Tobias Lilja - Ex-leper (NR-004) Nonresponse, 2003 More info » (Nonresponse.com) Buy now » (n5MD webshop)

Every fan of Monthy Python is familiar with the fact that an "ex-leper" is a person who got cured from leprocy. As I see it, an ex-leper is also a metaphor for an escape.

My debut album was in a way an escape. A way out from the small town I grew up in and all events associated to it. The plain (and slightly ironic) title "Gislaved nightmare" tells it all. It gets quite bizarre to use the word "nightmare" together with the name of a seemingly harmless Swedish town, but it is a proof of how isolation sometimes forces expressionism to occur.

Ex-leper is at its core an album version of the Manifesto EP. It's supposed to be an ambient album, but some beats do find their way in. One of the key elements is the harmonium, which was an attempt to include an organic element into the mix. I was totally in love with that big, white, clumpsy, half broken organ and the way it seemed to breathe when I was pushing the pedals...

Ex-leper was released in 2003 by Philadelphia based electronica label Nonresponse. It also includes a remix by Loess.

1. Pre-memoria (2:05)
2. Manifesto (5:53)
3. Crippled (6:38)
4. Post memoria (4:32)
5. Traffic (5:58)
6. Gislaved nightmare (12:32)
7. Garden (6:10)
8. Frontier (7:35)
9. Days pass faster (3:59)
10. Averel (4:09)
11. Spetaelska (Loess mix) (6:05)
12. Ex-leper (6:17)

More pictures can be found at discogs