(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange) Bérèche You featuring Cassiel Agrippa releases yet another single, “Sweet Harmony”, this autumn. This is a is a cover version, originally by The Beloved in 1993. The song was a massive hit during the 90’s, ended up being The Beloved’s biggest hit, and in 2022 the British magazine Classic Pop ranked “Sweet Harmony” number two in their list of the top 40 dance tracks from the 90’s.

A quick Q&A gave us more info about this release:

Side-Line: What made you choose to do a cover? And why this particular song?

Cassiel Agrippa:  Why did we choose to do a cover? Some might say it’s what everyone else is doing, and they are, but that’s not the reason. Well partly, but also because we talked about if we were ever to do a cover, one song that really stood out was Sweet Harmony. Why? Well, it is a beautiful song, for one. But most importantly, in this tumultuous time it brings a message of unity, peace and perhaps hope. It was a song that back in the day was part of the soundtrack of our lives. So now we hope our version is one that will be enjoyed by everyone – those who have never heard the song before, and those who have heard the original by The Beloved.

S-L: More tracks planned, or other plans?

CA: There are a slew of songs still to be discovered in the musical universe of our minds, so yes, more tracks are definitely coming. We’re probably talking about a new album at some point, and we have one of the singles already done. That’s a brand new, yet unreleased track, upcoming so to speak. This fall will be somewhat busy, but everything will come in due time.

Although we did one cover as a tribute to way back then, we have no immediate plans to do more. All new releases will be original songs. For an album, they will be released together with the other already released Cassiel-singles, in addition to new ones. I think this is going to be a nice one, the second album from Bérèche You. And before that, we will actually have a live performance as support for Henric de la Cour, on February 21st 2025 at Goldie in Oslo. So if you want to catch us live, this is your chance!

Available now at Spotify, Tidal, YouTube etc.

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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Piston Damp and Ray Noir, two acts that hadn’t played in Oslo before, booked the final day of August for an evening of electro-metal/goth and synthpop tunes at the club Revolver. Then a surprise dropped the day before the show, announcing that Apop (Stephan Groth’s solo version of Apoptygma Berzerk) would kick off the evening with a set of analogue-modular music!

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange. Photos by Halvor Bodin, Tarjei Krogh and Jan Ronald Stange)

We had to get more info and reactions from all involved, so the week after was spent interviewing by Messenger and e-mail, starting with Apop.

Side-Line: Tell us how this gig came about, seemed a bit surprising for most since your participation was announced just the day before? 

Stephan Groth: Ray Noir and Piston Damp were going to be playing a show in Oslo on August 30, so I asked if I could play support since I have not played live in Oslo for a long time. It was already a sold out show, so I just tagged along. We all had great fun, and it felt good to show the Oslo crowd a side of APOPTYGMA BERZERK that they have not experienced before. 

 This is the 3rd time I have played live under the name “APOP”. It’s been just me alone on stage, improvising and tweaking modular synths and FX in the style of “Exit Popularity Contest”.

S-L: Is there any improvisation live, or all planned beforehand?

 STP: Oh yes, lots of improvisation. I have planned beforehand what songs to play, and for how long. 

Then I have preprogrammed 3 sequencers who are controlling the modular rig, so I arrange and mix the first half of the show live. 

The other half of the performance I play a few APOPTYGMA BERZERK songs with vocals. This last part is less improvised.

S-L: As mentioned you’ve done some of these sets before, will there be more in the future?

STP: I’m having a lot of fun doing this, and it seems people are enjoying it as well. It is also a great way to test out new material and new ideas. It is quite different from what I have done earlier in my career, and therefore also very refreshing and exciting for both the audience and myself. The first time I played this kind of concert was in Jönköping, supporting Swedish synth pop legends PAGE.
Will there be more of this in the future? I hope so 🙂

The prize for being most energetic went to the second act of the night, Ray Noir, who filled the club with beats as he used every inch of the stage – and some of the floor interacting with the audience too!

S-L: First time with a live show in Norway – what’s your impression?

Ray Noir: Heyy! Thank u so much for coming 🙏🏽 It was an awesome night. Playing a hometown show for the first time was nothing but amazing! Really cool to see so many beautiful faces there, and being supported by one of my all time favourite bands Apoptygma Berzerk was nothing but surreal. And doing this co-headline show with Piston Damp was a dream.

S-L: Anything else brewing with more releases or gigs?

RN: I’ve finished some new tracks, hopefully there will be one more release before the end of the year, there’s also some London shows planned before the year is over.

Piston Damp, the duo Jonas Groth and Truls Sønsterud, were the final act, making people dance and really enjoy their set. Top notch vocals and synth, and their surprising cover of The Cure’s “The Walk” was the show’s icing on the cake. Release that track ASAP!

S-L: First time in Oslo, how was the gig for you?

Piston Damp: Our first gig in Oslo was really cool. Super small – and sold out – venue, but awesome nonetheless. When we announced it from the stage, someone yelled out: “About time!!!”, which was hilarious although quite flattering.

Jonas has known Ray Noir since he was a very young guy behind the counter at Body Map in Arcaden, Oslo. Great guy, and so much fun to be with.

And for the third time, we’ve been able to bring along Stephan with his plip-plop-instrumentals, which we adore. Having him there adds a dimension to the evening.

S-L:  More releases or gigs planned?

PD: We most definitely have releases coming in the near future. We’re working on the follow up album to Making The World Great Again, which is exciting since we are no longer inventing Piston Damp. We are now developing Piston Damp. It’s really amazing to discover how alike we are. We really don’t seem like we would be able to get along style-wise, but we really do. Every single time.

We have about twenty songs in the can now. Now we’re trying to figure out how to sort them. Which goes where?

We are old-timers who love a good album with strong songs, singles with unforgettable b-sides and extended remixes, and live versions of songs, which give the songs more feet to stand on.

Watch out for our upcoming album. It’s going to be a great volume. Hint hint…

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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The Midgardsblot festival, held at Borrehaugene (old viking grave mounds), outside the city of Horten, Norway, is mostly known for hosting acts within the metal genre in addition to some folk and viking inspired music.

This year, the festival first caught our attention with the announcement of Bel Canto as one of the headliners, followed by Gåte, Seigmen, Karin Park, Ledfoot, and others—definitely worth reporting on for Side-Line Magazine. And who knows, we might even discover some new bands. We headed there in mid-August to check it out!

(By our Norwegian correspondent, Jan Ronald Stange. Photos by Einar Låker and Jan Ronald Stange. Additional Dwaal photos by Jon Julius Sandal @ helvetesindrekretser and Birgit Fostervold @ knipselyst)

Side-Line’s chief editor, Bernard Van Isacker, was supposed to join me for the festival, but couldn’t make it due to a family emergency. His replacement, Einar Låker, brought his cameras and joined me instead. Since we had to attend meetings and handle some work during the day, we skipped the tenting area and set up base at a nearby campsite in a mobile home borrowed from my parents (thanks, Sigrid and Carl Edvard!).

After settling in, it was time to head to the festival grounds, which required a short hike through historic Viking graves. We collected our passes and entered the blót, an ancient Norwegian/Norse sacrificial feast.

The first act we saw was Kalandra, a UK/Norwegian band blending Celtic and Norse folk with modern arrangements. They’ve been around for over a decade, gaining recognition with their cover of Wardruna’s “Helvegen”. Since then, they’ve released several albums and composed scores for TV shows and video games.

After Kalandra, we explored the rest of the area, visiting the trade section Kaupanger, the Viking tent area Folkvangr, and the indoor stage Gildehallen (the “Feast Hall”). It was a sight to see people fully embracing the chance to step back in time.

We wrapped up the first day by watching the Swedish Viking rockers Amon Amarth, who had their fans completely enthralled—even getting hundreds to sit down and row in the middle of a song! 😊

Thursday was a rainy day, so boots and jackets were a must. We caught a bit of the Norwegian thrash band Inculter and the Polish death metal band Vader before heading inside Gildehallen for something entirely different: Trio Oro, a Norwegian world-folk fusion group featuring flutes, guitars, and percussion. They delivered a diverse set with tunes from Irish, Bulgarian, Norwegian, and other traditions. It was original and unexpectedly entertaining!

One of the main attractions, Gåte, had to cancel due to a band member’s illness and was quickly replaced by Hindarfjäll & Peter Franzen, a Swedish project that uses modern instruments to recreate the ancient sounds and atmospheres of Scandinavian/Nordic folk music.

Next, we escaped the rain by heading back into Gildehallen, catching the last few songs from local thrash band Mortal Fear—three teenagers with the drummer’s father on vocals. It was very entertaining!

The day ended with thrash metal titans Testament from California, USA, closing out the main stage at Heiheim.

Day 3 was special, with two bands from my hometown, Tønsberg, performing. Seigmen headlined the Helheim stage, while newcomers Fabbrica 82 were about to play their first-ever show in Gildehallen. We spent an hour there beforehand, chatting with the band members, Knut Ove Hansen and Lars Anders Berg, before their soundcheck and concert.

S-L: How did you come up with the band name?

Knut Ove Hansen: We started high school in 1982, and we chose Fabbrica because we wanted a name that could be associated with new wave. We went with the Italian version because “factory” was already overused in English, and I have a personal connection to Italy.

S-L: What were your first attempts at releasing music?

KOH: One of my early bands made our first demo tape at the local radio station in Tønsberg in 1985—it was actually the first synth-related demo recorded in Tønsberg! We played three gigs the following year as the band Some Bizzare, named after the famous compilation album where Depeche Mode, among others, had their first track on vinyl. We also had a third member, Bjørn Arnesen, who now lives in Peru. Lars reached out to me several times, in 2020 and again in 2023, asking if we should give it another try. I was hesitant at first, but then we made “Darkness,” and we were back at it.

Lars Anders Berg: Over the years, I’ve composed hundreds of songs, and I always wanted someone to sing to my tunes. After years of talking about it, we finally made it happen. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’ve quickly released several singles!

S-L: Any album in the making?

KOH: Yes, it’s what we’re working on. We also got another gig in October in Tønsberg. This is not where we thought we would be just six months after our first release – feels quite surreal! All because of the word of mouth in Tønsberg’s small “synth underground”, and it also spread to Oslo where we’ve gotten good feedback.

S-L: What’s your inspiration?

Lars Anders Berg: I listen to a lot of music, not just old synth, but many electronic genres. So, the process of creating themes, melodies, and tweaking knobs is an inspiration in itself.

As the hall filled with people, we noticed at least a dozen audience members already wearing fan T-shirts, and the band was thrilled after their first show.

As we left Gildehallen, we caught a few songs from Nytt Land on the Valhalla stage—a Siberian shamanic act that blends the vocal traditions of Northern Europe with traditional Siberian throat singing. It was a stark contrast after a synth gig and truly highlighted the diversity of the festival!

The last show we attended on Thursday was Seigmen at the Helheim stage. It was a fantastic performance, featuring a new song with guest Espen Winther from the medieval/folk band Eldrim, playing his harp. It was magical—a gig that later received well-deserved praise in reviews!

The last day of the festival started off relaxed, with a stroll around, soaking in the sights and atmosphere under the sun. Then Ledfoot (Tim Scott McConnell) took the Valhalla stage. This goth-blues phenomenon was someone I’d been wanting to see live for a while, and he didn’t disappoint. He delivered a set full of raw emotion—soreness, anger, longing—and impressive guitar playing.

I had been in touch with him before the festival, and we agreed to try for an interview. However, due to his soundman’s tight schedule, they had to leave the area minutes after the show, so we exchanged a few words via Messenger a few days later instead.

S-L: How was your gig at Midgardsblot?

Ledfoot: The audience was great, and there was such a good vibe there 🙏

S-L: Did the show or audience differ much from your solo gigs?

Ledfoot: No, it’s the same everywhere—I do my best and hope the audience appreciates it.

S-L: More music in the works?

Ledfoot: I’ve started on my new record, and hopefully it’ll be out by the end of the year.
And I’d like to say a big thank you to the audience and all the people working behind the scenes.
Hugs!

Next, we went to see Bel Canto, the pioneering Norwegian electronica band, performing a set that spanned their entire career, including a few new tracks from their latest album Radiant Green. As always, they delivered a top-notch performance, and Anneli’s voice remains as impressive as ever!

Making Bernard envious by sending him live photos was an obligatory part of attending Bel Canto 😉

I also managed to spend a few minutes in Gildehallen to check out another band with a Tønsberg connection, though mostly from Oslo—the doom-sludge-ultra-heavy Dwaal. The hall was packed, with a queue outside, clearly hitting their target audience perfectly. I later caught up with lead singer Bjørnar Kristansen to ask about their experience.

S-L: How did Midgardsblot treat you?

Bjørnar Kristansen: Midgardsblot was amazing. Right after the show, we said it was one of our favorite gigs, if not our favorite. The crowd’s energy from the first riff to the last deeply affected us. I asked for a ritual, and we got a ritual for sure. A true catharsis, both on and off stage.

S-L: How does playing at a festival like this compare to club gigs?

BK: Festivals are different from club gigs because the crowd is a more varied mix of people—those who already know Dwaal and those giving us a chance for the first time. Not to say anything bad about the Norwegian audience, but it seems like international music lovers are more open to discovering new music. They come from far away and want to engage with as much as they can, even if they’ve never heard us before. It makes for an intense experience in the best way.

S-L: Did you explore the festival area, try the Viking activities or food?

BK: Our drummer Anders went on Friday and had a great time at the Blot. The rest of Dwaal arrived on Saturday, and we had some time to explore the festival. It’s an incredible event. Everyone makes you feel so welcome and included. A huge recommendation from Dwaal!

S-L: Any upcoming releases, albums, gigs, or other news?

BK: As 2024 winds down, we’re hard at work on new music, with some exciting projects that push us out of our comfort zone, which we love. Our last regular concert of the year will be at Apollon Tønsberg on October 11th, with Uaar as support. On December 14th, we’re playing the Caliban Sessions, a yearly mini-festival hosted by Ole Petter Andreassen of Black Debbath, Thulsa Doom, and Cumshots fame. It will be a fantastic end to a great year for Dwaal, marking our tenth year as a band. There are plans for a gig in Oslo in 2025, so stay tuned for that announcement.

We’re also in talks for more live shows in Europe, though nothing we can confirm just yet. And of course, if Midgardsblot invites us back, we’d love to play again!

The last show in Gildehallen this time around was the one that probably impressed me the most—Karin Park from Sweden. Alone on stage, standing between two tables covered with synths, computers, and modular gear, she sounded and performed like a full band, delivering an incredibly energetic set. Crown her the Queen of Synth already! (go to https://www.facebook.com/748210539/videos/1540166493571503/ for videos, several in the comments!)

The Norwegian band Emperor, regarded as pioneers of extreme black metal, closed the festival on the main stage, Helheim, in front of a devoted audience.

To sum it all up: a festival well worth visiting! As they’ve expanded the musical genres in their lineup, there’s now something for everyone without losing their core purpose or audience. This approach also increases the chance to discover something new, which is always a plus!

A big shoutout to Runa Strindin, the driving force behind the festival, and her entire crew for making it such a success! Hopefully, they’ll continue for years to come, and perhaps the 10th anniversary next year will be even more special?!

PS: As a food enthusiast, I must mention the excellent variety of food, ranging from handmade hot dogs to Thai, Mexican, elk burgers, and elk kebabs! Most impressive was the food from the Norwegian Chefs National Association, Vestfold branch (Norske kokkers Landsforening, avdeling Vestfold)—their hot-smoked halibut dish was to die for! 😊

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

Bérèche You kicks off the autumm with the brand new EP “Into The Night”, yet again with Cassiel Agrippa on vocal duty. The EP contains five tracks/mixes including the new single “We Could Have Been So Right”.

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange)

Songwriter and vocals Thomas CA Brevik a.k.a. Cassiel Agrippa gave some swift replies to a couple of questions just after the release.

Side-Line: Why the title of the EP – not a track title – is there a story behind?

Cassiel Agrippa: As with things creative they have a tendency to evolve and change as they mature and are finalised. The working title of the track “We Could Have Been So Right” ended up being the title for the EP. In a way it is fitting for the EP as a common theme that binds the two new tracks together – the night. While the first track delves into the lost opportunities of love, lost as a shadow in the night, the second track “Would You See The Light”, has a somewhat darker theme, yet also linked to the night – and darkness. Actually, the line “into the night” is part of the lyrics for the song “We Could Have Been So Right”.

Side-Line: More to tell about the lyrics?

Cassiel Agrippa: Sometimes the beauty of lyrics is that they can hold meaning that is specific to the listener alone. While the lyrics for a song tells a story, people tend to relate it to their own perspectives. Sometimes the text can resonate especially well. In that sense, the lyrics for the two new tracks are somewhat specific, yet ambiguous enough that it is possible to relate to them. Hopefully.

The track “We Could Have Been So Right” is a throwback to past flings that never panned out or never became a thing. There is nostalgia there, but not quite regret. Yet a curiosity, as in “what if?”.
And perhaps a tiny bit regret all the same. Sometimes you can still regret something that never was, even knowing it would never have worked out. Is it from experience? I think we all have a story like that.

The other new track, “Would You See The Light” is more reflective, about someone longing for affirmation, hoping to be seen, not just for the light side, but also for the deeper darkness that also exists in a person. “Can you handle the whole of me?” in a way. Then again, in another interpretation, the lyrics are about hope. Which path do you choose? Sometimes you choose the light, just to stay afloat. Other times you need to delve into melancholy. And other times you just let things unfold. As in the line “the destinies unfolding right in front of my eyes”.

To some people the lyrics are not that important, but they form an integral part of the whole of the song nevertheless. My ambition is to craft lyrics that hold some meaning and can resonate, without being complex. In that sense I hope we have achieved lyrics that go well with the melodies. The first track is vibrant and quite up-beat. The second track is more sombre and melancholic, yet not too dark. Just like the lyrics.

Available everywhere now > Spotify: https://shorturl.at/9drGI | Apple iTunes: https://shorturl.at/kw1qT | YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXV-HOLrhwA ++

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

The latest Seigmen single “(Dyret) 23 bud” was released August 9^th, a week before the band attended the festival Midgardsblot, and had its premiere live performance there on Friday 16th as Seigmen was the final band on the main stage Helheim.

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange / Indie Recordings pressrelease. Photos by Einar Låker, Jan Ronald Stange)

“(Dyret) 23 bud» song’s lyrics consist of twenty-three “rules” from Seigmen of 2024, projected back through time towards the young band that just released their debut album «Pluto» in 1992. And to everybody else who needs to hear that you must have faith in yourself, you must believe to make your dreams come true.

With a steady pace of one album each decade since the turn of the millennium, Seigmen released their latest album «Resonans» in May 2024. Then they took us all by surprise by suddenly releasing brand-new single AND announcing a new album to be released next year! And another one in two years!

With this single release they also make a connection back to their first release “Pluto” in April 1992. The band’s symbol and logo, “Dyret” (eng. “The Beast”) among friends, was introduced to the world as it was radiating from the center of the deep, maroon cover. Fast forward to the summer of 2024 where the vibrations from «Resonans» still lingers, the single are the first taste from the bands next album; «Dissonans».

However, there are other and more tangible links to the past. When Seigmen played their first ever concert in their hometown of Tønsberg, they shared the stage with a local band called Floodland. The guitarist and vocalist in Floodland, Espen Winther, would later become a skilled instrument maker and a member of the medieval/folk band Eldrim. Going even further back to Winther’s teenage years we find him playing in a band with Seigmen drummer Noralf Ronthi and his brother younger Dag Reidar. Winther is the one that opens “(Dyret) 23 bud» in a majestic way with his home-made wooden harp called “Gnaal”.

The album trilogy has been the plan all along. Seigmen have made the most out of the last four years, during lockdown and health challenges, resulting in a long and involuntary hiatus from concerts and touring. «Resonans» was the first part of what in time will become a trilogy, consisting of «Resonans», «Dissonans» and «Substans». Three albums in three years, it seems almost surreal when you take the bands last 25 years of release history into account.

«Dissonans» will be the second part of the trilogy and is scheduled to be released on October 23rd 2025 on the 30th anniversary of the major breakthrough album “Metropolis”. The third and last part of the trilogy called “Substans” will follow in 2026 if all goes to plan. Three albums with a common thread running through them, but still three very diverse and different releases.

We managed to have a chat with guitarist Sverre Økshoff when he had a break after the band’s sound check.

Side-Line: What’s the story behind this surprising single release and albums announcement?

Sverre Økshoff: It’s been many simultaneous thoughts and actions these last 7-8 years, wondering if we’re still a band, then came corona and cancellations of shows, Alex’ health issues, so it piled up to a lot of reason for us being somewhat inactive outwards. But, in the meantime we’ve been working, started off with a weekend at an abandoned house on the beach, doing demos, me and Alex sleeping there so we could look after our equipment. First score was for “Arcadia Ego”, worked a lot on that, and got a good feeling that this was something we could have ownership and pride in.

The last years songs and texts keeps pouring out from Kim, and we started discussing if we should release single tracks like so many others, or if we should do something else with 30-something tracks. Or EPs? Or whole albums?  

S-L: A trilogy of albums, was that the idea from the start?

SØ: We had a long time quietly working without involving others, makings songs and having ideas how it should be presented, and it grew upon us that it should end up in a trilogy.

S-L: Must say it’s a clever naming of the albums! And now you have lots to do the next years?

SØ: Yes, Kim’s lyrics give clear lines for the naming of the albums. But if I am to say something about this with my perception and interpretation, it will be that “Resonans” (as already mentioned) resonates a long friendship and brotherhood between us guys. A bit pompous, but it’s a musical pact between us where either everyone is in or no one plays. So if one quits, Seigmen also disbands. “Dissonance” and “Substance” I haven’t quite got into yet. Something happens when the songs are released and played. Content and meaning are also processed. So, feel free to ask me again later.

Now we have a lot to do, we’re playing gigs again and will complete Dissonance in the next few months.

We do small sessions in the studio, during a weekend with a couple of songs at a time. It is new compared to before where we practiced for a long period and went into the studio and made the whole record in 3-4 weeks. Short cuts give the whole thing a slightly more spontaneous feel. Delicious actually.

