Interview with Fredrik Djurfeldt of Analfabetism
Since 2000, Fredrik Djurfeldt has been working on his EBM/industrial project, Severe Illusion (together with Ulf Lundblad), and since 2014, he has started his own noisy dark-ambient solo act, Analfabetism. Since 2014, he has released 10 albums with this project. Which, so far, has been self-released, and on U.S.-based Malignant Records and Polish Fluttering Dragon. He has also been a member of such acts as Knös, Vanvård, Instants, and Alvar. So yes, Fredrik Djurfeldt is a VERY busy man! I reviewed his newest album on Fluttering Dragon, and I immediately became a fan! I got in touch with the bloke and wanted to do an interview, and he said yes. So everything is good! There hasn´t been written a lot about this project, so hopefully, after this interview, I´ll have more knowledge about this mysterious Swedish project.
First of all, your interest in industrial music. How and when did that come about?
My first memory of songwriting must have been a song called 'Häxorna i Skogen', a song played on my dad's guitar hanging on the wall, because I could reach up and take it down. I guess I was five years old or something. But the interest picked up more because my dad used to bring lots of weird electronic equipment home from work around that same time, very primitive computers, small tape recorders, and lots and lots of just homemade machinery. None of that was meant for music, really. He was working in the field of physical oceanography, so he used all that stuff to build deep-sea science probes, and what have you. I liked to see if I could make sound with his equipment, and unlike many parents, he would let me do just that.
In kindergarten, my friend Emil started a band. Sort of. We used his little toy drum set, and a tape recorder where we had connected all the inputs to all the outputs, and then by twisting different knobs on the tape recorder, we could change the sound and thus use it as a feedback instrument. It was noisy as hell, and we loved it. We called ourselves 'Wrong Connection' because of the tape recorder thing. The name was in English because Emil and his family had just moved from America a year before. I think it was about a year later that I somehow stumbled on SPK for the first time, and then I understood that it was not just Emil and me doing what we did.
I didn't. I made music on the Commodore 64 back in the day, and you can find music I made as early as 1988 in the High Voltage Sid Collection. My name there is Mongo. And so, for the record, yes, I am, still to this day, a big fan of Rob Hubbard. This is ofcourse after me, and Emil did our Wrong Connection thing. In the late 90's, I made music as Karl Spöke, and it sounded a bit like Analfabetism. I made a tape and a Cdr, and played live a few times.
What was the reason to jump from EBM to noise-driven ambient?
Then I moved to Göteborg, Sweden, where I met Ulf, and we started Severe Illusion. To our rather massive surprise, that thing took off in Hungary, Florida, Argentina, anda bunch of other places we had not expected, so we decided to go full in on that project for a while. And nothing is over yet. Ulf and I are working on a new album as we speak. My point here is, I do lots of different stuff all the time and under different names. I plan to do that for the foreseeable future.
The name is taken from an old Swedish pop song, 'Henning i sin Presenning' by Philemon Arthur and the Dung. But what I really wanted was a primitive sounding name, but not in a black metal way primitive. An interesting misunderstanding that I was not expecting is that English-speaking people tend to read it as Anal Fabetism, and then ask me what the heck Fabetism is. I was asked this the first time I played in Seattle, and it took a few moments to figure it out. I find this hilarious.
I like to be in control of the entire process. It is more than just music to me. The artwork is an important part of the concept, and most of the photos being used have been taken by me. Even the dead animals on Kniven Stitter Kvar I Bonden are just stuff I have found in nature. But I also like the networking that is needed to get the music out there to people, and because I am not always leaving that to a record label, I now have friends in places like Canada and Denmark and Kazakhstan and Slovenia and Uruguay and Spain and Chile and California and Poland and lots and lots of other places, and that makes life more intersting.
I find the past very interesting, and I always did. It gives a perspective on who we are now, or at least who we think we are. And that is the point, the fact that we tend to rewrite history to justify our present. I am just doing my part in exaggerating already questionable accounts of Scandinavian history. In reality, I am convinced life was a lot better in the past than most people think.
Why did you choose Analfabetism as the act's name?
What is the reason behind self-releasing some of your albums?
I sense a historic theme running through the albums. What is the chosen reason behind these tragic stories, and how do you locate them?
During the Little Ice Age, the crops would not grow, and a lot of people moved to Minnesota, where the crops did grow just fine. But we focus on the famine at home thing, and that is just a tiny, tiny part of our history. Den Svagsintes Klagan is inspired by the life of Erik Daniels, or Erk Danels, who was also known. He lived in the forest by the coast in what is now known as the High Coast, where I happen to live at the moment. The myth has been evolving here for some 200 years, and probably has little to do with real man himself anymore. What I have done is to go out in the forest to places where he is supposed to have been. There, I have collected sounds he could have encountered out there and turned that into music.
How is it to work with Peter Nyström of Megaptera? And do you guys plan to do more together in the future?
Peter and I go back many years. First, we were fans of each other's music for years, then when he contacted me to get hold of some of my early Cds I ended up helping him with some technicalities with a Megaptera album, and soon after, he suggested we do a split album on Maligant Records. He contributed some stuff to an early Analfabetism album, and my voice is on a Negru Voda album too. We live about two hours away from each other now, and in Northern Sweden, that is more or less next door. We do not have anything planned together at the moment, but he sometimes comes out here to visit me at the coast, so who knows? Maybe we will do something together again sometime.
What kind of electronic bands are you into, and why?
I like anything that is either creative and thinking a little bit out of the box, and I can really enjoy a good live act. Early industrial bands like SPK and Throbbing Gristle, yes, of course. But newer stuff like The Vomit Arsonist, Gnawed, MZ 412, Ultharm, Moral Order, and, yes, that list could be very long indeed. I like Ha People 3.55. I am also an old Skinny Puppy fan, and I prefer the Canadian school of dark electro to the European most of the time. Because there is more chaos, and that makes for a more interesting listen. Occationally I get back to my old C 64 heroes Rob Hubbard, Marin Galway, David Hanlon, Maniacs of Noise. Even some angstpop can be good.
Upcoming future plans for Analfabetism?
.jpg)
Bandcamp:
Discogs: