Thanks to the alcohol I wasn’t nervous, or too impulsive. It was a real nice gig, though I wanted a bigger crowd.

And speaking of Reversed Obesity, I’ve previously mentioned that half of Definition was recorded while I was drunk. For better or worse, I don’t know. What I do know is that pretty much anything goes when alcohol and music making meets.

I remember one day in June of 2009, I had been out drinking with some friends and had gotten home around three in the morning. That year I was working on Year Of The Deer, and at the time I felt that the June track was missing something.

Why not add some drums to it, my intoxicated mind asked me. And that’s what I did as the alcohol was gradually wearing off and making me tired. I think it took me about an hour and a half to properly get those drums into the track, then I went to bed.

I woke up several hours later and had apparently forgotten to shut off the computer. It made me remember the changes I had made to the track. Luckily, it actually sounded good and it fit the rather eclectic track.

Other times I’ve poured myself a nice whiskey and made music, and it has sort of helped the sound I was going for, but then I wasn’t even close to being drunk or even slightly buzzed.

I don’t need to drink to get inspired, it only tends to garble what I’m trying to do. And as for playing live, I think I’ll stick to doing it sober. When I need to be in control, it’s just stupid to drink something that makes you lose control.

That said though, there’s nothing wrong with drinking a beer and listening to your own music.

And that very day I found something special, namely Geld‘s first and only demo; Livshatförgöraren. I had no clue what it would sound like, but I figured I would like it, so I bought it.

I started listening to the demo when I got home, and I really wasn’t disappointed. They were good. Damn good. I remember thinking it sounded like slow electronic punk, and that is probably still the best way to describe it. It’s probably worth mentioning that I was listening a lot to EBM and electronic music at the time.

I friended Geld on MySpace (insert clever “Dude, remember MySpace?” joke here) and told them that I really enjoyed the demo. After a while I got a reply where they said thanks and asked me if I wanted to remix their tracks. Of course I did. Even considering saying no had been a stupid idea.

So they sent me a CDR with the stems of each track, except the vocals for one track caused it had apparently gotten lost. Even so, I was looking forward to it.

At the time I had gone from using Sony Acid to FL Studio, but I didn’t feel that FL would be the ideal environment for that specific project as I was still trying to get into it. Thus, it was back to Acid.

I loaded each stem for the first track and started cutting and re-arranging everything. Big chunks of guitars were discarded, and a three-second loop was used through-out the entire track.

And that was pretty much what I did; cutting, reversing and re-arranging everything. No fancy magic, no cheap or expensive effects. But you know what, I still think the remixes are as strong today as they were when I made them.

Geld played live at Uppsala Konsert & Kongress in 2008 and that’s when they released the CDR, Livshatförgöraren Version 2, containing the remixes. Years later, they released it for free on the internet.

But not only did I make my first remixes, I also made two new friends.

It took quite a while before I started to let the tracks breathe, forgetting about them for a week or two. But I still included them on every album or EP I released.

The first CDR that I released was called Villaförortens hemlighet, and then I used the alias O2FN. It was recorded using two crappy PC speakers and an equally crappy microphone. While each track consisted of at least two, or more, recordings it was still poorly thought through and a spur of the moment track. However, it was what I could do at the time.

If I went back today to re-record or re-arrange that old material, I would of course end up with something completely different. It would also be a lot more cut-up and edited. I’m not saying it would be any better, just different and not done with the same kind of excitement.

Almost a year after the first O2FN release I had gotten a lot more into noise and also bought a couple of pedals and a mixer. That eventually led to creating the alias Reversed Obesity, which still exists, because it wasn’t what Hjorten was.

Once again I used everything I recorded, and I rarely thought twice about the material. The first Reversed Obesity release was an mp3 EP and a full-length album named World came along shortly. But on World I had actually gone through the recordings. I don’t know how many recordings I made, but there were seven tracks on the album.

