Neghantil
1990-1996

Format: Box, 2 x Compact Cassette
Edition: 100 copies
Released: December 17, 2010.

Two cassette tapes in deluxe black box with embossed silver logo.
Comes with one solid metal lapel pin and six art cards.

Order now.

Recorded on tape deck and 4-track porta studio at home,
Kashmir Palace and at Frösöberget using TR606, Korg Polysix,
DR-110, Korg MS-10, bass guitar, Ensoniq Mirage, vox, tapes
and broken delay unit. Most equipment supplied by the ever
expanding Curry Andersson - thank you!

Art directions by Nullvoid. Collages by Neghantil and Nullvoid.

INFORMATION:

These recordings represent some of my earliest attempts at making music. I started experimenting with tape recorders in the mid eighties - mostly cut-ups of pop songs from the radio - as a teenager. Later, in 1988, I got a small keyboard synthesizer as a Christmas present and from then on I dabbled with some kind of primitive synth music.

From late 1989 and a couple of years beyond I was involved in a couple of local synth pop bands but it wasn’t until 1990 that I made my first attempt at recording a solo cassette album. That was the birth of Neghantil. At this stage I was heavily influenced by early so-called industrial music, which becomes pretty evident upon listening to these recordings.

I didn't own that much equipment of my own so most of the instruments were borrowed from friends. At first I recorded in my bedroom but I soon gained access to a few rehearsal studios. This was my trial and error period where I tried out various musical styles - sometimes learning by trying to imitate something - and as it turned out I was more attracted to things more dark and, say, experimental.

It was a fun, spontaneous if perhaps a bit unfocused period and some of these recordings were made with a somewhat ironic attitude. But these days I wish I’d made more of this stuff.

Even though I was was pretty proud of that first album, I never got around to releasing it at the time. And over the years, I have kept these recordings mostly to myself.

In 1995 I moved to a new city and started using the name Bad Kharma instead – but that’s a different story.

/ Ronnie Sundin, 2010

TRACK LIST:

REVIEWS:

Ny musik för hållbar utveckling:

Aphex Twin beklagade sig för några år sedan i en intervju i The Wire att det släpps alldeles för mycket ny musik. Och att han egentligen skulle vara nöjd om det aldrig mera producerades någon ny musik längre. Den göteborgska proffsetiketten Fang Bomb verkar ha hakat på den där miljövänliga livsstilstrenden med återvinning;  de återpaketerar och återutger en hel drös dimmiga industriminnen från Ronnie Sundins syntiga barndom. Men för att upprätthålla Fang Bombs proffsnivå, så lägger de ner riklig möda på förpackningen. Och det med all rätt; ty vem är intresserad av xeroxade CDr-omslag (James Ferraro är ursäktad) i en tid av digital nedladdning och Spotifyondska? Neghantil-boxen är två vackra kassetter i en ståtlig låda med en logotyp signerad Nullvoid, sex proffstryckta inserts och en brosch. Du läste rätt, en brosch. I solid metall. Pins är för Broder Daniel-fans. Nämnde jag förresten att musiken är något sorts mörkt, köttigt industrigung? Och att delar av materialet är inspelat för tjugo år sedan?

The Sound Projector:

From Fang Bomb in Sweden (arrived late January 2011) we have a double-cassette box by Neghantil called 1990-1996 (FANG BOMB FB015), presented in a rather stern and foreboding package; flip the lid from the box and you have a set of 6-by-6 art prints suggesting various uncertain and paranoid mental states using collage, xerox and monochrome printing, then discover two cassette tapes in a foam surround, plus a metal gewgaw embedded…everywhere we see the mascot of Neghantil, a geometric doodad that might represent what the Psychic TV emblem would grow into if you left it inside a factory chimney overnight. This collection turns out to be the earliest recorded music of Ronnie Sundin, that Swedish electronic sound creator whose work we have noted in previous issue of the mag…this even predates Bad Kharma, his 1995 project which was mostly about extreme noise and tape collage. Then later on he went under the name rsundin for a few lower-case music records which were extremely quiet and puzzling and often themed on the ideas of sleep and dreams.

Underground music listeners who want to keep digging further into the archaeology and history of this genre of experimentation, particularly as released on cassettes, continue to be well-served. In 2009 we had the fabulous Musiikkivyöry release from a disaffected Finn who was making music in the early 1980s that could scorch your eyebrows with its palpable alienation. Likewise Neghantil ticks a lot of the requisite boxes: home recordings, sparse instruments, Korg synths, broken delay unit, tape loops and collage, four-track overdubbing, and a clear obsession with 1980s Industrial music. Sundin didn’t even have his own musical instruments to hand, so most of the gear was borrowed from friends. None of this detracts one iota from the power of the music here, which clearly springs from a heartfelt need and years of bottled-up energies. Driven to create, he sets about his work like a coiled snake let loose in a low-tech factory full of metal die-stampers. He can do the relentless pounding mode with great conviction, and never neglects to keep the music as grey and monochromatic as the accompanying images, but other things also come across to me; he is capable of the sort of delicacy and subtlety which would characterise his later work, and never lets the noise-trip intoxicate him to the degree that the machines take full control. In addition, we have to note Sundin’s assurance and conviction that is evident through most of these recordings; if they really are his first efforts, he should have been mighty proud of them. It’s as though he knew exactly what results he wanted to achieve, and kept working away at the devices until he could bend their mechanical arms to do his bidding. But it’s also exploratory, with some of the results unfinished, and characterised by a sense of innocence: “It was a fun, spontaneous if perhaps a bit unfocused period,” says Sundin today, “and some of these recordings were made with a somewhat ironic attitude.”

Equally ironic perhaps that although he intended making a cassette release out of these sessions, he never got around to doing so, and this Fang Bomb publication represents the first appearance for this material which has been safely stored in Sundin’s personal archive. In addition to the 13 tracks from 1990-1993 that presumably would have passed muster as an album, we have a second tape with rehearsal tapes (interesting, though nowhere near as focussed as the shorter pieces) and a long 1996 work called ‘Industrial Training Camp’, which contains harrowing blasts of distorted and blistering electronic doom-drone, forlorn bass guitar strums, and pallid percussive elements. The visuals for the package are by Neghantil and Nullvoid (i.e. Thomas Ekelund of Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words) and this release is another welcome addition to my growing collection of Swedish electronic gloom, whose distinctive flavour I am coming to appreciate more each day. “I wish I’d made more of this stuff,” says Sundin, reflecting about his first musical efforts some twenty years later. So do we, Ronnie!