10-08-31
A swell place to live

This has been the best summer I can remember. Beautiful weather almost all the time. That can of course be a problem if you're a somewhat creative person, and if your creating requires you to sit in front of a computer. It's a feeling of guilt. One should be outside and enjoy the warm rays from the sun, not get a screen tan. I present two new items today. The first is my cartoon "A swell place to live", a disconcerting little film about your neighbours.

The second offering is from my vault, a song called "Overwhelmed" that I recorded with my QY22 sequenser and Emu Orbit synthesizer about a decade ago.

My musical activities are dominated by Strange Days, the project that Erik Ångman and myself started about a year back. You can check out our progress on our Facebook band page. It's unlikely that page will ever be updated because it's locked down until we respond to a cell phone verification code challenge that we did not receive. There are about 1000 staffers to help 500 000 000 users, so we can kiss our strange asses good-bye on Facebook. But the three songs that we did manage to upload are really good and we have enjoyed plenty of feedback on "Raging Heart".

10-07-19
Watershed moment

Back after a long absence with a new ambient EP titled "Porthole". It is the first release where I have created not some, but all instruments from scratch. This work contains no preset sounds or professional samples and I'm kind of proud of that, but mostly I'm deeply satisfied that I have created sounds nobody has used before. I had no idea one could feel a sense of accomplishment like that, and now I am smitten by that whole process. My projects now begin with sound sculpting rather than browsing thousands of ready made instruments. It takes longer but it is worth it. Continuing with my audio visual experiments, I also prepared a video for the title track which you can view on YouTube. In addition to the EP itself, you can also download the "Porthole" video for use on the iPod. Thanks for listening.

10-05-11
Attention city dwellers

This week I present my magnum opus from my dorm sessions, Urbanity. Most of this stuff was composed during my infatuation with Grand Theft Auto III in immediate post-millenial years. I was so taken in by the dark and dangerous metropolis of Liberty City that I felt compelled to compose a suite of game inspired works. Here it is in all its glory. Meanwhile work continues for me and Erik on Strange Days' debut album. It's taking a toll on my wimpy little voice to do the vocal work. I have discarded the practice of using pitch correction and this sometimes requires over 25 takes to get any kind of decent material to work with, but it's worth it. It's also comforting to know we'll be able to pull it off live too.

10-04-29
On a Hill Top

Off to Rapla this weekend for an intensive recording session upstairs at Eric's. We have easily an albums worth of material, however embryonic some it may be. Still, it's a lot better than not having anything. We're hoping Strange Days' debut album will come to fruition this year. As for my own private compositions I am getting ready to release my epic instrumental suite 'Tales From a City', a nod to Vangelis in name only. The music is ready, has been ready for ages and awaiting a suitable visual wrapper. For your listening pleasure I'm providing a leftover cut from the City sessions called 'On a Hill Top'. Stay auto tuned for developments, and I don't mean that in an Vangelis World way. I mean that in a big way.

10-03-31
It's war

I'm pleased to present the release of my new album 'War', ten years in the making. This is a really good one and I can't stress enough how much attention and care went into this. It is peppered with sound bites from past and present conflicts interwoven with luscious synth pads and some of my best keyboard moves. It was produced entirely with the very first version of Propellerheads Reason some ten years ago. Please proceed to the album's micro site and download for your offline pleasure.

10-03-28
New song released

Finally getting a workable music production environment in order and surprisingly it was GarageBand that came to the rescue. I was blown away by its very capable recording functionality. It's very easy to sketch out songs and then take them into Logic when it's time to get your fucking hands dirty. I don't actually have Logic 9 yet and quite frankly I probably won't get it. I'm looking at its little sister, Logic Express, which costs a third of Logic 9 and has everything and more that I am accustomed to in, say, the full blown version of Cubase. It's nice that you can get a nice sequencer like that and only spend €150. Has advanced MIDI and audio editing tools and a shitload of high quality sampled instruments. Now to the music. This update comes to you in the form of my brand new recording 'Beautiful Specter', a mostly guitar driven ambient low key instrumental. The title is derived from the testimonies of Ravensbruck concentration camp inmates who nicknamed a particularly cruel female guard Beautiful Specter. It struck me as odd how in the last moments of life one is so desperate to find beauty of any sort, even searching in one's executioner.

