Twice a Man

Great Meditations: From the Silver Box to the Sea with Söderqvist

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Dan Söderqvist is best known as the singer in Twice a Man. He is also a prolific artist in his own right, with not one but two new albums on release. A New Victorian Age captures some of Söderqvist’s unreleased instrumental music from the 1990s, demonstrating his work for video games and dance. Murmures is an installation work that was created to accompany the art exhibition of the same name in the summer of 2023. Between them is a space, both temporal and stylistic, that illuminates Söderqvist’s creative range.

A New Victorian Age includes early versions of the material that found its way into the soundtrack used in the three-dimensional video game, Kula World. Made by a Swedish studio for the PlayStation One in 1997, the game involved navigating a ball in a puzzle maze that grew in complexity as the player progressed. Söderqvist’s sound design was more progressive and trippier than a lot of soundtracks from that time, making extensive use of the Roland TB-303. It might have said “computer controlled” on the face, but the silver box was able to respond very well to human interaction. Söderqvist married it to soaring quitars and keyboards for an electro-acoustic journey that was a whole lot hipper than Mario’s own backing music.

The Kula World sketches are collected on the album together with material originally intended for the computer game, OBAFGKM, and the dance performance, Pleiades. Fans of Ozric Tentacles and Juno Reactor will find a lot to like in this set, but it is also essential for any follower of Twice a Man.

Murmures was originally recorded for the show of the same name at the gallery, La Part du Rève, in Perpignan, France. Consisting of twelve pieces, based upon portraits of 19th-century persons, the installation was created together with the French visual artist, Tempora Flow (aka Jenny van den Arend). Intended to be played in a quiet room at low volume, the material is based upon field recordings, gathered at a variety of locations, ranging from a fountain in Salamanca, Spain, a church in Greffeil, in the south of France, the Swedish island of Öland, and other sites across Europe. Over them is read a poem in Swedish by Eric Johan Stagnelius, “The Poet.” Each of the sections is based upon a graphic piece, reflecting the appropriate theme by Tempora Flow, which can be seen online at temporaflow.eu

Murmures contains contributions from Tempora Flow, Noiz Elfje, and Maria Ericsson. The field recordings flow into each other, while Söderqvist mixes them with synthesisers and reverb. Insect musicians call to each other while bells chime and water splashes. Birds and bees combine with voices and what might be sampled strings. The results are deftly handled, and Söderqvist’s sensitivity to both natural and human sounds keeps them in balance. It is a tightrope walk, but there is serenity on the other side.

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Twice a Man – Still in the Air

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Sweden’s Twice a Man were one of the most prominent groups of the Swedish New Wave. They emerged from the angular post-punk of Cosmic Overdose; creating a template of funky and experimental music mixed with ecological and social politics.

As this clip from a 1984 show demonstrates, their funkiness was never secondary. They continue to make excellent music to this day, but it is a joy to see them in regulation 80s clothes and with old school keyboards to hand.

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Recalling the Future with Twice a Man

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Sweden’s legendary act, Twice a Man, have released a tour of their output between the years 1982 and 2022. The material is collected on Songs of Future Memories, a 3-CD compilation from Germany’s Dependent label, with two new songs and thirty-two from the band’s extensive back catalogue. The physical edition also includes a 72-page hardcover book with notes from Ecki Stieg.

The importance of Twice a Man to Swedish and European pop and theatrical music cannot be overstated. From the point at which they transformed from Cosmic Overdose, at the insistence of New Order’s promoter, the band has led from the front; both in terms of their styling and in their messages about the social and natural environment. They might have changed their name, but the group – organised around the core of Karl Gasleben and Dan Söderqvist – didn’t give up their affinity for psychedelic soundscapes or explosions of surrealistic energy. Instead, they set up structures within which new sounds could be formed and social concerns could be channelled.

As this compilation shows, Twice a Man have taken a much wider perspective than many of their peers; adapting to the shifting sands of fashion while maintaining a Brechtian distance that prevents them from being pigeon-holed. Are they prog or new wave? For the theatre or the dancefloor? Do they look at internal psychology or social movements? The answer is: any and all of the above, depending on the moment. There is no one truth about Twice a Man, but there is an organising principle to their material: it isn’t like anything else.

