Berndsen - Lover in the Dark

I was recently so impressed with Berndsen’s track “Supertime” from the “Made In Iceland Vol. 3″ that I had to purchase his whole album “Lover in the Dark”. The whole album is dark, zany, dance-y and just fun. I liked it so much, I sought to interview this enigmatic Icelandic artist. Click for more! (Including an mp3!)

How did you get into music?

I started playing guitar when I was 16 years old because I used to listen alot to Guns n´Roses & Black Sabbath at that age, couple of years ago I bought a mbox and started to record some ideas, mostly ambient and dramatic music, then again to get more into recording side of the music so I went to Holland to study Audio Engineering where I got to know a music genius called Hermigervill and we both shared the love for 80´s music and started to make music together

What were some of your favorite records growing up?

OMD – Architecture & Morality , Ultravox – Vienna , Queen – A Kind of Magic , Duran Duran – Rio , David Bowie – Lets Dance

Had you always been into 80′s sounds like saxophones, synthesizers and overblown guitar?

Haha of course! How can you not like those things? The thing is my dad listened to so much of the 80´s music that those sounds got stuck into my brain and when I got my first synthesizer I thought to myself; “Aha! That’s how music should be!”, and I continued from there.

How did you get hooked up with the “Made in Iceland 3″ mix?

Made in Iceland is a collection of twenty songs from as many bands and artists currently operating out of tiny Iceland, And [My Song] ‘Supertime’ is just too good not to be on that mix!

After viewing your music videos (which are great, btw) how important would you say humor is in the production of your music?

I have always found it a bit hard to take myself too seriously with my music so somehow humor got mixed in my music videos haha, its hard to explain it.. but I worked on my music videos with a lot of people so its not only me who is so funny! Its all that people behind the video as well…

The concept for the video “Lover In the Dark” is a perfect fit for the “Depeche Mode video-game music hook” did you have the idea going into the video making process or was it a moment you arrived at?

I would love to make a video game! It would have to be though for a really old system like Nintendo or Commodore 64 haha, Lover the in dark video idea came from Swedish friends of mine Farzad Farzaneh and Viktor Gårdsäter, the whole video is pictures! We spent around 15 hours in a green screen taking around 4000 photographs, I had to stand on one leg in front of the camera all that time, so much fun in Stockholm..love it!

Who are some artists that you admire and why?

David Bowie is one of my favorites! I admire people who have done so much good music and different things from pop to funk. He just does what he wants..which I have always liked, I could see myself doing an ambient jazz album one day or a hip hop album just do any kind of music as long as its good though.

What do you like most about playing your music live?

All the sounds on the Lover in the Dark album is mostly synths, but live I wanted to have it all live! so I got a Guitar player, Synth Player, Saxophone player, Drummer , Bass player , Backing Vocals – its so much fun playing it live and I have mega-energy with the band.

If you were trapped on a desert island with an unlimited power supply, what one instrument would you bring with you?

Only one! haha I would bring a Roland Jupiter 8 Synth!

How long would it take you to organize an outrageous dance party for the natives on that deserted island?

It would take me couple of minutes! Get the natives to sing and play the drums..while I would go crazy on the Roland Jupiter 8 synth and dance with the girls there of course!

What’s next for Berndsen?

I have been working on ideas for album #2! I want to play my music live for the whole world, find a nice booking agent… do more music videos! Make it in Japan!

Berndsen – Lover in the Dark

Berndsen Myspace

David Berndsen from the set of "Supertime"!

Ory Hodis and Mike Jerigum from Undo

I recently had a chance to ask some questions of Undo whose new album “As Always, But Never Before” is an expansive experiment in songwriting and soundscapes. The band consists of Ory Hodis and Mike Jerigum who both have ties to experimental rock band Woven. To read the interview and download an MP3 click below!

What draws you to the world of electronic music?

Mike: For me it’s the capacity to redefine what sounds can be used to create music. Piano music has one sound. Traditional rock groups have four or five. Electronic music, when approached creatively, can have a completely unlimited and ever expanding supply of sonic ingredients. It’s like a painter being given the ability to literally mutate color to suit the painting’s needs.

Ory: It used to be you had to pay for an orchestra or fly to Africa to record the drummers. Musicians who were not wealthy or signed to a major would never even have the opportunities we have now. Most people that have grown up with the software don’t even think about the that luxury and magic. On top of that if you are into synthesis you can invent a sound that has never been heard by the human ears. That is the most captivating part of electronic music to me, birthing a bastard child that should have never been. Hey it might even be cute.

How did you first meet?

Ory: Yea to think we could have started our own version of Einstrzende Neubauten. Arge! what were we thinking.

What records did you bond over in the early days?

Ory: You pretty much summed the music. I have to add there were some mind altering substances that led to the the pizza incident. Every time the pizza man came to the door I remember getting really confused and slightly paranoid. It was like a bad nightmare I couldn’t understand why so many pizza men kept on coming one after another.

What are some of your favorite memories recording and playing music in junior high? Did you always know you wanted to play music with detailed ambiance?

Mike: I think a turning point for us was when we were jamming in the music room of our school with our very cool (and questionably moral) art teacher. The jam was a droning improv version of “The End” by the Doors, and was very much the “A-HA!” moment for most of us in the room; the moment when we all knew that we had found our common calling.

In 2004 Mike left “Woven” to pursue an independent career, were you looking for more creative freedom?

