It is time for the yearly subscription fee for Soundcloud Pro but I have decided not to continue paying for what I think is a pretty crappy service. Cost vs benefit = not enough value for me to continue. Because of this I had to delete most of my music on there, which is kinda sad but hey almost nobody was listening anyway. You can still find me on my bandcamp site, Spotify and Youtube, to some degree.
I made one more Spotify playlist with chilled, laidback beats. Since not many seems to be listening to my playlists I will probably stop making them now. Why spend a lot of time searching for great music when I have no listeners really..
Why quit a good thing?! Here is my second Spotify playlist with the best laid back, chilled beats tunes out there.
I put together a new playlist on Spotify with some of the best music I’m listening to right now. If this gets any traction I will continue to make these lists on a regular basis. Best of Deep House, Ambient Grooves and Laid Back Electronic. Check it out.
2018 is upon us and I guess it’s time to look back on the year that has been – its ups and downs.
It started off pretty good in January as I got a new day-job working closer to home. I’m still in the web design profession, only these days It has fancier titles like UX Expert or Senior UX/UI Designer. It’s a good job and it has some nice perks that I enjoy, like the once-in-a-while travelling. Through my work I got to visit places like Malta and Milan, Italy. Also me and my gf went on a short trip to Prague in the summer, which was nice.
My interest for building stuff had previously led me into finding out about and ultimately buying a kit for the TTSH, which is a scaled down clone of the legendary semi-modular synth Arp 2600. This year I built this thing and I won’t lie, it was a huge project. It took me months to finish. I had some problems on the way but managed to fix them all. The beast is now fully functional and placed on a shelf in front of me as I write this post.
Then my friend from back in the day, Andreas Ohlsson aka Mr. Bacher/XAKK in the Commodore 64 80-s scene died in May. I haven’t seen Andreas for close to 20 years but it still hits you in the feels.
Somehow I managed to find time for making some new music and in August I had finished enough tracks to release a new full-length album. Focus was released digitally on August 25th. I’m happy with the result and people seem to like it.
In September my close friend Jerry Wiener passed. I’ve known him for 17 years and yes, the news about his death hit me pretty hard. Still find it hard to accept that he has moved on.
So that was my 2017. The short version of it anyway.
RIP my old friend.
Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long – and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you’re the Prodigal Son; you’re quite a prize!
Batty: I’ve done… questionable things.
Tyrell: Also extraordinary things; revel in your time.
Batty: Nothing the God of biomechanics wouldn’t let you into heaven for.
Quote from Blade Runner
Did you know I have a dedicated artist page on Spotify?
Follow me there now if you never want to miss any of my future releases!!!
Finally it’s August the 25th and my third full-length album has been released. I thought I should write a few words about how it came to be.
My first album 64 was produced and released by myself way back in 1996 and my second one came out on a German label in 1999. The plan was to finish number three a couple of years later, at the latest. I actually finished some tunes but everything changed when I discovered the club scene in 2001. After that I produced mostly electronic dance music.
After a while people and labels in the club scene started to ask me if I wanted to do remixes for them. That sounded like fun so I did quite a lot of that, for quite a few years. I also released a bunch of EPs with my own dance music, on my own label and on other people’s labels. But somehow I never really managed to produce enough good tunes to fill up an entire album. Then a few years ago I though, enough is enough. This remixing business wasn’t doing anything for me anymore and I had kind of reached a plateau with my producing skills. Then about three years ago I got into modular synthesizers and suddenly I had lots of inspiration to make music again. In just a couple of months I produced 3-4 good tracks. The idea for a third full-lengther came into light again.
The result is Focus. I hope you like it.
Here is the official press release
Listen and buy here:
my Bandcamp page
Spotify
Google Play
Deezer
Amazon Music
iTunes
Seems like it’s not up on Beatport or Juno Digital just yet.
Focus will be released August 25 on all the usual places.
And here is the second star of my next album, the trusty old 1980 monophonic tank also known as the Roland SH-09.
Put some tape delay on it = instant magic.