S-L: Was it because of Midgardsblot you timed the release of the “(Dyret) 23 bud” single to just a week before?

SØ: Well, when seeing forward in time and having an idea about which instruments to use, it all came together as a good fit. And when involving Espen Winther we connected with pre-Seigmen history, Espen playing with Noralf and winning the Norwegian Rock Championship as the band Twilight Zone. Espen have been around the whole time, and now it was a good time for a collaboration with his harp and this festival.

S-L: With one single out there, a couple more are to be released before the next album – any info on them yet?

SØ: No, not decided which ones yet, so they’ll come as more surprises. I also think we’ve taken another steps backwards regarding the next album, and what I can disclose now is that it’ll be insanely fun to play!

S-L: How was this performance for Seigmen?

SØ: It was awesome to see the Vikings rocking in front of us! Very strange that so many people hang in there and were on fire at “Dyret”, a song that few had heard in its entirety! We are also really at home when we play in these areas. We had a fantastic night – thank you from the whole band!

Side-Line also covered seigmen’s ‘Så nært’.

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange / Sub Culture press release) “Hard To Love You”, the fourth single from the upcoming Piston Damp album, is out today on streaming platforms. The sophomore album is due later this autumn.

“Hard To Love You” takes us back to the early 80’s with analogue synths, modular f/x and beautiful vocal harmonies, and Piston Damp’s love for Vince Clarke’s early songwriting really comes to fruition here. 

With their own unmistakable touch and sound mixed in, this makes for a nostalgic summer outing fit for a day on the beach or late night radio listening.

Piston Damp have played an impressive amount of gigs in Germany, Sweden and Norway in the past 3 years, and their live escapade will continue in August with their first ever gig in Oslo on the 31^st at Revolver, sharing the stage with Ray Noir. More info and tickets here.

“Hard To Love You” is written by Jonas Groth who’s also providing the vocals, and the synthesizers and modulars are by Truls Sønsterud. On this single, Stephan Groth, the brother of Jonas and known from Apoptygma Berzerk, has stepped in as co-producer. The single was mixed by Magne Johansen, and mastered by Ole-Espen Kristiansen. In addition to the instrumental and extended versions of “Hard To Love You”, you’ll get a live version of “Something In Me” included on the single.

Check out their bio and photos at www.pistondamp.com while listening to the tracks here:

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange / Bérèche You press release) Hello gorgeous electropop lover! The brand new Bérèche You single “Head Over Heels” featuring Cassiel Agrippa is available everywhere today.

The song is a tribute “to all the gorgeous people out there, and a celebration of falling “head over heels” in love,” so the band adds. The music represents a fresh and uplifting vibe, with a hint of 80s synthpop nostalgia.

This release follows the synthpop album “Business of Love” released on May 10th. Bérèche You is the new project from Crab Key Records and producer Isak Rypdal (Dr No, Freeloader, Electro Spectre).

Listen to the song and watch the video now, and let it define your mood for the late Summer nights!

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange. Photos Tarjei Krogh / band)
Bérèche You follows up the first three Spring of 2024 singles with a full album on several streaming platforms, released by Crab Key Records last Friday, May 10th – and promise more to come the next months.

Isak Rypdal is back again with a brand new album to continue the Crab Key Studio music journey, and the first album called “Business Of Love” is exactly what it sounds like; a hymn to making music, electronic music, and the joy of making new exciting tracks.

On the new album Isak has collaborated with his good friend, the talented songwriter Cassiel Agrippa, who’s been involved in Electro Spectre and other previous work from Crab Key Studio for a long time, creating visual media such as artwork in addition to live photography for the bands.

Madil Hardis – the second collaborator

Madil Hardis is yet another talented contributor on the album.

Isak: “Madil is a trained singer and well-known on the international electronic music scene. She has done a lot of solo releases and collaborations worldwide; -particularly known from collaborations with such as Ashbury Heights and Mondträume.” Her last release is the beautiful album “Natural Darkness”.”

Isak Rypdal has a wide musical career since the early 90’s with bands likes Doctor No, Freeloader and Electro Spectre. Music from Doctor No and Freeloader has been chart topping in Norway and heavily rotated on international radio such as BBC Radio 1 in UK. Live shows includes playing at “We Love The 90’s” and more than a 100 live shows around the world. With Electro Spectre Isak has been so fortunate to be able to support bands such as OMD, Marsheaux, Zeromancer, Covenant, Melotron and Mesh, to mention a few.

Buy & listen to the album at Spotify /  TIDAL / Apple Music / Bandcamp /  YouTube, or play it here. Do also check out the video below.

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 / Indie Recordings press release. Photos by Bjørn Opsahl, Frank Hiis and Jan Ronald Stange) Out on May 3rd was the seventh Seigmen album “Resonans”, highly anticipated after the nine years wait since “Enola” in 2015. The release was celebrated by an evening of fun at the Apollon Platebar (record shop & pub/bar in one – excellent place!) in Tønsberg, full house and all of the tickets gone already at the opening that day.

The event started off with a signing session. As there’s three different vinyl versions in addition to CD and cassette versions – and many bought all versions! – they went through a bunch of marker pens in a busy hour. Then the whole album was played, followed by a move upstairs for the ticket holders. Arvid Skancke-Knutsen held both a challenging quiz and an entertaining and informational Q&A session. He was definitely the right person for the job, knowing and supporting Seigmen throughout their whole career, and also the first journalist to review the debut CD in a major publication.

The Seigmen album

“Resonans” is Seigmen’s latest album, echoing the essence of a longstanding friendship. A strong bond among five guys who found each other through music, learned to play instruments, and expressed themselves together. They solidified their friendship through muddy and sour tones from the rehearsal room on the old submarine quay, down into a basement in the city center, out to a barn outside the city, up on the heights near the old library, down into the mountain beneath the same hill, and back to a rehearsal container at the old shipyard. Always tied to their hometown, Tønsberg in Norway.

“Resonans” is the reverberation of endless evening rehearsals, weekends with “lefse” and freshly ground coffee in thermoses, and syncopations. Smiles, conversations, and gossip. The hard, precise, and long-term work. Love and art. Resonans is guts and integrity, demonstrating the uncompromising nature that Seigmen has always represented.

Singles and songs

The singles “Berlin,” “Kollaps,” and “Elskhat” have already been out there. Listen to “Melanchthon”, approaching two minutes, and the endless solo that ends with no more frets on the guitar neck. Listen to “Blasfem”, raw nerve for almost eleven minutes. Listen to the space created in “Eksplodere i det stille”, the transition to a single chorus after five and a half minutes. There are many layers here. The depth is buried in the details. The ones you hear when you play the song for the third or sixth time.

Resonans is the result you get when five focused individuals return to the studio where they recorded “Total” in 1994. Carrying the same curiosity, the same hunger and the eternal urge to create. Incidentally, this year marks exactly 30 years since the release of “Total”. Recently, the book about the album was published in the series “Norske albumklassikere”, skillfully written by Even Smith Wergeland. The reference is track number two on “Total”, “Ohm”, which might be the song that best defines the band. Ohm means resistance.

“Resonans” is also the echo of the time it took to complete this album. The resistance along the way, in the form of a pandemic and, most notably, serious and prolonged illness. Of course, one should also acknowledge the frugality and thoroughness these years have allowed. Time to work in silence. No concerts for four years have provided ample time in the “space.” Even more lefse. Even more cups of freshly brewed coffee.

“Resonans” is vibrations. Listen to the last phrases of “Når alle skjermer går i svart” (When all screens go black). The desperation in the voice of vocalist Alex is palpable, you can hear the resistance. Seigmen has always believed that it is they are at their best when there’s resistance. Listen to the first line of the lyrics in “Berlin.” All hope is lost, but never say die — it doesn’t get much clearer than that.

‘Tønsberg’ – the city anthem

Resonans ends with the surprise song “Tønsberg”, nothing less than a magnificent, honest, and personal tribute to the city the band hails from. In the first part of “Tønsberg,” guitarist and opera singer Marius finally unfolds his vocal prowess within the framework of Seigmen, something he has only done once before on a record. Strings tastefully arranged by the “film musician”, Ginge. Then the rest of the band kicks in halfway, and Alex takes the baton to the finish line. Marius is actually retiring as a soloist in the Norwegian national Opera this spring, where they retire early.

“Up the mountain, up in the tower. Never a stranger in the streets we walk.” “Tønsberg” might be a bit of an oddity on Resonans, but the song comes straight from the heart.

Mini-interview with Kim Ljung

The day after Kim Ljung had this to say about the event:
– We were real happy with how Friday turned out. It was a near and personal event. Also it’s always nice to see eacother away form rehearsal and studio, have a few drinks together, then meet nice eager people who’s always polite and just seems interested and throughout extremely inspired by what we do. 
Also a sheer pleasure seeing the glow in our fans faces, coming up with the vinyl, CD or a cassette they just bought, signing them and knowing they go home that evening in utter delight. 

I also had to ask about ‘Arkadia ego’, the track starting with “Husk at du skal dø en gang” (“Remember that you must die once”) – was it written before Depeche Mode’s “Memento Mori” were announced? 
– When DM released “Memento Mori” I was a little stressed, since we had the “Arkadia ego” song written long before. However it was all put on hold for several years due to Covid and internal health issues in the band. We started writing material right after we released “Enola” in 2015. Then there is also a part on “Blasfem”, the 11 minute track, that has a guitar line which dates back to the 90’s. 
“Elskhat” was the first track written, however the riff for “Berlin” was there ages before. Just something we never though was of real importance until our manager Øystein heard it and said you have to work on that one. Single potential!

Though “Arkadia ego” was a song that emerged in 2019, the first lyric actually had the line Memento Mori in it, but it sounded a little lame on a demo version, and was taken out. 
So the fear when DM press release came mentioning their title, I was just afraid “Arkadia ego” was in there.

A side note to that: I personally saw their album as a huge dissapointment. I feel with all their history and assets in old synthesizers and their legacy, they should come with better sounding stuff. When Fletch sady passed, I hoped they would bring Alan back in. That would surely made huge differerance to their quality of sound.

The idea of “Arkadia ego” was just me trying to find out a way of using the word Arcadia in a song. Always liked that word. Then I discovered that line. 
Every Seigmen song starts out with a title. That gives me a total picture of how a song should plan out. 

Cheers to Side-Line from Seigmen!

Design background story

If you acquire Resonans in physical format, you will find it tastefully wrapped in peach pink by designer Sigurd N. Kristiansen. Master photographer Bjørn Opsahl is, as always, by Seigmen’s side. A band photo in the same color palette was taken in Kim’s living room. Pink boots under the sofa, a small nod to the band’s very first song. It reveals a band with more humor and spirit than many may think, that sets its own standard and is ready for whatever comes next.

Credits

• Recorded at Velvet Recording by Christer Krogh
• Mixed by Mike Hartung in Propeller Music Devision: “Elskhat”, “Arkadia Ego”, “Når alle skjermer går i svart”, “Eksplodere i det stille”, “Melanchthon”, and “Tønsberg”
• Mixed by Adam Noble: “Kollaps” and “Voltaire!”
• Mixed by Alex Møklebust in Room 13: “Berlin” and “Blasfem”
• Words and melody lines: Kim Ljung
• Music: Seigmen
• Produced by Alex Møklebust and Kim Ljung
• Mastered by George Tanderø
• Artwork by Sigurd N. Kristiansen
• Photo by Bjørn Opsahl

Listen to the album at these streaming services: https://orcd.co/saveresonans, or buy physical versions right here: https://shop.indierecordings.no/collections/seigmen

Side-Line also covered seigmen’s ‘Dyret 23 bud’.

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) Out today is “Someone Like Me”, the second single from Bérèche You, the new project of Electro Spectre producer Isak Rypdal, this time featuring new collaborator Cassiel Agrippa on vocals. First out was the single “Elevation” featuring Madil Hardis a few weeks ago, and with this second single they’re gearing up for the album release in May 2024.

It has been a few years since the successful release of Electro Spectre’s “Stereo Dreams” trilogy, and this time Isak Rypdal has created a new universe called ‘Bérèche You’ where different artists are invited to participate.

Isak says “after a massive workload with Electro Spectre the last couple of years, it has been a wish to get involved in new and different musically challenges as well. It was time to get out of my comfort zone and record music with a new approach.”

New collaborator Cassiel Agrippa

On this track Isak collaborated with his good friend, the talented songwriter Thomas C. A. Brevik a.k.a. Cassiel Agrippa, who’s got a brilliant ear for good melodies. Cassiel Agrippa has been involved in Electro Spectre and other previous work from Crab Key Studio for a long time, creating visual media such as artwork in addition to live photography for the bands.

The “Business Of Love” album is due to be released May 10, 2024.

Listen to “Someone Like Me” at Spotify / TIDAL / Apple Music / Amazon Music / YouTube, or play it here. Do also check out the video below.

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange / press release Indie Recordings) ‘Elskhat’, the third single from Seigmen‘s upcoming album, is out on February 28th. It’s the opening track on the album ‘Resonans’, and also the first one written back in the summer of 2015. At that time, their previous album ‘Enola’ had just been released, and touring and big festivals were on the horizon.

The search for that magical riff was a constant pursuit. The guitar riff that forms the foundation of ‘Elskhat’ was revealed outside the rehearsal space, played on a deep red semi-acoustic Gibson. The reception was good, so much so that the band realized this riff was the gateway to Seigmen’s next album. Little did they know it would take nine years before the song could be presented in its entirety.

‘Elskhat’ narrates the constant oscillation between extremes and has its roots in songwriter and lyricist Kim Ljung’s state of constant migraines. The contrast between light and dark is always close, akin to black and white, day and night. ‘Elskhat’ leaves no middle ground.

“If you tremble, then I tremble too.”

Author and screenwriter Harald Rosenløw Eeg (also known from the electro duo SubGud), a close friend of Kim and the band, was working on the script for his second disaster film for Fantefilm at that time. Earthquakes was the theme. Kim suggested ‘Skjelvet’ (‘The Quake’) as the title and expressed interest in writing a song for the film. It remained an attempt. Time and timing had different plans.

The recording process

In 2018, Seigmen borrowed a house near Karlsvik gård, a picturesque gem near the shoreline outside Tønsberg in Norway. Every room in the house was set up for recording and brainstorming ideas for the album.

‘Elskhat’ underwent a significant transformation here, moving from the key of D to G. For the uninitiated, it was quite an un-Seigmen-like move, but it turned out to be a revelation. ‘Elskhat’ gained the lift, the air, and light it needed.

In a pure bootleg style, the intense and creative days in the house were dubbed the ‘Karlsvika Tapes.’ Everything was just sketches, sounding raw and unfinished. Yet, it undoubtedly gave the band a boost, shaping the form of ‘Resonans.’

The band then returned to the rehearsal space, fine-tuning their aim for the final push before recording at Velvet Recording in Spydeberg in Norway. They were back to the familiar setting and the same studio where they recorded ‘Total’ in 1994 — the time many believe Seigmen truly found their identity. However, an unexpected turn of events occurred. The pandemic and illness stood in the way of continuation, putting ‘Resonans’ on hold.

Pandemic challenges

The challenges that followed have added a new dimension to ‘Elskhat,’ with meaning that might not have been there initially but will resonate with those who experienced a difficult time during the pandemic.

Seigmen faced their share of setbacks, but the extended delay also provided extra time to refine the songs that make up ‘Resonans.’ The lyrics of ‘Elskhat’ have proven almost prophetic for Seigmen—after the rain comes sunshine, and after a challenging period, it is an ultra-positive and inspired band getting ready to release their first album in nine years.

‘Elskhat’ is also the first song from ‘Resonans’ mixed by Mike Hartung (Propeller), setting the standard for the rest of the songs and defining the album’s sound. Like the rest of the album, the single was recorded at Velvet Recording with Christer Krogh as the technician. The single cover was designed by Sigurd N. Kristiansen, featuring an alternative prophecy created by Kim’s daughter, Nova.

Listen to ‘Elskhat’ and the other new Seigmen songs right here, or find it at your preferred platform.

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

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 / Indie Recordings press release) Seigmen released the digital single ‘Kollaps’ (‘Collapse’) on January 17th, the follow-up to ‘Berlin’ released a month before. This is the second single taken from the upcoming album ‘Resonans’, which is set to be released this April.

It may be hard to believe that the songs on ‘Resonans’ were written pre-COVID. Before the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza escalated, and with the United States in a looming darkness forced to choose the lesser of two evils yet again.

Through their devotion to details and their immediate environment and the people populating it. Through their strong use of words and powerful dramaturgy, Seigmen’s lyrics become universal and timeless. The result are songs where love is always at the core, veiled and twisted in a blend of desperation and hope, but always accessible and unmistakably Seigmen.

Seigmen’s universe is filled with clues to their source of inspiration. This is not often brought to light, but on ‘Kollaps’, the initiated listener will recognize text references in both verses and choruses to West German industrial pioneers; “Min venn, was glaubst du denn?“

Some of the sonic elements in ‘Kollaps’ are the recording of an angle grinder used by Kim Ljung’s father in law while assembling shelves for old tape decks, effects, and synthesizers in his home studio. The sound of strings heard in the chorus is generated by almost 50-year-old synthesizers, purchased at Supersonic (a legendary Norwegian music store) before the band recorded their classic album ‘Radiowaves’ in ’96.

Velvet Recording Studio

‘Kollaps’ was recorded at Velvet Recording Studio in Spydeberg with Christer Krogh at the console. The mix was done by Adam Noble (UK), perhaps best known for his work with Biffy Clyro.

The artwork follows the style of the first single, ‘Berlin,’ with a beautiful, but disfigured object, as the centerpiece. This time, a broken lamp that caught Kim Ljung’s eye in an underpass on his way home during a heavy snowfall. The shards of glass positioned like angel wings were shot just as they were found.
A resonance of the text line “Lyset som strømmer inn” (“The Light that Shines In”).

Listen to ‘Kollaps’ in your preferred audio player here: https://orcd.co/kollaps

For more on seigmen, see Migraine induced love and hate combined in new Seigmen song on Side-Line.

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 / Gothminister press release) The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) season is upon us again, and there’s no denial that most songs participating aren’t in the scope of Side-Line readers. But fortunately there are exceptions – one of them being Gothminister from Norway, competing in Melodi Grand Prix, the Norwegian semi-finals, this Saturday!

Gothminister is Bjørn Alexander Brem’s heart child and alter ego. During the day, the Oslo man works as a lawyer, but at night Gothminister rises from the dark. Bjørn Alexander brings out his creative side through impressive costumes and music. Gothminister recently played to over 30,000 people in Germany, and has toured in more than 40 countries over the years. Last year they released the album ‘Pandemonium’, which won the Dark Album of the Year award, ahead of Rammstein and Placebo among others. Gothminister has numerous chart positions in Germany, and won a total of 19 international film awards for two of the music videos last year.

The song ‘We Come Alive’ was a collaboration with producer Jesper Borgen (Alan Walker, Coldplay), and is about the value of play, about believing in yourself and standing together against all injustice. With him on stage in MGP, he has, among others, chorister Hege Rødfjell, who has extensive experience from bands, orchestras, TV and film.

Between rehearsals and preparations for tonight’s semifinal we managed to slip in some questions:

SL: What made you participate again, 11 years after last time?

Bjørn Alexander Brem: In 2013 I met a famous producer called Jesper Borgen (Alan Walker, Coldplay). He told me he always wanted to produce a Gothminister track. 10 years after I called him and he was still interested.

‘We Come Alive’ is the result of the discussions between metal man Gothminister and pop man Jesper Borgen. In the end I think we landed a perfect hybrid between pop and industrial gothmetal, and suddenly the song was picked as 1 of 18 among about 2.000 songs to compete in Melodi Grand Prix, which is the national selections in Norway for Eurovision.

SL: There’s been mixed reactions; fans and music commentators don’t agree – what’s your take on that?

BAB: Yes, the song got mixed reviews – in the MGP podcast it got 5/6, but in Nettavisen 1/6 and they wrote that «the song is best when it is over.» This shows the typical commercial attitude to the Dark scene, and towards something that is different. Gothminister has always and is still representing the different ones.

PS! A hilarious note on the Nettavisen reviews of the songs: they added a voting form for their subscribers at the end of the article, ending up with Gothminister as the overwhelming victor with over 50% of the votes for the six contestants, leaving the next best with 17%!

SL: If you go to the finals or to Malmö, what can we expect?

BAB: I can’t say, but you know Gothminister is always «over the top», so it will be crazy, that’s for sure!

SL: What are you looking most forward to during this contest?

BAB: To show the Dark side, to show that it’s possible to be different and still good. And all the people out there who has felt rejected, mocked, struggling in life etc, like myself – I am performing for them first and foremost.

‘We Come Alive’ is about being different and thus being a bit outside. Gothminister has always been a champion for this group and for justice to be done. I myself was bullied by my former best friend at school and felt what it was like.

But being different also gives you unimaginable superpowers. Among other things, it makes you better able to understand others around you, and to respect them. Never be afraid to be different. Believe in yourself and never let go of your dreams, one day they will come to life. You must respect others and always strive to make others comfortable in your company.
If everyone stands together we are more alive, instead of being dead inside!

Check out the various versions of ‘We Come Alive’ right below.

Do also check out the official video here!

And don’t forget to vote tonight if you’re Norwegian, you can register at https://delta.nrk.no/mgp/.

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, photos by Tarjei Krogh, Tom Helge Kleberg, Jarle Nyttingnes) How do you celebrate a driving force of the Norwegian electronic music scene when he’s about to turn 50? Ask a band if they can perform at his birthday party, that band involving another band, ending up in a full night of concerts by El/NeUe and Beranek and the collaboration release of a new track, video and a 10″ limited edition vinyl in various colours.

Øystein Moe was the lucky man celebrating his 50th anniversary Saturday November 2nd at Mir Lufthavn in Oslo, surrounded by friends and live concerts by El/NeUe and Beranek, who also debuted ‘Niedrige Erwartungen’ by showing the track’s music video.

Espen Beranek Holm, the multi-talented musician, comedian, stage-, radio- and TV-personality, remixer etc., elaborated about the evening and collaboration in our scheduled mail interview the day after.

