(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange. Coverart by Halvor Bodin) It’s been 25 years since Apoptygma Berzerk‘s hit single “Kathy’s Song” was released, so now it’s time to look back and celebrate the anniversary with new remixes, involving original and new remixers. It’s primarily a digital release, first on Bandcamp a week ago, and today out on other platforms.

We had some questions for all involved in this Apoptygma Berzerk release, having them go down memory lane and also looking at todays remixes, and also what’s lies ahead. Starting off with the man who kicked off the remixes, Ferry Corsten.

Ferry Corsten on Apoptygma Berzerk’s hit single “Kathy’s Song”

S-L: What made you do the original remix 25 years ago?

Ferry Corsten: Back then, I was in Norway frequently for shows. The promoter I worked with became a close friend, and he was also very good friends with Stephan from Apoptygma Berzerk. Noticing a strong musical alignment between our sounds, he introduced us.

When Stephan played me the track, something he described as a duet with his computer, I was immediately intrigued by the concept alone. Once I heard it, I realized it contained so many elements that I could naturally translate into my own style without losing its original identity. That’s when I suggested doing a remix, which ultimately opened up a new audience for Apop in a different genre, as well as for me.

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S-L:  A part of the story behind this remix also involved a surprise visit from Apoptygma Berzerk’s Stephan…

FC: To be completely honest, it’s been such a long time that I can’t say I remember everything clearly anymore. What I described in my previous answer is what I recall now, and it’s possible that my first meeting with Stephan actually happened during that surprise visit. I’m not entirely sure.
(Editors notice: We’ll get the story from Stephan later!)

S-L: As it’s a song I still listen to when I’m in a 2000’s-vibe-mood, it’s hard to realize that 25 years has flown by. Looking back, how do you think it has stood the test of time?

FC: It’s funny how cyclical music can be. When I did the original remix in the early 2000s, that sound was booming in the trance scene, and club culture in general. As styles shifted, it eventually became something people associated with nostalgia.

Now, 25 years later, this “retro trance” sound is making a major comeback. With a fresh polish and a few modern tweaks to the original remix, it feels relevant again, standing shoulder to shoulder with today’s contemporary sounds. It really shows that the track had all the right ingredients to stand the test of time.

S-L: How did you approach the task of remixing a 25 year old Apoptygma Berzerk classic?

FC: Over the years, quite a few people have asked me to play the original remix in my sets. I always felt the track had great bones, but that its production and mix needed an update. So I essentially recreated the original remix to bring it up to today’s sonic standards, without changing too much about what made it special in the first place.

S-L: Do you have any other Apoptygma Berzerk favorites that you’d want to remix sometime? 

FC: I definitely like ‘Until The End Of The World’ and ‘Starsign’. Both have great elements for a remix.

S-L: What’s up in the near future with releases and musical projects?

FC: I currently have a lot of new music lined up for the new year. I’m also working on a new album for my ambient project, FERR. So there’s plenty of exciting material in the pipeline.

Mental Overdrive (Per Martinsen) on Apoptygma Berzerk’s hit single “Kathy’s Song”

Next up is the man mostly known under the moniker Mental Overdrive, Per Martinsen, winner of Spelleman (Norwegian Grammys) in the electronica genre.

Side-Line: What’s your relation to the original track, and also the Ferry Corsten remix that took it to new heights?

Per Martinsen: I met Stephan back in the early nineties when we played the same event in Norway. We immediately bonded over the fact that the two main towns in Norway where synth-driven music had a stronghold up to that point was our two (fairly small) hometowns. I’ve been following his work since then and was aware of the Kathy’s Song. The remix had unfortunately slipped my attention until he got in touch with me for a Mental Overdrive mix.

S-L: How did you approach the task of remixing a 25 year old classic?

PM: I’ve been doing a few remixes lately of more melodic tracks, so the main thing was to keep the vocal sample and chord progression, but build the beats and bassline from scratch. It’s a very catchy hook, so the arrangement evolves around the core of the song, but will hopefully make a dancefloor bounce.

S-L: Do you have any other Apoptygma Berzerk favorites that you’d want to remix sometime? 

PM: Oooh – I love classics like ‘Spiritual Reality’ and ‘Burnin’ Heretic’ from the early days! Would be fun to re-visit some of those.

S-L: What’s up in the near future – more Mental Overdrive, Naeon Teardrops or other projects? 

PM: There’s a new Mental Overdrive album (2 actually) coming in January. Going through my archives I unveiled quite a few tunes that had slipped my attention. I’m also writing some new Naeon Teardrops material and will be composing music for a film next year under my WAVE∞FORM alias. The backstory of how I ended up with 3 artist aliases can be found here: https://books2read.com/u/3Jq2NK

Alyxx Digre on Apoptygma Berzerk’s hit single “Kathy’s Song”

Final remixer is Alyxx Digre, a collaborator with Apoptygma Berzerk over many years through the Technomancer and Zone Tripper projects.

S-L: What’s your relation to the original track, and also the Ferry Corsten remix that took it to new heights?

Alyxx Digre: So, I grew up in Northern Norway, Mo I Rana to be specific. And something I liked doing while I was in junior high was borrowing music at the library. A lot of music that shaped my tastes and direction came from that library. One such CD was ‘Tranzania’ by Acid Queen, a project that combined Tanzanian music with techno. It was very infectious, very catchy and I definitely took notice of the name Stephan Groth from that album.

So later I found this weird CD in that library with a golden cropcircle on a white background. Above it was the name Apoptygma Berzerk and ‘Welcome to Earth’. I had absolutely no idea what it would be just from looking at it, thinking it perhaps was a metal album. I looked inside the booklet, and saw that Stephan had worked on it, so I thought… Okay, so it must be techno then. At that point I had absolutely no idea what EBM was, I just knew about techno like a lot of 90s kids who grew up with Sash! and Ayla.

I put it on, and immediately was hit with this… tense, highly energetic and just incredibly tightly programmed beat with the track ‘Starsign’. And lyrics that felt deep and resonating with something more than a lot of pop music did back then. It wasn’t just catchy, it was highly intelligent and making me think about things that I loved thinking about. It was basically a mix of techno and X-Files, and that was enough to really hook me.

But then I got to track 5, which started softer. And at one point I heard this Macintosh speech synth… and as the track was playing I knew I had found gold in that library. Kathy’s Song became and remains one of my absolute favourite Apoptygma Berzerk songs. It especially resonates with me as someone who grew up with a very strong connection to computers, something I still have today.

“Welcome To Earth” shaped my taste in music from that point on. I seeked out all the similar “futurepop” music I could find, including Icon of Coil, Code 64, Covenant and so forth. It was also a deeply formative album for me in terms of my own production. From that point on I knew I wanted to make synthpop and electronic music, and so the path forward was set for where I am today.

As for the Ferry Corsten Remix, I was exposed to that on the Singles Collection, a 2001 compilation that combined every Apoptygma Berzerk single up until that point, which of course included the Kathy’s Song single. It is the very first track that opens the collection, so I think on first listen I had no idea what to expect from it. It is an absolute trance assault with some epic synths, definitely very of that era, but still has a futuristic sheen to it. I came from a trance/techno background so you can only imagine how much I loved it. I think I snuck it into the junior high cafeteria where it got on heavy rotation on the HiFi we had there. Especially the girls loved it, I recall.

But yeah, definitely took it to new heights and still one of my favourite trance anthems from the early 2000s.

S-L: How did you approach the task of remixing a 25 year old classic?

AD: I took it as an opportunity to further refine my Zone Tripper sound a bit. As of late I’ve been listening to a lot of harder synthwave stuff, so I wanted to make a version with a very hard edged sound. At some point in the production I think I even just added a pure sub bass to it to make it just pump as hard as possible. I just knew I wanted to really push my own production abilities on it and find a new and harder sound.

I didn’t wanna mess with the structure too much, so I kept it more or less similar to the original track. I think it has a very nice buildup. Like there are two distinct parts in the original song, but something I’ve always loved about the live version is that there’s a third break that adds a lot to it. I knew I wanted to put that in there.

Of course, I am a huge fan of Commodore 64 chiptunes, and funny enough, the “Welcome to Earth” album was what got me into them in the first place. So I knew I had to put some SID sounds in there as an homage.

It all honestly came together really quickly and I think at one point I had to get up from my chair in the studio and just dance. I usually try to get that effect with all my tracks. I think my partner calls it a “red shoe” effect, like you’re suddenly cursed with having to dance until you drop. So I am really happy with the remix.

S-L: Do you have any other Apoptygma Berzerk favorites that you’d want to remix sometime?

AD: I’ve already done so much with Stephan honestly. I think my first remix was ‘Shadow’ from the ‘Rocket Science’ album, which ended up included on the 2011 ‘Major Tom’ EP. I also did a C64 chiptune version of ‘Atom & Eve’ on the ‘Nein Danke’ EP, did the ‘Sarpsborg Synth’ version of ‘Backdraft’ on the ‘Soli Deo Gloria’ remix album ‘SDGXXV’, so I feel like at this point I might need to step back a bit so I don’t oversaturate the discography too much!