10-03-03
The incident

I'm still here and I am now a full time mac user. This is unfortunate and here is why. My entire nusic creation suite is on the PC and that sonofabitch crashed last friday. This is the second Gigabyte motherboard I have owned and the second one to suffer a short circuit. I was so upset that I tore everything out from the chassi and tucked everything away in a closet. I have looked forward to my mac for a long time and I just want to enjoy it now and not tinker with my PC. The mac is everything I had hoped for and I couldn't be happier with it. It's quiet, energy efficiant, sleek, sexy and quite the work horse for a mere L3 cache processor. The PC must be fixed however because it was a brilliant DAW and I hade fine tuned it just the way I like it. It is also my gaming machine and my flight simulator rig, so mark my words, it will be fixed. Fortunately I have recovered the drives and nothing is lost. At the moment I'm looking forward to finally publishing a four year old project of which I am very proud. I share with you a single from that album to get you started. 'Red Guard'.

10-01-19
Brand new release

I am pleased to finally reveal my latest musical endeavour, 'Dallas'. This offering is not the most massive recording, comprising four tracks that clock in under 25 minutes. These tracks I count among my best work, so please enjoy 'Dallas' and its associated site.

09-12-27
Major update

Pretty big update this time. A brand new (sort of) cut from the vault. The song is called 'I Haven't Forgotten About Cambodia' which deals with a war veteran in a shrink's office trying to overcome his paranoia about Asians. It might be offensive to those of the Asian persuasion but since it's a dramatic sort of piece I thought it would more effective to just stay 'in character' and convey what the character has to say. I have also created a spiffier site for my 2006 release 'Transit Mode' and reuploaded the album with proper tags for ease of use in MP3 players. There is also the added bonus of the violent drama 'Slugger' and its companion remix.

09-12-19
Apples + oranges

These are exciting times for me because time is nigh for my Apple-spansion. I look forward to doing all my visual exploits on a big ass crystal clear vibrant 27 inch iMac display. My PC is way too recent and too powerful to be ignored so I will keep it as my primary DAW for the time being. This week I present a little demo from one of my back burner projects. I will re-record this song eventually with higher BPM and some noisy guitars and distorted vocals. In the meantime, enjoy this more serene laidback crawler version. Download 'Not One of Us'.

09-12-09
All I want for christmas

December is being unusually drab. No wintry snow laden vistas stretching out before my windows when I awake each morning. Work continues on the 'Strange Days' project with Erik and my concept EP tentatively called 'Dallas'. I'm hoping I will at least have something to show for soon from either of these. Today's cut from the vault is a love song called 'Natural Stupidity' which I recorded a few years back. It's a pretty good track I think. Too good to gather dust so I thought I'd share it. 2010 will see me moving over to Apple, or at least that's the plan. I wantz one.

09-11-26
Love Field

I'm pleased to present 'Love Field', an excerpt, for lack of better words, from my new work in progress 'Dallas' which is a concept EP in which I devote time to one of my obsessions, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. I'm hoping I can present the whole work by mid december. I'm pressed for time these days and sitting down to make music can be hard and it's almost exclusively a late night pursuit, or rather, early morning.

09-11-07
Snowed in

I have removed the forum from my website as I was given the dubious honor of receiving a Viagra bot. That's right, some worthless dickhead's bot registered with my forum and posted a viagra spam message. I'm sure there are solutions for that kind of thing but right now I couldn't be bothered.

Outside is a snowy landscape and as the weather gets worse my creativity increases. Looking forward to tinkering with the musix and aftershocks this winter.

The next item from the vault is a little number called 'Bored' which I wrote ten years ago when I was unemployed, single and quite strapped for cash. It's easily the rockiest song I have ever made. Give it a listen and see if you like it.

09-11-01
Some house cleaning
I have added a dedicated page to my one-offs that I upload every now and then. My new vault additions are added there from now on. I thought this would be a good idea since it's almost time to lop off my news section and put it in an old news thread.

I have reuploaded my entire published repertoire with proper tags and artwork so that my songs look good and proper in your iPods or whatever you're using, imaginary fans. I'm pleased as Peter North with these and it looks a lot better when I fire up the songs in my Sony Walkman. No more anonymous looking files!

I want a 27" iMac with a i5 quad. I'll settle for licking on it. Perhaps a sniff too.

09-10-26
Full time dad

Jesus Christ in a miniskirt I have little time left over these days... It is an up at dawn baby extravaganza. I'm loving it though. It's cool when you come home and your kids have missed you. It certainly gives you an identity. You're someone. Someone went a-looin' in the vault and I found a piece I quite like even though it's not exactly high fidelity. It's a little number I made a few years back while I was hooked on 'The last emperor' by Bernardo Bertolucci. It was made with Reason and the vocals were done with a piece of shit desktop plastic fantastic microphone. The song, in which I mumble about China's last emperor Puyi and his adventures in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, is not going to be unearthed by an alien race a few eons from now and be made representative of our culture's musical achievements. It is nevertheless one of my personal favorites. Please give'Farewell my concubine' a spin.

