My journey through music and time

My journey into music started with influences from my fathers vinyl collection, the most prominent album being UB40 with Labour of Love. He didn’t have much so a lot of the music got put on repeat. Perhaps that is why I still remember the songs and records. Some day I’ll borrow them for my own vinyl collection.

Continueing on my fathers influences and my families influences in general we move into a totally different category: electronic music. Vangelis with Chariots of Fire as well as Kraftwerk was the musical theme whenever we were driving somewhere in his beloved Ford Sierra from 1986 with a 5-speed manual transmission - an extremly regular car that still wasn’t as regular as the Volvos around us. I can understand the choice of music as it is extremly easy on the ears during the long trips around Sweden and Europe. I’m sure we’ve worn down at least one casette tape worth of electronical music.

Based on one of my fathers collegues recommendations and the popular music at the time as well as the popularization CDs I found myself in the realm of metal. AC/DC and Metallica, White Zombie and more. I think one of the first concerts that I ever saw was Hellacopters fronting for Metallica at the Globe arena in Stockholm. Or was it AC/DC, I don’t really remember but it was for the Load tour 1996. These influences continued during my teenage years and well into my 20’s. I’ve recently rediscovered some of the music but it is hard to keep up with the new artists. It was coincidentally during my teenage years where rap got popularized in my surrounding. It was nothing I listened to at the time, but it was constantly in the background and became part of my music library in the future.

Metal is a large chapter. Since Metallica was one of the first bands that I discovered, I spent quite a lot of time exploring their influences. Misfits, Danzig and Slayer are only three examples. Then, looking at what bands were touring in Sweden at the time, I discovered Rammstein, Entombed, Dark Tranquillity and In flames. The Hultsfred festival in Sweden as well as the Roskilde festival in Denmark made me discover a whole lot of new music as well. From the Gothic Tiamat to the growly Arch Enemy and even melodic viking metal such as Amon Amarth.

The Demo scene was booming during these years as well. Birdie in Uppsala, Dreamhack in Borlänge and Jönköping had their own influences. Online radio based on Shoutcast and Litecast became part of every day music with stations such as Nectarine and the LAN parties were booming with experimental mixes and early versions of mashups. The anarchy contributed to inner exploration in some way where a simple childrens song or commercial could become the next big boom with a simple transposition and tempo change. Image macros were and memetics were just about to become a thing and the internet was left for the young and adventurous. With games such as Doom and Quake booming due to their awesome multiplayer their soundtracks and influences were also a large part of my life: Nine inch nails and artists influenced by them such as Marilyn Manson. The Swedish MTV called ZTV was also responsible for part of my music library; The Hives and many more.

It was around this time that internet radio got really big. Music never heard of before with genres new to me such as Noise Merzbow, Jrock GO!GO!7188 and international music such as Tinariwen, Mdou Moctar and many more with a mix of homebrewed electronica and metal. I think I spend a good five to seven years exploring different small internet radio stations by looking into Shoutcast libraries, private streams as well as forum specific streams. All it took was a 0.5-2 Mbit internet connection and a music library.

My current choice of music is usually based on the NPR tiny desk concerts as well as KEXP mixed with snippets from the international scene often found on Soundcloud and youtube.

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