The new Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words LP+7" "Lost in reflections", easily my most anticipated release this fall, will finally be officially released on November 23. Hear samples: http://virb.com/dread

Dead Violets, the international collaboration of Thomas Ekelund from Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words and the American act Violets, have a new 3" CDR available: http://www.zeromoon.com/blog/2008/10/dead-violets-yzmrhs

MP3: Tobias Hellkvist & Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - White/Grey/Black

The original concept for this netrelease was modest. Tobias Hellkvist and Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words are two sides of the same coin; both operate within the vast realm of drone, yet both are also quite distinctive and totally within their own spheres of sound and emotion. I figured: why not get the two together for a split netrelease, something to promote their new records -- for Tobias, that would be "Sides" and for Dead Letters aka Thomas Ekelund, that would be the forthcoming "Lost in reflections". A song from each, perhaps even an original composition if they were feeling generous, that would have been enough. Different, but completary. Yin and yang, even. But no, the concept immediately took on new life. The idea of previously released material was instantly nixed and then the idea of a collaborative track came about - something to tie the two sides together. And then, unbeknown to me, the collaboration became the project; a three-part epic spanning twenty-five minutes. The result of which I give to you today as a free download.

I am always proud of every netrelease as I take great pains to ensure the It's a Trap! name is not lent out lightly, yet this breaks new ground as it is of my own initiation. I couldn't be prouder. So please, if you like what you hear, spread the word and support the artists. Their names and their work deserves to be known and appreciated.

As much of the actual planning and composition happened behind the scenes, I asked Tobias and Thomas a few questions to gain more insight into their approach and the music itself. Read on...

Tobias, had you every heard DLSODW before this? What did you think of the idea to work on a piece together?

TH: I had heard a few songs online, but not a whole album. When I later listened some more, I discovered that he was generally darker than me, which was interesting when being asked to do a collaboration. Mixing two different personal sounds into something new really felt like something I wanted to try out. So, when you asked me about this, I was totally stoked from the beginning. I'm glad you had me in mind!

Thomas, this isn't your first long-distance collaboration, is it? How you approach a project like that, especially with someone you don't really know?

TE: That's correct, Avi. I've had quite a few long distance projects in the past. Right now it's only one though, Dead Violets, together with two Americans, Jeffrey Surak and Bethany Moore. The process has varied a lot, but with Dead Violets we usually discuss ideas and themes, then either Jeff or I get the ball rolling with a basic track or a collection of sounds for the other to mangle into some sort of structure. It's not really a big problem, with all the modern technology at hand to do it like this.

Tobias, did you guys throw around a bunch of ideas before settling on the one long-form piece? Whose initial concept was that or did it evolve as you went along?

TH: I think it was Thomas who came up with an idea to link our sounds to colours, where mine was white and his was black. By mixing it up in the middle, sending tracks back and forth, the idea was to end up with a grey piece which reflected both our sounds. I think it worked really well. With inputs and comments on pieces along the way, we formed a new sound that I really couldn't imagine from the start.

Thomas, how well do you think your individual music styles complemented each other? Was it ever a struggle to get pieces to fit?

TE: The concept of white/grey/black was something I had been pondering for a while. Partly because it ties in with my ongoing obsession with balance, and partly because of the ambiguous symbolism of Black and White.

In traditional Western culture they represent death and life, the negative and the positive, the carnal and the divine, impurity and purity, whereas Eastern culture look at them the opposite way. Both black and white are also very significant in alchemy, where black symbolizes purification and white symbolizes enlightenment. In additive color systems white is the sum total, where as in subtractive color systems black occupies that position in the gamut.

I originally intended to use this concept myself, but when this collaboration arose I thought it would fit perfectly. To an untrained ear I am sure Tobias and my music can be lumped together under the ambient/drone umbrella, but it's quite obvious to the more experienced listener that we inhabit quite different sides of the spectra. In my ears Tobias makes very calm and uplifting music, white music if you will, where as I have always focused on unsettling and morose atmospheres, i.e. black music. The grey part of the suite, the middle, the balance is the result of trying to meld our two styles into one.

Tobias, I always like to think I learn something from every music encounter, both good and bad. What do you think you can take away from this experience?

TH: Since this was my first musical collaboration of this type, I felt that whatever happens, I'll get a new experience. And that can never be a bad thing, no matter if the result is amazing or horrible. In this case, I learned that being open-minded expands your boundaries and that could lead you into places you've never been musically. Somewhere, you'll put your own stamp on it, unaware of how it's done. That's cool. So I will definitely do something like this again, if the opportunity appears.