09-09-30
Aloha!

... and yes! I am still here and I have taken an arrangement I am very proud of and made it availabe here! The insanely complex big band theme tune to classic detective show 'Hawaii Five-O', a show I would not have been familiar with had I not kept the strange hours I did at university. I am eagerly awaiting the show's long overdue release on DVD. I have tried to fit my slow motion rendition to the original intro footage. You can download the track here.

09-09-20
Digging in the vault

This week's little gem from the vault is my epic robbery anthem called 'Eazy Money'. Written while I was spectacularly unemployed, this song might seem like a profiler's wet dream. Fortunately these plans never came to fruition and I stood down from the deed and had a fun day in the studio instead. I'm ready to embrace autumn and I can't wait for the leaves to assume that beautiful orange slightly burned hue that just seems to pull out music by the boat load from my finger tips. Also, I have given a lot of thought to write epic porn novellas. There is a market and I would pen my tales under a suitable pseudonym, like Chest Rockheart or Stanley Pepper.

09-09-16
More sci-fi

I always get excited when there is a new sci-fi movie coming out. Pandorum seems interesting. It's about a crew of people that wake up in their space ship with no recollection of why they are there. The tagline is "Don't fear the end of the world. Fear what happens next". Here's hoping for a sci-fi that holds a candle...

09-09-11
Brand new release

I'm quite pleased to release 'Conquistador', a soundtrack for a fictitious movie. The music is however quite real and I count it among my finest works and I'm very proud of it. The album comprises my most complex pieces. Rich in chord changes, unusual transitions and liberties with the capabilities of the emulated instruments. The idea of scoring a film that never was or ever will be is nothing new. I got my inspiration from Portishead and their score for the faux movie 'To Kill a Dead Man'. It's an amazing way to work if you're driven by visuals like I am.

Please transport yourself to the Conquistador page where you can stream the whole album on your computer, or enjoy it offline by downloading your personal copy.

09.09.09
Propagation of DNA complete
We have settled into our new castle and Internet has finally been installed after some delay. My youngest daughter Meija checked aboard spaceship Earth a couple of days ago and is adjusting well. I wish I had more time for my various creative projects, but I steal a minute here and another there. My only somewhat active pursuit at the moment is my song with Erik and we soldier on as best as time allows. It's a nice track and I've written some lyrics that would make Robert Smith want to jump off a building. I share with you this evening an older instrumental track called Devil's Blues which I recorded with my friend's K2000R, Nord Modular and Ensoniq DP/4. I love it and I wish I could get that kind of moodiness just one more time. Also, Native Instrument's ad for Guitar Rig was fantastic! Very macabre and effective, because I'm thinking and talking about it six hours later.

09.08.27
Offline
We're still sitting around in an even more empty apartment, still waiting for Friday to come around. Weird feeling walking home from work today knowing it was the last time I would go to this particular apartment. I will be offline for a week or so due to the Internet guys being booked for several days. They have to come and install the stuff and stuff. I leave a bad taste in your mouth with a slow piano number called 'If you want to be my friend'.

09.08.26
Waiting
We're sitting around in an almost empty apartment wating for friday to come when we can finally move out all the big stuff. It's aggravating and we feel uprooted. It really sucks that I work this weekend. I could have been very useful around the house. Here, please enjoy some scraps from my vault. Pieces that probably never will emerge as whole songs, but are condemned to be orphaned chunks of harmony until the moon crashes into the Earth.

09.08.22
A grey hair
Tiina has discovered a grey hair in the ungainly mess that is my hair. While some might freak out and run off and get a coloring kit I enjoy the air of seniority it brings. I'm so the elderly gentleman, the seasoned old salt, the revered shaman, the second coming of Christ, the well travelled hobo, etc.

For your viewing pleasure I give you two video clips from today. Some musings on life in general (and the world we live in) while strolling through my mother'in-law's fruit garden, and also a guided tour in our new pad!

Enjoy!

09.08.21
Moving moment for us
We were given keys to the kingdom today and we are starting already this weekend to move various trinkets and thingies to our new abode. It's so exciting! Three days ago we didn't know if it would ever be possible to get rid of our microscopic apartment, and today it's like "Get the fuck out! Students are moving in!" Well, we're not quite there yet. I'm sure we'll find someone to rent our old apartment. It's a really cozy little place actually and it's close to the university and the city centre.

It's time for another cut from the vault. This next offering is a b-side for a little love song I wrote. It wouldn't be me without the kinky inappropriate aspect of things. Please listen to 'No, babe (that was just my cum)'.

09.08.19
New Look
Really nervous these days! About to become a dad for the third time and also, I am moving my little clan into a bigger place.

