A new 4-track EP will be released on November 6th, including material ranging from industrial synth-inspired beats to downtempo moods. Check it out in the player above, and click to pre-order through my Bandcamp page.
Category Archives: News
#MENTALOD30
It is now 30 years (!) since the first Mental Overdrive release saw the light of day in shape of the “12000AD EP”, released by R&S Records in the spring of 1990 (the picture above is from the original studio session at the R&S HQ in Gent at the time).
Since then there has been many releases, remixes and collaborations, spanning across a pretty wide range of musical directions, and even though 2020 is a very strange year to have an anniversary, it is nevertheless a fact that it’s now been three decades in the service of electric beats.
To celebrate the occasion, there will be a steady stream of posts appearing on Instagram, Twitter and my other personal channels, sharing some music and memories from throughout the journey.
A bunch of rarities has also been dug up from the archives and will be put up for sale on the Bandcamp page (test-pressings, promo items, old posters etc.).
If you want to keep yourself updated, just follow the tag #MENTALOD30 at the above accounts, or the Bandcamp page.
By coincidence, the Love OD Communications label also has its 25th anniversary this year, so some of the activities will intertwine. To follow this separately, use the tag #LOVEOD25
New track “Lockdown”
New track available through Bandcamp now. The video was shot in Tromsø on the 25th and 26th of March 2020, and features the closed-down city.
Ch-ch-changes
The Pyramid is shaking at its foundations. Its woven dreamflesh of broken hearts, tears, pain and blood is about to rip into a million pieces of rotting debris. As this happens, the souls of its makers are screaming with agony, as the Master of Darkness is barging in to collect his rightful property: their dreams, their hopes, and the chilly numbness that’s left of the soul they once were given. The soul they chose to exchange for their mortal power and short-lived pleasures. I know their fear, I know their loss, for I gave them everything: my unconditional love, and life itself.
I wrote the above back in 2009 as part of my rather dystopian sci-fi-transmedia-art-meets-music-project “Earthbound – Surfing the Apocalypse”. Now, that the Pyramid is actually shaking big time, with markets crashing all over the world, my outlook is rather less dark than in 2009, and I actually feel full of optimism for the future.
Yes, the House of Cards is falling, and yes, there will be hard times for a lot of people who have had their livelihood based on the old value system, but at the same time this is probably the opportunity our species need in order to change our destructive behaviour, an opportunity the environmental threat has never been able to trigger, strangely enough.
It’s hard not to be able to gather socially in person, and I love travelling as much as anyone, but hey, we have all the tools to connect across the globe and share ideas.If you want to support artists in the field of music, do it through services like Bandcamp or Patreon rather than through streaming services, if you can afford it. If not, stream and share as before.
In the wake of the rapid changes I have also decided to start publishing material from my ongoing project “Pyramids on the Moon”, which is part of my artistic research project “The Search for Resonance” that I’m currently working on through the Artctic University of Tromsø.
The project resembles “Earthbound – Surfing the Apocalypse” in that it connects text, music and odd bits of related media, but this time what started as an “exploration of relations between frequencies and geometry” has now transformed itself into a “multi-dimensional autobiography”.
The text will be posted on my project’s website www.pyramidsonthemoon.com as it develops, with music links to the project’s Bandcamp page.
All music from the project will also be available to subscribers of my Mental Overdrive Bandcamp page.
Follow me on my SoMe accounts for updates, and don’t hesitate to drop me a line or two with your thoughts on the project as it unfolds.
Instagram: @mentaloverdrive
Twitter: @mentaloverdrive
Live@Numusic’s 20th anniversary
Looking forward to play a live set at Numusic Festival’s 20th anniversary this coming Saturday the 7th of September at Tou Scene in Stavanger. The evening is part of this year’s Nuart Festival, and celebrates the now defunct Numusic – a festival that was key in bringing the best electronic music to Norwegian shores over more than a decade.
Wave∞Form@Rakettnatt 2019
Looking forward to yet again be responsible for the site ambience at Tromsø’s own Rakettnatt Festival this weekend as part of my Wave∞Form project. I’ll be rigging my modular and some other bits in the new specially designed UFO-style booth (see pic above), and in addition to the usual space-themed soundscapes I’ll be trying out all my new patches based on alternative tuning systems such as Tibetan chrystal bowl “chakra” scales, Fibonacci sequences and Kepler’s planetary orbital cycles. Delighted to be able to do some research on a 7000+ crowd in the middle of my hometown over 2 days.
Live at The Shelter
This is a mix made exclusively from unreleased hardware jams I’ve done over the last year or so at The Shelter Studios, Tromsø, Northern Norway and other selected locations. Recorded onto the 4ms WAV module and then edited and mixed in the DAW that dare not speak its name. Enjoy!
DARTRAX EP
The “Dartrax EP”, featuring Chiwoniso Maraire, Anania Ngoliga and Maulid Mohammed, will be released by Musar Recordings on February 15th. The EP includes remixes by Charlotte Bendiks and Boska, plus DMX Krew.
Pyramids on the Moon vol. 1
I have made a new mixtape which is now in circulation both on audio cassette and through my Bandcamp subscriber only service. It’s called “Pyramids on the Moon vol. 1”, and consists of outtakes and previously unreleased material in the form of film soundtracks, theatre music and various sketches that haven’t left my studio before. Go subscribe to my Bandcamp page to get this and other subscriber exclusives, plus my entire Mental Overdrive back catalogue.
Inversia 2018
I was lucky enough to be invited to play the Inversia Festival in Murmansk, Northern Russia, back in February. This brilliant festival is only in its second year but has already established itself as an important arena for joining local artists with international ones through workshops, talks and gigs. You can check out their mini-docu in the player above while browsing for the best priced tickets for next year’s festival.
m e n t a l o v e r d r i v e d o t e v e r y t h i n g 