Animobo is Michael Eriksson and is a composer and musician, 32 years old from Norrköping in Sweden.

When he was around 10 years old I began to discover electronic music and the possibilities of electronic timbres. He became fascinated by the sounds in music by Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk, and soon the great works of retro-futuristic pioneers such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Swedish electronic composer Ralph Lundsten, all fundamental influences for his music to come.

He got my first real synthesizer at the age of 14. It was a fairly simple piece of gear without filters and effects. During the following years he learned the fundamentals of electroacoustic sound and sequencer-programming.

Around 1995 he came into an acoustical period of music exploring the sounds from "real" instruments and the expressions of the symphonic orchestra. The result was some music for the piano and a couple of fully scored orchestral

pieces, including an overture to, a not so serious, "Space Opera" that was never realized. Along with electronic music he has always loved classical music, especially that of J. S. Bach, W. A. Mozart and Claude Debussy, all great sources of inspiration to the deeper meaning of music.

The motives of music and its frontiers were issues that started to interest him more and more in 1997. He set out to investigate the zone and border between sound and music, which resulted in a couple of compositions he named "sound-

poems". The first of them was called "Angelica and the winter" and tells the story of a woman whose bewilderment in losing her faith turns into showing her the real values of life.

The exploration of sound and music eventually led him to a new musical phase, blending these two components into soundscapes where the melodies play an important and leading role. This is reflected in my "Nocturne suite" from 1999.

If one sees to the music of the past centuries no one is really sure of how it sounded in matter of instrumentation and techniques, but the melody lines are often rememberred and carried on to coming generations.

In 2001, he continued his musical journey with a new album, ‘Solitudes’, where he further developed the elements of the melodic dreamscape. The years that have passed have lead him even deeper into the existential and emotional side of music - to its sublime borders of emotions beyond and within

our dreams and desires...

There has always been a minimalistic approach to composing in his music. Both the albums were created using solely a Kurzweil K2000 synthesizer, with a maximum of 24 simultaneous voices in each song. The result may sound bigger than it is, and that's because, as always, less is more...

2005 has brought inspiration to explore new and esoteric relations of music, nature and human emotions. This involves new approaches to composing, technique, and musical aestethics. So, stay tuned for the continued journeys into the soundscapes of mind and heart...

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