Side-Line: What was the occasion for this event – how did you get involved?

Beranek: I received a mail from Askild in May where he told me about the 50 years birthday party for Øystein Moe and asked if I could contribute by doing a concert. I know Askild and Håkon (the members of El/NeUe) from years back, but we’ve only worked together in comedy and satire for TV and radio production – never in music. I immediately wanted to be part of this event, both because of my knowledge and friendship with Askild and Håkon, but I also wanted to pay tribute to Øystein Moe who released the double CD ‘Maskindans – Norsk synth 1980-1988’ back in 2009. He was the first to license and release a song digitally from my debut album ‘Sound Of Danger’.
In other words: He’s a great guy!

S-L: How did your collaboration ’Niedrige Erwartungen’ come about? Triggered by this evening, or already in the works before?

Beranek: A part of this celebration also included the making of a limited edition vinyl EP containing some previously unreleased material from both EL/NeUe and me. In the discussion for the vinyl’s content the idea was born that we should collaborate on a track. A Thursday night in August I brought my Akai Force to Askilds house where Askild, Håkon and I sketched out the beginnings and framework for the composition. We very soon hit a common nerve for the thing, and after some 3-4 hours we had the main basics for the song. I spent the following Friday refining, re-structuring and adding to the composition. I also upgraded a lot of the sounds from the digital (Force) domain to the deeper analog domain using hardware synths (Moogs, Korgs, etc). I then sent the tracks to Askild and Håkon, and they added more musical motives and sounds; clarinets, voices and that marvellous and majestic «noisy» solosynth in the end. I got these tracks in return and added a vocal track dub to Askilds voice. Askild and Håkon finalized the mix. The lyrics was a suggestion by Askild.

S-L: Gotten any feedback on ‘Niedrige Erwartungen’ so far?

Beranek: It was very well received as the video was shown on screen to the audience last night!

S-L: Tell more about the video – how did the visuals come about?

Beranek: After I received the mix from Askild and Håkon I listened to it a couple of times – quiet loud actually. During these listenings I started to «see» how these notes and beats could trigger light beams, and I thought that space would form a perfect stage for this. I used a combination of 3D software and video editing software to generate the animations and synchronize it all to the music. Askild and Håkon was very pleased with both the video and the theme for the pictures, and the picture used on both the limited edition vinyl and on streaming platforms is taken from the video. (see the video at the end of article)

S-L: Planned any more collaboration together – songs or performances?

Beranek: We have an open mind about that – it wouldn’t surprise me at all if more music was produced by Beranek and EL/NeUe!

S-L: Your own and others reactions and feedback to the performances?

Beranek: I think it was a great night. EL/NeUe’s set was very well performed and very well received by the audience. Well deserved!
We – Johannes (Winther Farstad – keys and vocals) and I – was very pleased with the venue, Leon on sound and the crowd, and we felt that it all went down really well on our part.

Photograper Tarjei Krogh also attended the concerts, as always taking great photos!

The VERY special 10″ vinyl

We also wanted to know more about these records, and got hold of Tom Helge Kleberg from Kalall TM, a duplicord manufacturing company under the Etch Wear umbrella.

THK: On this production we made them for the two labels PIIV Grill and Hommage Records as a supplier, and we also collaborated on the sleeve production.

This is in short a duplicated record, hence we made the name duplicord. We make a lathe-cut or lacquer reference disc master first, then we make a mould negative used for casting two component resin records. It’s really an old technique with new compounds, like old one sided gramophones. The silicone really copies everything – even the warm sound!

These are to be considered more like artefact records or artist merchandise than an audiophile release. The final result varies from Good+ to NM, but most common VG/VG+. The research to make them better continues with every edition…

So far we have casted about 15 copies, all in various colours. It’s easy to mix different pigments for each duplicord, so most often no one is exactly the same, giving a wide range of colours and sometimes playing around with two or more colours. For special editions we have also put various objects in the mix on the label area, giving totally one of a kind unique duplicords unlike any vinyl you have seen.

All runs have sold out since we started doing these, so they’re really a token for a fan – these sell out first on merchtables!

Check out the track at several streaming platforms, and see the video right here!

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange. Press release Karisma Records) Just days after launching their first new music in 7 years on November 15th, Norwegian alternative rockers Seigmen ended last week hinting about more surprises to come – and they weren’t joking!

Yesterday we learned that three new EPs from Seigmen are set to be released on Karisma Records on December 8th. All three, titled ‘Rosa EP’, ‘Gul EP’ and ‘Beige EP’ (Pink, Yellow, Beige) respectively, will only be available in 12″ vinyl format, with each title strictly limited to 350 copies.

About Seigmen

Founded in Tønsberg in 1989, Seigmen is one of Norway’s greatest and most recognized rock bands of all time, and, in 2019, they played a historic 4-day stint at the legendary Hulen in Bergen. Hulen is a venue that was very important to Seigmen in the early days, and this special set of shows gave the band the chance to reproduce four of their old 90s Hulen setlists. It was an occasion where a lot of songs were played for the first time in many, many years.

Motivated by this, Seigmen decided to record a few of their oldest songs – songs that dated back to the time when the band was known as Klisne Seigmenn. This would be the first time that these songs would actually be recorded in a studio, as, until now, they had only ever been played live. The tracks were recorded at Velvet Recording in Spydeberg, Norway, which is the same studio where Seigmen’s legendary album ‘Total’ was recorded back in 1994.

Old Seigmen tracks were re-recorded

The A-sides of the EPs will therefore contain the new studio recordings of those early songs, whilst the B-sides are made up of live performances recorded during those memorable 4 days at Hulen.

Kim Ljung, the band’s bass player/songwriter explains how those original songs first came about:
I remember that night in 1989 well. I was invited to Ubåtkaia by Sverre, Alex and Noralf – Klisne Seigmenn. They were only three guys and needed a guy on bass.

They played the set that was going to be performed at Sjøormen in Tønsberg only a couple of months later. I was knocked to the ground. Blown away by the five songs presented and the power and intensity in the room. The songs are as good today as they were then. That it would take more than 30 years to get them recorded is plain madness.

We also had a chat with Otto Egil Sætre from Karisma Records about this release:

Side-Line: How did Karisma Records end up with this release instead of Indie Recordings?

Otto Egil: I have a long history with the band, and was involved in the planning of the Seigmen vinyl box set even before I started working for Karisma Records. So, it made sense that we did that box set there, and this is a sort of continuation. Seigmen recreated four 90s gigs at the legendary Hulen here in Bergen in 2019, something I was also quite a bit involved with, at the same time we put the box set together. So already back then, we talked about maybe releasing something from those concerts. And when they decided to finally record some old Klisne Seigmenn songs in the studio, that was a great addition to the live tracks. They still release their new stuff on Indie Recordings, who we have a very good relationship with.

S-L: Did everyone buy the bundles or did some go for a single EP?

OES: Most people bought the bundle, but we sold a few single EPs as well.

S-L: The EP’s It all sold out the first day – how many hours before you were out of stock?

OES: We sold out our share of the records in about five hours. That’s approximately 200 copies of each EP. The rest will be sold in record stores around Norway, and at the Seigmen gigs in Tønsberg in December.

With cover design by Sigurd Kristiansen, tracklistings for the EPs are as follow. And… good luck if you are out on a hunt for the remaining 150 copies!

Rosa EP
1. Rosa Boots
2. Monument (live)
3. Negativ (live)
4. Döderlein (live)
5. Korstoget (live)

Gul EP
1. Sure Tær
2. Monsun (live)
3. Sort Disippel (live)
4. Korsfarer (live)
5. Nemesis (live)

Beige EP
1. Mye dritt
2. Pappagutt
3. Performance Alpha (live)
4. Universal (live)
5. Neon Sun (live)
6. Performance Bravo (live)

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

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 / Piston Damp press release) Out today is the brand new single from Piston Damp, a synthpop duo from Norway consisting of Jonas Groth (known as keyboarder in Apoptygma Berzerk and as being Stephan Groth’s little brother) and his friend since childhood, Truls Sønsterud.

Since their debut album, ‘Making The World Great Again’ in 2021, they have released a string of singles, with ‘Sacrifice’ and ‘All The Edges I Can Fall’, leading up to ‘I’m Losing You (A New Tale)’ released November 17th 2023.

The single contains three tracks; a single version and an Extended Remix of the song, and ‘The Day Of Departure (Black Sky Version)’ as a bonus track.

It is still catchy synthpop, this time more up-beat and chorus driven, and with a sound and a beat that is sure to be a winner in their booked and upcoming live gigs in Sweden and Germany, of which there are many!

Live dates Piston Damp

• November 17, 2023: Helsingborg, Sweden
• March 16, 2024: E-Only Festival, Germany
• April 27, 2024: Jönköping, Sweden
• May 4, 2024: Sarpsborg, Norway
• July 19, 2024: Chemnitz, Germany

Listen to the tracks right here!

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange / press release Indie Recordings. Photos by Bjørn Opsahl) November 15th the legendary Norwegian rock band Seigmen released their new single ‘Berlin’, and at the same time they announced that a new album, ‘Resonans’, is due for release April 2024.

The last time Seigmen released new music was 7 years ago, and “Berlin” is the first track from the band’s upcoming album, which was created during the times of the pandemic and lockdown. Those who follow Seigmen know that it has been some challenging years for the band, but it has also been an incredibly creative period.

We’ll get to hear the result when the album ‘Resonans’ is released on April 12, 2024, but already on November 15th, the first teaser, in the form of the single ‘Berlin’, was released through Indie Recordings.

“When we last left the stage on December 21, 2019, we knew nothing about the long and challenging times ahead of us. That this show would be our last for four years. It feels good to put this behind us and at the same time be able to tell that those times were also creative and productive years. More than anything, we want to thank our loyal fans who have followed us through thick and thin, who have patiently waited for us to return. It gives us both strength and inspiration.

New music from Seigmen is not an everyday occurrence; our last release, ‘Enola’, came out eight years ago, and this was the first studio album since 1997. Hence, it is a joy to announce that we are now putting the finishing touches on a new album called ‘Resonans’, that will release April 12th 2024 (Indie Recordings).

The impatient can look forward to the first single, which is already being released on November 15th.
We are also looking forward to get back on stage again and can already announce that we will be playing at Tons of Rock 2024.

Finally, we are also ready to do the show at Støperiet in Tønsberg, which has been postponed several times. This will be the first and only show of the year, and the date is December 16th.”

This show sold out within 12 hours, so a second show are being set up the following day, Sunday December 17th. Get your tickets here! 🙂

Listen to ‘Berlin‘ here:

ABOUT SEIGMEN:

It was an unfinished band that took to the stage when Seigmen (formerly known as Klisne Seigmenn) played their very first show during Christmas of 1989. However, even then, they had something unique that set them apart from the others, and their sound was undeniably different from all those they shared stage with. Even the conservative paper Tønsbergs Blad reported the next day that “Klisne Seigmenn outperformed the others.”

Fast forward to 1994, the year they released the EP “Hjernen er alene” and their third studio album ‘Total’.

First success Seigmen

From there on, Seigmen and their heavy and grandiose, yet catchy melancholy, defined the 1990s.
‘Total was later recognized as one of Norway’s 100 best albums of all time, and their fourth album ‘Metropolis’ dominated the charts back  in 1995 won a Spellemann award for Best Rock Album.
In 1997, ‘Radiowaves’ went straight to number one.

Then it all came to an end, as out of nothing, the announcement came that the band was disbanding because guitarist Sverre was leaving. One for all and all for one. A few months before the previous millennium came to an end, Seigmen played their farewell show for a packed Rockefeller in Oslo, Norway.

Resurrection of Seigmen

But it wasn’t meant to end there; it’s almost unnatural to just let go of a good thing and old friendships forever. In 2005, the band reunited on stage for the first time in Dødens Dal in Trondheim, and in 2008, they were the first Norwegian band to be invited to play at the new opera house in Bjørvika.

However, the biggest event of the new millennium came in 2015 when Seigmen surprisingly released ‘Enola’, a full 18 years after ‘Radiowaves’. (Read more about ‘Enola’ and other events here!)

On April 12, 2024, almost exactly 30 years after their breakthrough with ‘Total’, a special event is set to occur when Seigmen releases ‘Resonans’, their first album in nine years. The choice of Velvet Recording as their studio is not a coincidence; it’s the same place ‘Total’ was recorded back in 1994.

For more information, interview requests, or media inquiries, please contact: Robbe@indierecordings.no

For more on seigmen, see Seigmen releases 3 new EPs, sold out in just a few hours on Side-Line.

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. Photos by Tarjei Krogh, Truls A. Bakken and Jan Ronald Stange) After the successful shows in Langen, Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Oberhausen earlier this year, Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb started November 2023 with the second round of the ‘Join The Forces’ tour.

They kicked off in Oslo, the capital of Norway, and then headed to Sweden, offering fans in Gothenburg the chance to experience this unique package. The tour’s final shows in Germany will take place in Munich and Heidelberg, being the last opportunity to see these two legends share the stage in a single evening.

The opening act in Norway and Sweden were the up-and-coming Swedish queen of EBM, REIN, bringing her aggressive voice and beats. Douglas McCarthy’s longtime collaborator Terence Fixmer will open the evening at the German shows.

Like many in the audience, I too was curious about the health of Douglas when Nitzer Ebb entered the stage and how it would affect his performance. We all noticed a somewhat frail frontman at the start, but as the show progressed and both audience and band were warmed up, he seemed better and better, leaving us very happy with their concert.

Front 242 started, as usual, with their waving flashlight in ‘First In/First Out’, and was energetic throughout their whole show. The highlight for most was ‘Headhunter’, making the whole audience jump and the floor literally moving!

Must also mention that Tarjei Krogh, the photografer of the NEP/F242 photos (here caught on camera himself taking these photos), also are a musician and producer in various EBM/electronic bands since the 80’s! Do check out his most recent project Norwegian Giants!

About Front 242

Front 242 formed in 1981 in Aarschot, near Leuven, Belgium, founded by Daniel Bressanutti (electronics, production) and Dirk Bergen (graphic design). Patrick Codenys (keyboards, programming) and vocalist Jean-Luc De Meyer joined in 1982, and Richard “23” Jonckheere (electronic percussion, backing vocals) joined in 1983 as Bergen moved into a design and management role. The band’s 1984 album “No Comment” was among the first releases to use the term “electronic body music” in its liner notes. Front 242 signed to Wax Trax! in the US in 1984, then released “Official Version” (1987) and “Front by Front” (1988) via Red Rhino Europe/PIAS, and “Tyranny (For You)” (1991) via Epic, its highest-charting album in the US.

Drummer Tim Kroker joined for live performances in 2008. The band’s most recent studio album, “Pulse,” was released via XIII Bis/Metropolis in 2003. In 2023, Front 242 co-headlined the “Join The Forces” tour of Europe with fellow EBM group Nitzer Ebb, alternating headline sets across dates including Berlin, Amsterdam, Oslo and Munich.

Front 242 announced its farewell “Black Out” tour in March 2024 and played its final three shows at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels on 23-25 January 2025. The live album “Black Out,” drawn from more than forty farewell-tour shows, was released via Alfa Matrix on 19 June 2026. The band’s final lineup was Bressanutti, De Meyer, Codenys, Richard 23 and Kroker. The 2023 tour paired Front 242 with fellow EBM pioneers Nitzer Ebb across European dates, with onstage crossovers between the two bands.

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange) The Norwegian Album Classics on CD project started out hoping to release album classics unavailable elsewhere, whether they were albums only released on LP og MC, or CDs out of print. Little did they know about the demand when starting up, and as we reported in April 2021, within 100 days they had 90 albums already crowdfunded and in the pipeline for release.

Now, two and a half years later, they’re about to pass the 500 releases mark! And why stop there, when there’s LPs, EPs, books, album boxes, Bluray movies and more to dig into? This project grows in all directions, and especially this electro wave single compilation would be of interest to many Side-Line readers, with Bel Canto maybe having the largest international appeal.

In the 1980’s a bunch of 7″ singles were released by Norwegian synth pioneers. Some bands came and went, while others endured for a long time. Dark, melodic, melancholic synthpop and dance music went hand in hand. The common thread was 4-track recorders and analog synthesizers. And the hairstyles.

Now the Norwegian Album Classics on CD crowdfunding project are going to compile the most essential singles, with the A-sides on CD1 and the B-sides on CD2. The cover art for the first three records in the series are already designed, but the realization of the releases are completely dependent on the help to start the second act.

The main initiatiors willingly elaborated when questioned about ELECTRO WAVE – THE 7” SINGLES – VOL. 1:

Side-Line: How did this 7” compilation side-project come about?

Christer Falck: Since we started Norske Albumklassikere på CD, the urge of releasing non-album tracks increased. After the HUGE success with the AOR/Melodic Rock-compilations, where we collected all the 7’’ hard rock singles from the 80’s, Per Aksel had the idea of making a compilation with obscure hard-to-find 7’’ with synth, synthpop and new wave as well. We gathered a small group of experts, and started the licencing part – which is the most time-consuming part. Fortunately, everyone we asked said yes, and then we just put it out on bidra.no/cd to check the response. Two days later, the album has been more than 50% financed, so we’re quite sure it won’t end with this collection.  

Per Aksel Lundgreen: Yeah, well, I have been collecting rare synth/new-wave/alternative music since the mid 80’s, and when Norske Albumklassikere på CD started releasing really rare/weird and obscure stuff from the tape scene, like Dynamo Forte, Famlende Forsøk and The Headcleaners, I kinda saw that they were open for more alternative stuff too. What they did with the AOR compilations and included both the A-Sides and B-Sides of self-released and rare 7″ singles as a double CD, I really wanted this to happen to “my music” too. Christer asked me to get some people together, and Øystein Moe, Nils Inge Graven and Tore Dolg Stemland are the 3 people I know who knows the most about the alternative Norwegian music scene, and they all wanted to participate!

S-L: Are there more compilations like this in the pipeline?

CF: I’m always looking for experts in all genres to cooperate with. For the moment, we have 2 similar (BUT DIFFERENT) concepts. Hopefully we will crowdfund at least one of them before Christmas.

PA: Yes! There’s a lot of great stuff from tapes, EP’s, 12″ Maxi Singles and compilation albums that needs to be made available too in my opinion, so if this first concept goes well, I am sure Christer can be convinced to do other types of compilations within the electronic/wave genre too! 

S-L: The main project was CDs, it grew to LPs, books about albums, and recently Norwegian movies on Blurays – and books about movies! Where does it end? Cassettes and MiniDiscs?! 😉

CF: I would like to re-release old classic hard-to-find books as well. And books about books. But so far I have more than enough to do, so one thing at the time. I also like the idea of a festival, with old bands reuniting, movie festival and literature festivals. Cassettes… hmmm… don’t get me started…

PA: HA HA HA!!! This is a never ending story, for sure! And I love it! There’s never ever been done more in Norway to preserve our cultural heritage in music and film, and I am proud to be a small part of it! 50 years from now, I do hope that people will realize how important this work was, before it all was gone and forgotten!

S-L: Is this crowdfunding-classics-idea something to franchise in other countries?

CF: I have never seen anything like this other places, but I guess it won’t take long before someone in other countries ”steal” our idea. Because it’s a great idea, and a perfect thing to do if you’re a music enthusiast with huge plans and no money 🙂

PA: I have never seen it done anywhere else either, but it would be a perfect concept for Sweden for example, who also have, maybe even more so than Norway, a lousy track record of taking care of their Swedish album classics. Sooo many releases there have never been on CD, like for example the catalogue of Secret Service, Style and Freestyle, which are three Swedish classic acts. Not even all their albums are out on CD’s and end up being bootlegged in Russia instead! 

Get your own copy of ELECTRO WAVE – THE 7” SINGLES – VOL. 1 right here.

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)

December 16th 2022 sees the return of Piston Damp with not just one single, but TWO singles!!!

This is what happens when creativity takes hold and goes into overdrive. Truls Sønsterud and Jonas Groth have been on fire since the great reception of their debut album, ‘Making The World Great Again’, and the three consecutive singles, ‘Something In Me’, ‘Loose Ends’ and ‘Runaway’, as well as the ‘Making The World Great Again E.P.’ that was the final chapter in the MTWGA story.

After playing gigs and festivals in Norway, Sweden and Germany in 2022, we will also see them return to both Sweden and Germany for gigs and festivals in 2023, including a gig in Helsingborg, Sweden together with Octolab and Train To Spain on March 4th., as well as a performance at the E-Only Festival in Leipzig, Germany on the 17th. February. More live dates TBC!

Their two new singles, ‘Sacrifice’ and ‘All the edges I can fall’ are as diverse and catchy as you would expect from these guys, and they are both exploring the darker and deeper vaults of electronic music, as well as the higher mountain tops of catchy sing-a-long synthpop.
An intricate and well thought through production, carefully mixed by Magne Johansen and skillfully mastered by Ole-Espen Kristiansen, makes the songs eligible for both the dancefloor and for your party playlist.

Without a doubt, these singles will become fan favorites, and the guys are really looking forward to performing them live on the coming gigs.
Both singles are written by Jonas Groth and are topped with his skillful vocals and vocal production, and the instrumentation, drum programming and f/x from Truls Sønsterud are all worked through in a way that makes you understand that not a single sound is there by chance. Additional vocals on «Sacrifice» from Truls Kristian Nygaard, known from Norwegian electro-pop sensation SWEEP.

The singles also comes with an extended remix made by the band themselves, further leaning into the old 80’s tradition of the 12″ Extended Mixes that we all loved and adored.‍

Both singles released digitally on December 16th 2022 through Sub Culture Records on all platforms and streaming services, including Bandcamp.

Listen here!

Other sources:

“Sacrifice” – Spotify
“Sacrifice” – Deezer
“Sacrifice” – Apple Music

“All The Edges I Can Fall” – Spotify
“All The Edges I Can Fall” – Deezer
“All The Edges I Can Fall” – Apple Music

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 a series of new deluxe remasters released in December 2022, the Norwegian electro pop band Electro Spectre has released their complete back catalogue of albums from 2008 to 2019 in remastered deluxe versions: ‘Watch It All Turn’ (2009), ‘Dangerous Game’ (2012), ‘Bullets & Desert Blooms’ (2014), ‘Beautiful Lies’ (2016) and ‘A Man-Made Sun’ (2018).