Lets not talk about the noise releases that followed World, there’s no point in talking about how half of Definition was recorded when I was drunk and unemployed.

In January 2011 I suddenly found myself in a bad state of mind, so I turned to noise once again. However, this time was different. Not only did I have more equipment, I also had more experience and ideas. I experimented and improvised more than before, and everything was recorded. In total it turned into around 50 hours worth of noise.

Weeks after initial recording, I sat down and listened through all of the material, editing and cutting out pieces I liked. Once I had what I thought would be enough I started to actually compose noise rather than just calling it a track. I let the composing take whatever time it needed and in the end I had ten complete tracks.

Around three months after I knew it was it complete, I went back to it. Listened to it over and over again, and I slowly realized that it was too much, and the tracklist was off. In the end I got rid of five tracks, re-arranged the tracklist several times. And now that I’ve sent it off to a label hoping that they will want to release it, I can actually say that I couldn’t have done more with it. It is as good as I can ever make it.

Of course, that only goes for that specific album.

(Picture 1 & 2: O2FN equipment. Picture 3: Reversed Obesity equipment used in 2007.)

In this digital world, I guess I’m still thinking the old way of releasing music. I would probably get more listeners (or “fans”) if I uploaded tracks on a regular basis, but these days music takes a long time for me to make. Now, I’m not saying David uploads too much music or anything. It’s just that we have a different ways of going about it. And the same goes for another friend of mine, Manifesto, he’s even more analog thinking than I am. And I’d say that either way is the right way.

I like the whole process of coming up with a theme or just a basic idea and then see where it takes me, though usually once I get an idea, the whole project unravels in my head. One or two years ago, one idea could be long tracks (we’re talking 20-30 minutes), and that was more or less a standard I had. Lately it’s not about the length (it wasn’t soley about the length before, of course), but what I want to get through, or what I can get through. Maybe there’s something more I want to do with the track, but I just can’t, so I leave it at what it is. In way it’s incomplete, but the more I listen to it, the more complete it gets.

I may have lost the initial point I was trying to make, if there even was one, but bottom-line is: everyone has different ways of making what they do, and different paces they work in. In the end it doesn’t really matter how you get there, just that you do.

Okay, it’s half past one in the night and I need to get to bed, please excause any typos in this rant.

One album, six EP’s, one split, one compilation, one gig and of course a brand new label. A lot less than last year, but still a productive year.

It all started in January with the digital release of Year of the Deer, it was released as the tracks had been uploaded onto the YOTD website. Then in March the physical release came along, and I had spent quite some time fixing lots of small stuff on each track that had been annoying me.

Dendrophilia, Nasophilia and Trichophilia were released on Witte Dood in June, shortly thereafter Paraphilia: A trilogy was released. It featured the three EP’s plus two bonus tracks; one of which was released as a free MP3 here on the blog.

The end of July brought the brand new label Underljud and its first release was an EP called Amendurå!.

In September I once again played at Uppsala Konsert & Kongress. It was my first laptop gig, and I’m always hoping for more.

Manifesto and I teamed up in October and released a split called 2×10.

As usual, on December 17th, the tradition lived on as I celebrated my 27th birthday.

And just yesterday Music to fuck to was released on Pigdurt Productions but I haven’t gotten my artist copies yet.

So there you have it folks, 2010 in just a few paragraphs. But let’s go back to 2009, what did I think was going to happen in 2010 then?

• The release of Year of the Deer
  Yes, that happened.
• A sequel to Not What I Thought
  It’s still in production, most of the tracks need to be re-arranged.
• The Hjort / Zetterberg / Åberg split
  It was completed, and sent to a few labels, but no word yet.
• The Hjorten / La Nausée / IOK-1 collab
  Words were spoken, ideas pondered. But nothing concrete.
• A new Reversed Obesity release
  Not even close.
• Three EP’s on Witte Dood
  Yep.

So what do I think will happen in 2011?