Thomas, likewise, did you experience any self-discovery during the course of the project? How do you think it turned out compared to what you expected?

TE: I have to confess that I am not very good at collaborating. Most of the time it just fizzles out, but in this case everything fell in to place right away and things turned out a lot better than I could've imagined. It's too soon to say whether I take any new self-discoveries with me from this experience or not, but if nothing else, I had the opportunity to work with Tobias and make a solid piece of music to share with the world.

Any last words from either of you? What else can we look forward to from you guys?

TH: I'm always working on new material, we'll just have to wait and see what happens with it. I have started to put together a new, quite laidback album. I guess it could be finished in a couple of months. Since I'm unsigned, I'm hoping to find interested labels to release it. Also, me and my friend Ola has been writing songs together for over a year now, and we're in the middle of rehearsing and putting a band together. Hopefully, we'll be playing shows sometime next year. This is a rock/pop project and it's new to us both, so we're quite excited! I also want to thank you Avi, for putting this together!

TE: I've got quite a bit of stuff going on right now. My new 7"+LP set "Lost in reflections" will finally hit the stores during November. It's a co-release between iDEAL, Fang Bomb, Release The Bats and When Skies Are Grey.

I am also doing a cassette with Teeth entitled "Black Hole Heart" on Klorofyll Kassetter which probably will be released in November, too.

The coming year most of my artistic focus will be on the above mentioned Dead Violets (deadviolets.org). We have a couple of releases planned. First up is a cassette entitled "St. Vitus Dance" on Fukk Tapes Lets Erase. That will be followed by a 7" and a new long player during next year. If things go according to plans, we're going to do a European tour this spring and a US tour in the fall.

Download cover: jpg

Tobias Hellkvist & Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - White/Grey/Black

Attention Sirius listeners! Not only am I doing my typical evil Halloween show this Sunday, I'm also premiering a brand new piece of music from Tobias Hellkvist and Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words! That's Sirius Left of Center (channel 26) at 11pm ET -- everyone else will have to wait until Monday to check out this amazing new piece of music.

Musique Machine on the Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words disc "A line: align": http://www.musiquemachine.com/reviews/reviews_template.php?id=1966

Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words will rendezvous with Jeff Surak of Violet for the first-ever Dead Violets gig on September 26 at Diapason Gallery in NYC. This show will also mark the live debut of new Dead Violets member, vocalist and lyricist Bethany Moore. Also, don't forget that DLSODW will be performing at the Sonic Circuits Festival in Washington DC on October 4. More gigs tba? Wait and see...

Details and preorder info is now posted for the forthcoming Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words LP + 7" release "Lost in reflections": http://www.fangbomb.com/FB008/index.html
Considering that 2007's "Fall, fall, falling" was one of my favorite releases of the year, I am incredibly excited to get my hands on this new one.

The new Sewer Election album "Kassettmusik" is out now on iDEAL: http://www.idealrecordings.com/
Look for new releases on the label this fall from Oceans of Silver & Blood, Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, Christine Ödlund and Henrik Rylander as well as the new Audionom record "Superior". I got to hear a few seconds of that one when I was in Sweden and it sounded ridiculous. Definitely something to look forward to.

Here's the playlist for this week's radio show:

01. Familjen - Det snurrar i min skalle
02. TALK 1
03. QGMR - Pre-emptive retaliation
04. Theresa Andersson - God's highway (ft. Tobias Fröberg)
05. Mental Overdrive - Europa
06. TALK 2
07. Siena Root - Time will tell
08. Marybell Katastrophy - Lost ship
09. José González - Crosses
10. TALK 3
11. Peter Bjorn and John - Inland empire
12. Kompjotr Eplektrika - Skeleton gong
13. Sonores - 16th of June
14. TALK 4
15. Reeperbahn - Havet ligger blankt
16. Joachim Willumsen - Turning 24
17. Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - Heaven is the notion that all this will end
18. TALK 5
19. Promoe - Det ljusnande FRAmtid

Reminder: My show on Sirius Left of Center (channel 26) airs Sundays at 11pm ET with repeats on Monday at the same time.