The remasters also include the missing album ‘Pop Ghost’ from 2008. ‘Pop Ghost’ was initially redrawn from the official discography, as the band was not satisfied with the mixing of the album back in 2007. With proper restoration and mastering the album became available again in just a few days ago, including a lot of bonus track, sounding exactly how the band wanted them.

The remasters, all released the last couple of weeks, includes remixes by SnifferGod (Alex Møklebust / Zeromancer), Morganix, Technomancer, Mike Maximus, Nergaard, CAPA, Mudman, Apodyopsis, Anstalt, Sonny Sonance, Stanley Cupid, Mondträume, Martin Rudefelt and a lot more.
The “Disc 2” on the remasters are filled with previously unreleased bonus songs, including the Depeche Mode cover song ‘Fools’!

Hear all 165 tracks in this Electro Spectre – 2022 Super Deluxe Remasters playlist!

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange / Techomancer press release. Photos: Tarjei Krogh) Out now is the new album from the Norwegian synthwave act Technomancer a.k.a. Alexandria “Alyxx” Digre (she/her). She debuted with the album ‘System Failure’ in 2013, and now, almost 10 years later, the second album ‘Hyperfuel’ is finally being released!

Originally from the Northern town of Mo I Rana, Norway, Alyxx moved to Sarpsborg in 2014 and had already started working on the album at that point. Realizing that the next album had to be of much higher quality than the debut album, Alyxx started working on honing her production skills, getting plenty of practice on her side projects Zone Tripper and Laboratory 5, as well as doing numerous remixes for bands/artists such as Die Krupps, Nitzer Ebb, Anne Clark, Naked Lunch, Attrition, Robert Marlow (RIP), Apoptygma Berzerk and several others.

After ‘System Failure’, a departure from the former sound was set almost immediately. The sleek futurepop style was cast aside in favour of a heavier influence from the 80’s, with The Sisters Of Mercy providing a strong influence on the new sound. Together with Zone Tripper, Technomancer adopted very much an early synthwave sound which since then has become a signature sound for Alyxx’ productions as a whole. The new album relies heavily on sampled guitars and drum machines to give a much heavier retrowave feeling, which should please fans of synthwave acts such as Dance With The Dead and Scandroid.

The album has been co-produced by Stephan L. Groth (Apoptygma Berzerk) and his brother Jonas Groth (Piston Damp, Apoptygma Berzerk) who both have also provided guest vocals on the album. Frequent collaborator Per Aksel Lundgreen (Angst Pop, Cronos Titan, Chinese Detectives, Shatoo) has also been involved.

Ole-Espen Kristiansen (OK Minus, Elec This!) has mastered the album and also mixed a couple tracks. Ole-Espen has also done mastering and live mixing for Apoptygma Berzerk and Piston Damp.

Wanting to know more about this release, we contacted Alyxx to have some questions answered.

S-L: You’ve gone from furutepop to synthwave – what’s the next step in your evolution?

Alexandria Digre: Well, I really don’t know. I’ve been listening to harder stuff lately. I especially loved REIN’s album, ‘Reincarnated’ and really loved that kind of old school EBM sound making a comeback. I also finally got around to listening to some Nitzer Ebb stuff, especially their legendary ‘That Total Age’ album. Some of my recent demos have been more in the vein of that, combined with some influences from Empirion.

I also saw Sierra in Gothenburg this summer and really loved the harder synthwave sound she had going. I’m definitely still in the synthwave scene and been listening to a lot of stuff there lately, so that might still be an influence going forward. I don’t think the next album will take a decade to make so I also doubt it will be as much of a new direction. But we will see, it all depends on where my writing takes me.

Right now I have some ideas for a new album but nothing solid, as I rarely do in the early stages. I actually wrote a few futurepop/techno tracks at the start of making ‘Hyperfuel’ that ended up not really fitting in, but I might use some of that for the next album if I can find a new sound they would fit in. But so far I’ve been wanting to draw more on early 90s EBM influences like Front Line Assembly and that early EBM sound.

S-L: How has the feedbacks on the album been so far?

AD: Well, even as the singles came out, it was usually positive. But as for the album, it really seems people are loving it. Everyone I’ve sent it to has enjoyed it and hasn’t really had much bad to say about it. Which is both flattering and a bit concerning. I really hope someone really goes into depth on the album at some point. I love praise and knowing people are connecting with the music, but I also love to know where I can improve going forward. After all, ‘Hyperfuel’ wouldn’t be the album it is without the criticism I got from ‘System Failure’.

S-L: You got some covers here – tell us more about how they came to life!

AD: ‘Puppets’ came to life as I was invited to contribute to a Depeche Mode tribute project. I made the original version on my own in my studio and on a journey with Stephan (Apoptygma Berzerk) I played it for him and Per Aksel (Angst Pop) and Stephan really loved what he heard. He not only advised me to release the cover myself, but also allow him to do it together with me. I was floored by the fact Stephan straight up asked to work with me on something, so naturally I agreed.

He spent a few days in his studio recording some additional synth riffs on his Korg MS-20 and recording the vocals, which we then added to the mix. We then spent a while in my studio producing the track with Per Aksel.

So yeah, very glad I didn’t just release it as a tribute album track. It ended up becoming a lot more than that, and I have so many good memories with ‘Puppets’. Only downside is I doubt I could perform it live without Stephan. It wouldn’t feel right, haha!

‘Ecstasy’ was a song I’ve wanted to cover for a long time. I’ve been a fan of Black Lab since I heard their cover of the Transformers Theme from their ‘Technologie’ EP, where ‘Ecstasy’ was also featured. I immediately connected with the song and it has always been my favourite Black Lab track.

‘Ecstasy’ was actually always intended to be on the album. I think it was on the first demo I brought Per Aksel right after I had moved to Sarpsborg. On the demo version, I did all the vocals myself, but I always wanted someone with me on it. Per Aksel suggested Stian Joneid as a candidate, and we also considered Dag Brandth (Shatoo) to do it with me. Honestly, Dag might have been perfect for it, but due to circumstances that never worked out, so I ended up choosing Jonas Groth (Piston Damp) since I was recording my final vocals in his studio for the song and he’s the best singer I know.

Jonas’ vocals really helped bring the song to another level and I am so happy we got to work together on it. Him and Truls Sønsterud did an amazing Piston Damp remix of it by the way that you can find on the single.

‘The Outsider’ was a song I originally did for a Psyche tribute album, ‘Unforgotten Rhymes’. It was also the second music video I did after moving to Sarpsborg, with Per Aksel directing and shooting it. It sort of became the first single from the album actually, featuring the signature sound I would be going for. It’s always been a song I connected with on a personal level, so having it on the album felt natural to me.

S-L: What’s next up for you?

AD: Working on a new Zone Tripper album and some other side projects. Lab5 has been dormant for a while and I am itching to get some of our material out there. Also working on a synthwave project called Neo Hyperdrive together with Hexebyte and Max Static from Lab5. There will also be a 2CD Deluxe Edition of Hyperfuel that will also be available on my Bandcamp. I’ll announce a release date for that later on.

The album was released digitally worldwide on November 4^th 2022, with a Deluxe Edition also available on 2xCD via Sector Industrial (www.sector-industrial.com) and digitally exclusive via the Technomancer Bandcamp, which includes 5 additional tracks and remixes by Machinista, Echo Image, Piston Damp, Substaat and Christian Espeland of Code 64. Release date for the Deluxe Edition will be revealed later.

Get it at Bandcamp along with more of the discography, or have a listen at Spotify!

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) Electro Spectre just announced their massive release schedule for ‘Stereo Dreams Part 1, 2 & 3’, with the first album ‘Stereo Dreams Pt1’ being released September 16.

According to the Oslo-based electronic duo they’ve spent the last covid years going both back- and forward, and explored some new technology too.

Alexander Bjørneboe elaborates:
– ‘Stereo Dreams’ presents the impossible – to dream two dreams simultaneously – or to translate to the music; we want to push the limits in every direction when it comes to the musical expression.

Isak Rypdal continues:
– With the three parts of ‘Stereo Dreams’ we have also moved into more melodic subject matter, with emphasis on the distinct vintage synthpop sound, tweaked to perfection. Making ‘the perfect Electro Spectre songs’ has been the work ethics for each and every song all the way, and with more than two years in the studio we have trashed the inadequate elements, keeping only the fresh and catchy.

Electro Spectre have spent a lot of time in the studio both before and during the Covid-19 lock-down period, and the outcome is what they call «melodic synthesizer driven fireworks», heavily influenced by the fabulous 80’s synthpop era.

Alex:
– It’s time to put on glammy make up and your flashiest clothes, and travel deep into the modern days of the northern electronic synth beast!

The band are also focusing on the visual expression of Electro Spectre, and the interesting aspect of short canvas videos for the mobile app.

Isak:
– We want to give everyone a new experience when using platforms such as Spotify, and we have lately added a lot of video material to our songs. We’ve also learned that a traditional video is no longer of key importance, and are focusing more on giving the audience a new visual experience when streaming Electro Spectre songs.

The first album ‘Stereo Dreams Pt1’ will be released on September 16 on Crab Key Records in collaboration with legendary Meisel Music / Hansa Ton Studios.

Listen to/buy the album at Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube!

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. Cover art by Halvor Bodin) With the release of ‘Black Pawn’ Apoptygma Berzerk adds the third album in a series of 4 releases with B-Sides & Rarities, following the ‘Faceless Fear‘ and ‘Disarm‘ releases which both came in 2020.

On ‘Black Pawn’ you get, among other things, served up the title track in its original version, as well as for the very first time, a studio version of ‘Enjoy The Silence’, something APOP fans have been clamoring for and wanting since 1998.

In addition to this, there will be, for the first time digitally, ‘Kathy’s Song (Mat Silver vs. Tony Burt Remix)’, a version only found on 12″ vinyl before. ‘Photoshop Sucks (Lo-Fi Version)’ is brand new and has never been released before.

With all these remixes, that have only been available on compilations or CD-Singles previously in combination with for example ‘Untitled 6’, we get an exciting and varied B-Sides & Rarities that most APOP fans will be able to appreciate and enjoy all digital platforms and streaming services.

This is in anticipation of new material and new releases from APOP, and gives the fans something to sink their teeth into while waiting!

Check it out on Bandcamp, Tidal or Spotify!

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) Trym Nævestad aka DJ 7trym had been working on an extensive Depeche Mode megamix to celebrate his 50^th birthday June 7^th. I got wind of this when he contacted me mid-April, asking if I had some DM remixes digitally available, and after searching my hard drives I found what he was looking for. After sharing the files I got a draft in return two days later – and as a DM fans since 1983 I’ve heard a LOT of mixes, but immediately rated this as a top 3 in my book! Feels updated with a great selection of songs and remixes, transitions that other remixers would envy, have some surprises and doesn’t get dull.

Then May 26^th happened… Andrew Fletcher died, the Depeche Mode fan base mourned, and Trym decided to release the mix in Fletch’ honor the day after. As the mix was prematurely published I’d wanted to wait a few weeks, let things settle down and have his birthday pass before follow up, so earlier this week we had a mail chat.

S-L: We read about what the mix were initially made for and that you released it earlier because of Fletch’ passing – tell us what thoughts went through your head those days that made you change the purpose of the mix? 

Trym: Like everyone else, I was in total shock when I got the news about Fletch. The mix was meant to be a celebration of me as a DM fanboy, but suddenly it became way more important than my little ego-trip. I had produced a lot of DJ sets scheduled around my anniversary, so I had to work quickly to find out what to do. The decision to release it ASAP was easy, even if it gave me a lot of extra work though.

S-L: What’s your process doing a mix like this?

Trym: Behind every one of my works, it’s hundreds of hours of getting to know every song by heart. That part is easy for me with DM since I’ve followed them since ’82. It’s actually way harder to find out which songs to exclude to keep the duration down to 2 hours. I have thousands of remixes to choose from. Most are bootlegs and fan made, so the quality is really varied. If I hear a good attempt but with obvious flaws or bad audio, I try to see if I can recreate it easily myself before I decide what to do with it. Software like the online service https://www.lalal.ai/ is just insanely powerful for dissecting tracks! When putting the set together, I focus on the right harmony when deciding the order to play the songs. I avoid breaking the rules of the Camelot wheel so my transitions are always in harmony. (https://mixedinkey.com/camelot-wheel/)

The final mix is done in Mixmeister, which do most of the work if you prepared well. It’s an old software and not developed anymore, but I still find it so powerful for programming DJ sets and easy access to plugins for EQ, compressors and so on. The mix is done quite quickly, but I tend to adjust knobs and filters, adding and removing beats for weeks after I really should be happy and just release it 😀

S-L: How many have heard the mix so far?

Trym: It’s passed 215 unique listeners on Mixcloud, but that’s kind of normal there. For me, the most important thing was to get it published so it can be played, used and inspire listeners for years to come.

(Editor’s note: At the moment of writing this article it’s 9th in the global vocal chart and 88th in the global electronica chart.)

S-L: How long have you been a fan of DM, and how have they impacted your life?

Trym: They came into my life in ‘82 as the older brother of my classmate was really into them then. Strange enough, my classmate was also named Trym and his older brother is Lars Holte, the man responsible for lots of the first raves in Norway and later breaking Tiësto. I just kind of fell straight into it all 😀

My first CD ever was ‘A Broken Frame’, and I was surprised because I thought I had bought ‘Speak and Spell’ when I asked the man in the record store for their album. It was probably in the summer of ‘83 because CDs were a totally new invention that year. I hunted down every vinyl edition of everything I could get hold of after that even if I didn’t have a decent record player and had spent most of my cash on that CD player.

In ‘87 I started working for a radio station, and that opened up more and more opportunities for me. I saw DM live for the first time with the ‘Music for the Masses’ tour and I started practicing as a club DJ. Radio hooked me up with Vince Clark and Andy Bell for an interview in Oslo. I only cared about Vince because of his work with DM. I remember Andy as quite offended since he wanted to be the star and I was told quite clearly that Vince was in Erasure now 😀

During the 90’s I worked hard day and night with morning shows in radios and club gigs at night. When ‘Ultra’ was released in ‘97, I attended a release party and ended up forcing the DJ out of his booth because he didn’t play DM “right”! I took over and the roof just flew off and the crowd went wild. That was the start of my long list of DM parties after that response.

The local label manager for Mute Records saw it too, took me in and used me for everything DM after that. That’s how I was placed backstage at their gigs in Scandinavia at the ‘Exciter’ tour, and on the stage of the official afterparties.

I almost missed their actual concert every time, and had to go to Vilnius in 2006 to finally see their full show as an ordinary member of the audience. It was not the plan to be more than a guest there, but even in Lithuania I ended up on the stage at the afterparty after “politely” removing the DJ that did not live up to my standards that time 😉

I was quite an active dude thinking waaaaay too high of myself at that time – hope I’m seen as more polite now. Anyway, it all worked out in the end!

There is little doubt that the internal life of DM has been rough on its members, and I’ve had the pleasure to meet and play with both Alan Wilder and Fletch when they toured away from DM. Wilder is a conundrum to understand, and Fletch was just the total opposite. Fletch talked freely and made everybody feel like we’d been friends forever. Truly an amazing man and very open about the alcohol problems both he and Martin struggled with. Maybe because I was quite troubled myself at that time so we found that as our common ground, both wanting a way out to a life that didn’t always start the days with hangovers.

S-L: Any other projects or mixes planned in the near future?

Trym: I decided to release a mix for cleaning my house the first Friday of every month, and share it willingly if it can help those mops to move 😀

I’m not playing live anywhere this year, but I’m thinking seriously about doing festival gigs again from 2023. I don’t know if I will do another DM party again though. It just feels strange now, but I hope that will change in time.

As a unique one off around my 50th anniversary, I’m releasing 7 unique DJ sets in different flavours. A new one every day to show off some of my different sides and inspire DJs to open their minds for new stuff.

It’s some high energy festival sets with bangers& mashups, a showcase of what a DJ can do with alternative rock, an Altern80s revisit, a Dark Wave set and a Sunday brunch soundscape. They can all be found on https://www.mixcloud.com/7rym

I hope people will enjoy them 🙂

PS! As a side note on how the DM community connects people, I can add that I first met Trym at a meet & greet before the ‘Exicter’ concert in Oslo, 2001, after winning a contest on Norwegian TV, with Trym being the judge. (sorry for the lousy quality, TV recording equipment on a PC wasn’t very good 21 years ago :/ )

Me and my friend Truls got tickets to the concert and the opportunity to meet the band backstage before the concert, and went out of there with an additional three new acquaintances in Trym, Lars and Frank, whom I still have occasional contact with, meet at concerts etc. 20 years later. DM for life!

Listen to the mix right here, and find other mixes by 7rym at his Mixcloud page:
https://www.mixcloud.com/7rym/

Side-Line also covered Depeche Mode’s ‘Memento Mori Tour’.

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 / Hello Human Records press release) Norwegian doomsday pop duo The Murder Mystery will release two singles in the coming weeks, starting off with ‘A Girl Named Red’ on all streaming-services May 27th (listen to it at the end of the article).
Two weeks later, June 10th, a total remake of the old demo track ‘Amphetamine’ will be out. (PS! I’ve heard’em both – excellent tracks!)

The Murder Mystery (Bjørn-Erik Borg and Ole Andreas Hagen) have been an active band since 2005. They have released several demos and EPs in addition to the two albums ‘The Murder Mystery LP’ (2017) and ‘HNFS’ (2018). They have played numerous gigs and festivals around Norway, as well as played support for bands like Agent Side Grinder, Kontravoid, Spleen United etc.

If you recognize the band name it might be because in the fall of 2021 the band was chosen from over 1500 contributions to be included on Side-Line Magazine’s compilation “Post-Punk (Genesis)”, available on Bandcamp and Spotify. They’ve also been included on a compilation released by the Swedish magazine Svartpunkt (#3) and on the soundtrack to the NRK (the National Norwegian Broadcaster) produced TV series ‘Unge Lovende’.

Written and recorded by The Murder Mystery, mixed by Gunnar Kjellsby. Released in co-operation with Swedish/Norwegian indie label Hello Human Records.

Listen to the new track below or buy it on Bandcamp, and come back in about two weeks for more!

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 / Modulo One press release)
Modulo One just released a cover of Ukraine’s Eurovision Song Contest entry from 2007, “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” by Verka Serduchka. Joining them on vocals is Cath Räisänen (ex Xenturion Prime).

All proceeds from the single go to the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund, and the band will also match any proceeds with donations of their own.

Here’s Anders Schau Knatten’s own words about this release:

SL: Why did you choose to cover this song?

Anders: Doing a harsh electro cover of this song has been on my list of ideas for several years, I just hadn’t gotten around to doing it until now. It’s such a fun and energetic piece of music! The melody fits well in the harsh electro genre, and the silly German lyrics sound just like any harsh electro song (Eins, zwei, drei, tanzen!).

I also really like to play with genres, and this was a good opportunity to have a go at making proper harsh electro for the first time. We’ve been close before with Isolation (2020), but this time we really went all the way with the vocals too.

SL: And releasing it now is related to the war?

Anders: As I mentioned, this has been on my list of ideas for years. But with Russia’s war on Ukraine I started thinking about it again. I think it’s good to remind ourselves of good and fun things that come from Ukraine. If you haven’t seen the original, check it out on YouTube! It strikes me as a performance Putin would not be happy about. Then of course there’s the controversy around the words “Lasha Tumbai” which is more relevant than ever. And if you read the rest of the lyrics with the “dancing is a synonym for fighting” industrial cliche in mind, the whole thing reads as a call to resistance.

SL: What does “Lasha Tumbai” mean, and what’s the controversy?

Anders: No-one knows, it doesn’t really mean anything. There was a big controversy around it, since it sounds suspiciously like “Russia Goodbye”. The artist tried to claim it meant something in Mongolian, but that turned out not to be the case. So there’s probably a hidden meaning here, even though politics are not allowed in ESC. It’s a good time to say “Russia Goodbye” these days, and a good time to dance when it’s done!

SL: It sounds like this is something you care a lot about?

Anders: As a Norwegian, Russia is my neighbour, and I don’t like Putin’s behaviour one bit. It’s important that Putin is stopped, and it’s important that we help rebuild Ukraine when this is all over. So anything that can raise awareness, and especially put a positive light on our friends in Ukraine is good. Oh, and there’s a lot of good music coming out of Ukraine as well! Artbat for instance is one of my favourite bands at the moment. Also, Side-Line magazine just released a compilation called Electronic Resistance, filled with Ukrainian underground music, in support of Ukraine: https://sidelinemag.bandcamp.com/album/electronic-resistance-a-darkwave-post-punk-compilation-from-the-ukrainian-underground

SL: And the proceeds go to Ukraine Humanitarian Fund, what’s that?

This is a fund set up by the UN, who distribute it to partners at the front line in Ukraine. You can read about it at https://crisisrelief.un.org/t/ukraine. One doesn’t make a lot of money from music these days, but anything we earn will be directed there, and we’ll match it with donations of our own as well (limited to ¢200). So, if we make e.g. ¢100 from this, we give ¢200 to the UN fund.

Listen to the track at Bandcamp:

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) The Norwegian experimental / new-wave / electronica duo El/NeUe have released a new single this week titled “Ich möchte Dinge bauen” (“I want to build things”).

It’s is a two-part song, where the start is an electronics-based instrumental with heavy drums and soft guitar chords, which slides into part two with rhythm box, industrial-like drum loops, lots of synths and EL/NeUe’s characteristic dark vocals. The lyrics are sung in German, Norwegian and English, and is about what you want to accomplish in life.

EL / NeUe’s previous single ‘Det er ikke hos meg det brenner‘ was well received, and “Attention Please” with Eddie Carter on Nova Radio North East thought the song was “absolutely spectacular, a brilliant bit of industrial. You need to hear this music – it’s sensational.”

Do also check out this about their long overdue debut album ‘Krank’.

“Ich möchte Dinge bauen” can be found on several streaming services.