From the proto-techno of “Russian Tractors” to the pulsing symphonic movements of “High in the Clouds,” this collection is a master-class in European electronic music. Spanning forty years of work, Songs of Future Memories draws on an exceptional tradition of experimentation and composition. The two new songs presented here, “Lotus” and “Dahlia,” emerge from that crib impressed with a unique inheritance. Twice a Man remain a work in progress.

 

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Twice a Man Announce Compilation

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The legendary Swedish artists, Twice a Man, have announced a new compilation of their work. A three-CD set, Songs of Future Memories (1972-2922), with accompanying book, is now available for pre-purchase with an expected release date in January 2023. The label writes:

“Songs of Future Memories (1982-2022)” is the long overdue second anthology dedicated to the Swedish pioneers of electronic music, TWICE A MAN. On three CDs, the finest tracks from the 14 song albums have been collected and diligently remastered. The 7 instrumental works of the band’s catalogue have been deliberately left out of this project, which is intended to serve as a comprehensive musical guide through the band’s outstanding career spanning over 4 decades of groundbreaking works. In addition to the known material, the band has also added two new tracks.”

The included tracks are:

1. Move
2. Russian Tractors
3. Decay 04:06
4. Goat II
5. Balloons
6. Talking to the Wall
7. Observations From a Borderland
8. Fear
9. Across the Ocean
10. Distant Calls
11. Still in the Air
12. Divided Light
13. Tribal Ways
14. Back on Venus
15. Girl
16. Driftwood
17. Yellow Flowers
18. Crane Dance
19. Speed
20. Reality Built For Two
21. Shivanayama
22. Somebody Sang Your Name
23. Skylark
24. Shoe
25. Tranquil Moonlit Lake
26. Where Are You Now
27. Black
28. Presence
29. High in the Clouds
30. Cocoon 7 (Version)
31. Fireflies
32. Modern World
33. Lotus
34. Dahlia

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Here to Go: Gasleben & Electric Friends

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

SIlicon Teens once asked, “Why walk on the moon / if you could fly to the Sun?”

Twice a Man’s polymath, Karl Gasleben, is half way there. A Vessel Out of Here, the second solo album from Gasleben &Electric Friends, is an ark constructed with a frame of taught, tense rhythms. Around them, a scaffolding of synthetic textures supports vocals from collaborators, Anna Öberg, Peter Davidson and Daniel Kaufeldt. The result is a trip to the stars, powered by electricity and guided with a critical eye.

Out now on Bandcamp.

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Karin My – Winter Tree

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

We have described Karin My as Sweden’s secret weapon before. The Scandi songstress has most often been spotred adding magic to the recordings of other artists, such as the legendary Twice a Man. More recently, she has been working on her own material, edging towards a debut solo album.

“Winter Tree” is a other step towards that end. Her vocals float like filaments on the gentlest breeze, lingering above the snap of the rhythm track. The accompanying video gives a flavour of the seasonal mood that infuses the song.

Made together with Daniel Kraufelt, “Winter Tree” is Nordic noir with an emotional edge. The album is expected in February.

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Twice a Man – Back on Venus

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Lost and found, this video for Twice a Man’s “Back on Venus” demonstrates why the Swedish art band have been so influential. With reverb and rhythms at the fore, they were the psychedelic edge of new wave.

The images of an office worker climbing a hill of sand matter less here than the magical, post-prog rock that Twice a Man excel at, but they make you look and they invite you to think.

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Encased in Sound: Twice a Man’s Cocoon

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Like Wire, Twice a Man never make the same album more than once. Their sound might have consistent elements, but each release is an exploration of new combinations and treatments for them.

Like a stone exposed to the weather, time has changed Twice a Man, but their impermanence has been with us for a long time. Cocoon, their current album, has at least twenty predecessors, including some mighty classics of electronic and experimental music.

To keep things simple, every track is numbered: “Cocoon 1,” “Cocoon 2,” and so on. Each has its own distinctive features. “Cocoon 7” is distinguished by an energising combination of rhythms and Dan Söderquist’s vocals. “Cocoon 8” has psychedelic strings layered over a chugging, modulated pattern.

