Ever since the age of 14, I have intermittently dabbled with trying to make music. But after youthful delusions of beckoning popstardom dissipated in my early 20s, I never made a serious effort again until late last year. The whole thing was sparked by accidentally walking past music shop Turnkey on Charing Cross Road as they were having their closing-down sale. Among the items offered at irresistibly low prices were an Alesis Micron, so I bought one. Having such a nice little unit sitting on my desk, I thought it’d be a shame if I didn’t at least try to put it to some good use. Having discovered how sonically capable but lacking in tactility it was, I soon hankered for something more hands-on in terms of sequencing drums etc, and added a Korg Electribe ESX-1 to the setup. With these two creativity-inducing machines, the production of music all of a sudden became a lot more enjoyable than the pointy-clicky endeavour it had thus far been.

I’ve always been a huge consumer of music, and would never attempt to call my efforts original. It is very much an amalgamation of influences I have accumulated over the years, and I would like to use this blog to highlight some of those sources of inspiration and how they came to shape the music of Erik XVI.

The first track to get finished was Unionens sista dagar. It came about through listening to a live set by Johan Inkinen and thinking how great and at the same time slightly cringy it was that he was making Drexciya-style electro with Swedish vocals on top. So I hooked a mic up to the ESX and started playing around with the effects, enjoying the results enough that I wrote my first ever lyrics and got them recorded. As the rest of the elements gradually fell into place, the following tracks played a big part in inspiring the final product:

• It’s More Fun To Compute by Kraftwerk for the synth lines
• Black Sea by Drexciya and Stadtkind by Ellen Allien for the general structure, build and feel
• Slave of Rome by Gladio and Solaris by Photek for the drums
• Ali Renault’s Valentine for the bassline
• Make the World Go Away by The Hasbeens for the vocodered chorus
• Vox Automaton by E.R.P. for the string progression towards the end

Next up was Kalabaliken i Bender, which could almost as well have been called A Tribute to Legowelt. I was always hugely impressed by the primitive but dramatic atmospheres he manages to create in tracks like Congo Zombie, The Night Must Fall, A Dark Land etc. I had an old 16-bar arpeggiated sequence lying around from before and liked the chord progression enough to base a track around it. These are the most direct influences:

• Congo Zombie and many others by Legowelt for the “Barbarian” parallel 5ths and assorted melodic phrases towards the end
• Bogdan Irkük’s remix of Jens Lekman’s Sipping on the Sweet Nectar for the arpeggio in the first breakdown
• A lot of Gladio again in the drums

A while ago I was sent a link to this amazing YouTube video which features an audio recording of the space shuttle taking off. The sound is incredibly visceral and the idea of basing a track around it was irresistible. This became Gravitationskraftens stilla vrede. The melodies here are crafted out of the launcher sounds with the help of some resonators and credit is due to the following:

• Domina (Maurizio Mix) by Domina for the drums
• March by Hjarnidaudi, Keine gnade für die Sechste by Mr. Clavio and Helicopter by Covenant for the desolate melody lines
• Home Computer by Kraftwerk for the staccato bassline

Because I felt the jam-packed finished version didn’t give enough exposure to the launch recording in all its grandeur, I also made an ambient version where the launch and the force of gravity take centre stage.

The EP is scheduled for a digital release through the Highpoint Lowlife label on the magical date of 09.09.09 and you can listen to it here or buy it here should you feel so inclined.

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