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 / EL/NeUe press release)

The Norwegian duo EL/NeUe just released a new EP, and the title track ‘Det er ikke hos meg det brenner (It’s not my place that’s on fire)’ might be the darkest moment from EL/NeUe so far. The text is based on a poem by Simon Stranger, describing our indifference and ineptitude when the refugee camp in Moria were burning. The dystopian music is bass and noise oriented, while an old Roland SH2000 plays in the background.

The EP also contains four different remixes of the song ‘Ich bin Krank’ from the album ‘KRANK’, released June 2021.

First remix is Technomancer’s version, which in contrast to ‘Det er ikke hos meg det brenner’ is probably EL/NeUe’s most danceable and accessible piece of music so far.

Leo Avanti! has taken ‘Ich bin Krank’ apart and rebuilt it into an exciting and airy version called ‘Willkommen, Herr Doktor’.

Next is the synth-free version with lots of guitars and fuzz – the ‘Fuzzmix’.

There’s also the appropriately named ‘Covid 19 Delirium remix’ – mixed by EL/NeUe’s Askild Hagen just days before he was admitted to hospital and ended up in a respirator with a severe case of corona.

The last track of the EP is the ‘Mingomix’ version of ‘Det er ikke hos meg det brenner’ with less noise and bass and more tonal synths.

Check it out on Spotify:

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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As you will have noticed Side-Line looks completely different since this noon. The change was not scheduled, on the contrary, it was a very unwelcome surprise that popped up last night.

We asked our chief editor for some feedback on what happened.

Bernard explains: “It’s Monday October 5th, 08:15 PM when I start to notice that the website is acting up, the loading goes extremely slowly for those logged in in the admin side. It works ok for the web visitors at that moment. The search on the website however seems to take forever, which is a bad sign. I check the server data (CPU and Bandwidth) and the firewall data to make sure that we are not being attacked in an unforeseen way, but aside from the 1800 usual attacks in the last 10 minutes, nothing is causing trouble on our servers (a good caching and web/serversecurity is worth gold these days). Meanwhile my IT-guy – Martin Rosselle aka Winston for the friends – also started looking into it but basically saw that from the server side there were no issues at all.”

In short, the machinery behind the website seemed to work well. Bernard: “Then you instinctively start to go over the list of possible problems, I check the caching and decide to clean the cache entirely on the front end to see if the website itself is really working normal when not being logged in. So I flush the caching and check older articles which would surely not be re-cached immediately. The same slow loading time appears… That’s when the alarm starts to go off and I look into the direction of the template.”

The template is deactivated for a few seconds and indeed, the culprit is found, the template is causing errors.

Bernard: “At that point you don’t have many choices really, either you debug the template, which is actually quite a tedious job and not really my speciality, or you immediately start from scratch. The only problem, I usually take a week or two to work on this, starting from a mother template, but I didn’t really have two weeks. So… I decided not to sleep and work on a solution to make sure that the next day we have something to get us back on normal speed. By 5 AM, I had most of it ready, knew what it would look like, went to sleep for an hour, got back up, drove to work and in the meantime informed Jan Ronald en Stephane that a new template would be installed to go live by 12 in the morning during my break and that we would have to work on it during the 30 minutes break I had. I also had time to add some extra tools and make sure that the reviews are more visible.”

The new site went live at noon today while Bernard in Belgium and Jan Ronald in Norway started to work on extra CSS and make sure there were no more bugs left. By the end of the break everything was ready. Bernard: “Mission accomplished in record time and a BIG thank you to Jan Ronald for jumping on board so quickly!”

A very nice team effort and executed in an absolute record time!

Eldrina Mich

As Eldrina Mich I work as a go-between and a devil’s advocate when it comes to Side-Line. If our own staff needs to be interviewed then ask the questions no one else dares to ask.

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(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange) Out on November 12 is the new album “Imposter”, a collection of songs from Dave Gahan & Soulsavers. This is Dave Gahan’s third collaboration with the Soulsavers, following their releases “Angels & Ghosts” in 2015 and “The Light the Dead See” in 2012. 

As stated in their press info: “They didn’t write these songs, but listened to them, studied them, and gave them new life. It is a reflection of Dave’s life, a story told by others, but in his own distinct voice.

Recorded at the legendary Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, these versions of songs you know and some you might not range from sparse to lush, somber to joyful. The choices and sequencing were deliberate and meaningful, It shines a light on the enduring strength of poignant lyrics and well-executed melodies.“

We’ll get the first taste of “Imposter” on October 8^th with the release of “Metal Heart”, written by Chan Marshall (Cat Power), first released in 1998.

Tracklist:

1. The Dark End of the Street (Chips Moman/Dan Penn)
2. Strange Religion (Mark Lanegan)
3. Lilac Wine (James Shelton)
4. I Held My Baby Last Night  (Jules Bihari/Elmore James)
5. A Man Needs a Maid (Neil Young)
6. Metal Heart (Cat Power)
7. Shut Me Down (Rowland S. Howard)
8. Where My Love Lies Asleep (Gene Clark)
9. Smile (Charlie Chaplin, John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons)
10. The Desperate Kingdom of Love (PJ Harvey)
11. Not Dark Yet (Bob Dylan)
12. Always on My Mind (John Lee Christopher, Jr., Mark James & Wayne Thompson)
    

More info at http://davegahan.com / https://www.instagram.com/theimposter/

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 / Photos by Tom Lund) After the release of Zeromancer’s previous album, ‘Bye-Bye Borderline’, eight years would pass before the launch of ‘Orchestra of Knives’ on Trisol today.

The years in between passed with other projects, such as Seigmen, Ljungblut and Red7 releases and concerts, and of course the last year and a half with corona restrictions also had a delaying impact. As mentioned in several previous 2021 interviews the album has actually been in the works for several years, and what finally has been released was really worth the wait. The album shows a matured and revitalized band, delivering some of their best music to date, partly due to having extra time in working on the material and putting more effort in the production.

We got more into details about the album with keyboardist Lorry Kristiansen and the new guitarist Per-Olav Wiik.

Side-Line: The album has been in production a long time – what differs from previous albums regarding the process?

Lorry: You are spot on with the production time. It has been a long time. And that’s also one of the reasons the album differs from previous albums. It started «normally», with Kim having lots of ideas, or skeletons of songs. And I think he also had the vision for the end product, like normal. But then other things happened. Other projects, Dan leaving the band. So we were lucky to have a new guitar player living in Tønsberg.

Per: Difficult for me to say, but what I do know is that when I joined in late 2018, most demos for the album were done. Only ‘Orchestra’ came during the preprod sessions I think, but still tons of work remained before these demos ended up on the album, which I was so lucky to be part of. The timing of Covid suited our schedule actually, since the plan was to work on the album anyway. It has taken a lot more time than planned of course, fitting the new guitar player into the band, and dealing with different health issues, also takes time.

So all the delays and postponed dates gave us the chance not to rush things in rehearsals, and work a bit more than normal on the songs before recording, and at the same time try to sort out the songs live. We didn’t need to rush in the studio either, so with the basic guitars recorded, we also had time to be creative and experiment. Just to get that little extra, finding the sound/noise or whatever, trusting your gut feeling, recording and move on, not being able to recreate that sound 100%. I really liked that way of working, glad we had the time to do it that way.

Both Kim and Alex are quite into details, not settling for anything but perfection… They put me as a guitar player to the test, but I’m a patient guy. A lot of details in this band, everything very thought through. That’s typical ZMR, and why I’ve always loved the band.

S-L: Musically – what do you feel differs from previous albums?

Lorry: Per-Olav has influenced the new album heavily. Very inspiring. So the new album includes a new way of thinking guitar.

Furthermore, I feel that the new album shows even more of the hybrid of Kim’s writing, Alex’s programming and production, making the Zeromancer signature stand out even more than previous albums. I also must say that lyrically it’s so rewarding.

Per: I find it fresh and uplifting, but still dark of course. More mature, perhaps more wise, especially with the lyrics.
So I agree with Lorry here.  The album has all the ingredients you would want to find on a ZMR album. It really stands out, brings something new to the ZMR catalogue. You will not be disappointed. And I’m so proud to be a part of it.

S-L: What’s next up for Zeromancer?

Per: Nothing this year, Seigmen is up first in December with their three pre-Xmas concerts. Only a few dates confirmed next year, but more will come😊 I’m so looking forward to getting back on stage. And also to try out the new songs live.

Lorry: Fingers crossed, we are soon able to play live again. The last two years has not been easy for anyone. Playing live is really Zeromancer as it should be. Let’s get out of the tunnel!

Get your copy on Spotify, Apple, Deezer or Amazon, or order a CD from Gymnocal Industries (Norway) or other outlets.

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/Motlys press info) ‘a-ha The Movie’ is scheduled for cinema openings this week in over 130 cinemas across Norway, and has been picked up for screenings in multiple countries. Among these are USA, UK, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, Hungary, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany, where it opens on 80 screens on September 14th. The movie is being met with raving reviews after previews and early screenings at film festivals like Filmfest München and Tribeca Festial (New York), where it also became the runner up to the Audience Award.

The directors Thomas Robsahm and Aslaug Holm wanted to tell the full story of how three young men followed their impossible dream of becoming world famous pop starts outside Norway – a country known for “zero points” in the Eurovision Song Contest.

When ‘Take On Me’ reached nr 1 on Billboard in the US in 1985, the dream came true. Or did it? The band was not prepared for what the success could bring, including tension between the three band members. The film team travelled with a-ha for almost five years, and we had a quick mail chat with Thomas Robsahm to get some details.

Side-Line: How did this movie come about?

Thomas Robsahm: I’ve always wanted to make a film about the making of an album, and the original idea was to make one about a-ha´s 10th album, after the success of ‘Foot of the Mountain’ (2009). But they decided to split in 2010, and then the album ‘Cast in Steel’  from 2015 was made in secrecy before the band did they comeback the same year. When we started filming in 2016, we were hoping for a new album to be made during the years we were planning to film, but one said yes, one said maybe and one said no…

So, instead we followed them on the road, told the whole story of a-ha and continued hoping.

S-L: It took several years to finish – lots of obstacles along the way?

TR: The main obstacle was actually the financing, because in the documentary world everybody wants to see more and more finished work before they want to commit, so the film was made very much piece by piece. The three members of the band were lovely to deal with all the way. It’s only when they have to be all three together as a-ha that things turn dark.

S-L: How much did the corona situation affect the launch?

TR: The premiere sold out in ten minutes and was supposed to happen in November 2020, but we had no choice but to postpone.

S-L: What was the best and the worst parts of doing this movie?

TR: The best part was to be around the band for so long, to study their work even harder, including tons of archive material. The worst part was not getting them to make more music, of course. It was close, but didn’t happen.

S-L: I saw the movie will be shown on NRK (Norwegian public broadcasting) too, split in four parts. Is it the same as the cinematic version, or some extra content added? Is it scheduled for TV/streaming abroad too?

TR: Yes, that’s right, the NRK-version is a little bit longer, but not that much. Also structured a bit different since it’s in four parts. It will be released in theatres and on television in around 30 countries (so far) and eventually it will end up at some streaming service, but it will not be for a while.

S-L: Collectors of a-ha music and memorabilia will definitely ask this right after the openings: when is it coming on DVD/BluRay? Any extra content there?

TR: DVD and BluRays will be released in several territories. I am not a big fan of adding deleted scenes, cause it actually affects how you remember the film. Like the scenes were actually in the film. But, let’s see.

S-L: Other plans/upcoming projects with a-ha or other bands?

TR: I would love to do more music films and have a couple of ideas, but nothing is confirmed, yet.  Oh, yes, I have one in development already; The Punk Pensioners. The title says it all, right? Let’s see if anybody wants to fund it.

S-L: Which band(s) would be your dream project(s) for next music movie(s)?

TR: If I could choose I would make the definitive film about ABBA. Or Everything But The Girl, the most underrated band ever. Or Cocteau Twins.  Or Motorpsycho. Yeah, plenty of great bands.

Get yourself to the cinema and enjoy the movie!

PS! Thomas Robsahm is also a musician, involved in several punk, gothic and dark wave bands since the 80’s, and together with Arvid Skancke-Knutsen their band White Lord Jesus is actually busy crowdfunding their 1984 album ‘Amen’ in the series Norwegian Album Classics On CD – get yours there!

We also wrote about the project some months ago – after a summer break they’re at it again, have passed 130 releases, the next 20 lined up!

Side-Line also covered a-ha’s ‘True North’.

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) “Fasan” by Norwegian Giants is released on their own label Norwegian Giants, established in 2015. Tarjei Krogh is the main producer, having his wingmen Joakim DenGode and Markus Storm by his side. Their goal is to gather all kinds of vocalists and instrumentalists all over the globe to create new types of music and exciting combinations and variations, their motto being: We don´t follow trends, only our hearts!

Tarjei told us more about the project via chat and e-mail.

Side-Line: There’s a lot of collaborations on this album – care to take us through song by song, telling it’s story and who participated?

Tarjei Krogh: ‘Hello Aloha’ is a collaboration with a great Norwegian sound designer and artist, Continental Fruit. He is very into modular electronic equipment,  which is easy to hear in his other releases available on various platforms. He tweaked one of our older tracks into something new and made it more refreshing.

‘Good God’ is a collaboration with Kim Castle and Lisa Rockfield, two vocalists and producers we will collaborate with more in the future. They have such open minds and have been producing rap songs, rock and lots of various electronica.

‘Mhmhm‘. Ten years ago I met this amazing young jazz singer/songwriter Renate Rubini. She had a significant voice reminding me of Janis Joplin, but a softer version of that. It took some years to make her like my electronic tracks, but we ended up recording lots of songs and are actually nearly ready with an album. You can find two of our earlier tracks on Spotify and two videos on YouTube if you look up “Cupid Rubini”.

‘You‘ is a collaboration with the brilliant talented Norwegian singer/songwriter Hanne Haugsand, also known as Tundra Mode and Psykosister. She has also been involved with Kant Kino and Anstalt, has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest and been on several big tv-shows in Norway. And the weird thing is, I have only met her two times. One of the times was when Nitzer Ebb and Skinny Puppy played live in Rockefeller, Oslo. Even took a picture of her and Ogre!

‘Shelter‘. Manuela Hofer is a digital artist and has a voice that stands out from the crowd. I was originally remixing a track with her ten years ago, and asked her to send me some vocals and ended up pasting her in on an older track . I met Isak Rypdal in my early 20’s and he was supposed to join our band Anstalt at that time, but we ended up being friends instead. I’ve been remixing his band Electro Spectre back in the days, and I just had to cut out some of their vocals to combine them with Manuela. I have never met Manuela in person, so thank God for the internet!

‘Here we go again‘. Some years ago I shared an office with the best rap managers in Norway. One of these guys had a girlfriend named Lisa who was very into electronic music, and we started sharing music online. This could have been a great collaboration, but we totally lost contact, telephone numbers and email. Luckily I got 4 vocals and just had to release the first one. Never met her either.

‘Move on‘. I met Elvebakk at a barbeque on our peninsula Nesodden, right outside of Oslo. We ended up discussing music and I was surprised he loved stuff like Thom Yorke, The Cure and Joy Division. A very kind being with a rich taste in music. He sent me some of his own stuff and I loved the characteristics in his voice. Strangely we ended up with a dance track. I hope to get him to participate in some downtempo stuff in the future.

‘Perpetual‘ is a dive into what always will be a big part of me, Electronic Body Music and Synth Pop. I tried many different vocalists on this track, but ended up keeping it almost instrumental. I used a lot of analog and some modular equipment on this one. It is one of my own favourites. I guess less is more sometimes.

S-L: What’s the connection between this album and all the Norwegian Beats releases on Spotify?

TK: Norwegian Beats was a way to inspire vocalists to contribute to our future releases. We have made 20 collections so far, but will in the future focus mainly on releasing our “real” albums. ‘Fasan’ is our first real album and the beats are up for grabs for anyone to contribute, so we can include new artists on our future releases. Norwegian Giants is supposed to be a mix of a label and a band – a big collective where anything is possible. Like if you combined Röyksopp, Gorillaz or Massive Attack with Mute Records and Ninja Tune. Maybe a bit outdated references, but these are the best examples that comes to mind when concerning brilliant work.

S-L: More releases ahead or other plans?

TK: We are doing things backwards, so we are now gonna make three EPs with remixes, radio versions and videos for three of the songs on the album ‘Fasan’. We also have a new album almost ready to be released early in 2022 named ‘1969’. We will also continue to search and find new artists to collaborate with in Norway and in Europe as well. And set sails like the vikings before us.

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange/press release penned by Mat Smith) Boundary Macro is the fifth solo album from producer, engineer and electronic musician Paul Kendall, released July 29th on clear vinyl, including digital downloads.

Beginning with his tenure in anarchic London post-punk unit Dry Rib and on through his respected studio work with Recoil, Wire, Barry Adamson, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb and many others, Kendall has always maintained an acute focus on the intricate properties of sound. Each of his solo albums has showcased an approach to complex sound design as well as the darker, emotive side of sonic processing.

The impetus for Boundary Macro came through a remix completed for Downwards, the label run by Karl O’Connor (aka Regis). O’Connor was familiar with Kendall’s tenure as an in-house producer, engineer and mixer for Mute Records in the 1980s and 1990s, and sought him out for the remix of Veronica Vasicka’s ‘From Here’ in 2018. “He liked the remix I did for him and I remember him saying to send him some of my stuff if I so wished,” recalls Kendall. “I sent him the ten tracks that make up Boundary Macro. He came flying back to me having fallen in love with a couple of pieces and offered to put the album out on Downwards. It really was a seductive enthusiasm and I readily agreed.”

The concept for Boundary Macro unifies an approach that Kendall takes to both images and sound. “I absolutely love macro photography,” he explains. “Macro photography is where you magnify the minutiae of an object. It’s a similar method that I’ve used a lot in sound design, where I take found sounds then exploit and zoom in on them.”

If ‘macro’ is the descriptor for Kendall’s process, then ‘boundary’ is about revealing another personal side of himself – his hearing difficulties, a condition caused by too many loud studio sessions. “A boundary can be thought of as being like binary, with its two states – on and off. With this album, the boundary in question is the one between my ability to hear and not hear. Because of that deafness, I sometimes have to rely on graphical representations of sound to ensure there’s not something happening sound-wise which I am unable to hear. It’s also about the supposed boundary between sound and noise, which, for me, does not exist. It’s also the idea of the boundary as a limit – but a limit to go beyond, not one that stops you. Suffering with loss of hearing could have easily acted as a limit for me. Boundary Macro is the sound of me going beyond that limit.”

We also had a short Q&A with Paul via e-mail.

Side-Line: New album – what led up this?  

Paul Kendall: I experienced a sort of creative paralysis from the start of March until the end of April due to early lockdown and an endless concern about food supplies. Around May 2020 I started to experiment sound processing apps on my iPad – apps like Borderlands Granular, Tardigrain and Enso. I was astonished at the relative affordability of these apps in comparison to studio multi-effects units or computer plug-ins.

Side-Line: What was your recording process?

PK: I began experimenting with recordings of my own voice and the Leaf Audio Soundbox instrument, capturing hours of improvised performances which were then microscopically edited, superimposed and processed to form eight of the tracks on the album. The album was completed by the addition of two  older pieces created using completely different methods (‘Distor ADIO’ and ‘Are You In?’), but were entirely kept in style with my recent experiments.

Side-Line: Tell us about the artwork and the decision for a clear vinyl.

PK: The original sleeve design was one of mine, riffing on the boundary idea, every line was a boundary. The clear vinyl was probably someone at Downwards.

Side-Line: Other plans or any events/performances planned?

PK: On this island the concept of overseas travel has been dealt a blow by Brexit and Covid. But who knows? When the geo-political world cools down I may happily grab a suitcase.

Get the album at Boomkat.

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange) Oslo Synth Band from Norway have been quiet for a time now, but today they released their EP ‘Stress’ on digital platforms, including three remixes and an instrumental version of the song.

We got hold of Tarjei Krogh to elaborate on this release and the process leading up to these tracks!

S-L: Long time since last OSB release – what have you been up too?

Tarjei Krogh: OSB has always been more focused on live gigs, than producing music. We love that type of energy that we get from the crowds and see that most of the fans tending our gigs are punkers and rockers. Our goal is to express a kind of kick-ass party vibe which our fans deliver the minute we start playing! That said, we have currently been occupied with other projects in the electronic genre, mostly due to the pandemic which inhibits gathering of crowds, but this track felt so good we had to get back into the game and release it even though we can’t play it live at any venue for the time being. People will with this release be able to play our music at home and still always have the same kind of kick-ass party available.

OSB was established in 1993, were we started with picking up dull moralistic Norwegian songs and tried to make them harder sounding, industrial and more electronic. We have been making these cover songs and our own material side by side without any bigger vision. The track ´Stress´ is one our own creations, a kind of art by accident if you will.

S-L: Tell us more about ‘Stress’ – and the remixes!

TK: ´Stress´ is a crazy story. This is originally one of the most kick-ass basslines I have ever come up with and was recorded on a cassette / tape back in 1996. It was supposed to be used in either one or two other bands I´m involved in: Anstalt and Solar Temple / Order of the Solar Temple. But nothing really happened at that time. I found the tape a few years ago, sampled the whole track and tried to make something new out of it. On a road trip to Norway’s highest mountain, vocalist Jomar and I stopped his car and totally improvised the whole lyrics screaming them out loudly.

I must admit that a car is a brilliant place to record hard and punky vocals if you don´t mind the staring of all the people around your parked car. In our case we were two grown-ass men screaming our heads off, all the while surrounded by Norway’s, or even Scandinavia’s highest beautiful mountains where people surrounding our car usually come to find their bliss with the breathtaking silence and views of our remarkable nature, at that moment we couldn´t care less, we had art to make. We hope that that feeling of freedom that comes from letting all aggression out in an unorthodox matter like this can inspire others in our genre to try it, and just se what happens.

All remixes on this track are made by our own collective / family. For people who are into the electronic genre, Anstalt first appeared on the ´Sex, Drugs & Ebm´ compilation under three different projects: Hexagon, Agenda & Aggressiva, together with bands like Apoptygma Berzerk back in 1992. Also participating on lots of compilations and releasing their own album in 1995, ´Brilliance without fase´.