I have decided to use a more conventional HTML approach to my front page because I have noticed that my site doesn't run all that smooth on the common home computers out there. Ideally one should make web pages on a fairly no frills middle-of-the-road computer to ensure that the experience is somewhat similar no matter where you're viewing it from. My musical content will still be heavily Flash oriented.

I'm a Flash beginner, really, so even a small snag or kink can throw me way off course. Exempli gratia, the complete absence of updates recently due a small problem with my scrollbar, unfixable due to my ineptitude with programming Actionscript.

I'm making this a fairly PNG image oriented site which shouldn't be a problem really, unless the site is viewed with a bare bones standard release of Internet Exploder. I can take many forms of abuse, but I pray thee... please don't use Internet Explorer. It's an awful browser and it can cause dick cancer.

09.05.31
Is Io growing an Atmosphere?

The biggest event in my music making history was not my first Yamaha Portasound keyboard, nor was it the Alesis MMT-8. It wasn't even the Atari ST. It was Reason 1.0. It removed almost every cable from my music setup and opened up seemingly endless possibilities. This week's track from the vault is my very first recording with Reason ten years ago. It contains samples from a National Geographic program. Also, visitors, please stop flooding my boards. You're using up my bandwidth with your banter.

09.08.29
Forums are online
I've been wanting to incorporate a message board or something like that for some time now. I never know who comes and goes and I'd like to give visitors a chance to say something. Please register and chat away!

09.05.28
Moon
It appears Duncan Jones, who is David Bowie's son, has made a sci-fi movie called 'Moon'. It has been very well received and this is exciting because he shot it with a comparatively laughable budget by today's standards. I really can't wait to see this one.

09.05.27
Book of Jobs
I went to Rahva Raamat the other day and I saw a biography of Steve Jobs and I had to grab it. I just finished iWoz and Steve Jobs is mentioned surprisingly sparingly in that book. He hasn't written anything himself that I'm aware of and he went ballistic when iCon came out. That warrants a read through right there. I take some of it with a pinch of salt and some parts seem loaded with the author's own emotion. It's still a fascinating read because if a tenth of what is written is true he is one crazy motherfucker. An undisputed genius, but nuts and manipulative to a level that almost defies invention.

09.05.24
Expansion Slot
Well, the cat is out of the bag. Tiina and I are expecting our third daughter. Due to the problems during our last outing we waited a long time before telling anybody. In late august, early september we plan to welcome our new cast member. This week I started a collaboration with fellow Swede in exile Erik and we're creating a dark kind of synth and guitar driven piece that is pretty cool. This week I share with you a track I recorded in my bedroom in Houston, using mostly an E-Mu Orbit synth, a QY-22 step sequencer and a Darwin hard disc recorder. For your pleasure, this week's vault offering is 'Watching the surf'.

09.05.23
Working up the balls
Some vlog snippets filmed just before and after making 'If you haven't killed me by then'. Had to give myself a pep talk because I was nervous.

09.05.18
High times
I went out and bought myself a copy of Steve Wozniak's memoirs today which I look forward to getting into. In a different life I would have lived in California during the 70s computer golden age with a bigger skull circumference. I would have been happy just to get them coffee like a little bitch boy. For your listening pleasure I offer a lo-fi snippet from one of two projects currently in the pipeline. It's a stripped down outtake from the main theme in a concept EP I'm working on. Oh, and of course please download and enjoy this week's goodie from the vault, 'John, it's only temporary'

09.05.12
Break your mother's back
I forgot to upload my weekly bonus track yesterday, so here goes. This is a little number I'm particularly proud of that I recorded with Stefan Hayman ten years ago. It has Hayman style classic ass kicking basslines that really drive this piece forward at a relentless pace.

09.05.10
Major overhaul
After a longer absence I return with a new web site and a brand new release plus an update on Fallout Blues. I have two very exciting projects in the works and I plan to release them sometime this summer. In the meantime, please enjoy 'If you haven't killed me by then' and its accompanying video which I shot earlier this spring near Noo in the Estonian countryside. It was a rather nervewrecking affair as I feared a local would walk by and see this Swedish idiot jamming his synthesizer all alone in the woods. I don't think I would have recovered. I'm pretty pleased with the results and I hope you like it. I have been enjoying Depeche Modes' specatacular new album Sounds of the Universe which I have to rate 9 out of 10. Tiina and I really loved it and we bought vinyl for the first time in 18 years (DJ Culture with the Pet Shop Boys was the last before that) and we're currently shopping for a turntable so we can listen to that good shit. Check in with me as I make little changes here and there frequently. I plan to release a track from the vault once a week. Not today as I am already introducing brand new material, but check with me soon for some audiogasms. Cheers!