Phonocratic Records

Besides is the collection of my b-sides. And that’s about it. My b-sides has been my playground, my experiments with different styles, what cover-experiments became and the home of songs that didn’t suit on any album. Many of the b-sides are quite jokular or has certain witty points. Anyway, collecting them on one album seemed a good idea, and to release them at the same time as the singles collection “Single-Minded” was logical. So the songs on Besides are the b-sides of the songs on Single-Minded.

This collection is a very exciting collage of styles, ideas, covers and alternative songs. I think that if you’re about to do a cover you should either have a new and different idea about how to perform or arrange it, or you should do it much better than the original. I have tried to make my covers as I have done with my own songs, and in many cases I have succeeded to do an alternative version. This is the musical idea, and the rules for the playground that b-side-making is for me.

Track listing

1. Winter Always Comes As A Surprise
2. Xenon
3. New Years Eve 2002/2003
4. I’m The Master
5. Illusion 2003
6. t.A.T.u. (In The Night 2003)
7. Aloha Jazz
8. King’s Cross
9. The End Of Everything
10. You Make Me Like Charity
11. House Music
12. Almost Sunrise
13. Scared Of The Night
14. My Cry
15. All The Things She Said
16. Think Free
17. And Then…
18. Missing
19. Besides

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Deeper Longer & Recut is a remix collection released simultaniously with Single-Minded and Besides. When I selected the remixes for Deeper Longer & Recut I had to leave out lots of remixes. I thought about different methods of picking tracks. I decided from the start that I would only include remixes that had been on a single, to make this collection correspond better to Single-Minded. I also thought of just including remixes that had not been on a remix album. This was a good idea, however, I still had too many songs, so I chose to only use remixes I had made myself, excluding the fantastic Trance Line Project remix of Mobile Generation, the really nice house mix of How Can You Tell You Are In Love? by X-Fer and THEME-X and the dance remix of Things. These are still only available on the singles.

There are many 12” versions on this CD. I really like most of them, though the 12” version of Göteborg is really corny, and the 12” of You Are The Sun suffers from bad production. The extended mix of Single-Minded is fantastic in my opinion. All these remixes are really good for dancing and clubbing.

Track listing

1. I’m Your Man (Old School House Mix)
2. Göteborg (12” Mix)
3. Adultness (12” Mix)
4. Go! (12” Mix)
5. Go! (Jazzy 12”)
6. Tonight (12” Mix)
7. Is That Really What You Want? (12” Mix)
8. You Are The Sun (12” Mix)
9. Mobile Generation (12” Mix)
10. Single-Minded (Extended Mix)

was thought to be a new jazzy album, but through the way many of the jazz elements where thrown away and replaced with new ideas. The result is an album with one foot in pop music, one in nu-jazz and one in electronic music. Café Phonocratique is dedicated to the fantastic cafés all over the world, but especially in Uppsala.

There are many instrumental tracks, such as “Journey Through La Selva”, “Té” and the “Rendez-Vous”-tracks. I personally think that the Neil Young cover “I’m The Ocean” is fantastic, even better than the original. “Tunisia” appears again on this album, but in a new, very different version.

Cinna Gärdenfors does extraordenary vocals on “Orange Lights”, which is co-written with Love Rönnelid. Ander Bengtsson plays guitar on that one too. And on the last track, “Parting Ways”, Hedvig Nettelblad is doing the backing vocals.

Track listing

1. Journey Through La Selva
2. From Cape Town To Tunis
3. Tunisia
4. Rendez-Vous à Café Linné
5. Té (O Café Con Leche)
6. Rendez-Vous à Café d’Hugo
7. I’m The Ocean
8. Orange Lights
9. Rendez-Vous à Café de Joel
10. Silence
11. Rendez-Vous à Café St. Johannes
12. Coming From Behind
13. Two O’Clock Twice
14. Rendez-Vous à Café Linné
15. Parting Ways

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All the way through the work of with Letters, I made different versions and tried other ideas on the songs. Between The Lines is Letters, but in the best among these experiments.

I have tried to focus on versions that differs a lot from the versions on Letters. For example Bad Feeling has become electro and Mobile Generation is arranged for solo piano.

Two new songs that didn’t fit on Letters are also included on Between The Lines. The last track, “…and she disappears” is one of them, and might be one of my best compositions. It’s very filmic and sorrowful. Between The Lines should however be thought of as a complement to Letters, not a new album.

Track listing

1. You And Seven-Four-Seven (Switched Mix)
2. Bad Feelings (Electro Version)
3. Tunisia (Electro Version)
4. Your Name (Dance Mix)
5. Things (Alternative Version)
6. Shy (The Leaned-Back Ambient Mix)
7. Tuesday Morning
8. You Are The Sun (Rock Version)
9. Take Me (Unplugged Version)
10. Mobile Generation (Piano Mix)
11. Tu Y Siete-Cuatro-Siete (Switched Mix)
12. Quintessence (Extended Version)
13. …and she disappears

I made the last recordings for Letters in August 2005. The album is divided in two parts. The first part is the more electronic pop part. Here I think the song sounds like classic Lost Shadow, influenced by the Pet Shop Boys and Everything But The Girl. The second part is more guitar based and sound to my ears like Leonard Cohen.

The whole album is very lyric-driven and I think that these lyrics are the best I’ve produced so far. Contributing on this album is also Anders Bengtsson, who plays guitar on two songs, and Hedvig Nettelblad, who has borrowed her beautiful voice on “Quintessence”.

The songs are about love and is a journey through my relationship, which ended in April 2005. This is where it begins – this is where it ends.

Track listing

1. Shy
2. Take Me
3. Mobile Generation
4. You Are The Sun
5. Tu Y Siete-Cuatro-Siete

1. Bad Feelings
2. Things
3. Tunisia
4. Your Name
5. Quintessence
6. You And Seven-Four-Seven

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