The overall effect is a sonic combination of nature and creation. “Cocoon 1” seems to invoke both the humming of bees and the sound of their industry. Hives aren’t places for solitary contemplation, and the work of different teams drowns out any individual sounds. The environment has its own rhythms, and the ebb and flow of activity changes the sounds.

Cocoon is an unconventional album from one of Sweden’s most unconventional bands. It makes for inspiring listening.

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A Trip Back in Time: Cosmic Overdose

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

maxresdefaultIf you’re going to call your band Cosmic Overdose, you’re going to have to deal with some preconceptions. The first is that you are a bunch of hippies, sitting in fairy rings and tripping on mushrooms. The second is that your material consists of overblown guitar solos. If your music is actually varied and complex, inspired by dada, punk and experimental electronics, and you are meant to be warming up for New Order, then it might be time to rethink the name.

That’s not the whole story of Twice a Man, but it is how it usually opens. Before the Swedish godfathers of alternative music adopted their current guise – prompted by the promoters of the New Order show they were scheduled to join – they swam in many of the streams that were converging or competing in the second half of the 1970s. Punk was a rebellion against the high-art extremes of prog rock, but Cosmic Overdose found something to appreciate in both. Experimental and industrial music provided an antidote to pop, and the band absorbed the textures and freedom of the former while maintaining the accessibility of the latter.

PROCD070_Box.inddIf there is a surprise in the recently issued Cosmic Overdose box set from Progress Productions, it is just how much groove there is in their material. Over the course of two studio albums, the band belied their name with sets of jaunty, angular material that did as much to shake hips as expand minds. There are passages of smooth, prog-influenced pop, but they are respite between slabs of pure energy generated with a provocative spirit.

If English comparators were sought, then Blurt, Brian Eno and Cabaret Voltaire would figure, but the points of intersection would be limited. Cosmic Overdose defied definition as craftily as those artists, even if they sometimes drew inspiration and confidence from similar sources. The three albums packaged in Koko Total don’t fit a template, nor do they bear direct comparison to others. Cosmic Overdose were true originals.

r-63591-1199198361-jpegThe first album they shared with the world was Dada Koko. From the opening number, “Investera i Framtida,” with its synthetic waves, it was clear that something new was being born. “Modern Dadaister” isn’t a million miles from XTC’s jerkier sound, when it starts, before growing into something trippier. There is a moment of calm in the arc of the album before “Tanten” explodes with a burst of dark energy. The Arp synth returns on the album closer, “Råttan,” a track tailored for the alternative dancefloor.

r-294022-1199199027-jpegThe second album, 4668, showed that the Swedes had absorbed something from Joy Division. As the Manchester doom-meisters had done, Cosmic Overdose were starting to push through the punk chrysalis to emerge as something more electronic. Their transformation into Twice a Man would put them at the forefront of the Swedish synth scene and keep them in its top tier for a generation. In the meantime, fans had the brooding “Android,” the well-crafted “Nina Fontanell” and the charming “Liten Storsint” to contemplate.

cosmov3The third CD in this package collects live recordings, singles and strays from the archives. “Observation Galen” from 1979 is here with its B-side, “Isolatorer.” Then there are live versions of “Suicide Case,” “Ruta Nr 1” and “Läckan” from a show the same year in Kalmar. They reveal a band confident in its presentation with spellbinding material. Further live sessions follow from shows in Oslo, Lund and Stockholm (with an appearance by Lars Falk on “Väx och Njut”) before the album closes with the single, “To Night.”

The quality of the recordings is excellent, and they open a window into the short time when art and punk overlapped with the electronics of the Futurists and the psychedelia of the proggists. Wire unpacked that confluence methodically over four decades, but Cosmic Overdose concentrated it into two albums and two singles and changed their name. What came next is a story for another day.

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Here Comes a Remix: Twice a Man

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Twice a Man have revealed their new single: “Here Comes the Rain,” lifted from the Presence album, appears in both an edited form and as a remix from Denmark’s esteemed Leaether Strip.

A brooding, moody and dramatic minor-key masterpiece, “Here Comes the Rain” is one of the stand-out tracks that appeared on our chosen Album of the Year for 2015. Leaether Strip’s version digs into the bassline and plays with the groove, yielding a more austere yet decidedly funky interpretation.

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