A shift in activities 1993-1995

Time for another post then. Now where was I? Ah right...

In order to have some sort of place within Anstalt, it was imperative that we maintained some sort of normalcy and in general make synthetic sounds which people wanted to hear. Anstalt was at most times drawn between making accessible and danceable music and the more hardcore EBM type of music. Tracks like Human Input and Eternal illustrate this conflict perfectly. While Human Input is a frenetic assault of traditional EBM complete with angered vocals and a super tight bass-line, Eternal is a very repetitive and noisy trance techno track replete with hypnotic force. I'd post them here for sake of reference if I could, but they are not my tracks to post since I took no part in their creation. I might eventually check for permission though.

[edit] It would seem that - courtesy of Eskild - 32 old (and not so old) Anstalt tracks are up for grabs by checking this link and following the "more" link for another page of free downloads [edit]

After some concerts and live television appearances from Anstalt [I think I only ever personally participated in two Anstalt performances and that was at the release of Re-Incarnation of the Sun at Volapük and for a seemingly endless concert at Hulen in Bergen - which incidentally was the first time I met the amazingly splendid folks of Anax Imperator.] I remember it being stressful to be in a band which pulled in so many directions at once. Such a largish bunch of people, little or no resources combined with lugging a ton of gear including drum-pads and at least 4-5 synthesizers around the countryside makes for some tribulations. Anyway, my focus was not very accessibility oriented at the time [whereas now, I am a veritable pop-whore!] and Alx as well was very interested in experimenting with "abnormal" music of various kinds. I mean that's where we started out!

SNIPPET-ALERT!: This is more or less what the first ever proper Atropine song sounded like live @ Hulen in 1994 Caution! This is poorly executed and taken from the "12PM" Anstalt demo (ca. 1994) where it is dubbed the "Piggy Mix" (for good reason) =). Don't expect much. But it is a rare recording though. There's always that. The first incarnation of Haemorrhage was recorded in 1992.


So Alx (and sometimes me as well) made a ton of tracks in preparation for having to embark on the assembly of an Anstalt CD. This did not materialize while I was still in the band, and so Anstalt released tracks on quite a large number of compilations globally. During 1994/95 there was also a bit of collaboration between various Anstalt members and Industrial Heads who shared a studio in downtown Oslo for quite some time. A couple of other notable people who also had a studio in the same building: Nemlig Hemlig [AKA Masters Ov Møh] and Silver Ale which was a one-time name for the conceptual/elitist MAC-OS sound wizardry of a certain mr. Blokkum-Flø.

While Brilliance Without Phase was being assembled in the studio Alx was quite busy, but it also meant not having a sampler around since it was working double time elsewhere. This gave rise to a purely electronic construct called Macrohelion, and that project was worked on quite regularly from late 1994 to mid 1996. I'll do a post about this project later on. This music was made solely with synthesizers. No drum-machines involved, which made it quite challenging. Macrohelion is a very personal project meant to really get into chromatics and how to really compose songs properly, which means it was not circulated by us at all, thus only a few people have even heard about it. Three full 90 minute DAT-tapes and a stack of Atari song disks is where we're at at the moment. Converting them to MAC-OS will take time. Lots of time. More on the headway we're making in the aforementioned future Macrohelion post.

Anyway, it seemed pretty much clear over time that I had no real place in Anstalt - and since Alx wanted to keep busy doing all sorts of things (which is still his modus operandi), I left/got phased out of the band sometime during 1994/95. The input to Anstalt of Alx and myself was pretty much dimished as it was, and this is well-illustrated on Brilliance Without Phase where we are represented with only two tracks - the first called Default and the last which is called Self Destruction. In retrospect I see a lot of omissions which would have made the record more coherent, but hindsight is hindsight and what's done is done. In any event it is a nice audio document of the combined activity of a lot of people. Most, if not all of it used to be hosted by Eskild, but alas it is no longer possible to get downloads of this. The demos were better though and I still enjoy listening to them. On cassette.

Sorry if this post did not make as much sense as I had intended. It was a rather chaotic period and I guess this was destined to reflect in the post.

Until next time,


.//Cthulberg