You have an impressive background in music composition, yet this is your first studio album. What inspired you to make this transition. Akara is the culmination of a musical journey I’ve been on for about ten years. I have been obsessed with making a kind of otherworldy music of luminous beings for about that long, writing [...]

You previously appeared on Kranky alongside Adam Wiltzie in The Dead Texan project in 2004. How did you come about releasing your first solo album? I got a little lost as I became involved in the music side of The Dead Texan. The Dead Texan started touring in 2005, I played onstage with Adam and [...]

It’s about time that you and Ben Frost collaborated on a project. Was it long in the making and what finally brought it together? The whole process since we made the first recordings for the album in the Greenhouse and until the record came out was probably somewhere around 18 months, so all in all [...]

[editor's note: all questions are answered by Adam Wiltzie] Firstly, congratulations on the album. Can you talk a little about your use of composition as opposed to improvisation in making this record? i suppose over the course of time that i have been making music it has always been assumed that all of my records [...]

You first emerged to many as an artist on the first Phantom Channel compilation – a few years ago now. Was this the first outing for a new project or was Parhelion already established in some form or another? That was a while ago so I don’t really remember the particulars. The Phantom Channel compilation [...]

Your first album, L’Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu, seemed to surface out of nowhere. Yet from its production quality I can tell that you have been recording for quiet some time now. What made you to make the move from arranging music for theater to a solo debut album? I’ve been listening to too much music [...]

The title of your latest release means, The Sea. Can you tell us why water is featured so heavily as a theme in your work? The tracks are named after favourite places of mine; places that I like or consider to have an atmosphere. The first album was more land-oriented, and this one, I suppose, [...]

[editor's note: all questions are answered by Otto A. Totland] Can you discuss the long gap between your two albums? Yup – We have answered this question many times before. This is what Erik Skodvin has to say about it: ERIK: The long gap has so many different factors it’s almost hard to get into. [...]

Talk a bit about your production on this album. What techniques and instruments did you employ? I´m not sure if it´s that kind of music one should talk about the production, techniques and instruments. Even if it´s electronic music and for this reason pretty technical, it might not be the right approach towards this music [...]

I perceive your music to be as quite happy… are you by nature a happy guy? Yeah, I guess I am a happy person. I love rocking in this world. This life’s short, no time to be unhappy for no reason and dwell on anything too insignificant, I think. I mean, there are definitely important [...]

First thing’s first – what does your alias mean and where does it come from? My alias came about because of synchronicities and coincidences associated with those set of numbers. The people closest in my life are all part of those set of numbers in one way or another. The easiest thing to associate with [...]

How did you meet Bill Morrison, and inevitably became involved with the Miners’ Hymns project? Forma Arts and Media approached me with the idea of working on a piece based on the mining heritage of the North of England. Bill was one of the collaborators we talked about in connection with the project and luckily [...]

Tell us about the field recordings on Get Lost. The recordings were made by me on various locations both in Amsterdam, Sweden and also in the UK, from the obvious ocean and nature sounds through to peoples conversation and everyday objects, the hiss and noise from the field recordings has been mostly left in the [...]

What are the roots of the festival? How did it come to existence, what was the original idea behind it, and what does the name, Decibel, represent? The roots definitely came from my upbringing in Detroit, where I was exposed to early 90s warehouse party culture in high school. It was there that I first [...]

Monothlithium has made some big steps very quickly, playing at Mutek within months of the fist tracks being mastered, and at Decibel a few weeks from now. What do you attribute that to? The big factor I think, is the fact that it emerged fully formed. I had an EP already planned and was finishing [...]

Some research suggests that olfaction (sense of smell) is the highest memory triggering sense. What are your thoughts on auditory triggers, and more importantly, music itself? It’s always been shown that through music we remember certain situations and times. The brain is always amazing when it comes to storage and recall but then becomes a [...]

We last spoke more than a year ago (wow, can you believe that?), after your release Endless Falls on Kranky. So what have you been up to since then? A year goes by fast indeed. In the last year I have created and released Coast/Range/Arc with Glacial Movements and have started work on another album [...]