Stanley Cupid is a project focused on taking ebm and mixing it with house/techno music and bringing it to the clubs as Empirion did with their remix of Prodigys ´Firestarter´ back in the days. Or like Primal Scream did with their fantastic ´Miss Lucifer´. Stanley Cupid is most known for remixing of Apoptygma Berzerk and Substaat (also released on all digital platforms). Cupid will in the near future release a 4th album, this time focusing purely on electronic body music.

´Norwegian chill´ is a project trying to take ambient/chillout in the direction of more experimental/industrial soundscapes and has already released 4 albums on our label: Norwegian Giants. 

S-L: Other releases or plans now that restrictions are being lifted?

TK: OSB will in the near future focus on making a digital collection of the best tracks from 1994 to present time… and we will definitely play live again, now for a bigger audience than ever before screaming our lungs out and loving every minute of it!

Do also check out another project Tarjei has been involved in – Norwegian Beats by Norwegian Giants, 20 volumes released so far! Also read our story about the project from a year ago: Norwegian Giants beats up the summer with weekly album releases.

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange) Lot’s of Apoptygma Berzerk fans are rejoicing today – it’s the release day of the ‘You and Me against the World’ re-issue. The 2005 album had the band introducing a more indie-rock style of music and broke the band to new audiences, especially in Germany with four hit singles and the album climbing to #18 on the official charts.

Now it’s re-issued in two vinyl versions and on CD, and of course we had to know what Stephan Groth had to say about this and what else he’s up to these days!

S-L: How has the sale been so far of the various versions?

STP: I am not that much into the details regarding sales, but from what I hear things are going great. I`m told that the red limited edition vinyl is almost sold out… not that surprising since so many people are collecting rare vinyl these days. 

Personally, I prefer classic black and clear/transparent vinyls, but from a collectors point of view the red limited edition is a better investment, and of course, it also looks extremely nice. Sound quality wise transparent and black is supposed to be the best.

S-L: What’s the response from the fans on this re-issue?

STP: Well, I only just got the vinyls myself two days ago, and most people have not seen or listened to the record yet, so it is a bit early for any feedback. But I heard from a few record stores that people are excited and that many have pre-ordered the album and are looking forward to release day.

So it seems many people including myself are excited to finally get ‘You And Me Against The World’ on vinyl, it is long overdue. The CD has been out of print for a while, so I am happy to have it back in stock. We remastered all the tracks, and they sound really good. We also added as many bonus tracks as the CD can hold.

Both the new CD and the vinyl versions of Y.A.M.A.T.W. got a nice upgrade sonically, but also visually. Halvor Bodin re-designed the cover, and gave it a new updated look that fit today`s APOP-vibe and it is a perfect match. In the booklet we used photos by Sebastian Ludvigsen that were not in the original cover, but from the same photo sessions that we did back in 2005. So the cover looks and feels very much the same as the original, but with a modern and updated touch to it. 

S-L: More re-issues planned? Or new music first?

STP: We are almost done with a 3rd ‘B-Sides & Rarities’ compilation. This will be released on digital platforms only, just like the previous two, ‘Faceless Fear’ and ‘Disarm’.

I am also working on stuff in the studio, and as it looks right now there will be a new EP, a follow-up to ‘Nein Danke!’ but that could change, it might turn into a whole album, not sure yet…

Also, if you’re interested in APOP-related re-issues, the debut-album from Cronos Titan, ‘Brides Of Christ’, is also being released on vinyl for the very first time now with a beautifully redesigned sleeve, also by Halvor Bodin. My brother Jonas, who plays synth in APOP, just released the debut album with his project, Piston Damp, which is a superb synthpop album.

We’re also planning to get ‘Harmonizer’, ‘Welcome To Earth’ and ‘7’ out on vinyl again as they’ve been out of print for a long time now. But the pressing plants are jammed up at the moment, and with a six month waiting period to have an album out on vinyl things will take time. Still, we’re continually working on both reissues and new material simultaneously. 

S-L: Other things on the calendar now that the corona restrictions are being lifted?

STP: Hopefully things will get back to normal soon, so we can go play live again. We have three shows planned for next year, shows that have been postponed several times already due to the corona situation.
Those are: Subkultfestivalen, Sweden. Månefestivalen, Fredrikstad, Norway and VNV NATION 30, Gelsenkirchen, Germany. 
The 2022 dates for Subkultfestivalen and VNV 30 are already posted, but we’re still waiting for Månefestivalen to confirm their date(s) for 2022. Other than that, we won’t be booking any new gigs until we know 100% for sure that the gigs are doable, so we’re basically just “waiting things out” until things are more stable. 

The album can be ordered in various markets

• Europe > Lo-Fi Merchandise or POPoNAUT
• USA/Canada/South-America > The Electric Fox
• Norway > Retro Vinyl

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange) June 25^th saw the release of ‘Terminal Love’, the third EP this year from the Norwegian industrial synth rockers Zeromancer, a worthy follow up to their previous releases ‘Damned le Monde‘ and ‘Mourners‘. In addition to interviewing the band about the EP, we also got hold of the guys behind the L’âme Immortelle and Architect remixes to get their thoughts on the song and the remix process.

Side-Line: ‘Terminal Love’ – feels like it’s a continuation of ‘Mourners’, like the next chapter or a different view of a similar story – an ongoing theme there? Or coincidence?

Alex Møklebust: Some of the continuation feeling you also get is probably how the song opens. Like ‘Mourners’ it starts with only synths and vocals, before the chorus hits. The chorus melody line on ‘Terminal Love’ is taken from a unreleased ZMR song during the making of ‘Sinners International’. Kim gave it another chance on ‘Terminal Love’ and the chorus finally made sense. Felt so good singing that melody line 12 years later. Never throw away ideas!

Kim Ljung: Alex has a memory like no other. All the time he surprises me with stories I have forgotten a long time ago. Though in this particular case I believe he’s a couple of years off 😉
The chorus of ‘Terminal Love’ is taken from a demo originally named ‘Collider’, which then again was a spin-off of an old Red 7 track (Lorry and Dan played in this band). Quite sure it was written in the aftermath of the ‘Death of Romance’ album. The pre-chorus of ‘Terminal Love’ I found on my phone where I always tape simple ideas with acoustic stuff, me singing on top. The date was June 26, 2014. One day later than the official release date which was about a week ago. Not so strange maybe, that musicians lose their minds carrying all this stuff around for years and years.
Regarding the connection with ‘Mourners’, I’m blind to those aspects. Just another Zeromancer song written in a fashion that suits that particular track.  What we always do. People has a tendency to ask what song or album we prefer ourselves. That’s irrelevant. I never set them up against each other. Not my job 🙂

S-L: When hearing the main synth melody line my first thought was “this is something Vince Clarke would’ve wished he made himself for a Yazoo song!”

AM: Thanks! I’ll take that as a huge compliment. The synth needed lots of movement to carry the first verse by itself. The modular setup works well for that and blends in with all the other instruments in a good way. The analogue imperfection is key.

KL: Word, Alex!
We had a lot of sessions at Room 13, Alex’s studio, where Alex sat and tweaked those knobs on the modulars. The idea was to create a signature sound for the intro of the song. Something significant that opens a track, and when you hear it, you instantly know which song it is.

S-L: The external remixes were both quite down-tempo and atmospheric, which also suits this track very well. Surprising that both chose this direction?

AM: It was a very pleasant surprise. Love the way it turned out. Both Thomas and Daniel had a short deadline, but managed to make two beautiful remixes. Thomas made it so personal that you immediately hear it’s a L’âme Immortelle remix. Respect.
Daniel also made ‘Terminal Love’ his own. The deep sub version takes you on this beautiful ride into Daniels universe. Love it. So talented musicians. We are so grateful for having friends all over the world collaborating with us. Musically, but also on a personal level.

KL: Both versions blew me away. I didn’t expect it at all. Pure genius. You can hear in an instant how much love and passion they put into this track. Fold my hands for those guys.

S-L: Alex, your alter ego SnifferGod ends the EP with an up-tempo remix, a good contrast to the other remixes, with great beats and rhythms! Some elements here puts me back to the end of the 80’s/early 90’s, like Nitzer Ebb doing a 90’s rave with S’Express and a touch of acid house, but layered in a 2020’s updated soundscape. Tell us what you did here!

AM: I had to work on this one in-between mixing the Zeromancer album. Mixing daytime and remixing nighttime.
You are absolutely spot on. Because of the high tempo, I wanted to get that 90’s techno feel combined with some 80’s EBM. Nearly all synths are from my modular and semi-modular setup. No samples, except sampling ourselves. It’s an up-tempo remix, maybe close to stress-techno, but the «party boy» Alex kicked in. Blame the late night sessions.

KL: Stress-techno or stress-synth. Hahaha….it’s an internal wordplay on a comment by the Foo Fighters-drummer in a recording session with good,  old Rick Springfield. He calls Springfield’s style stress-rock. And he does so as a kind of a compliment. However, who wants that type of label 🙂

Yeah, SnifferGod is Alex going back in time. A real killer version. Lots of raving flashbacks, with the God himself on the dancefloor.

S-L: Kim, where’s your mother this time on the cover photo? Vacation in the fjords, or where she’s originally from?

KL: This time the photo is taken on the roadside near Odda in Hardanger. The roads were obviously a lot more curvy back in 1957. Though they still are…
The family took these endless road trips from Sauda all around Norway every summer holiday. My mom is on the left, my uncle at the right of the photo. They are facing the glacier, Buerbreen. Both of them are carsick as hell. My grandfather took the shot, as he did with the previous singles.

I think the distance and the vibe of the photo suits perfectly with title of the song.

Check out this playlist of Zeromancer and SnifferGod remixes!

As with all three EPs this year, this one also features brilliant remixes, which made an easy decision to repeat the remixers part from the ‘Mournes’ article. Both Thomas Rainer (L’âme Imortelle/Nachtmar) and Daniel Myer (Architect/Liebknecht/Haujobb/Covenant etc.) had some to say about their contributions.

First off is Thomas Rainer from Vienna, Austria:

S-L: What’s your relation to Zeromancer before this remix?

Thomas Rainer: They already made 2 remixes for my band L’âme Imortelle and are also label mates, so it was kind of obvious that we would also collaborate the other way around one day. It also didn’t hurt that I have also always really liked the music of the band.

S-L: How did you like the new song ‘Terminal Love’?

TR: I really liked the song from the very beginning. The vocals immediately caught my ear, but after further listening I really enjoyed listening to all the small details in the very sophisticated production.

S-L: The other ZMR releases in 2021 – what’s your opinion so far?

TR: I enjoyed all of the new material so far especially since it shows an even more mature form of the band. Something I greatly appreciate.

S-L: What was your main idea with your remix?

TR: I usually approach all remixes by listening to the vocals alone first, and Alex’ stellar performance made it clear that it needs to be given as much space as possible with the music just being a supporting element. 

Check Thomas’ playlist of his remixes!

Next remixer were Daniel Myer from Leipzig, Germany:

S-L: What’s your relation to Zeromancer before this remix?

Daniel Myer: I’ve known Zeromancer since they came to the scene. It’s a fairly small scene, so of course you know every new act that comes out, especially back in the day;)

We also share the same booking agency, so I went to see them live quite often when they were in town or at festivals. I always liked their style and I really like the songs and Alex’ voice.

S-L: How did you like the new song ‘Terminal Love’?

DM: Terminal Love had a real anthem feel to me. That’s why I approached a friend of mine to do this remix with me. I wanted to make it really big, like a “Pop Hymn” in the style of Imagine Dragons. But my friends was busy with her release, so I did the remix by myself.

S-L: The other ZMR releases in 2021 – what’s your opinion so far?

DM: I haven’t heard it all, only the last single, and I love Krischan Wesenbergs remix. He is one of my favourite producers at the moment.

S-L: What was your main idea with your remix?

DM: For the remix, like I mentioned above, I had something big in mind, but I only had a very limited amount of time.
I was on vacation with my girlfriend and we had very specific plans for this time. I started the remix with this Imagine Dragons idea in mind and then send it off to my friend in NYC. She came back to me after a few days, telling me that she couldn´t work on it, so I had to finish it by myself. By that time I was in a very strange headspace, a lot of things went wrong on our vacation trip, so I was stressed out and I had to go see my mother.

So I actually finished the remix on the train to Bielefeld one morning, on the day of the deadline. Overall I had only 12 days to do the mix, Alex came basically in the last minute to ask me for it 😉 And my mother lives in the woods, so there was no good internet connections. I actually used the hotspot from my phone to deliver the remix to Norway! 😀

Check Daniel’s playlist of his remixes!

Listen to and buy the ‘Teminal Love’ EP from Spotify, Apple music and other services – click here!

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) The Danish/Norwegian duo Piston Damp, consisting of Jonas Groth and Truls Sønsterud, released their debut album ‘Making The World Great Again’ today, June 10th. The band was formed in 2000, but remained a hobby project for 20 years until Jonas wrote the song ‘Something in me‘ in 2020, Read more about that and their other singles, ‘Loose Ends‘ and ‘Runaway‘, in our previous articles on Piston Damp.

Now it’s finally album release, and we got some words from the band in between their launch party and the actual release.

Side-Line:  How has the reception of the album been so far?
Jonas Groth: It’s actually been quite overwhelming. We’ve worked hard on this album, and we are definitely happy, but I’m not sure that we expected this reaction. Everything from reviews to interviews, and from social media comments to posts all over the web – everything has been extremely positive.
Truls Sønsterud: We definitely have to catch our breath from time to time and try to cope with everything that is happening everywhere right now. We are really focused on working hard on the promo, but we also manage to enjoy the fact that people actually really like what we have done so far.

 S-L:  The title is obviously a pun of the MAGA slogan we’ve all seen the last 5-6 years – a hope for things getting back to normal again, or something else?
JG: It’s a pun, yes, but the expression is more than 80 years old, and has been used in various settings since WWII. For me, the title (which came before the song) is about trying to calm down a world that has totally lost its groove and rhythm after the Internet came about. With most of the lyrics on the album I’m trying to encourage people to take a stand against the brutal reality of the distance that the so-called “social” media has created. It’s a fact that there has never been more loneliness and social anxiety than there is now, and in my opinion the internet is the main reason for it.

S-L: Happy with the launch party June 5^th? I saw most of it, seemed like a good vibe going on there! 🙂
JG: We had a blast. We still don’t have a record company or a management behind us, so this is all us and our best friends and closest family having fun together. Truls and I have been friends for 25 years and never really had an argument, so this is just great fun.
TS: Yeah, we really enjoyed that. Like Jonas says, we know each other very well, so we make each other good, and we pull the same end of the rope. That helps a lot when we’re planning and going through with these kinds of things in a good way.

S-L: The vinyl release already postponed – someone mentioned December at the launch party?
JG: The vinyl release comes late because there’s a 5–6-month delivery on vinyl now. And we’re doing a double LP which also doesn’t make the process go any faster. If we could have had them at the same time, we would. We expect them to arrive for Christmas.

S-L: Got any live gigs or other plans for the album as the corona restrictions are gradually being lifted?
JG: We haven’t decided on anything yet. We’re still waiting for the world to wake up from its slumber, and hopefully we will be ready for whatever happens. We’d love to play live, and maybe support someone on a tour. We’re open for everything.
TS: We hope to play at least a couple of gigs this fall, but if not we will be all set for whatever comes in 2022. We are working on some new remixes that I guess you will be hearing in a not too distant future, and we have started the working on our live setup. 

Buy or listen to the album at your favorite streaming service (https://orcd.co/aamyvko)!

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 / Kampenkontor press release) EL/NeUe from Norway released their album ‘KRANK’ June 1^st on CD and digital platforms – their first physical release in 34 years! 11 songs in various styles, yet all still typically EL/NeUe: A powerful sound of picturesque, magical guitars (often performed with bow), swirling synths, deep, laid-back vocals and an old, battered Roland SH 2000, and a very liberal use of upper- and lowercase letters in their song titles.

EL/NeUe are Askild Hagen (vocals, synth, bass) og Håkon Johnson (guitars, bass, synth), with invaluable help from ELLADY (Liv Anna Hagen), contributing vocals on two songs – the dreamy ‘Prosopagnosia’ and the darkly beautiful ‘Når er det på tide’. The guys also both work as writers for the Norwegian comedy show ‘Nytt På Nytt’ (Norwegian version of ‘Have I got news for you’), and have created many musical comedy projects, notably the legendary Oslo International Playback Free Jazz Festival.

‘KRANK’, the CD, is the first physical release by EL/NeUe in 34 years, but they have contributed on several releases through the years. It all started with the classic ‘Et hvilested’ 7″ EP in 1987 (while the band were just called EL …). EL contributed to several cassette compilations in the Eighties, and performed a few, memorable concerts before disbanding in 1988.

2009 saw the release of the compilation CD ‘MASKINDANS’, with Norwegian electronic music of the 80’s, where EL’s ‘Visshet’ was included. Five years later, in 2014 Spain’s Domestica Records put out their «Domestic Landscape» compilation, featuring a track from EL’s ‘Demo 85’ cassette; the darkly poetic ‘Og Tilslutt’.
In 2020, EL returned as EL/NeUe, releasing the EP ‘LYKKeØNSKNINGeR 2020’ and several singles via streaming services (see their Spotify artist page).

‘KRANK’ contains 11 songs, somewhere between 80’s new wave/cold wave and modern electronic alternative music. At times, it may sound like Rammstein meets Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, elsewhere it may envoke the feeling of Ulver growing up in 1987.

Listen to the album at Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, deezer or Tidal! Read the review of ‘Krank’.

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange)
As the European Song Contest (ESC) 2021 finals are today, I thought it’d be a good occasion to reminisce about the winner of the competition in 1995, Secret Garden from Norway, and the remix made for their winning entry six years after. Their song ‘Nocturne’ was something quite different from the rest of the competitors at the time; not much lyrics, mostly instrumental, and a very surprising winner. Maybe the audience craved something different?

Anyhow, what made me think of this again was the use of the ‘Dr. No Club Remix’ at the intro of a new Norwegian humor series called ‘Olympiatoppen’. Doctor No was the main music project of Isak Rypdal (producer of Electro Spectre) back in the 2000’s, having several hit singles in the dance/trance segment like ‘Lastima’ and ‘La Luna’, and released the album ‘Fat Sound To The Masses’ in 2001 (check other songs at the bottom of this article).

Isak had arranged his remix to be used by NRK on national TV, and agreed it could be fun to have it surface again in conjunction with the ESC finals this week. His remix originally appeared on the ‘Grand Prix Party’ compilation released by Universal Music in 2001, where Isak were invited to make a contemporary version of ‘Nocturne’ as the final track of the compilation. The track also exists on a single track CD distributed when promoting the compilation.

Not only as a Norwegian, but as more than average interested in music, I thought the winning song in 1995 was a great exception from the usual ESC songs, daring to go outside the concept itselft, paving way to more diversity. And as major fan of electronic music, the remix from 2001 just added more value to the original.

Check out the original and the remix as a warm-up or a variety from todays finals!

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange)
Norwegian industrial synth rockers Zeromancer follow up their February release ‘Damned le Monde’ with the new track titled ‘Mourners’. The release comes as a digital EP with three remixes in addition to the original – and they’re all great! This time around we also contacted the remixers to get their thoughts about the band and this release –  it’s always interesting to hear what someone who’s both a professional and a fan have to say about their remix work.

Zeromancer core members Kim Ljung and Alex Møklebust were very happy about the end result:

Side-Line: ‘Mourners’ and the first lines indicates someone sad, but becomes increasingly uplifting – will things get better is one find someone to share it with?

Kim Ljung: That is pretty spot on I would say! Mourners is a message for the lonely. Lonely in life or lonely at heart. Never give up. There is always a twin soul out there somewhere!

Alex Møklebust: Songwriting is about expressing yourself. The last 3 years has been pretty rough on a personal level and making music becomes kind of a treatment. «Mourners» became that song for me.

S-L: Musically it’s a bit softer than usual, almost synthpop, and the singing made me think about Alex’ guest vocals on the Bermuda Triangle album ‘33RPM’, and it also made me wanna listen to ‘ZZYZX’ again – a new direction or just keeping it varied?

AM: Trying to recreate a demo is always a challenge, but with Mourners it was impossible. The demo had parts that didn’t sound great and the performance was quite bad, but had a really good feeling to it. If we removed the demo ideas or tried to replace it with new recordings, the song fell apart. It’s all about the feeling of a song. We just chased that feeling all the way until the end and. Imperfection elevated the track. It was the right decision. You can hear the the demo tracks clearly in the Rotersand remix. Love that they decided to represent the demo tracks so clearly in the remix.

KL: When you write a song, you don’t think what genre would be best suitable. You make the choices that fits that particular song the best. Mourners were meant to be exactly like this. I remember starting out with the verse on an acoustic. I never play acoustic guitar with normal chords and full notes. Never. It’s all riffs, basslines and weird shit.

The verses are quite dark. It’s the chorus that has this uplift feel that great choruses have. However the term synthpop is not so accurate I feel, at least not to me, since my idea of synthpop is a happy thing. We don’t do happy. 🙂
When you get to hear the full album, you will get the picture. It’s a classic Zeromancer album. With all the elements present. A gift from us to our devoted, loyal fans.

S-L: You also got a good, varied bunch of remixes this time too, even by Norwegians – what about their versions did you like?

AM: The remixes compliments the EP 100%. Love it. A beautiful balance. Electro Spectre with a superb version, Sebastian Komor with his awesome mid tempo hard hitting remix and the lovely moody Rotersand version. They all put in a lot of effort to make this EP as good as it can be. How they interpreted our song blows my mind. Respect to them all!!

KL: Couldn’t agree more. What amazes me the most, is how they all understood the core of the song. I’m dead serious when I say those three remixes makes the song a better song. Not that their versions top the original. That’s not the issue. It’s what they add to that song, that makes Mourners a longer lasting piece. At least that’s how I feel! So much passion and a whole lot of “fingerspitzgefühl”!

