Statemachine

Whereas most electronic acts of today seem sadly fixed to a certain sound of a certain period, Statemachine appear utterly unaware of their origin as they sift through influences from independent heroes of the nineties and eighties as well as pop pioneers of the sixties and classical music. In anachronistic fashion, they combine the best of all worlds - using anything from anywhere at any time. That's where they are today. But how did they get there?

That's where they are today. But how did they get there?

As so many times before, the story kicks off against a small town setting, where two young men get together in school and decide to form a band to rebel against some popular opinion or other. In this case simply to piss off all the hard rocking youths that dominated their particular school. "Every chance we had we'd go on stage, and do all we could to make the music totally incomprehensible to others than fans of the genre. Usually that included ourselves, and maybe one or two other persons," reminisces lead vocalist Marten Kellerman.

So far, neither Marten nor Rikard Lindell (the other founding member of the band) took their musical collaboration very seriously. They both graduated and Marten wound up working as a producer and engineer for major label Stockholm Records - something he has described as "educational as hell," but often tough on his general well being.

One day Marten and Rikard had booked a studio for some work with Marten's previous band Hello In TV Land, but the band before them (Army of Lovers) were using up more studio time than they were supposed to. So Marten and Rikard wound up in a small pre-production studio nearby, to kill some time while waiting for Army of Lovers to finish. They ended up writing the first official Statemachine song and were so excited about it that, within a few days time, they managed to write a third of what was to become their debut album Avalanche Breakdown.

Marten's father encouraged them to record more material, and sent some songs to Swedish national radio show Musikjournalen who praised the recordings on the air. They were signed to small independent label October shortly after that, and started recording the rest of the material for their debut. "We had close to zero budget, and had to do most of the recording at home. We recorded the vocals in a closet, and borrowed and rented some equipment from people we knew. We mixed the entire album in my kid brother's bedroom, because it had the best ambience we could find. The poor kid had nowhere to sleep for fourteen days," says Marten.

Then things happened a bit faster than both the band and their record label had expected. The records received rave reviews in nearly all synth and alternative magazines in Sweden and Germany. Another single (Happy Endings) was recorded, showing a completely new side of the band, and receiving even more positive reviews. The female keyboardist and backing vocalist, Anna Jansson, left the band right before a 30-gig tour spanning Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden, complete with a limited edition remix album (Legerdemain) made especially for that tour. Rickard Gunnarsson, Anna's replacement during the tour, was announced new official member. A third single (Negative Feedback) from the debut album placed the band among the absolute foremost within their genre, showing a greater maturity than ever before. And then Rikard Lindell decided being a pop star was not for him, and left the band as well.

"Things were just happening too god damn fast. None of us were prepared for the attention and pressure, and evidently Lindell and Anna weren't too happy with what it was doing to their lives. Having success with a band may look great on paper, but in real life it's just damn hard work. And it sure has taken its toll. It's not easy maintaining any kind of social life while spending six days a week working with the band," Marten explains. "It's very nice to be appointed best electronic pop band of the nineties, or named as one of the most prominent hopes for the future of alternative hi-tech pop, but if your not happy with what it's doing to your life, it won't make you feel any better about yourself. Touring, screaming fans, rave reviews, fan mail from countries where your music isn't supposed to exist at all, seeing yourself on TV - it doesn't matter how independent you think you are, shit like that does things to your head."

Statemachine was put on hold. Marten and Rickard needed a break from it all - a chance to catch their breath and think about what was going on, and where to go next. Statemachine had reached every goal they'd had when they started out, and that was a very confusing place to be.

After contemplating their situation and catching their breath, Statemachine started working with the so-called US version of "Avalanche Breakdown". However, only one track from the original album is left unchanged on the new album "Breakdown" - the rest has been changed. Statemachine refused to just throw something slightly different together, and insisted on spending four months in the studio working only with this new release and it's accompanying single "Thermal Noise". They also start recording their follow-up album this winter, with a release planned sometime early 1999, followed by an international tour during spring and early summer. After their short break earlier this year, they seem more energetic than ever before. I asked Marten for a comment:

"We're very satisfied with the newly recorded album Breakdown, and the single Thermal Noise, and we're even more excited to start working on the new material. We have loads of songs, and have just recently decided which ones to feature on this next album. And we're very anxious to see what they turn out like. And, well... we feel really good about the band and what we're doing right now, and have a lot of hope for the future. A couple of days ago it struck me how much we've accomplished so far. Usually I tend to feel that I haven't really accomplished anything at all just yet, and that there's so much more I want to do. But then it suddenly dawned on me that, hey, I've released more than ten records and contributed music on at least twice as many, I've been on two international tours, had the chance to work with a few of Sweden's biggest artists, and was recently contracted by Warner/Chappell, the world's biggest Music Publishers. And that's not too bad, considering I was once thrown out of music school due to total incompetence," Marten says with a smile.

Having heard the new recordings on Breakdown and Thermal Noise, I have to agree. Statemachine have come a very long way since their debut album, and I'm dying to see where they'll go next and can't wait to find out how the story ends

by Tom Larsson