I’ve even done a remix of ‘808bit’ by his side project ‘Fairlight Children’, so all in all, I am very happy with how much I’ve been allowed to put my own spin on Stephan’s works.

That being said, if the stars were to align again and I could have another song to remix, I definitely would want to do a take on ‘Spindizzy’ from the ‘Harmonizer’, which in my opinion ALWAYS deserved its own single. Hugely underrated track. I think even other remixes of that track would be amazing as well.

S-L: What’s up in the near future – more Zone Tripper, Technomancer or other projects?

AD: I had to take a break from a lot of my music projects to work on personal stuff. As I’ve been publicly open about, I am a trans female, and my focus has been getting very internal lately. Re-evaluating my own beliefs, values, and identity. I realized I had to change, and I had to change a lot. I spent a lot of time in 2024 and this year just entirely deconstructing myself and who I am. I was essentially left with a big puzzle, having to put the pieces back together in a new way.

There’s a lot of personal stuff I don’t wanna get into detail about, but I’ve managed to lose a LOT of weight, with some good help and diet advice from my friends. And I’ve gone through some therapy to work on myself. So my focus has been on just finding myself and defining who I wanna be as a woman.

As such I’ve had a lot of ideas laying around for the next Technomancer album. As always, I really enjoy making music that comes from my heart and is very honest. I think I managed that to a great extent with my previous album, ‘Hyperfuel’, coincidentally an album where I got to work with Stephan on a cover of ‘Puppets’, so definitely check that out. But yeah I wanna keep at it, making songs that can resonate with people, and that are very honest and based in my own experiences. And of course, focusing on just getting my emotions in there.

I think for a while I teased making some harder EBM stuff, but I’ve kinda decided to do that less, because I never truly know where I’ll end up musically. And I don’t wanna limit myself too hard on a certain style or idea. And a lot of that anger I harbored for a while just isn’t there anymore. And I don’t think I wanna add more anger or hate to the world either. I don’t think that’s what we need right now in the climate we live in. I just wanna make something that is real and human. In this day and age I’ve become extremely opposed to generative AI, and it is something I want no part in. I like art being made by humans and don’t ever wanna make any excuses to rely on it. So whatever I do forward is just gonna be that, 100% my own art, and I truly want to release something I can be proud of.

I am working on a Zone Tripper album, and I definitely think people are gonna like it. I am always trying to push myself to do better, so I hope people will enjoy it. And I also really hope I can get more Laboratory 5 stuff out, because I still very much love doing that project and we have a lot of demos laying around that sound awesome.

Stephan Groth on the Apoptygma Berzerk’s hit single “Kathy’s Song”

We also wanted to hear what the man behind the original track, Stephan Groth, had to say about the songs history, both past, present and future!

Side-Line: What’s your current relation to the original track, and also the Ferry Corsten remix that took it to new heights?

STP: Apoptygma Berzerk’s ‘Kathy’s Song’ is probably the most important song I have ever written. I remember working in the studio with Fredrik Darum and Vegard Blomberg 25 years ago. When I came up with the idea of having a computer/robot singing the chorus of the song, we all instantly knew that this was going to be something very special. In todays world when AI is singing half the songs that are being released on digital platforms, it might not be a big deal, but back then, in 2000, having a machine singing the chorus of a song had never been done before.

I was a big fan of Moonman! The single ‘Don’t Be Afraid‘ from 1996 is stil one of my all-time favourite club tracks. So when Inge Nilsen (aka DJ Lemon) introduced me to Ferry (aka Moonman) before his show in Oslo in the late 90’s, I was very excited. We got along very well and the talks about doing a remix soon came up.

Ferry Corsten was back then not yet the superstar DJ/producer that he is today, and as far as I know both Ferry and Tiesto both became famous in Norway first(!) before the rest of the world followed. So when Ferry blew up, so did the Kathy’s remix 🙂

Many a time have people written in the comment fields that they were introduced to Apoptygma Berzerk via Ferry’s Kathy’s remix, and this is also the case the other way around. Ferry’s remix became a hit in the trance scene all over the world 25 years ago, but we also had many other remixes of the song that became very successful, for example the Beborn Beton remix, but especially the amazing club classic Victoria Mix by VNV Nation.

S-L: As it’s a song I still listen to when I’m in a 2000’s-vibe-mood, it’s hard to realize that 25 years has flown by. Looking back, how do you think this Apoptygma Berzerk track has stood the test of time?

STP: Well, first of all it’s a great and catchy pop song, and as the Levi’s slogan goes: “Quality Never Goes Out of Style”. Kathy has definitely aged well, and in my opinion this song absolutely deserves an anniversary celebration.

