It
was back in 1938 that the brothers Erik and August and their friend
Viktor migrated south. They left the small village in the northern
forests where they grew up for the big city and the university, to study
the science of harvesting the earth. On the fields beside the burial
mounds in old Uppsala they met Tommie, a Soviet refugee. He showed them
his sole possession, a blues vinyl from 5300 BC, suspecting
that it would fit their melancholy northern souls. The four sat down in
a barn and played a blues jam which lasted until 1945, when the war
ended and the post-apocalyptic nuclear winter began.
At that time the group withdrew into the top floor of a nearby tower. Through the window of their tower-room they saw ash and snow falling from a gloomy, violet and crimson sky. Erik wept for the world and August began writing their first actual song, Andromeda. Tommie shuddered but had seen worse. Viktor suggested they should arm themselves.
The
four remained in solitude throughout the 50's, an isolation
interspersed only by a Zenith tube radio which brought them pop cultural
news-pieces aired by American radio stations. They tried to adapt the
rockabilly tunes they heard into their own music but were mostly
unsuccessful (their innate sense of rhythm being too crooked).
At that time the group withdrew into the top floor of a nearby tower. Through the window of their tower-room they saw ash and snow falling from a gloomy, violet and crimson sky. Erik wept for the world and August began writing their first actual song, Andromeda. Tommie shuddered but had seen worse. Viktor suggested they should arm themselves.
In '59 Tommie--whilst listening to an original rumble on the radio--noted that the snow was beginning to melt. Soon thereafter flowers began to blossom. A marvelous explosion of colors, warmth and fragrances previously unknown! Viktor, seeking to condense these new vibrations into something physical, built both the world's first fuzz and wah-wah pedals. Erik, on the other hand, saw it more fitting to grow a mustache. No one remembers more than glimpses of the years that followed, except that they left the tower, but they all agree that it was a most intoxicating time and that they somehow acquired a more orgiastic bent as musicians during this period.
But,
alas, in the early 70's each of the four felt a pressing need for a
climax, for transcendence and revolt. For a time the band split up:
August moved to Detroit, took to street-fighting and began wearing
makeup; Viktor moved to Tokyo, where he entered a girls boarding school
and started an all-girl noise-rock band; Erik moved to Göteborg and
played acoustic music with political lyrics, seeking to inspire a
world-wide socialist revolution, while Tommie moved to New York where he
focused on the occult and worked as a session musician.
They reunited in '83 and moved back into their tower-room. They remained there until the autumn of 2012 (when rumors of the end of the world enticed them to leave) and they have since then been known to the public as "The Tower".
They reunited in '83 and moved back into their tower-room. They remained there until the autumn of 2012 (when rumors of the end of the world enticed them to leave) and they have since then been known to the public as "The Tower".
Dybbuk Records
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