Music

My Musical Biography – first published 2006, updated September 2008

”In the beginning there was music”

Music is my greatest passion. Just six months after my birth back in June 1966 (and named Anders Abrahamsson), it is told that I was rocking to the beat of a The Beatles song in the arms of my mother. Some years later, in the early seventies, tunes like Rock your baby with George Macrae and Pop Corn by Hot Butter was picked up through Radio Luxemburg in the AM radio band. The first single was bought the year I turned eight, ABBA and Waterloo , after I saw them live and winning the Eurovision Song Contest. Over the years to come, alot of musical influences built the soundtrack of my life journey, one of the basic needs besides sleep and food. My first regular supplier and trial listening hang around was the record store found at first floor of the 15 floors high concrete residence in my suburbia, Täby, north of Stockholm. Great groups and artists came into my life, recorded on musical cassettes and pushed into the first generation of Sony Walkman, yes – the light blue metallic one from 1979, and many of them experienced live on stage as well. In the significantly growing vinyl stacks a great diversity was created – U2, Eurythmics, Simple Minds, Bob Marley & the Wailers, The Police, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Beatles, and more to come in my craters with mentioned ABBA, just to mention a few – the list could be made endless.

Electronica – and Dance

In between there somewhere electronica also entered – I got curious of the sounds made in that Hot Butter song, ”Pop Corn”, and a little research showed it was made with the help of what was called a ”Moog Synthesizer”, and I found the thing in a picture in a popular technology book with collected great innovations. With this discovery, Jean Michel Jarre became one of my strong childhood and teen influences as well. Synthesizer music got added with the beats of the US and Germany late seventies disco with Chic, Boney M, Village People and Bee Gees, peaked all time high with ”I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. Together with the greatness of the pioneering group Kraftwerk and all great synth pop groups of the eighties, like Depeche Mode, Ultravox, New Order – Blue Monday! – and the Trevor Horn production masterclass Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Propaganda, all led me to the early mashup of Kraftwerk samples, great soul harmonies and the first true Electronic Dance Music worldwide blockbuster – Farley ”Jackmaster” Funk and Love Can’t Turn Around. I got that breakthrough Chicago House classic from the great 12” Direct Import store Vinyl Mania from maybe one of the first incoming overseas supplies on black shining plastic beauty back in the mid-eigthies.

DJ’ing in younger teens

House music was put on the map, and by then I also was into DJ’ing by a number of serendipities. A class mate in my first year in the secondary school introduced me to a local community radio station, when he got to know about my music interest and the great record collection now piling up in my boy room. So as a 16-year old teen I had a monthly radio show, that eventually faded out after some year or so and did not attract my deeper interest, but I had placed my hand for the first time on a pitch and mixer volume fader. A year later I was asked to do the job to play for some 800 pupils in a big school party in my home community, Täby, north of Stockholm, Sweden, and my live DJ debut was made at the age of 17. Some years during the eighties I had gigs at the local club and student parties, but I never had in mind to turn it into my main activity in life. In the nineties I was mostly bedroom DJ’ing, in the mix only for my own pleasure and meditation, and I provided some mix tapes for friends now and then, with stressful duties picking up and taking over when I moved to Gothenburg for university studies.

Electronic Dance Music – from Chicago House in the eighties to the Third Millennium Trance Waves

That lowering in DJ activity from late eighties also was synchronized with my decreasing interest in EDM. House music, the acid house evolving from it with Todd Terry and the electro beats from the Afrika Bambaataa and Arthur Baker kingdom – I loved. But at the turning of a new decade, I never got deeper into the evolving Detroit and German techno and early goa trance, and I was never a part of the ”forest, industry building and ware-house rave movement” in early- to mid nineties.

