For this album, I created almost all songs with a small and simple iOS app, called Figure. What’s great about this app is that it only contains four tracks for drums and percussion, and two tracks for bass and lead, which forces you to really focus on the core of your beats and hooks.
This is great when I want to make music on the go, which I did a lot in the past years. At some point, this collection of short beats and melodies that I had created during my many travels, became a theme. That's when the idea for Gute Reise (German for "have a good trip") was born. So, all the songs on this album have been written while I traveled to or from somewhere in the world.
Maybe, you can feel it too, when you listen to this album - on the road, in a bus or train, or just waiting for your next flight in the airport lounge...
This is an ongoing list of song ideas I created with a small and simple iOS app, called Figure. What’s great about this app is that it only contains four tracks for drums and percussion, and two tracks for bass and lead, which forces you to really focus on the core of your beats and hooks. Obviously, not everything that comes out of those 30 seconds jams is a genius piece of life changing, earth shattering music. But it allows me to make music wherever I go, whenever I’ve got 15 minutes that I’d rather make music than waste otherwise.
For 2018, I am working on a project to compile an album with songs based on the limited ethics of this little app – focusing on just a few components to work out the best grooves and melodies with a simple live electronic music setup. Check my Facebook page for updates on how I get on with this project!
This set started as a work in progress collection of demo songs some time in 2012. But then my friend Travis Isgro started sharing some photos with me that he’d taken in various places and situations around in Copenhagen. I felt immediately attracted and inspired by the mood and atmosphere of some of his work, so I decided to try and write a song or find a matching demo for his photos.
By now, there are 11 songs – and there are still more photos in Travis’ work that might make it into a tune, too! There is, however, no direct or particularly meaningful connection between the pictures and the songs. It is just a spontaneous feeling or mood that made me connect the dots.
So, this is it. This EP marks the conclusion of the last three years work. What began as the afterlife of Operate, and resulted in Magnetic Bass and Heathen Dust, is now collected here. And then, I can and will move on to the next chapter, that is already in progress with Cph Noir.
Initially, I wanted to put these tracks together with my current work from 2012/13, but I never really felt that they would match nicely. I still love these songs though, so here they are in all their glory. Enjoy!
Special thanks go to my friend Danielle aka Mole, who really brought the songs to the next level with her ideas about bass and beats.
This was my solo project for 2011. It’s been a work in progress throughout the year, and I’m still not exactly sure, into which direction it was about to go – how it would sound in style or genre or what it would look like. In the end it turned out that it wouldn’t contain as many songs as I initially planned, but I think the ones that have made it to the final stage are worth all the efforts. It also seems that my style was much more pop than I thought in the beginning.
Anyway, it came together with the help of some good friends – I have to thank Travis Isgro for giving me lyrics for The Night, Lou Lou Mais for her beautiful vocals and Mole for wonderful vocals and bass guitar playing. Not to forget all the people that helped me with their advice and patience during the making of these songs.
This is the work, Beritt and I have done in 2008. Ten songs, recorded at home, during February and November.
In February and March 2009, we played two concerts in the first two rounds of the Emergenza Festival in Copenhagen – at Stengade 30 and Lille Vega. For those concerts, we had Karen Jensen, Mads Graver and Jonas Vesterheden on backing vocals, bass and drums.
This is the full concert we played at the Danish Emergenza Festival’s semi finals. Five songs, from start to end.
And this is the first “official” Everpure video. Actually, I would rather consider it being a first attempt in home movie production. Or so. Anyway, the footage has been done with a small digital compact camera on a wonderful late summer day in Gribskov, a beautiful forest in the north of Copenhagen, and the end scene shows the coast line at Nivå beach. Enjoy!
Surgery By Numbers is the name of that “virtual album” I created under my spare time alter ego Erik during a very special period of my life in 2007. It goes basically back to a simple, stupid, but funny idea I got together with a friend when we were laughing about a photo taken some years ago in a flat in Copenhagen. Anyway, I came up with a list of song titles, so they all were already there even before I wrote the first note of this compilation.
This was also the time when I finally dropped Windows PCs and switched to Apple computers with Mac OS. My first Mac of course came with Garageband, and that was my very starting point, so most of these tracks came to life in this simple, but great app. Eventually, I moved on to Logic Express, which turned everything into a new direction. I worked with Logic occasionally over all the years, starting back in 1991 with Notator on an Atari ST. No wonder I felt instantly at home with it, even it was years ago, because the last version I had hands on myself was 5.5 on a PC, or so.
So, here we go for another step back in history. In 2003, I started recording a number of songs with some simple synthesizers and a cheap version of Cubase. Mole came up with a number of great lyrics and vocals, so I focused entirely on songwriting and producing and left the microphone for her completely, which I still believe was a good idea. I certainly enjoyed singing and being the frontman for quite a long time, but this is where I really found myself comfortable and well at home.
Unfortunately, we were so stupid to not record the songs properly, so these mp3 files are the only remains of that period. On the other hand, they have this raw and unfinished sound that give these recordings a quite special edge, which I like a lot.
In 2001, Mole and I continued working on our sound and recorded five songs in Heiko’s studio in Hamburg. We played a few live concerts too, now with HaWe on keyboards, which clearly made our sound wider and the shows more interesting.
Also, Mole wrote two of the songs and did the lead vocals, which added some nice variety to our style. She eventually refined her skills with her own bands and wrote tons of great songs.
The first “official” recordings Mole and I made as Everpure, back in 1999. Very rough and basic, just our guitar and bass and a drumcomputer (I think it was my trusty old Roland TR-707. I wish I wouldn’t have sold it!) and some dodgy synth strings.
Mole already contributed a lot to the songwriting (the songs would not even be half as good without her bass lines and her vocals), even though she wouldn’t do any lead vocals yet. Also, you can clearly hear the references to my earlier Screaming Fools times – my style of singing hasn’t changed very much since the late 80s.
All of these songs actually started out as simple arrangements with acoustic guitar and bass, which is also how we played them at our first concerts.