S-L: A little bird whispered that a part of the remix-story 25 years ago was a car drive to Holland for a surprise visit to a certain producer – that we really want to hear more about!

STP: I was totally determined on making this remix happen! So determined that my manager at the time, Jon Sverre Høiden, and I drove all the way to Rotterdam to “talk him (Ferry) into doing the remix”! LOL, thank God it worked out 🙂

I saw a huge potential in this collaboration with Apoptygma Berzerk, a crossover between trance/club/EBM and synthpop.  And as we all know, this sound became quite popular, especially after Ronan Harris coined the term Future Pop and hundreds of bands all over the world started to follow this “formula”.

S-L: How has it been organizing this project and listen to new remixes of your 25 year old Apoptygma Berzerk classic?

STP: Per Aksel Lundgreen and I did a lot of work on the SOLID DEO GLORIA 25 anniversary (SDGXXV) release together with our designer Halvor Bodin. We are now doing kinda the same thing, both sonically and with visuals. This is a celebration where a lot of time, effort and resources has gone into making this interesting and long lasting and hopefully something that the listeners will appreciate.

Where did those 25 years go? It’s insane how quick time flies by. All of us who experienced these magic 25 years have been extremely privileged! “Kathy’s Song” (in all her different remixes and versions) was a part of the soundtrack to the last 2 decades, this is what we are celebrating.

S-L: What’s up in the near future for Apoptygma Berzerk – more Kathy’s Song remixes and/or new music?

STP: The anniversary celebration will continue in 2026.  There are more Apoptygma Berzerk EPs with new remixes to be released digitally, and there will also be CD and vinyl releases of these.

I am also working on a new Apoptygma Berzerk EP with new material… we can talk more about this when the anniversary is over 🙂

Stay Tuned! Happy Anniversary, and Happy New Year!
Lots of love!

jrstange

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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(Photo by Eiril Osen Waerdahl) To be released on 4th July is the newest single by the Nordic-British post-punk quartet Permafrost. “Wrong Heart” is the lead single for the band’s brand new album, “The Light Coming Through”, the follow-up to the “Come Back To Surprise” EP, and expected to be released in October.

In addition to the single, Mental Overdrive (aka Per Martinsen) has remixed the single, which will also be available on 4th July.

Out already is the music video for “Wrong Heart”. The video follows four young girls as they set out to create a music video. Of the video they said: “In another dimension Permafrost could be a girl band. In this reality they are planning to create a music video. They have to drag their equipment into the forest to get to the preferred spot, making it into a road movie with a lot of obstacles on the way – like grazing sheep and deer in the blossoming Norwegian nature. When they finally arrive at the spot and want to start playing, the song finishes. All that work for nothing.”

About Permafrost

Formed originally in Molde, Norway in 1982 by school friends Frode Heggdal Larsen and Kåre Steinsbu, Permafrost has undergone numerous transformations over the years. Now joined by fellow Norwegian Robert Heggdal and Daryl Bamonte from the UK (who worked very closely with Depeche Mode and The Cure for several years), they deliver post-punk of the early ’80s.

Permafrost debuted with the “Godtment” EP in 1983, released on a limited edition of 50 numbered cassettes. In 2019, they followed up with the “Permafrost” EP on vinyl, later making it available digitally in 2021. Throughout 2021, the band dropped three singles. : “Femme Fatale”, “Closed Eyes” and “Restore Us”.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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Meet Naeon Teardrops, a fresh electronica project from Norway. But here’s a twist: the talent behind this name is none other than the seasoned Norwegian techno artist, Per Martinsen, also known as Mental Overdrive.

For those who’ve been around, Per Martinsen isn’t a new name. He’s been a force in the hardcore, rave, and techno scenes for over 30 years. Starting in 1990, he kicked off with powerful techno tracks on the Belgian label R&S. He’s also worked with labels like Smalltown Supersound, Ploink, and Virgin Records, to name a few.

With Naeon Teardrops, Martinsen is diving into synthpop and darkwave sounds, giving them a modern twist. This new direction stems from his fictional autobiography, “Pyramids On The Moon”. In this three-part tale, he imagines three different life paths, each with its own musical alias.

Naeon Teardrops’ debut has been preceded by several singles: “Amnesiacs” came out in 2021, followed by “Shadowsister” in 2022. The recent singles, “Water Rising” and “Outbound”, dropped in March and May 2023.

The debut album, “Testimony”, is a blend of three decades of electronic music, mixing electropop, darkwave, and more. Set to release on September 8th, 2023, through Love OD Communications, it’ll also be on vinyl and CD via Apollon Records.

Want a taste? Check out the tracks released so far below.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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