• Release of Staring Into Strange Eyes (aka the Not What I Thought sequel)
• Hjorten / La Nausée collab
• Release of a “secret” compilation project
• A full length album based on field recordings
• A compilation based on vinyl crackling
• Gig(s)

Until next year, have a good one!

In the middle of September I played at Uppsala Konsert & Kongress; it went very well. Except for an odd sound that I assume came from the DVD player there were no technical errors. I sold albums for a nice amount of money, which ended up on the deersound/Underljud account as usual.

Manifesto was there and took some photos, and also recorded some short video clips. I’ve gotten the photos and will upload them… eventually. The video clips will take longer, cause they are HUGE.

And speaking of the above mentioned guy; Underljud will release a split between him and myself tomorrow. 20 minutes of noisy dark ambient and industrial stuff. Ten copies will be released, and most of them have already been “pre-ordered”. So they’ll run out REALLY fast.

I still haven’t gotten around to re-arrange/fix Staring Into Strange Eyes, but I’ll get to that sooner or later. And coming up around Christmas time, as been said, is me featured on a 3 CD compilation called Music to fuck to which will be released by Pigdurt Productions.

I’ve also remixed a track by Baron Bane but I don’t know if it will make the cut or not. And I’ve also gotten an idea for another remix, so I’m gonna give that a try this weekend.

I guess that’s pretty much it for now.

I also went by my favorite tattoo studio with some 20 pictures on a USB memory, and he thought they looked like fun. So in the end of March I’ll be dropping by again (he’s fully booked at the moment), then with better reference pictures. The idea is a LucasArts inspired full sleeve, with a touch of Red Dwarf.

And finally, I got the cable I’ve been waiting for. So now I can properly record water in stereo. The final touches to SISE should be done this week, or weekend.

And then Tarmskrap seems to be coming to town, so I’ll most likely meet him for  a coffee or two.

Good times, except that it seems I’m about to get sick again.

Today I removed all previous albums from my mp3 player and replaced them with new ones. Not new as in just-released, but as in that I haven’t listened to them before/recently.

Walking to work takes about 30 minutes, and walking back home obviously takes another 30 minutes. Then again, if I’m going downtown or to a friend it takes longer. So I listen to my mp3 player atleast an hour each day, except for weekends. I can usually fit over a 1000 tracks on the mp3 player and that takes a while to listen through.

Not long after I got my current mp3 player I noticed that it refuses to go from album to album when listening. So I decided to listen to all tracks in alphabetical order, which is nice cause it’s almost always a different genre from track to track.

Here are the albums I used to have on the player, in alphabetical order:

