"IT'S VERY SORRY THAT MOST PEOPLE OUTSIDE NORWAY THINK THAT BLACK METAL IS THE ONLY THING HAPPENING IN THE NORWAY'S SCENE... IT'S WAY TO HYPED, AND MUCH UNINTERESTING, AND INCLUDES ONLY A FEW CHILDISH PERSONS. AND THOUGH MOSTLY OF NORWEGIAN MUSICAL SCENE COPIES OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN POPMUSIC ONLY AND THE USUAL CONTRY POP SHIT, SURE, YOU'LL FIND HERE SOME OF REALLY INTERESTING EXPERIMENTAL MUSICAL THINGS TOO..."

Sketch is a modern organical/architectural ambient project by Kai S.Mikalsen and Tor H.G.Jorgensen from Norway. "We cal it so because this music is very much down to Earth, slowly moving soundscapes full of exciting sounds, bubbling frequencies, manipulated acoustics, all draped in evershifting paces". The equisite sound production creates more dimensions than usual in much of the current synthetic ambient music. The first CD has a very "out in nature" edge to it, the second "Abeyance" moves into more urban rhythmical patterns. The music combined with the full colour imagery of amazing kaligrafi by Roger Pettersen makes this item a unique high quality product.

SKETCH

NORWEGIAN WOOD (ABOUT HISTORY ABOUT MUSIC)

HISTORY:

Tor and I were making music on 4-track tape recorder in the 80's: from the mid-80's we started making ambient sort of things, and in the fall 1989, we made a tape of 90 minutes of the best of the tracks we had done so far... Ambient on tape isn't the best way of presenting this music, and especially when it's copys, so after 85 sold, we retreated it (you may get a copy via Komkol).

Then we didn't do anything together for more than a year. But after hearing Biosphere's and Orb's first CD's, we thought that this could we to do, so we started rehearsing and making songs in my apartement fall 1992. In 1993 I bought me an "Akai 950 Sampler", and the music process started making more sence.

In spring 1994 our friend Geir Jenssen came to visit and heard our music, and made a DAT copy to present his Belgium record company, who was interested in putting it out on their label. Our first "Reasons to Sway" CD was released late fall 1994 on Apollo.

(Our relations to Geir goes way back to the highschooldays in Northern Norway where we used to borrow him records of all sorts of experimental new-wave and odd punkmusic... early in the 80's... Since then we have maintained contact. He is really a down to earth nice guy).

Since then we have made one proposition for our next album every year. Mastering one album in the summer of 1995, and one in the summer of 1996... Apollo have not showed any interest in either of the CD's, so in spring this year we decided on doing it all ourselves in coorperatio with the Mold label and release it on our own.

We are still making music every week, and we have enought material for a next album, we have also included a third member who plays drums and percussion And we have bougt ourselves an 8-track tape recorder, so we will soon start recording new material....

We also have a sideproject with two guys from Palace of Pleasure, where we do live performances, named Sketch of Pleasure, a pop-ambient-dub instalation, a live LP is soon to be issued. Tor have a solo project called Magnetic Plural; mostly pure ambient instalations. And I have a side project together with Origamifractions called KA; a more deep ambient concret type of music; me, Tore and Kelly is working on a CD soon to be issued called "Monsterpanic".

MUSICALLY:

Our ideas of the making of our music, is mostly based on the fact that musiclistening includes an active second part; the listener, and that as a partissepater you make your own images and references in coherense with the soundscape. So we leave out spaces for to be filld out: The listening process is different in the way that you don't look for melodies or lyrics, so you are less distracted in the coherence process. This is the way ambient and dub on it's best functions, and is our main insperation sources. And with the use of sampler, we try to bring in non-musically elements to strenctend the abstract image proposals.

We sincerally dislike new age type of music, so we try to be more persistance and use distracting elements so that our songs don't just function as meditations. We try to be more architectually in the soundscapes, and we work on a more filmish way in that sence that it's more of a journey than fixed images.....

We also try to make the digitall process in to a more organic thing, and the rhytmes in to something more interesting than 4/4. We like to think of our music as more acoustic than techno, although with clear references to the instruments we use: synths and sequencers . We try to not be prisoners by the technology, so we are making our music basically on old digitall and analog equipment, without the use of computers. It may be a result of poorness, but we are not very hung up on the latest of new synths and effect units. It may not be clear in our music, but we try to minimace our inputs although not so much that it be mere wallpaper...

Kai Sveinar Mikalsen November 1997 Norway

beste hilsener din man i oslo sveinar

* Special for ACHTUNG BABY!

CONTACT:

END OF HUM PRODUCTIONS, c/o KAI MUKALSEN, PROFESSOR LOCHMANNSGATE 6 B, N-0559 OSLO, NORWAY

(** Here You can get a possibility to see "Abeyance"' more detail review very soon. Keep in touch, please. Thank you!)

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