You might not of heard of Per Martinsen or his alter ego Mental Overdrive but the Norse DJ has been steadily ripping up dance floors since the early 90's, was released on the seminal Belgian R&S records label and has swaped girlfriends with Royksopp. His current release Are you being Manipulated is his latest Mental Overdrive project and is a cool blend of Norway house with electronic overtones.
Hello Per or Mental Overdrive how are you. Can I ask what are you up to at the moment (other than reading this)?
Hi, I’m sitting in my home in the town of Tromso in Northern Norway, drinking a cup of tea and listening to an old shortwave radio from the seventies.
Mental Overdrive’s has been a long project starting off in the early 90’s can you tell me how it came about and obviously your involvement with the seminal R&S records.
I lived in London in 1987/88, and got very inspired by the early Acid-house scene. Through friends I ended up in Belgium in 1989 to produce some tracks for another Belgian label, Crammed Discs. One night I met Renaat from R&S in a club in Ghent, and ended up going to visit their studio up there. We decided to try a session, and before I knew it I had released quite a few singles and EP’s for them a few years later.
Your 12” release 12000AD was a quite seminal release in Europe as up until then their had been a lot of Italo sounding music dominating. It really helped the Belgian scene find a new direction. What are your thoughts on it now? I heard perhaps this is wrong you used a new recording technique for that track. Is that correct?
Detroit techno and Chicago house were the most important sounds around in the UK and Europe at the time, but in Belgium there was this sound going on called “New Beat”. It was far more “Euro-sounding” with very slow beats and different melodic ideas than in the more soul-inspired American music. It had part of its roots in the hard synth music and industrial sounds of the eighties, and in my early youth so had I. I guess my first M.O. EP reflected my influences of the time. From the darker side of my Euro roots to fascination with the new US dance music around.
I actually used a revolutionary new technique which was based on splicing carbon-molecules with strobelight-photons, and then running them under extremely high pressure at zero degrees Kelvin through an underwater Jamaican soundsystem. This system had the most big-assed bassbins you’d ever seen…haha
Your releases in the mid 90’s began to take on a very dark, at times hardcore feel with tracks such as Soma and Communion (which does have that great cello loop) what were you doing at that time that lead to such dark music?
Basically I just visited Germany a lot.
What was the exact story involving your putting some of your master’s tapes on eBay for sale?
In a time where the “value” of recorded music has dropped considerably, I wanted to see whether extreme exclusivity changed this at all. I offered one track for sale in 1 copy only to the highest bidder. The auction ended at USD 799, but due to my lack of experience as an eBay seller I had put a reservation on the price that was too high, so the item didn’t sell for this sum as the auction ended. I decided not to re-list the sale, and included the track on my latest album “You are being manipulated” instead. Anyway the experiment worked in a way, with USD 799 on offer instead of the iTunes standars USD 1 for each track. But is it art?
Q. Your other project Frost is starting to pick up speed can you tell us about it? Rokysopp was originally involved yes?
Frost started out as the project of Aggie, DJ and producer Rune Lindbaek and Torbjorn from Royksopp for the first album. Then me and Aggie ended up doing the second album “Melodica” together when we met a few years later, with the Royksopp boys co-producing a couple of tracks. More recently we’ve been touring a lot together just the two of us, and we have a second album together “Love! Revolution!” out now. Frost is northern electronic pop, and Aggie’s usually wearing the trousers.
Prince’s banning of the cover album of his work must have been disappointing. Frost’s cover of six shooter was getting a lot of plays what’s the situation with the track now can you use it or has Prince but embargo’s on the covers etc?
Yeah, we were asked by the guy who put the project together to pick a track written by Prince to cover, and as we were very eager to do something new in the studio, we rushed to the task. The guy made this box-set of 5 CD’s of covers from different artists as a nice gesture to Prince’s 50th birthday, he’s such a big fan. Everybody did it for free, so it was an act of pure luv. When it came out Prince wanted nothing of it, and demanded all CD’s deleted. I don’t really care, we just wanted to make some music. It could’ve been anybody’s song, really. I guess he’s just a good example of the old type of artist, and that we’re a good example of the new type.
