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Tobias Lilja Location: Malmö, Sweden Links: |
Biography
As a kid I played the trumpet, but was very impatient when it came to practice. At the time, my older brother made music with an AMIGA computer. He showed me the basics and I instantly felt that it had the creative playfulness I had missed. A few years later, my brother lended me his sampler and between 1999 and 2002 I made several demos under the alias "Aztech", touching drum'n'bass, techno and triphop-inspired electronica (see discography).
Between 2001 and 2003, Digital Structures (the home label of the Swedish techno duo Son kite) were releasing the Chillosophy compilations which featured soft and experimental electronica. I sent them my demos, and in the end I had one track on each Chillosophy release.
In 2002 I sent my Manifesto EP to the Philadelphia based electronica label Nonresponse. It featured a few ambient tracks which led to a proposition from their side: record an entire album with ambient and we will release it.
About one year later, Ex-leper was finished. On this album I tried to combine the living, breathing sound of the harmonium with cold, electronic sounds.
In 2003 I moved to the slightly bigger town of Växjö where I studied music production at the university for two years. My teachers and fellow students were all into pop and rock, which influenced me. I discovered that I enjoyed writing melodies, something I had never really done before. Having keys to a studio with a bunch of microphones also made it possible for me to begin experimenting with my own voice.
In the summer of 2005, I felt an urge to record ambient music again. The ideal at the university was all about technical and musical perfection, and as a reaction I wanted to create something rough and spontaneous. I recorded short ambient sketches and wrote lyrics. I made the musical backgrounds non-linear and repetitive so that I could improvise freely with my voice. The element of lyrics also became a way to make the music more upfront and personal.
In the early autumn of 2005 I moved to Malmö, the third biggest city in Sweden to continue my studies (now in a more theoretical field though). The sketches evolved into a 45 minute demo, which reached Mike Cadoo at Oakland based label n5MD in february 2006. He liked my vocal excursions and asked me if I wanted to record an album. In the middle of june, Time is on my side was finished. It was released in february 2007.