Mike: It would be hard to say that creative freedom was the issue at hand, given that Woven represented, and still represents a deeply creative musical spirit. For me it was more a matter of process. My process is one of: get the vibe out as quickly as possible while it’s still fresh – take too long and underlying inspiration is lost and forgotten. If given the appropriate free time, I’m sure I could crank out a complete song from start to finish every single day. Woven, on the other hand, was a life lesson in patience and compromise. Each song had to be put though extensive, often times excruciating scrutiny, that in my opinion more often than not did not help the songs improve, but instead they suffered. Add to that the fact that six guys without a central producer’s voice or vision was chaos at best, a tragic clusterfuck on average. I grew up with the guys in Woven, and when I woke up and realized one day that I was rejecting their incoming calls out of loathing, I new a change was going to be necessary to salvage the underlying friendships. A decision I have never once regretted.

Your music as Undo is textured and rhythmic and emotional, who are some artists you admire whose work also embodies those characteristics?

Mike: Every single artist listed above in some way or another!

Ory: When I heard Peter Gabriel’s album Passion. It changed my whole perception of music. The fact that you can have these seemingly disparate world musical pieces that could make a real organic whole. So touching. First album that made me cry. I remember looking up all of the musicians that played on the album and buying the Cd’s. It also really opened my eyes to middle eastern scales and other rhythmic potentials. Massive Attack was another one. This really opened my eyes to song composition with electronics. Aphex Twin, Autechre and Square Pusher really got me into programming beats and harsher digital atmospheres. There were so many and are still so many influences. I could go on for ever but ill stop now…

What do the phone messages on the record mean?

Ory: When you improve you can really see how one note that someone plays can introduce a whole new musical adventure. It can lead to hours of cohesion or train wreck the whole vibe. Its the same with conversation and our actions. It’s like a fragile spider web. We would be nothing without our friends influence. The albums each of us produce and write would have never been without each other. Nod Nod….

You’ve described your guitar playing technique as “un-guitar” what are some of your favorite effects to throw over a guitar?

Ory: My life changed when I heard Michael Brook and the Cocteau Twins. Before that I was playing bare guitar and learning blues licks. I am glad I did because it built the dexterity, but after I bought my delay pedal it was all over. I have over 50 pedals most of them in my pedal board. I would say favorite effects would be the vintage Whammy. This is important because the new ones suck. I don’t care what people say. The tracking is off and the sound is imitation. The boss Dm-3 for the analog delay blooming feedback sound. The ebow for the sustained violin notes. The Electro Harmonix Hog. This pedal does everything from freeze drones to complex harmonies to filtration. My modified EH clone chorus. I changed the capacitor values so I can get everything from sickly vibrato to tremolo and every thing in between in a small package. The Frostwave Sonic Alienator. Some of the warmest 8 bit crunching. Last but not least my absolute favorite the Sherman filter bank. Total unadulterated chaotic mayhem that has the possibility of generating the brown sound.

What are your favorite keyboards to use?

Mike: The most fun keybords to play with might not be the best keyboard choices for our music. We found the the Roland Juno 106 and the Casio cz-1000 were the tools best suited to the Undo sound, along with much of the madness contained within Native Instruments Reaktor. However, the must fun synth I’ve ever played with was a giant vintage Moog modular rig at the UCSC electronic music lab. Fun and insane? Yes. Appropriate for Undo? probably not (though if we still had access to it, who knows? We might just find a way to squeeze some emotion out of it).

Amy Sol's Cover Art for Undo's "As Always, But Never Before"

As a graphic designer/illustrator, I have to comment on the beautiful cover of “As Always, But Never Before“, who did the artwork? Did you commission it, or was it a work that matched up to your intentions and you had to have it?

Mike: That is the work of the amazing and talented Amy Sol. Ory contacted her about using her artwork for our album cover, and she was so inspired by the music she gave us free reign on her portfolio to choose anything we wanted to use. That piece is titled “Dream of A Distant Cousin” and is the one we felt best suited our vision. We still have another painting of hers waiting in the wings for a future release. (http://www.amysol.com/)

Mike: We have a back catalog of about three more full length albums worth of music yet to release, plus we’ve been continuing to write and record new music as well as starting a body of work on remixes and cover songs. Ory and I also have a full palette of solo work and other side projects. Expect us at some point to take a week or two to stare at the inside walls of a padded cell.

Undo – Five Minutes

Undo Myspace

Will Knox choosing colors for his dining room

Will Knox's "The Matador and the Acrobat"

Will Knox is a singer songwriter transplant from England who has spent time in Boston, eventually settling in New York City where he rides the subway for hours looking for inspiration with a pen and notebook. He has landed support roles for the likes of Art Garfunkel and others with his folksy instrumentation and biting lyrics. His acclaimed album “The Matador and the Acrobat” was released last year and ended up on several year end best of lists. Upon first listen his music sounds like an amalgamation of Andrew Bird’s eccentric instrumentation and Ben Lee’s careful lyricism.

The album has a few powerful numbers like “Buckled Knees” “Crocodile” and “Footsteps on the Moon” but overall the album suffers from too much spare instrumentation and plodding paces of songs. That’s not to say a slow song can’t be interesting, but Will Knox uses banjo and cello repeatedly in a similar fashion which makes his album all blend together into mopey music except for those aforementioned tracks. That aside, he’s got a great voice and a great sense of song structure and lyrics, so he’s surely someone to keep an eye on.

Another thing that grabbed me about this album was it’s beautiful cover art by Bruce Holwerda. Check out more of his great art over at BruceHolwerda.com

Will Knox – Buckled Knees

Will Knox Myspace