But life takes turns and twists that you make wise not to try to plan for, since it cannot be done. By the turn of the new millennium I had a sparking ignition of insights in my professional life, that led to a strong line of entrepreneuring and venturing, and I also went back to university studies for some senior studies in entrepreneurship and business development pursuing a Master’s Degree in Business Administration in my new home town Växjö. The Internet phenomena invaded the mind-sphere of people, and so did the modern wave of ”nu-trance”. In the paths of the evolvement of new music production and virtual studio instrument software and ease of mp3 distribution, the universe of unsigned bedroom producers at mp3.com (before CNET take-over!) was opening up in my regular listening of work-a-music when turning my ideas into action with energies, strength and tempo kept up, and I can truly blame trance[]control to get me back into electronic dance music joining a good part of the world, reflected by their download world record from that time. But what really marked the entrance of the present and so unseparable part of my life I choose to define as ”Joy of Life EDM” was Inzite with his ”Out of Reach”. Since classical music also is a part of my wide-stretched musical world, this tune made the unification clear.

My comeback behind the decks – from Club PuLS 2003 to Club2Club

As a part of my formal studies I went to Uganda study year 2001/02 on a scholarship for my Master, also to prepare for launching a company, that was launched when coming back to Sweden, On a Mission Sweden – Inc. Ass. The main activity of the company is to provide the world with sustainability profile clothing and merchandise, for organizations, businesses and campaigning activities, with fair and sustainable traded cottonwear and fashion apparell printed with your message or product brand. The R&D loop of this has been exhaustive and long, and along the way we saw the first brand to be offered through the company to be a fundraising club concept, Club PuLS. It raised funds to establish an office in Kampala, Uganda, and our running costs. These events from March 8, 2003 (yes, International Women’s Day), premiered with Airbase and Inzite Live and supported by trance.nu – and was kicked off by me as resident. Until spring break 2004, we saw a good line up of Scandinavian Talents, where I played alongside Michael Splint, DJ Anneli, Andreas H, Rob Angel and also headlining myself ”DJ Anders Solo” for some multi-hour gigs. PuLS as an event and musical experience concept is hibernating, but I keep the brand alive through my promotional mixes named PuLSating Beats, a steady quarterly to monthly update of my present favourite tunage sometimes mixed up with some classics. All is reachable through the DJ Anders – the Virtual Clubbing Experience community.

With that initial clubbing promotion experience of running Club PuLS, an upgrade with international talent began at 2008, in May, in my hometown Norrköping, with guest DJs at the Première Night Cliff Coenraad and Manuel le Saux.

Joy of Life EDM – being the change I want to see

Here is the end of the beginning of this story. Next chapter involves taking my DJ’ing and music to the next level. Soon celebrating my 25th year anniversiry from my DJ debut, I signed Icon Management 2006 to deliver the higher purpose I see in playing behind the decks – to bring Joy of Life through Electronic Dance Music. If I force to describe it, my tastes in one simple way is clearly defined by the four best Radio One Essential Mixes to my view so far – DJ Tiesto aired two days before nine eleven 2001, Armin van Buuren in Spring 2003, Above and Beyond from Summer 2004 and Sander van Doorn from Summer of 2006. Where the constant streams of the Global DJ Broadcast shows of Markus Schulz is running mostly with the weekly refill of the energy with work-a-music in my headphones. A flavor of flowish and deep progressive in one end, and the more harder and techy in the other, but I want to stay away from defining it too hard by genre. For me, the feeling is central, not the arrangement or style as that. The beats, the harmonies, the build up of energies, the flow, the joy. Delivering a strong sense of being alive. The emotion has to be there. Music to make you dance, to cry, to laugh – moving your mind, your body, your spirit. Goose bumps and chest thumps, delivered at the same time. A special dedication with this in mind goes to Enigma, the musical project and brainchild of Michael Cretu with collaborators, tributed by me as an intro to all my sets where I find their music among the best ever made. The beginning of the Northern Light Club Mix of Enigma’s Turn Around is used in these set intros, stating ”Feel your body start move slowly – let the rhythm be your guiding light”.

You begin with listening to your mother’s heart with some BPM for nine months, and then you pop out in this world. Is that the reason why we get so moved by the beats? The way it can touch the spiritual keys of our existance if joined with those melodic harmonies? I don’t know, but I do know that I want to move, make waves and shakes of a floor near you! Let me deliver some PuLSating Beats to you – the pleasure will be on both sides, where I sure walk my talk – the joy and energy is mutually contageous, and the full presence and contact with the smiling people in the crowd is vital for my performance.

In short – music is life, life is love, and love is music!

As is!

RE:LOVE THE WORLD

Author: Anders Abrahamsson, 2006-2008.