You are being Manipulated is your new mental overdrive album can you tell us about it? What was the working process? What direction did it take?
The tracks have just come to bit by bit during the last couple of years, but I think there is some kind of direction of mood in most of them. I think the album is quite clinical and deliberate-sounding, there’s not so many organic vibes going down there. It’s not all jolly stuff either, but not pure darkness in any way either. It’s electronic dance music for the Apocalypse, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Listening to Diskodance from your new album to Soma their has been a huge change and evolution in your music was this something deliberate or has it been a natural progression? It has felt natural, I guess. I’ve just wanted to pursue the ideas that came my way. I get bored very easily, so sticking to one sound is something I couldn’t do for too long. That’s why I didn’t want a boring, monotonous job in the first place. Despite your involvement with R&S you remained a behind the scene artists with Aphex Twin etc. taking more of the limelight its not been until recently that your star has started to shine more to a larger Dance audience. What’s your thoughts on that?
I’m a person who really appreciate my freedom. The moment you step up, there’s so much extra noise being generated around your person that eventually you can end up being very distracted and disconnected from anything interesting that’s going on. Also, as everyone has their vanity, the moment the stage lights are on you, you start getting very self-conscious and start to worry about things that are completely irrelevant to your work. I guess it’s everybody’s choice, but that some get thrown into it without really wanting it so much. I don’t know if it really makes any difference in the long run. Derrick May did some revolutionary work and got famous, but stopped making records in 1990. Mike Banks made some revolutionary work, didn’t get that famous, but is in his studio at this very moment doing a remix. Both have my respect. It seems everyone knowns everyone in the Norway scene or has worked with one another at some stage. Is it a small scene?
Hell, yeah! Everyone has been with everyone else's girlfriend at some point. Or at least tinkered with somebody else’s synthesizer.
What’s the next thing on the agenda for Mental Overdrive?
There’s a new single out, “Europa” from the new album. I’m doing some remix work, one being of the great Skatebaard coming out on Kompakt soon. I’m building some installation work for an exhibition here in Tromso during the Insomnia Festival in October. My label Love OD is putting out a few releases in the autumn. We’re also working on a card game for DJ’s to be released for Christmas. Early next year will see a new project that might get interesting, but I’ll have to get back to that.
Thanks for taking the time to talk You’re most welcome.
Stay tuned to Pulse Radio for Mental Overdrive's new studio page with live DJ sets and an upcoming exclusive Pulse Radio mix.
20/11/08 Journey Southward: Sirius Shares Hit 20 Cents
20/11/08 Journey Southward: Sirius Shares Hit 20 Cents
When is a stock officially a dog? On Monday, shares of Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) hit a bottom-scraping 20 cents, an all-time low for the company. The depressed valuation comes alongside a string of fundamental problems, including a massive $4.8 billion write-off and future loan obligations crossing into the billions.
Others continued to limp on Wall Street. The broader Dow improved 151.17 points, or 1.83 percent, to land at 8,424.75 after a late-stage bounce. During the day, traders digested news of falling wholesale prices, a sign that inflation is not a near-term threat; and a surprisingly positive forecast by Hewlett-Packard. Elsewhere, American automakers made their case for a bailout in Congress, and investors adjusted for a deeper recession.
That created a volatile day, one that see-sawed music-related shares. Apple (AAPL) inched upward 2.01 percent to $89.91; Live Nation (LYV) dropped 4.06 percent to $4.73; Ticketmaster (TKTM) gained 3.93 percent to $6.08; Warner Music Group (WMG) jumped 10.83 percent to $2.66; and The Orchard dropped 12.99 percent to $2.21.
20/11/08 Cuban Bites Back Against SEC Charges...
20/11/08 Cuban Bites Back Against SEC Charges...
In the face of a Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) insider trading investigation, most would assume a low-key demeanor. But brash billionaire Mark Cuban is pursuing a more confrontational route, one that uses the pulpit of the blog.
