Album Notes

"Music is the way I share what I have seen
My only drug is madness my bloodstream is clean
Why do you need powder to behave like a star
I say like Kurt Cobain, come as you are

We want to be loved to be worshiped as gods
We sell our asses to be ridiculed as sods
An artist should live forgotten abroad
Away from TV and the celebrity fraud

I travel the world but haven't seen much
The visions I have come through the sense of touch
So this is my fate telling stories to the beat
Sculpted in the hall where sound and meaning meet

I am no media star, communication breakdown,
This is aimed at the ether of the underground.
Ape’s my existence and ape’s my excuse,
If you’ve never suffered I can take the abuse."

(From the album title track)


G.U.T. is the zoological garden of my mind, where scores of weird beasts run around in frenzy and freedom. Since 1999 I have been writing electronica-based songs, and in August 2005 I finally committed myself to making a full album. For that purpose I rented the Graffitti Studio in Sofia, Bulgaria for four weeks' worth of studio time. Working in a wholly new country with new people turned into a genuine pleasure, given the resolute professionalism of the Graffitti crew. Ognian Kiossovski engineered the recording sessions. The Bulgarian composer and conductor Christo Pavlov arranged six of the G.U.T. songs for the Strrings (sic!) Quartet. After a rather quiet year with some additional vocal takes and editing by the sea in Kragerø, Norway, I received a generous grant from the Cultiva Express trust in Kristiansand, sponsoring the mixing of the album. Consequently I asked the mixer Endre Kirkesola at Dub Studio to board ship. In January 2007 he started on the task, and the mix will be completely finished in April. The album "My Only Drug Is Madness" will be out in May on Von Jackhelln Inhuman, my own record label, .

After ten years of working with various well-established record labels, I have decided to go solo. Being the total-control anarchist that I am, I wanted to experience the whole process of writing, performing, producing, publishing, promoting and financing an album in no way inferiour to a commercial recording. Under the motto "Kontrol ist kool" I address the people that really matter: the fanatics that enjoy my music. You will see no magazine ads for the album, and only a handful of reviews, if any. The release of "My Only Drug Is Madness" is an experiment in order to know if and how self-publication works. The album will be available from my soon-to-be mail-order company in Berlin, possibly also from a couple of distributors in Europe and in the US. I will press 1000 hand-numbered and signed copies of the album.

A number of skilled people have contributed to the G.U.T. process. Tori Wrånes, Olav Benestvedt and Simen Høgdal Pedersen have kindly lent their voices. Christo Pavlov's arrangements and the Strrings' performance give the songs an orchestral sheen. Donny of the Bulgarian pop combo Popcorn brought his armada of synthesizers to the studio (among which a Soviet RITM 2 and a German Vermona stood out), doing sound replacements and occasional key contributions. Two G.U.T. shows are booked in the end of May this year, in Norway.