Agonoize – 999
Agonoize – Hexakosioihexekontahexa
Aphex Twin – Come To Daddy
Aphex Twin – Drukqs
Bloodhound Gang – Hooray For Boobies
Bloodhound Gang – One Fierce Beer Coaster
Bong-Ra – Warrior Sound
Bong-Ra – Full Metal Racket
Brighter Death Now – 1890
CPU – Computer Error
D12 – D12 World
Daft Punk – Alive 2007
Detektivbyrån – Wermland
DFT – Minnesluckor
Doormouse – Broken
Dubmood – 0 to z
Eminem – Encore
Eminem – Relapse
Eminem – The Eminem Show
Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP
Eminem – The Slim Shady LP
Endif – Meta
ESC – Matte
Exillon – It’s OK to Dance
F.K.Ü. – Where Moshers Dwell
Fatboy Slim – You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby
Finntroll – Ur Jordens Djup
Flogging Molly – Swagger
Green Day – Dookie
Henry Bowers – Escape From Juniper Hills
I:gor – Barwy Kolorow
Infected Mushroom – The Gathering
Infected Mushroom – I’m The Supervisor
Johan Hjort – Not That Human
Johan Hjort – Not What I Thought
Juno Reactor – Shango
Juno Reactor – Beyond The Infinite
Jupiter 8000 – Twisted Bliss
Justice – Cross
King Diamond – Voodoo
Kraftwerk – Minimum Maximum
Marilyn Manson – The High End Of Low
Merzbow and Jamie Saft – Merzdub
Moctan – Come Closer
Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero
Noll Koll  -  Happy Rullator To Knaspulka
Otto von Schirach – Maxipad Detention
Promoe – Kråksången
Puzzleweasel – Exo-Grid
Rage Against The Machine – Battle of Los Angeles
Rage Against The Machine – Evil Empire
Rage Against The Machine – Rage Against The Machine
Rage Against The Machine – Renegades
Rammstein – Liebe Ist Für Alle Da
Reversed Obesity – Growth
Shpongle – Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland
Sickboy – Time To Play
Soundmurderer – Wired For Sound
Squarepusher – Do You Know Squarepusher
Squarepusher – Hard Normal Daddy
Squarepusher – Music Is Rotted One Note
Stone Sour – Stone Sour
Stormfågel – Den Nalkande Stormen
Sveden Passive – Sunki Naapurissa
Sveden Passive – Vahvoja Liikkeitä
Tarmskrap – I Smell Sumthin’ Funky
Tarmskrap – I’m Just Sayin’
Terracorpse – The Prescription For Death
The Whole Series  -  Whole
The Chemical Brothers – Come With Us
The Chemical Brothers – Dig Your Own Hole
The Chemical Brothers – Surrender
The Cumshots – A Life Less Necessary
The Offspring – Smash
Various – Twisted Vision
Various – Ceci N’est Pas Une Pipe
Venetian Snares – Meathole
Venetian Snares – Rossz Csillag Alatt Szueletett
Venetian Snares – Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole
Zyklon Boom  -  Välkommen Till Avfolkningsorten

And here are the ones I replaced them with, also in alphabetical order:

A Perfect Circle – eMOTIVe
A Perfect Circle – Mer De Noms
A Perfect Circle – Thirteenth Step
AC/DC – Back In Black
AC/DC – Ballbreaker
Arch Enemy – Wages of Sin
Ass Fed Head – Assfedhead
Black Label Society – 1919 Eternal
Cliteater – Eat Clit or Die
Console Enemy – The Worst Album Title Ever
Cypress Hill – Collections
Das Bandt – Paraformalia
Dia Psalma – Psamlade Psalmer
Fear Factory – Digimortal
Fear Factory – Obsolete
Immortal – Sons Of Northern Darkness
Insane Clown Posse – The Amazing Jeckel Brothers
Insane Clown Posse – The Great Milenko
ISOpussy – No Operation
Jedi Mind Tricks – Servants In Heaven Kings In Hell
KMFDM – Angst
KMFDM – WWIII
Korn – Live And Rare
KU:NT – Fresh Ear Rape #1
Lillasyster – Hjärndöd Musik För En Hjärndöd Generation
LOK – Naken, Blästrad Och Skitsur
Lords of Acid – Greatest Tits
Machine Head – Hellalive
Marilyn Manson – Antichrist Superstar
Marilyn Manson – Portrait of an American Family
Marilyn Manson – The Golden Age of Grotesque
Me And My Droid – Digital Insects
Metallica – Black Album
Monster Magnet – Powertrip
Nirvana – From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah
Otep – Jihad
Ozzy Osbourne – The Essential
Phuq – Aaargh!
PST/Q – Natt Klockan 12 På Dagen
PST/Q – Pluralis Majestatis EP
Rallypack – Sod Off God, We Believe In Our Rockband!
Reel Big Fish – Our Live Album Is Better Than Your Live Album
Rob Zombie – Greatest Hits: Past Present And Future
Runtime Pilot – Han Är Död
Sepultura – Roots
Slagsmålsklubben – Den Svenske Disco
Slagsmålsklubben – Sagan Om Konungens Årsinkomst
Slayer – Decade of Aggression
SphereX – Teh  x  Album
Sportlov – Offerblod i Vallabod
Sportlov – Snöbollskrieg
SSH Visor – Radiant Cilia Sun
Stam1na – Stam1na
Static-X – Wisconsin Death Trip
Static Bass – Eargasms
Stephen Lynch – Superhero
System Of A Down – Hypnotize
System Of A Down – Mezmerize
System Of A Down – System of a Down
System Of A Down – Toxicity
The Haunted – rEVOLVEr
The Haunted – The Haunted
The Kristet Utseende – Pang På Pungen I Portugal
The Skulls – The Golden Age Of Piracy
Timbuktu – Alla vill till himmelen men ingen vill dö
Timbuktu – Oberoendeframkallande
Timbuktu – The Botten Is Nådd
Tool – Aenima
Total Chaos – There Are No Russians In Afghanistan
Tyskarna Från Lund – Metamorphobia
Unspeakable Easels – Air Wonder Stories
Vader – Blood / Reign Forever World
Various – Elitserien: På Ren Jävla Svenska
Various – Mighty Manipulating Masters of MIDI-Chlorian Mind-Masturbation
Various – Musik I Teorin
Various – Neurospace
Venetian Snares – Cavalcade Of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore
Venetian Snares – Chocolate Wheelchair
Weird Al Yankovic – Running With Scissors
Weird Al Yankovic – Straight Outta Lynwood
Winnie The Shit – Hand Driven Episode
Öppenhjärna – Öppenhjärna

