was never released, only shared with a select few. But now the time has come to make this fantastic album heard, released on a fitting format: Sturdy, heavyweight vinyl.

A description of the project, in Sverre’s own words:

Jared Ambience Inc was an extention of what I had worked with in Seigmen. Stripped to the bone, reduced to almost nothing. I cultivated long sequences of sounds and soundscapes in an effort to compose lengthy theses. This also became a way to further explore the instrument I’d been playing for almost 20 years.

I have a slightly experimental role in Seigmen. I search for new sounds which can fit the band, and produce noise and sounds by way of feedback and simple riffs. Jared Ambience Inc. became very monotonous as a background to something else.

Later I was hired by an art gallery in Drammen, and was a resident “house band” there for a while. I played, creating an atmosphere, while the audience were looking at pictures. It suited me perfectly to be able to sit by my self and be a background. I really enjoyed it. I played with old echo machines and noise. It sounded a little bit like Seigmen, only without everything else, without everybody else…

The album will contain 5 tracks with a running time about 40 minutes.
Join the IndieGoGo project right here.

A teaser video has been posted too:

Side-Line also covered seigmen’s ‘Enola’.

Jan Ronald Stange

Sometimes – when I’m not cooking, biking, listening to music or attending concerts, I write stuff for Side-Line.com. Mostly about Norwegian bands, but it’s been some Swedish, English, American, Danish, German and others too… 😉

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(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange) In August we posted a story about an upcoming evening of Kraftwerk and Apoptygma Berzerk, and this actually turned out even better than imagined! Not only was the event in Fredrikstad a huge success, but the whole concept also expanded to the other side of the Oslofjord the night before, in the city of Drammen, headlined by x-Kraftwerk member Wolfgang Flür.

Common for both nights were Torgrim Eggen, a Norwegian author, journalist and musician. He started the evening with a lecture about German post-war electronic music in general and Kraftwerk in particular, played some songs and videos during the talk (including a segment from this 45 years old clip) , and topped it off with some personal anecdotes, especially this one from 1991 was brilliant:

Torgrim Eggen: “The magazine I was working for had sent in an interview request related to the Kraftwerk concert in Oslo, but had low expectations for success, even for a reply. At the time I had a land-line telephone with an answering machine, and the message I’d recorded was of course a snippet of Kraftwerk’s ‘The Telephone Call’. Then one day I came home and heard a rather special message: “Hello? This is Ralf Hütter from Kraftwerk… [long pause]  …on the telephone”! After the concert I ended up at a disco with Ralf and Florian, who actually danced like… robots. “

The Drammen event also had the local band Lüstwerk playing Kraftwerk songs, doing a fair act on drums, bass, guitar and synth, but could have rehearsed their German a bit better.

Finally Wolfgang Flür entered the stage, doing a DJ set with a big backdrop showing videos and stills from his long career as a “Musik soldat”. And by the choice of music and how he moved about on stage, no one would suspect that this was a 68 year old man – quite impressive!

Saturday evening in Fredrikstad concluded with a highly anticipated Apoptygma Berzerk mini concert, the band for this occasion consisting of Stephan Groth, his brother Jonas, and lots of electronics.

And the equipment was rather vintage too, as I was told when speaking to Stephan after the concert.

STP: “…we were actually  a bit nervous, after the sound check I had to go home and do some soldering to fix a few technical problems.”

For the nerds… eh, especially interested – on stage they had:  Roland VP-330, Roland SH-101, Roland Juno 60, Vermona DRM1, EMS Vocoder, Moog Source and a modular synth with ‘Oakley Sound Systems’ and ‘Analogue Systems’ modules. And also 2 Apple laptops with Cubase and Mainstage software. And it’ll be used more, as Apoptygma Berzerk plans to release another 12”, then an album with all the tracks from the three 12” EPs!  (More about the previous 12” here)

We’ll end the wrap-up of this great weekend of Kraftwerk hoping there’ll be more events like this!

Jan Ronald Stange

Sometimes – when I’m not cooking, biking, listening to music or attending concerts, I write stuff for Side-Line.com. Mostly about Norwegian bands, but it’s been some Swedish, English, American, Danish, German and others too… 😉

www.facebook.com/jrstange

a-ha had an exclusive release party gig for their new album “Cast In Steel” yesterday, on 9 September. Tickets for the event could be won during a signing session which took place on 8 September at the Oslo City Platekompaniet store.

The release party took place at Union Scene in Drammen where the band has recently done tour rehearsals.

Although photos/videos were not allowed during the event, a Side-Line correspondent was able taking a few pictures of the live show which consisted of 11 tracks surprisingly including the fan classic “Soft Rains of April”. For the rest the tracks were taken from the bands complete repertoire.

The setlist:

• The Wake
• I’ve Been Losing You
• Cry Wolf
• Hunting High and Low
• Forest Fire
• Early Morning
• Sycamore Leaves
• Soft Rains of April
• Under the Makeup
• The Sun Always Shines on T.V.
• Foot of the Mountain

a-ha’s new album “Cast In Steel” is out now can be ordered on iTunes (including 6 bonus tracks). If you prefer the CD format, then head here on Amazon Germany to get hold of the “Cast in Steel” fanbox set.

Side-Line also covered a-ha’s ‘Live In South America’.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com