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By Christian Dex Note: The interview has been slightly edited from the original. After "Mysteries" came out, people started to ask me about that. To what extent the records reflect the reality of what I am, what my philosophy of life is and all that. And obviously, my work is making a statement in that direction. But you never see the entirety of the world from which this music originated. If a person buys "Oberon" today, he will relate to me as the person who made that album, while the truth is that both "Oberon" and "Mysteries" are but moments frozen in time. In your music you mix dark-wave sonorities and feelings with orchestral sounds: where do your musical roots lie? There are basically two answers to this question. I could say that KISS and SWEET were the groups that really moulded my ambition of wanting to be in a band and release records. On the other hand, I have always - ever since my early childhood - perceived the world around me as "a special kind of music". The way I [let wild nature impress me] is the way I listen to music today. I [have always been] on the outside looking in and that's what my music does and this is where it comes from. I never decided to become a musician or a composer. I just was and will always be. In you CDs there's always a photo of a landscape. How does the wild and extreme nature of your country - the solitary forests or stormy coastlines, the long winter nights - affect your compositions? I guess it is inevitable to be influenced by that. I grew up here, and it has really become a point of reference as far as my imagination is concerned. When I see things in my mind there's always the mountains and the sea and the fresh air. You know, I am standing by the seashore in the autumn watching the waves roll over water and stone. And I start to philosophise; we are like waves in a way. We rise from and then descend back into the sea. First and foremost, it affects me as a person, and of course, that's the mould of Oberon. This guy was running a magazine and I sent a tape to him for a review, and he liked it so much he offered me a deal. How were your last release, "MYSTERIES", born? I read on your web site that here you included songs composed of other projects. The title itself is taken from Knut Hamsun's novel "Mysteries" which came out in 1892. It talks about the outsider, or the active force that creates friction in "dead water", which is an idea that I could relate to at an early age. It is not hard to see that conventions and so called moral codes are often used to control a community or as a shield to shy away unpleasant truths that may eventually tear down the foundations of an established social organisation. We see that everywhere, in every time and in every state in the world. But even though Hamsun's novel was a revelation for me, the album is not based directly on the book. But it laid a foundation for - or it was a motivation behind my work at that time. The "Nocturne" track was originally written for a film chronicling the Communist movement in the late 40ies and the general climate of post war Europe. My grandparents were a part of the Communist resistance movement in Norway during the war. But they belonged to a fraction of the Norwegian Communist Party that went against the official, pro-Stalinist line. So in October 1949 they were excluded from the party, and "Nocturne" was a song I wrote for them and all the dark days in their lives. The movie was put on the shelf for some time, so I decided to put it on "Mysteries" instead. But now it seems as if the project will go back on schedule, so I might do some additional music for that as well. Most of the songs deal with the destruction of the world (not literally, but in a symbolical sense, more like a purification, or a personal catharsis), the victory of the self, my own search for purity and beauty. So that was the attitude that kind of marked the process of making "Mysteries". It was written and recorded over a long period of time, so the actual process of putting it together was quite chaotic and incoherent. But I knew it was going to be called "Mysteries" a long time before I began work on it. I am like that. I have a title, which holds a very great deal of significance for me and this - in turn - gives birth to a certain vision which will eventually become an album. That's happening right now, as a matter of fact! In "MYSTERIES" two great rock-wave ballads are included ("To spring", "The garden of flesh and bones"). How do you feel your sound has evolved from "OBERON" to "MYSTERIES"? What are the musical lands that you are going to explore next? They are two separate universes. Apart from the mere technical stuff and the production, these are two totally different albums and two totally different forms of expression. Well, you could say that the first album has a more synth based sound, while most of the songs off of Mysteries have a more acoustic edge. It sounds more organic. And "Mysteries" is more musically diverse than "Oberon". Take songs like "The Garden Of Flesh & Bones", "Tearing Me Apart" and "The End Of The World". They're all different, yet somehow they all fit in with the general atmosphere of the album. Anyway, I am currently working on two different albums. One of them is more like a soundtrack album than a normal song oriented album. I always wanted to make film music. So this is basically me writing the score for an imaginary film. It is a completely new direction for me. It's very transcendental music and it feeds on my passion for ancient civilisations, monuments, art, apocalypse and dreams. This is the music that would rise from a pure heart in a cruel world of isolation, despair and total ideologies. I've done quite a lot of digging into totalitarianism, religion and end-time spirituality / philosophy and this album, I guess, is an accumulation of all these impressions stored inside. What springs to mind is Orwell's "1984" combined with "Dune" (directed by David Lynch), surrealism and the curious and freedom seeking individuals of Rand's "Anthem". I just hope I can get it right. I am working during the day and during the night. So it's a very physical and artistically demanding process. I get to do percussion, and intensely so, I use many different vocal styles, from virtually being a choir to doing vocal impersonations of old Russian orthodox monks singing memorial hymns. It has a wide ranging concept, you see. I really create this album with my body. I take my voice where it has never gone before so I am physically almost travelling through the worlds I have created. So this is nothing like what I have done in the past. This is a work I am creating here, now, for me. What are the projects you are currently work on? What should we expect (and when!) in the near future from Oberon? Apart from the things I already mentioned, I am currently working on a follow up to Mysteries which of course - like its predecessor - will be more song oriented. I have 5 or 6 tracks which are more or less finished, and this is by far the strongest material I have ever written. I am also working together with a friend on some very experimental stuff. But we don't meet very often and there is usually quite a time gap between recordings, so this is a project that will eventually come out somehow, but it is too early to say much more about it. We will however make some of our work available via the Oberon web site in the near future. And it is very free, very experimental and very atmospheric. Music for dreams and nightmares alike! In the meantime, I will put some of this music online via my website. There is a song from my forthcoming album called "The Apocalypse Mind" which is basically a four track demo which really represents some of my strongest work - despite the difference in sound quality compared to my albums. As far as my soundtrack album is concerned, a track will be released on my website soon called "In Your Arms" in which the main character sees his own future in a dream. I am recording with analogue synths mostly so it has this seventies kind of atmosphere..  |