The SEC recently filed suit against the broadcast.com founder, alleging that Cuban illegally dumped shares in Canadian search engine Mamma.com after acquiring confidential information related to an upcoming dilution.
At first, Cuban declined to delve into specifics. But Cuban now appears ready to battle through Blog Maverick. In a Tuesday post, Cuban acknowledged that Mamma relayed information related to an upcoming offering. But Cuban denied that there were confidentiality aspects attached. "The SEC knows their case centers on one telephone conversation between two individuals - 4 years ago," a posted letter from attorney Stephen A. Best stated. "There was no agreement to keep information confidential."
20/11/08 French Labels Suing Limewire, Morpheus, Others
20/11/08 French Labels Suing Limewire, Morpheus, Others
A consortium of French labels is now suing file-sharing applications Limewire, Morpheus, and Vuze, according to details revealed by Torrentfreak. The action also includes Sourceforge, an open-source repository that offers hosting to Shareaza. The lawsuits are being coordinated under the Société Civile des Producteurs de Phonogrammes en France, or SPPF.
The lawsuits are being delivered under the DADVSI copyright law. An amendment to DADVSI prohibits any company from distributing software that facilitates the illegal transfer of content, and penalties ramp towards three years in jail and a 300,000 euro fine ($378,780). That contrasts with the United States, where copyright holders can only pursue application developers for overtly encouraging and driving profits from copyrighted content.
Earlier, French courts were grappling over issues of jurisdiction, specifically whether a foreign company could be sued for distributing applications that are inherently global. That placed previous lawsuits on hold, though courts have now authorized the actions.
20/11/08 Mexican Tycoon Grabbing Major Circuit City Stake
20/11/08 Mexican Tycoon Grabbing Major Circuit City Stake
Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego is now purchasing a large percentage of Circuit City shares, according to recent regulatory filings. Pliego grabbed allotments of 5.3 million, 5.2 million, and 19.8 million shares starting last week, on top of an existing stronghold of 16.8 million. That makes Pliego the largest shareholder of Circuit City, at roughly 28 percent.
The purchasing activity started November 12th, just two days after the company declared bankruptcy. In Mexico, Pliego controls a diversified portfolio of companies that span retail, consumer electronics, mobile, and media sectors. He is the chairman of Grupo Elektra SA, a consumer electronics retail giant; TV Azteca SA, a massive television broadcaster in the region; and Grupo Iusacell SA, a major mobile group.
Pliego is ranked as the fourth-richest Mexican, and one of the richest individuals in the world. Circuit City is currently closing stores and restructuring amidst a serious consumer spending downturn.
17/11/08 Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind: More Rockiness Awaits
17/11/08 Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind: More Rockiness Awaits
A difficult rearview is now prelude to more turbulence ahead, and investors are exercising caution. Instead of heady optimism and bottom-scraping scrappiness, most are girding for another rollercoaster week, including those carrying music-related shares.
That includes Warner Music Group (WMG), a company that bottomed an all-time low of $2.74 last week, only to resuscitate to $2.77 by Friday. Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) also tested the trough by landing at 26 cents at the end of the week, a depressed valuation that betrays a host of serious ills.
Those companies have fundamental issues, though broader headwinds remain unfriendly. On Friday, the Dow shed 337.94 points to 8.497.31, a 3.82 percent drop on Friday. Overall, the Dow dropped 4.2 percent on the week, based on a bearish mix of bad earnings, layoffs, tightening consumer confidence, and pending meltdowns of mega-corporations like GM.
Other music-related stocks felt the pressure. Live Nation (LYV) landed at $5.50, a 36.6 percent drop on the week, based on negative analyst projections related to concert attendance. Irving Azoff-helmed Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM) also ended sharply down, dropping 24.7 percent to $5.87. The Orchard edged downward 1.9 percent, landing at $2.54; and Apple (AAPL) slipped 5 percent to $90.24.
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What was the exact story involving your putting some of your master’s tapes on eBay for sale?