Various Artists
Gothenburg 08
Fang Bomb

As an interested and curious listener, I feel lost sometimes when I discover new kinds of music. Often I'd like to hear more but don't know where to look further, even in the times of myspace and mp3-blogs and especially for such marginal music as experimental electronica where the web's oversupply of information tends to thin out. That's why I'm grateful to the people at Fang Bomb: They've already done all the digging, filtering and compiling for me to produce "Gothenburg 08", a sampler aimed to showcase Gothenburg's current electronic and experimental scene. The ten tracks presented here span a very wide bridge from Porn Sword Tobacco's almost over-enjoyable post-muzak to Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words' eponymously gloomy and demanding layers of noise. Most of the compilation oscillates between drones and slowly developing ambient pieces though, which creates an almost album-like feel throughout. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in electronic music that is ambitious, complex and accessible at the same time. The compilation's large bandwidth make it the ideal introduction to the different featured artists -- you just have to pick your favorite and look out for their future work.
- Arnulf Köhncke

Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words is going on tour in August and will even make it over to Washington DC this October. Preliminary details: http://www.deadwords.org/

I almost forgot, but here's the playlist for this week's radio show:

01. Jesper Norda - Tommorrow you'll be forgiven but tonight you will have your teeth knocked out
02. TALK 1
03. On Volcano - Out of sight
04. Monday Monkey Riot - Go ape
05. Dmitry Fyodorov - Warcollapse!
06. TALK 2
07. Wired for Mono - Don't look down
08. Small - Come around (vs Hippo remix)
09. September Malevolence - ...accidents happen so fasr
10. TALK 3
11. Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - Facelessness erase every trace of humanity
12. Napoleon - Send me a woman
13. Rigas Den Andre - I am crane
14. TALK 4
15. Mist - Subjective pop song
16. Ebba Grön - Tyst för fan
17. Neveres - Pause
18. Pascal - Cadillac
19. TALK 5
20. Komeda - Blossom (got to get it out)

Reminder: my show on Sirius Left of Center (channel 26) is now on Sundays at 11pm ET with repeats on Monday.

MP3: Svartbag - Black Capricorn

As I'm sure regular readers are aware by now, I absolutely love music when it's soaked in ominous dread. Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, Ondo and Raison d'Être are three artists that come to mind when I consider the niche and now I can add the Danes Svartbag to the list. The Rump label has put out a bunch of interesting electronica - Badun, Karsten Pflum, Snöleoparden, etc - but Svartbag's self-titled debut is by far the best of the bunch. Opener "Black Capricorn" is all slow-creeping darkness, the kind of stuff that backs you in a corner before consuming you completely. That the track is so obviously guitar-based is kinda surprising too, especially since so much of this stuff seems to traffic in sounds so heavily processed they end up resembling vague dark shapes. The low-end buzz grumbles and moans as the drums endlessly cycle and taunt, all gradually building and eventually rumbling to a stop like a freight train. Call it dark-ambient, evil shoegaze, whatever you want, it's all good, I just know I like it a lot. Be aware, it's a mighty big download (15mb), but man oh man, is it worth it.

Svartbag - Black Capricorn

Now in-stock and ready for order: Various Artists - Gothenburg 08
If you've been following my weekly Göteborg spotlight feature, you'll know that this new compilation is an absolutely crucial document of the current scene. Acts featured include Jonas Lindgren + Viktor Sjöberg, Porn Sword Tobacco, Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, The Skull Defekts, Tsukimono and more!

Here's the playlist for this week's radio show:

01. Peter Morén - This is what I came for
02. TALK 1
03. Entombed - Hollowman
04. King Of All The Animals - Concrete skyline
05. Jettie - The lay up
06. TALK 2
07. Happy Trash Culture - Frisky pet
08. Josse - You had a plan
09. Ondo - Sleep
10. TALK 3
11. Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - This room seems empty without you
12. Håkan Hellström - För sent för edelweiss
13. Marvins Revolt - Deliberate deeds
14. Marybell Katastrophy - Hey Frank
15. TALK 4
16. The Bear Quartet - Mvh contempt
17. Lögnhalsmottagningen - Snacka gär ju
18. Ghost Brigade - Based on you
19. TALK 5
20. September Malevolence - I shut doors and windows
21. The End Will Be Kicks - Ass of a friend
22. Anna Leong - Battered, bruised and cold
23. TALK 6
24. Bright Oak - On the list
25. Tape - Moth wings
26. Axewitch - Hot lady
27. TALK 7
28. Nationalteatern - Jack the Ripper
29. Tsukimono - Heart beater
30. Zeigeist - Bunny
31. TALK 8
32. First Floor Power - The jacket (Karin Dreijer remix)
33. No Hope for the Kids - Angels of destruction
34. Docenterna - Popmusik
35. Vapnet - Skorpan
36. TALK 9
37. Björn Kleinhenz - Olis
38. Fireside - Ambulance
39. Looptroop Rockers - Living on a prayer
40. TALK 10