S-L: This started with ‘Damned le Monde’, and you will get it every time now – who’s in the cover picture?! 😉

KL: My mom 🙂
Holding the white lilies. A symbolic flower, often used in funerals. Perfect for Mourners.

S-L: Other upcoming highlights fans can look forward to during these slow-moving days until more restrictions are lifted?

AM: Yes, there will be more releases and a full new album. It’s important for us to promote an album release with live shows. As for now that’s impossible, but we have to keep believing that it’s happening soon.

KL: The fans are in for a treat. A lot is happening in the shadows. New label that will help out regarding issues with previous albums hard to get, both digital and analog. At this moment I can’t reveal more than that. But in the end, there’s definitely a reward for everybody!

As mentioned we also reached out to the remixers who contributed to this EP, and also asked if they had remixes of their own to share. First to reply were Isak Rypdal from Electro Spectre:

S-L: What’s your relation to Zeromancer before this remix?

Isak Rypdal: I was a big fan early on, and two major favorites from nearly 20 years ago is ‘New Madonna’ and ‘Famous Last Words’,  I think they only were included on a maxi-single or something then. In 2013 Electro Spectre supported Zeromancer on their ‘Bye-Bye Borderline’ tour at Rockefeller Music Hall in Oslo – that was a lovely event.
Alex Møklebust, aka SnifferGod, has also been so kind remixing the Electro Spectre single ‘The Way You Love‘ just a few years ago, which became a great remix.  

S-L: How did you like the new song ‘Mourners’?

IR: Personally I think it is admirable to deliver one of their very best singles to date. In my opinion not all bands only get better and better in what they’re doing as the years go by. The previous single ‘Damned le Monde’ is that kind of caliber as well! 

S-L: What was your main idea with your remix?

IR: Actually, I think it was one of the easiest songs I have ever remixed. The reason is simple; when you get a remix-kit from a major band, who delivers pure quality elements it is a lot more inspiring. Although not to say I took the challenge lightly, I spent several few weeks on the remix, adding all of what I think is my very best production techniques into the remix to get it as punchy and well sounding as possible. It was a pure joy, and I am very happy I had the time to spend that many hours on the remix process. In the end, Alex from Electro Spectre also delivered some additional spice to the final mix. I hope the Mancerheads enjoy the remix!

Across the Atlantic, in Canada, the Polish/Norwegian expat Sebastian Komor elaborated about his involvement:

S-L:  What’s your relation to Zeromancer before this remix?

Sebastian Komor:  I know the guys more as Seigmen, the Norwegian Alt Rock band. In fact, a time and place long ago I booked Seigmen to play at a venue I was working at, during their Radiowaves album tour.  Always loved their music.

S-L: How did you like the new song ‘Mourners’?

SK:  It is a beautiful song. I dig the electronic approach in this.

S-L: What was your main idea with your remix?

SK: I really dig the snare sound in the original and def wanted to make that a big element of this mix. My approach to remixes is to use as few original sounds as possible vs. making it sound like an extended 12″ mix of the original. I am really happy with the result. It promotes the emotions in the original song while taking it for a ride through my mind.

Check Sebastians playlist with a lot of his work, remixes included!

Final remixer was from Germany, Krischan Wesenberg of Rotersand:

S-L: What’s your relation to Zeromancer before this remix?

Krischan Wesenberg: Zeromancer and Rotersand are signed to the same label, work with the same booking agency and love our live-sound-engineer (which is the same person). Surprisingly it took rather long to meet in person, which luckily happened during an epic meal in Oslo while I was there as sound-engineer for Nitzer Ebb.

S-L: How did you like the new song ‘Mourners’?

KW: I really loved the depth and flow of the song instantly; its melancholic mood and I am addicted to melancholy in music anyway.

S-L: What was your main idea with your remix?

KW: Obviously with Rotersand attached to it expectations went towards a more club-orientated vibe. As there aren’t any clubs open I took the chance to search for a very electronic vibe and flow that kept a lot of the original recordings, and added some space to let the melancholy breathe and enjoy its special magic.

Listen to and buy the EP from Spotify, Apple music and other services – click here!

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) The crowd funding project ‘Norske albumklassikere på CD’ (‘Norwegian Album Classics on CD’) is a series of CDs whose purpose is reissuing music that either never has been released on CD or is hardly available on CD anymore. The project is enjoying a success beyond all expectations these days. The concept is this: always having 20 albums in the crowd funding pool, and when an album goal is reached it can be purchased at the main website norskealbumklassikere.no. The public Facebook group for the project, which recently passed 11.000 members, have a constant flow of suggestions and discussions among the members.

There’s also a similar project for LPs in the works, and 20 albums are at the present being decided and published daily until the launch May 9^th.

We got more background info from one of the main two founders, Christer Falck, who early on in last year’s mid-March corona lock-down quickly became restless and started the concert streams series ‘Koronerulling‘ the very next week. 83 artists/bands was able to stream their concerts the following year, ended up getting 4.5 mill NOK in well-deserved and much needed donations.

Side-Line: How and when did the idea for ‘Norwegian Album Classics’ surface?

Christer Falck: I was doing some promotional phone calls to the local press when I was releasing the 20 CD-box set by Jahn Teigen, and one of the most enthusiastic journalists in Norway, Erik Munsterhjelm at Tønsberg Blad, asked me if I could release a box set by one of his childhood heroes, The Kids, as well. Since they had only released two albums, I thought the idea of a box set was a bit too ambitious, but then the idea came to me. Releasing all the good records that had only been available on LP and MC – on CD. Not just one record, but a lot of them. I called my 5-6 most nerdy friends, and asked them to make a list of the 50 albums they miss in their CD-collections. My partner John Richard loved the idea, and the funny thing is that the lists that I received were almost identical. I thought “when 6 people, so different from each other manages to make almost equal lists, it has to be a market out there”.
This, combined with my fetish for crowdfunding, made me do a website with my crowdfunding-partners bidra.no, where 20 records should be on display. Each record should get 30 days to be financed, if 150 people pre-order it, I will produce the record. If we don’t reach goal, they will all get their money back.

One month after the idea came, we started. Now we have made 90 albums in 100 days.

S-L: How successful do you consider this to have been so far?

CF: It depends how you measure success. As a cultural experiment, I’d say it’s a huge success. A lot of records that aren’t available on streaming services are now available, remastered and with much better sound quality than ever. A lot of CD-enthusiasts can join our little group on Facebook and suggest their favourite records, and I think we have managed to create a cool platform, where everyone respects each other’s musical taste. If they don’t, we throw them out, so they don’t have a choice ?
Financially, I think I could have found a lot of different jobs that would pay much better off, but at least I have something to do, these Covid-19-times. The alternative was to not arrange festivals, that’s my real job.

S-L: What has surprised you the most so far? Any weird album suggestions, the involvement of members, the process itself, other things?

CF: I know some much more about Norwegian music now than three months ago. I have a short list with 1700 titles on Norwegian albums. From easy listening to hardcore and punk records I’d never heard of before. And everything in the middle. But what I like with the concept, is that since we just need to find 150 buyers, nothing is too weird and strange. A Christian choir-album from the South of Norway or a heavy metal album from Finnmark – 150 people will probably find their way. The job is to expand the target group, so that the next album in the same will have the same opportunity to be financed. And the good part with our group, some of the members are doing the job for us. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I’ve had a lot questions in our forum, and then some of the members have explained and solved all the problems for us. It would be impossible to do all the things that we do now AND do a great customers service too. So far we haven’t got any too weird suggestions, but a guy started a homophobic thread where he “Loved our series, but hated the “pride”-logo on our CD’s”. This was the most read and commented post so far, and 100% of our members made this person probably never post something like that again. I love the self-justice that the group is creating. Usually, when 11-12.000 people are gathered together, at least 1-2 % is fucking up for many of the others. But here, fucking up is very uncool. That’s probably what I’m most happy with.

S-L: As I write this there’s just weeks or days until the 100^th album is financed. How do you see the future of this project – is there an end, or does it have the potential to continue indefinitely?

CF: Well, I have 1700 records on my list. And there are still a lot of records being added every day. I’m not going to stop, but this concept will die by itself. It’s impossible to keep up the speed that we’ve have had so far. Both for us, but also for the buyers. Just too expensive. So hopefully, we will end up producing 2.3 records a week. Then my wife and kids will be happy too, ‘cause this takes all of my time. But it’s all a huge labour of love, so I hope it will last many more months.

SL: How is the interest outside of Norway for this project – are there many foreigners among the customers?

CF: We see that some of the genres are more popular outside Norway than others. Jazz, prog and Norwegian west coast music, has a huge standing abroad. One of the most selling records so far is Moose Loose – a jazz/fusion/prog band who hardly sold records at their peak. My goal is to sell more of their records in 2021 than they did in the 70’s.

Another major contributor on this project is Arvid Skancke-Knutsen; music journalist, author, musician and quiz master, who have contributed with lot’s of input and suggestions, but also liner notes on the CD releases. I thought it would be interesting to get an historical view on projects like these, and who better than to get from than a Historical Consultant at Rockheim, Norway’s National Museum of Popular Music?

S-L: In all your years in the music industry and press, have you ever seen a project accomplishing so much in such a short time?

Arvid Skancke-Knutsen: No, this is pretty amazing, and I am very proud to be a part of it. We have now realized 90 albums in just 100 days – with very few signs of the project slowing down. What we have achieved is certainly a Norwegian and Scandinavian record. There might have been other projects similar to this, somewhere in the world, but I cannot think of any offhand. A commercial music series like Absolute Music ended up with a total of 64 record releases, but that took them 23 years. We have done this in mere three months – at a point in history where CD sales are plummeting. 

The success of our series is basically down to just a few factors, I think. Firstly, the genuine enthusiasm of Christer Falck and John Richard Stenberg, the two founders of the project. Their enthusiasm spilled over to Norwegian record companies and artists. And especially to our 11, 000 members on Facebook, who have been very supportive all the way. The rest is about hard work, and making sure that the quality is as good as it gets.

S-L: How will this and similar projects “born” in the year(s) of corona influence music industry in the future?

ASK: Good question! I think that online concerts might have a future, even beyond the pandemic. It’s all about good logistics and excellent production values. If those elements are present, fans of bands and music genres will be willing to pay for it.

The corona situation has been a terrible worldwide event, but we still might be able to take away some creative solutions from it. I wrote a book, dealing with the pandemic in Norway, and its impact on the Norwegian music scene. And what struck me more than anything else was the amount of creativity going on.

S-L: What your best moments/highlight of this project?

ASK: The sheer amount of records that we have brought into existence in a very short time, while maintaining high production values. And the fact that the series is not just limited to one musical style, or merely the most popular artists. It’s really a history ride through Norwegian music, covering all sort of styles, fashions and creativity over a span of sixty years. Another personal highlight is the fact that I pick a cult classic every month or so, showcasing some of the strangest music ever recorded in Scandinavia.

Check out Arvid’s book ‘Da musikken stilnet’ – loads of pictures from corona restricted concerts (by Per Ole Hagen), and essays from musicians and others in the music business influenced by the lock-downs.

We also reached out to one of the projects most eager members and an oracle of Norwegian synth/electronic music/post punk ++: Per Aksel Lundgreen (Apoptygma Berzerk, Cronos Titan, Angst Pop, Chinese Detectives, Technomancer, Rossetti’s Compass and Shatoo) for tips about what foreigners should look for in this crowd funding project.

S-L: As one of the most active members of the Facebook group for this project, you have both suggested a lot of candidates for the crowd funding, and also shared and posted about your favorites in various groups all over. Which albums do you think Side-Line readers should consider getting their hands on?

Per Aksel Lundgreen: Yes, I’m a CD-man myself, having collected CD’s since I got my first CD-player from my aunt at my birthday in 1986, so when Christer Falck mentioned starting this project, I immediately contacted him and said that I would do my best to help out with promotion and pushing this project. Since this project also was started in the middle of the corona pandemic, it meant that I, and everybody else, had a lot of extra time on their hands, and so the ‘Norske Albumklassikere På CD’ has become a very welcome “distraction” and something that’s brought a lot of joy in a time that has been difficult for a lot of people, especially in the music business.

Anyhow, here’s some suggestions from my side, all depending on what your musical preferences are, but there’s some really great post-punk/new-wave/experimental/electronic/alternative stuff that has made it through here and that is already financed. (links in the titles)

Munch – ‘Excessive Mobility’: An amazing Norwegian classic that really deserved a CD release. They’re kinda the “Norwegian Einstürzende Neubauten” if you will, and if you like stuff like Shock Therapy, Polyphonic Size and Ledernacken, this album is definitively something for you. Most albums in this series are printed in 500 copies, but Munch insisted on only doing 300 copies, so this will be a collectors item very quickly too! 🙂

Garden Of Delight – ‘Big Wheels In Emotion’: Norway’s first real goth album, self-released in 1987 on vinyl only. They also did two great 7″ singles back in 1984 that never made it to the album, but the album itself is well worth checking out. Goth with female vocals and a touch of tuba, you’ve never heard that before, but you’ll love it!

Babij Jar – ‘Stalingrad’ and ‘The Night Before’: Two of Norway’s best hidden gems in the new-wave/post-punk genre. Went completely under the radar for people outside Norway, but had they had decent promotion and distribution back then, they could’ve made it really big.

Helge Gaarder – ‘Eine Keine Angst Musik’: Something as rare as a Norwegian art-rock/experimental/electronic album. Impossible to describe, must be experienced. The original LP will set you back at least EUR 120 and you find none of the music on YouTube or digital distribution. Very happy that this finally gets a CD release and the credit it deserves. Too bad Helge Gaarder died 17 years ago, so he never got to see this album being included in this classics series. 

Plann – ‘Elektra Elektra’: One of very few minimal-wave albums from Norway, and a great one too! Quirky songs, haunting vocals, amazing synth sounds. Several songs can be found on YouTube if you want to check it out. Listen to “Cadillac”, “Sug”, “Ato Signal” and “Cherokee” which also was the single from the album. The original LP will set you back some EUR 140, so unless you’re a rich vinyl freak, I suggest you get the CD to enjoy this rarity.

Boastein – ‘Urgata Hurgata’: A Norwegian new-wave/kraut-rock inspired album, with repetitive drumming, charming synth sounds and a very nice all over feel to it. Check out the songs “Helium”, “Seismisk Kollaps”, and “Khomeini’s Visjon” on YouTube. 

Ole I’Dole – ‘Blond Og Billig’: This album has become kind of an underground hit outside of Norway in the minimal-wave community because of the track “Space, Action, Sex & Blod”, which is pure synth heaven. The rest of the album is a bit more pop oriented, but the tracks “Framtidsskrekk” and “S.O.S.” are also really great tracks. Recommended listening indeed! 

Creation – ‘The Real Thing’: two of the guys from Drama, making very soft synthpop in the style of Shatoo and a-ha, but with a couple of really nice tracks on there, and especially the track “Don’t Do It”. If you’re into Norwegian/Scandinavian (synth)pop this will hit home with you for sure. 

Blind Date – ‘Don’t Talk’: Probably the closest you get to a Norwegian version of Psychedelic Furs, and this is a beautiful new-wave album with some really strong material on it! Check out the title track, “Don’t Talk” on YouTube, and if that is to your taste, then don’t hesitate to invest in this album!

There’s more goodies here of course, but the 10 albums above are my priority suggestions right now.
Also, currently there’s some other really great stuff still being crowdfunded:

Famlende Forsøk – ‘En Overraskende Måte Hvorpå Man Kan Kaste En Person Over Ende’: Norway’s equivalent to Throbbing Gristle, and their quirky synths, great programming and musical skills, mixed with dada elements and dadaistic lyrics/vocals, makes this super interesting. The full album can be enjoyed on streaming services, but really deserves a CD release. One of Norways most original and groundbreaking bands through all times!

PVC – ‘Emile Berliner’: A superb post-punk band that released two albums in the early 80’s. Bitten Forsudd later went on to join/fund Garden Of Delight mentioned above, and Eivind Rølles went on to form one of Norways most known pop duos, The Monroes. If you’re into Joy Division and The Residents, then this is music for you! 

Chrissy – ‘Chrissy’: Her single “Mark My Words” sold over 500.000 copies in Scandinavia and Germany combined, and is one of the best selling singles in Norway in all times, way up there with a-ha and Röyksopp. The music is a fantastic new-wave/power-pop combo with snappy synth lines on there too! Find the track ‘Mark My Words’ on YouTube to get an idea. This is the album that I’m currently most excited about getting fully funded! 

S-L:  I guess you have a long wish list of albums not yet funded or suggested – wanna share? 😉

PAL: Yes, absolutely, and one of the first posts I made in the Facebook group, was an invitation to have everybody post their Top 5 Want List of albums they wanted on CD, and so far, I’ve gotten one of these 5 realized, and that was Munch – “Excessive Mobility”.

The rest of my Top 5 looks like this:
– Holy Toy – ‘Pakt Of Fact’ (Their best album in my opinion!)
– E-Man – ‘E-Man’ (Pre-Biosphere project from Geir Jenssen – great minimal-wave)
– Susanne Sundfør – ‘A Night At Salle Pleyel’ (Beautiful electronica!)
– Ultra Sheriff – ‘Galactic Frame’ (Norway’s first ever synthwave album, only released digitally!)

Other Norwegian albums that I feel definitively belong in this series and that I know is on the list is:
– Thorbjørn Grønning – ‘Galskapens Teater’ (Amazing minimal-wave self-released album)
– Göbbels A-Go-Go – ‘Våre Problemer Er Rent Musikalske’ (Superb electronic/new-wave)
– Ultra Sheriff – ‘Deception, Oil And Laser Beams’ (Another amazing synthwave album from them!)
– Det Elektriske Kjøkken – ‘Elefantene Er Kommet’ (Superb electronic/new-wave album)
– Bearburger – ‘The Bearburger’ (Great electronic/experimental album!)
– A Place To Pray – ‘Disciplina Arcana’ (Amazing goth/electronic album!)
– PLX 15 – ‘Kort Prosess’ and ‘PLX 15’ (Two great experimental electronic albums!)
– Axis – ‘Axis’ (Superb Norwegian new-wave mini album!)

… and finally, maybe one of the most important ones, because of the extremely high quality of the album, and this should absolutely be more known outside of Norway:
– Lily & The Gigolos – ‘Secrets’: An album that sounds like a Norwegian Siouxsie & The Banshees, with super strong song material, great production and great artwork. Check out the track “Listen To The Radio”, “Russia” or “I’m Just A Child” on YouTube, and you’ll know what I mean.

The project in itself has now released 88 albums in 99 days through crowdfunding, and is the most successful and longest spanning series in Norwegian record industry history, which in itself is a great feat! ALL countries should have a project like this! Just think about Sweden, a country which haven’t even released the albums like NASA – ‘Power Of The Century’, or most albums by Secret Service and Freestyle on CD at all! I really hope that this Norwegian project will inspire others to do the same in their countries, because there’s so much music history out there, and if we want to keep it for later generations, it has to be done NOW, or it will never be done. The younger generation consumes music digitally, so it is up to us to get these master tapes digitized and onto a physical medium like a CD, so that they also can be used as masters for digital distribution later on. That’s not the first priority, but what label wouldn’t jump at the chance of getting paid for a physical license and also get a remaster they can use for digital distribution/streaming? This also means that a lot of these artists WON’T be forgotten, and that their music will live on to be discovered by others.

Also, a lot of people in the Facebook group for ‘Norske Albumklassikere På CD’ constantly discover new “old” acts/releases, and this is half the fun of being part of this. I mean, I started working in a record shop in the summer of 1985, and I’ve worked in the music business in one way or the other since then, as a DJ, on radio stations, playing in bands, fixing record fairs, selling stuff via mail-order, working at record companies, writing for music magazines etc etc. so I try to contribute the best I can, but even I discover new and exciting things through this project.

Nobody knows everything, and that’s one of the great charms of music, that you can discover a band from the 80’s you’ve never heard of that you totally love!

Search and order already financed albums here: https://norskealbumklassikere.no/
See and order albums being crowfunded now: https://www.bidra.no/norskealbumklassikere

Join the Facebook group for CDs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/norskealbumklassikere and/or LPs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/norskealbumklassikerelp

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange)
Electro Spectre are keeping themselves busy in these quarantined times and follows up their first single of 2021 – ‘A Different Kind Of Love’ – with the new EP ‘The Endless Sky’, released March 19^th on various digital platforms.

Included on the EP are two remixes of ‘The Endless Sky’ in addition to a Radio Edit, a remix by the singer Alexander Bjørneboe and two top tracks from their remix contest for their previous single, and an yet unreleased upcoming album song in a ‘Bare Version’ from their corona lock-down ‘Home Sessions’ recorded last year. 

Alexander also collaborated with music video director Rune Hov on directing the music video for this release in addition to doing the artwork – we are going to space in this one! The raw material were old cartoon magazines from the 60’s. Then a lot of time were spent cropping, editing and retouching the graphics, and finally assembled into a story for the video. See examples below:

In parallel to releasing the single Electro Spectre also spent the last weeks remixing the next Zeromancer single, ‘Mourners’, the follow-up to their February release ‘Damned le Monde’. Fans of both bands should mark Friday April 23^rd in their calendars – ‘Mourners’ is that kind of track that brings out the best of both bands!

EP available @ Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp and Youtube.

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange / Sub Culture press release)

After a 20 years hiatus Pål-Magnus Rybom decided to revive one of Norway’s legendary synthpop acts – Echo Image! Having had great success with their album ‘Compuphonic’ in 2001 and the singles ‘Skulk’, ‘Need To Be Proud’, ‘Standing Alone’ and the club classic ‘Endless Day’, it all came to an end in 2002.

In 2016, the compilation ‘Compulation’ was released on LP, and a release-party gig was held locally in Fredrikstad, and hopes got up among avid fans that more would come out of this, but nothing more happened at that time.

Finally, now the new single ‘Walk My Mind’ is here, and it was released March 1^st on all digital platforms and streaming services via Pitch Black Drive, and is said to be just a warm-up for things to come later in 2021!

The new single includes remixes by Apoptygma Berzerk, Technomanzer feat. Angst Pop and Einar K. Five

Download / listen: Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange)
After an almost eight year long hiatus from releasing new music and 15 months after their previous live concert, the Norwegian industrial synth rockers in Zeromancer releases their brand new single ‘Damned le Monde’, out today on Trisol. Or, maybe not exactly brand new, but more about that later when Kim Ljung explains its origins.