Post was updated with free and legal download links where available.

All in all, a pretty idle year if you only count the actual releases, but if you count the work I’ve put down, it wasn’t so idle after all.

018: Experimental took a lot of energy to get done, and not just deciding on the tracklist, but everything around it. The release party, artwork, sending out review copies (haven’t seen a single review yet, which sucks ass) and so on.

Year of the Deer went rather well, there was only one track that was shorter than the 10 minutes I had aimed for. And I’m currently working on getting the last track together. Though I won’t repeat this project for a couple of years, and maybe next time it will just be released after a year, and no complete previews to download. I don’t know, haven’t really evaluated it yet.

Those have been the two major projects I’ve been working on, and luckily I’ve been able to do other side-projects inbetween.

With Random acts of music a new project named dawned, You Are Ten. The name later appeared with the full length album Perfect Failure, which had been done since spring of 2007.  You Are Ten will be anything that Hjorten isn’t, and also not used as frequent as other names.

On Not That Human I used my real name for the first time (if you don’t count the intro on 018: Experimental), and the album itself was different from what I had done before, it was darker and more spiritual. It was described by one person as “Lustmord” sounding, which of course is a great compliment.

Also released using my real name was the EP Not What I Thought, this was also different as it was very minimal ambient. And obviously inspired by Brian Eno.

Electricity was also another album that had been done for quite some time but was released “late”. It, yet again, didn’t sound like anything I had done before.

The first gig of 2009 was at Augustin Erba‘s book release party on a rainy day in May. Despite the weather and that I would’ve wanted more people to see it (like always) I’m happy with it, and I also got to try out some source material I hadn’t used before. Which of course leads us to the second gig which was at UKK; I used new source material (except for the prayer tape) and was a wee bit drunk on whiskey – but that helped to shape the gig in a good way.

During 2009 I was also interviewed by Uppsala Fria which, as far as I can tell, didn’t lead to any more sales or new fans, but it’s all good. An interview is an interview.

In very recently, just a couple of days ago actually, the fifth EP of the year was released. It’s the second release in a tradition I started last year, its title is my age; 26.

So what does 2010 hold for deersound and I?

• The release of Year of the Deer
• A sequel to Not What I Thought
• The Hjort / Zetterberg / Åberg split
• The Hjorten / La Nausée / IOK-1 collab
• A new Reversed Obesity Release
• Three EP’s on Witte Dood

And probably a lot more, but only time will tell.

By the way, there are still copies of 018: Experimental left. You should buy one, or ten, for you and your friends. They’ll like it.