The track itself sounds refreshingly new, and at the same time also comfortably like a Zeromancer classical. With a haunting bassline filled build-up the first third of the song, followed by a take-off into the kind of chorus Zeromancer famously does, filling your ears  with that uplifting feeling, making you wanting more.  Almost from the first listen ‘Damned le Monde’ also gives you that ‘first track/first single’ feeling, like ‘Clone your lover’, ‘Doctor Online’ and even ‘Sinners international’ also did. Will it be the first track on the upcoming album too?

The remixes are also good matches, making good use of the song into something new without losing touch with the original.

On the day of the release I also managed to squeeze in a phone call with a very happy Kim, getting some more info on this release.

Side-Line: Tell us about the single and its content – are you mad at the world? 

Kim Ljung: No, not at all. Although I often see things in black and white, I’m mostly happy. It’s being released in a difficult time for most people, and feels fitting in that sense. But it’s written several years ago,  have changed the title a few times too. As it have had a long life already from the first demo to the final take, things have changed a lot along the way, especially the text. It became a bit fragmented in the end; something personal, something seen from another persons point of view, taking side with the weak and the misfits. Main theme might be “being seen”, even in hard times.

First demo was very much slower, with more synths and drum machines. Then Noralf did his part, and the bass lines I’d done on an old Mini Moog didn’t integrate well with the drums, so we decided to record it with bass guitar. And after playing the same bass for many years it’d be fun to try something else, so I found a cheap bass here at work (at Haugarock) that sounded great, and it took the song a step further.

When we started rehearsing for songs Per Olav came up with new guitar riffs, which in turn made me make a brand new chorus, and the whole song benefited from having a few years in the making.

S-L: There’s three remixes too…

Kim: Our German record company boss made them happen, getting good bands to remix, and it feels like when we bought 12” records in the 80’s, always several remixes included. In my opinion a good song can tolerate almost everything regarding changes, and still be able to rise and get better.

S-L: The cover photo was unlike earlier Zeromancer covers, and seems like it holds a story on its own?

Kim: Correct, it’s a picture of my aunt, taken in 1957 by my grandfather (“Besten”) from Sauda (on the Norwegian west coast). All his life he were in the forefront regarding photography and filming, always sporting the latest versions of equipment. I was always very close to him, and when he died I ended up inheriting his entire archive of photos, mostly dias slides, and lot’s of films, mostly Super 8. I have digitalized almost all of the diases, and showing it last X-mas to my mother and her siblings was a blast, showing their entire childhood and discovering long-forgotten events.

And some of the pictures immediately stood out as cover material, so it felt very rewarding finding these gems and early on decide several single covers, having them connected. The record company also liked this, felt it was something new and different, not so genre traditional.

S-L: Any releasedate for the album yet? 

Kim:  We’re still working on the album, but we’re taking our time since the corona situation prevents us from touring. First a couple of singles, then album probably in the autumn. When things ease up again we’re ready!

 All in all I have a very good feeling about this release today. In this time with almost nothing happening and creativity being on a low, it’s great to release something that matters for people and makes them feel good. Have already gotten lot’s of positive feedback, people saying it made their week and so forth.

Get your damned tracks @ Spotify or Apple Music

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange)
Electro Spectre kicks off 2021 with the release of the single ‘A Different Kind Of Love’, released on digital platforms today, and will be accompanied by a full EP in about two weeks. This is the 5^th release from their upcoming album ‘Stereo Dreams’, which is a bit delayed due to the corona situation.  

The band also announces a remix contest for this track, read about it and download stems @ http://electrospectre.net/remix2021/

Get your kicks @ Spotify, Apple, Bandcamp or YouTube!

Electro Spectre also did a series of home recordings during the lock-down in 2020, and have recently compiled and published these recordings for an exclusive 2021 Bandcamp release.
Check’em @ https://electrospectre.bandcamp.com/album/home-sessions

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange)
For those missing the dark voice of Andrew Eldritch (The Sisters of Mercy), the mysterious singer of the Norwegian EBM/darkwave act Strict Machine offers a great alternative, probably the best since Eldritch stopped releasing new music. Some might have heard Strict Machine participate on the latest Face The Beat: Session 6 compilation with the track ‘Nature of Divinity’, and now their new single ‘Chrome’ is out on various platforms. It’s a hard-hitting, dark and moody track, full of haunting synth beats, well worth investigating more!

All we know about the band at present is that they consists of two member who wants to remain anonymous for the time being, but when sent a message they replied with this about this track, future releases, band members and life in general.

Strict Machine:
‘Chrome’ is a tribute to JG Ballard’s book ‘Crash’. We wanted to capture that haunting passion for fetish that he describes in the book. It’s about undying topics like death, sex, infatuation and classic American cars.

I mean, death is after all a big thing for all of us, and how fast we’re going there, pardon the pun, is up to the vehicles we choose.

Strict machine is all about reinventing the individual, like for example David Bowie often did – keeping the focus off the people behind and rather seeing the concept for what it is.

We are both rather private people, and so it makes the choice even more obvious to keep us anonymous.

This release is the first song from the upcoming debut EP, where we are trying to re-approach the classic themes and topics like the occult, ritual magic, existential questions and love.

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange. Photos by Silke Jochum, Arash Taheri, Jan Ronald Stange. Studio snapshots by Kim Ljung)
Alex Møklebust and Kim Ljung had lots of plans for their bands in 2020, but as with everyone else everything changed this year. Earlier this autumn we managed to slip in an hour for a talk at Alex’ place where he and Kim were having some studio time, preparing Zeromancer tracks and planning for next year’s releases. 

Kim: The foundation for the Zeromancer recording sessions was laid before corona, and the recording with Noralf was quite compressed timewise, we had to get it done before he was becoming a father! We knew he would be in a hazy “breastfeeding” fog once the baby where born, so we were very happy we laid down his tracks in time.

Making a ZMR album is a laboriously process, all the way from the song writing to the finished product, and it doesn’t help getting older either. Everything goes slower, not just the body, but the brain also, and add to that we have less available time to work on this together. Things takes years, but worth it in the end. Like this process we’re in now, almost finished with the recording. As always in ZMR recordings Alex has to wear several hats; he’s the vocalist, but also technician, producer and programmer, trying not to mix these roles. We also have a new member; Per Olav, who are supposed to embed into this process.

When we started we weren’t sure if we’d end up with a single, EP or something more, but now we’re proud of the standard for the results that will result in a full album. And we’re quite picky, so it good to get the confirmation that our creativity and judgement are well preserved. It’s no coincidence either that it’s Alex and me that are doing our “synth rock workshop”, quite many this time around, because we agree on almost everything. This part has gotten very easy for us, showing us the value of collaborating for 30 years. 

Alex: The funny thing us growing into grumpy, old men is that we actually are having a more playful approach when working together, experimenting more and going outside earlier boundaries. It makes the process more difficult for us, but also more fun.

Poor Per Olav that came into this and are supposed to understand what Kim and I are thinking. He came very well prepared, then we buried everything pre-planned because we’ve decided to go in another direction. Kudos to him for his almost chronic positive attitude which also helped a lot in this process. 

Kim: Per Olav is still a relatively new guitarist in ZMR and have been with us for four gigs. He’s also playing in the band Untime, we’ve known him for a long time, and he also joined us on stage at the ZMR gig at Total, Tønsberg in 2014 for an encore. He’s the leader and driving force in his band, but in ZMR more like a wheel in an already well functioning machinery, not having to take so much responsibility as he’s used to. His understanding of how to play guitar in ZMR are impressive, because that’s not always so easy! When listening to a ZRM track it can be hard to tell if it’s a guitar or a synth you’re hearing, but he quickly decoded that part, and being a creative guitarist he also added elements himself, which made the overall result even better. He takes challenges very well, and I heard by ways of his stepdaughter, who’s rehearsing at Haugarock, that he’s playing a lot of guitar on his own time too.

Alex: He joined us first for the live gigs, and we understood that he came prepared extremely well when he’s telling us – the others who have been in the band for 20 years – about where to do things in the songs. That was a luxury, not having to “train” him, as he already knew just about everything beforehand.

Kim: No disrespected to our former guitarists, because they both were excellent, but when Dan decided to leave ZMR we went into crisis mode; how can we find someone as good and prepared as Chris or Dan? Could we bear instructing another guitarist from scratch? Then we find someone practically from the neighbourhood!

Alex: He understand what we’re about, fits us well on a human level, and came even more prepared than most of us – just slipped right in, a great relief for us.

But; the other side of the mirror when that happens is that we tend to forget he’s the new guy, not used to our “code” of communication, which some outsiders have found to be a bit hard and raw. So in that aspect he’s still a trainee, in for a learning period.

But sometimes that’s an issue with the rest of us too, even after working together for 20-30 years, there can still be times when one is extra sensitive and needs to tell the others to lay off the “code” for a while, and then the others respects that.

Kim: In all the bands we’re in we’re pals, but also colleagues when working, so have to tune in to which layer we’re in at the moment.

Alex: We’re working with our bands also when we’re not in top notch shape, when we’re not beaming of positivity, and that’s when we have to adjust the use of the “code”.

S-L: The Seigmen vinylbox was the initial reason for this talk – how and when did the idea for this emerge? 

Kim: Many years ago! It’s been up for discussion several times, but there’s been various companies that owned the publishing rights to the albums. The main challenge and a big job was to get the licensing freed in order to release the albums. Most of the effort for making it possible was done by Otto Egil, so kudos to him for never giving up. The band are more focused on the musical part, looking forwards and not so much backwards, so it’s great to have others involved for that part.

The whole project seemed quite overwhelming, but we also had decided if we were to do this, is should be done properly. Otto Egil is a (big!) fan too, which helped immensely – if it was just business for him he’d probably given up at some point.

Alex: Our principle have always been “if we’re doing something, it should be done proper!”, which demands a lot of time and effort, and also makes it complicated. We had to find old original tapes and pictures, trying to emulate the look and feel from that time, involving hours in the basement or the attic going through old stuff for the umpteenth time. It’s a monster project, but we got to remember that we grew up as fans ourselves, and as you remember from the old days, there were lots of records shop in Tønsberg where we used to hang out in and buying records as fans. That’s been in the back of our minds; we want to make something that people wants with the quality they deserve, so it’s helpful thinking like a fan in this kind of process.

Kim: If we were working by the hour on a project like this we wouldn’t have done it at all. It’s extremely time consuming digging up old tapes and doing rounds of mastering again, finding pictures for the covers, recreating the CD design for 12” covers etc. Again, thanks to the nagging of Otto Egil and his suggestions for content, and him as a fan really hit the mark for what the fans would like in the box. The crowdfunding hit the target really fast and sold very well, mostly because he sold the concept as a fan to other fans. Another hellish challenge were recreating the lyrics, which hadn’t been printed before! Alex received several texts from me, asking “What are you singing here? What’s that sentence?”. There were a lot of repeat playing of the old CDs, trying to figure out the text. We had a taste of that last year, when rehearsing for the four Hulen concerts in Bergen, recreating our four first concerts there in the early 90’s. When we were finished with the vinyls Otto Egil told us “next up is the digi packs”, something we’d totally forgotten were supposed to be a part of the project. And those were of course different than the vinyls, fever tracks, other info and another round of designs. The proof reading took forever!

S-L: I guess it was a challenge, find the original photos in a quality good enough for a 12” cover?

Kim: Oh yes! I can tell you one story in particular – about the cover for ‘Total’. I’ve always been a fan of the design job for that one, with the bronze look and the booklet content, some of the design built upon an old post card I took home from my Interrail travels to Venice. The hard filtering and effects of the elements we used were impossible to recreate for an album booklet.

Alex: Don’t forget we also had a fire in the meantime!

Kim: Yep, it was just gone forever! Then we’re on holiday in Venice, I buy a lot of post cards and art cards as I always do, and at the end of the vacation I find the exact same post card again! This was at the same time we were in the final stages of the graphic work on the covers, so it was one of those things that just fall into place along the way. 

Alex: One interesting aspect in my opinion was, partly related to my work at the college in Oslo, getting calls from other colleges and universities, asking what did we do in this crowdfunding making it a success. We were probably one of the first bands in Norway doing crowdfunding with our ‘Fra X til døden’ DVD, it hadn’t happened in that format until then. It took a while back then, maybe because it was the first time, but sold out and was considered successful. My answer was simply “if you offer something that doesn’t exists and people also like what you’re offering, it’s simple math”.

Same goes for the box set; we just released one album as vinyl in the 90’s (English version of ‘Metropolis’), and also put a lot of rarities in there that people have been craving for years. We also asked the fans what they wanted when making the DVD, which actually should have been focused on the final concert in 1999, but the tapes got lost in a flood in UK. The answer from the fans were “more!”, so it ended up to be 6 hours and a hell of a project!

Afterwards we promised ourself “never again”, it was going towards a loss project when developing. But it ended up in balance in the end, wouldn’t be so successful if we offered a “best of” compilation of something already available, one has to listen to the fans and offer more.

S-L: All the demos and rarities on the non-album CD – that must have been a real challenge putting together?

Kim: Well, I have lots of boxes and drawers around the house with demos of all the band, and when Otto Egil have been visiting me he had a go at them, and one could practically see lightbulbs switch on with ideas when he was rummaging around the tapes, DATs and CD-Rs. And there’s actually more Zermonancer demoes and versions than Seigmen, so we might not be finished with these retrospectives. Maybe when we get the licensing in order?

Alex: Again, as Kim says about Otto Egil, it’s important for us on big projects to work with people that understands where we want to go, wanting to do it our way, and that also applied to Terje Pedersen at Warners. Some might say “isn’t it only to do this or that…?”, but it never is – always much more work than expected, and that demands the right collaborators.

Kim: About the rarities; Otto Egil got access to a quantity of tapes of various qualities, a huge job just finding out what was on them and if it was good enough for publication. And we’re known to be quite strict about what we release into the public, as we have lots of weird stuff recorded. What I realized when I was listening through the suggestions for approval was what these tapes might show above all – they express our playfulness in the studio. Not what some would expect, of course we’re serious too, but if we weren’t having fun in the studio we could just end the band. A creative atmosphere in the studio is very important to us, and that starts by being relaxed and enjoying ourselves.

S-L: When I received the rarities CD from Otto Egil earlier this year and was planning for this interview, he was very explicit about not mentioning the last, secret track before all the orders were sent out, but now the corona situation have delayed everything, so here goes: tell us about this track #12 – ‘The great inferno’.

Kim: It’s a recording from our rehearsal room at the old library in Tønsberg, part of the recordings for ‘Radiowaves’, and I discovered the name ‘Inferno’ in a to-do list for recording various instruments. Thought it  wasn’t much to care for, but it was actually a whole song.

S-L: At first it sounded like a song I haven’t heard before, but gradually I recognize parts that reminds me of other song, like Zeromancers ‘Famous last words’? Ideas that have developed into other songs later?

Kim: That is correct – there’s also a Ljungblut song in there. And in hindsight years later I realize it wasn’t as bad after all, but at the time it was easily forgotten as we pushed on to other songs. It’s good for showing the diversity of the band, or bands, as ideas might travel across them. Lots will be gone and forgotten, but much is documented too. And even as we’re eager to move forward, remembering the past is also important. Our Christmas tour last year was a proof of that, playing really old songs from the Klisne Seigmenn days and showing the audience that we’re proud of our past too.

 S-L: How has the feedback been for the box set?

Kim: I’m not very present on social medias, but what I hear from people I meet is that they’re sincerely happy with it. Many thinks these albums were made for vinyl, and some think they’ve always been on vinyl too, but releasing them like this now gives a kind of “justice” to the music itself.

S-L: A spring and a summer full of corona restrictions, and also health issues and surgeries have postponed concerts and releases; how was that challenging for you?

Kim: We’re used to health challenges in our bands, but we’re accepting it and fighting through it, trying to keep the balance between being ruthless towards ourselves in order to deliver a product we’re satisfied with, and at the same time being considerate towards each other. And it’s not getting any easier as time goes by, as we have a bar set for our goals, but we’re used to bite down the pain and push forward towards new challenges.

Alex: What we hope when doing a concert with any of our bands is that no one will notice anything. Our main objective is not stepping down even one notch on out performances, no crutches on the stage for me! A concert is also a physical experience – a crowd in front of us, sweat dripping of the walls, interaction.

Kim: Like almost everything this summer, all our summer festival gigs got postponed a year.

Alex: Summer 2021 is basically copy & paste of the summer 2020!

Kim: The most annoying thing was to postpone the ‘Clone your lover’ 20th anniversary concert in Hamburg a second time, but we just have to accept that – will still deliver the planned show April next year!

Alex: Yep, now we just have to wait and see what will work or not in the months ahead – time will show.

 S-L: That’s actually my last question: what lies ahead for all three bands; Seigmen, Zeromancer and Ljungblut?

Kim: New Zeromancer album next year, but not until we also can do shows again. No fun in promoting an album without a tour, so the original plan about a release early next year will probably be somewhat postponed until we definitely know we can book shows, which we really look forward too.

S-L: Any singles or tasters before launch?

Kim: One or two singles, yes – but a bit early to talk about. We’re delivering the master three-four months before release, and will decide the singles and marketing when the mix is done, not before. We’ve done that error before, decided too early, and later discovered that another track was better suited… won’t do that again!

Seigmen should have been in the studio in March, recording an EP which might be a part of following releases. We had the tracks rehearsed, but now with this postponement we will need to rehearse again. I believe there’s a meaning with everything, so this will probably be ending up with something slightly different and better.

S-L: Any release date?

Kim: 2021 will be a busy year!

Alex: Despite the lockdown and restrictions, no concerts and so forth, we can use this time to studio work, prepare better for later when things eases up again. And we keep in touch with the recording studios regarding bookings so it’s easy to be flexible when openings occur.
PS! Late November the band were in the studio again – recording new material in Velvet Recording, november 2020. The same studio they recorded the album ‘Total’, at that time called Studio Nova.

S-L: … and no xmas tour this year I suppose?

Kim: I’m not a fan of relating it to xmas, but it’s become a tradition recent years and an opening for us to do a tour of several cities. We noticed early that the summer gigs would be cancelled, and probably the rest of the year too.

Alex: We won’t play for a limited, sitting audience, will have to wait until restrictions are lifted and things are back to normal. A Seigmen show needs a certain format, getting the right ambience when communicating with the audience, or else it’s not worth doing.

If I look at this on a positive note, it will be bloody fun to finally do live shows again! After this period it’ll feel extra special, and not only for musicians, but for other culture events, the travel businesses and all other that are affected by this situation. 

Kim: Ljungblut is the band that’s benefited most from the corona period, several band members have been creative, written and sent me a lot of material. At the start of the lockdown I managed to sit in my studio and effectively work on their and my own ideas, so it’ll probably end up as a double album. Maybe we’ll grab Alex and go to a family cabin to record it, hopefully giving it an extra edge by being a bit remote and isolated.

By having several projects in the pipeline, the promise I gave my wife about not having three bands at the same time still remains broken. But there will be a time when there’s no bands, so we must do what we can now.

Alex: As long as we have something to say and are able to do it – and people like it – we find this way of life meaningful and fun.

—

Ending on a high note with that excellent quote it’s time to forget about 2020 and look forward to 2021 and beyond, because these guys have a lot more in store that’ll please our ears in the years to come.

Have a Merry Yuletide and a Happy New Year! 😀

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

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange / Sub Culture Records press release) The Danish/Norwegian duo Piston Damp, currently residing in Sarpsborg, Norway, are releasing their debut single on October 16^th. Have a listen at the first track available at Bandcamp at the bottom here!

The duo consists of Jonas Groth and Truls Sønsterud; Jonas being the singer/songwriter/producer, with more than 20 years’ experience from both stages and studios all over the world, mostly connected to his brother, Stephan’s band, Apoptygma Berzerk. He also has
connections to various other acts like Magenta and The Anix. His production partner is Truls; musical arranger/keyboardist/songwriter, connected to various bands since the late 90’s.

Their new track ‘Something In Me’ was written and recorded this summer, with Stephan Groth serving as pre-production supervisor. It is mixed by Ole-Espen Kristiansen (Elec This!) at STUDIO+/-, and mastered by Carlos Perón (ex-YELLO), at Liquid Gold Mastering.
Something In Me also has a version called Noget I Mig with Danish lyrics, and both versions have several remixes (‘Pegboard Nerds Remix’, ‘The Anix Remix’, ‘Technomancer Remix’, ‘Extended 12”
Remix’, and more…).

Tracklist:

1. Something In Me
2. Noget I Mig
3. Another Pain (Blue Hearts Version)
4. Something In Me (Pegboard Nerds Remix)
5. Noget I Mig (Pegboard Nerds Remix)
6. Something In Me (The Anix Remix)
7. Something In Me (Technomancer Remix)
8. Something In Me (Kleinmelker Remix)
9. 9. Something In Me (Extended Remix)

All tracks written by Jonas Groth
Recorded, arranged, produced and programmed by Piston Damp at Brakka Studio, Tveter
All vocals arranged and recorded by Jonas Groth at Love Studio, Greåker
Snare drum on Another Pain by Truls Sønsterud
Tracks 1-3 and 6-9 mastered by Carlos Perón at Liquid Gold Mastering
Tracks 4 and 5 mixed and mastered by Alex “O” at PBN Headquarters, Hamar
Tracks 1-3, 7 & 9 mixed and engineered by Ole-Espen Kristiansen at STUDIO +/-
Track 6 recorded and mixed by The Anix
Track 7 recorded and mixed by Technomancer at The Technomantic Zone
Track 8 recorded and mixed by Kleinmelker
Track 9 remixed by Jonas Groth at Love Studio, Greåker
Final compiling and editing by Tomas Siqveland at Lydmuren. Greåker
Logo and design; Espenoo
Pre-production supervisor; Stephan L. Groth
Production office; Per Aksel Lundgreen
Worldwide digital distribution by Sub Culture Records – “Making everything great again”

UPDATED October 15th: Check their music video!

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