Avenue Red is proud to present a new episode from an old-timer of the 90's Stockholm/Swedish underground music scene, the excellent Ahab label boss and mainstay artist, Mathtiiaas Rosén AKA Microman! Mathtiiaas has blazed a curiously unusual trail since getting his hands on drum machines and synthesisers in his 80's youth, upon which he experimented with intensive programming and mastered his wizard-like machine fuckery to the point of breaking through the Matrix. Weird Science-style happenings, but generating some extraordinary sounds as the end product instead of an A-grade female plaything.

Mathtiiaas worked alone and in studio collaborations under lesser-known names to create several solid mid-90's Swedish releases, also releasing his works on Stockholm-based Loop Records as Aviation Kid, then on its parent label Plumphouse Records where, for the first time, he used the Microman alias (his nickname at school). But after various difficulties and legal wrangling with these labels, in 1997 he forged a new path of his own by setting up the Ahab label as a "toolbox" as he puts it... a place to release musical DJ tools and bridges to perfect his meticulously crafted DJ sets. Broadly in the realms of house, techno and electro, Ahab featured many odd combinations of ideas and hybrid styles aimed at and around the dancefloor.

Here we have a weird, wacky and wonderful almost 3-hour long assault of music entirely composed by Microman himself in recent years. Partly a DJ set and partly a live electronics performance, it starts with a bang and stays fast-paced and exciting for the first two thirds... then it becomes increasingly breakbeat and erratic until you, the listener, are to be swallowed into a kind of sonic abyss. Will you ever come back, or emerge from the other side?

"When playing last time... dropping my Ahab 14 release, this dude came up to me in the shop and asked about the record. He bought 2 out of 250 copies. Only now he will work the release so, that is two years into the future that the record will finally find the floor via that DJ with his records in his set. A DJ's dream is to find a perfect tool. But don't know what it sounds like yet. I never think of making a "Banger". It is always the underdog release that travels far and long that counts for me. That's my school.

I am always about the philosophical aspects in my work and everything is conceptual. Names, sounds, graphics and layout all have a story that goes from a point to meet up with the next release. My Ahab 13 is an art installation, I hand-painted 250 A3 paintings and repacked every record with a hand-stamped A3 painting into every sleeve. All 20 tunes on 5 vinyl are 167 BPM in the breakbeat / jungle / d&b / old school style I grew up with, but it's random eclectic and touches many styles of 1998 and that era. Cut on 45 RPM so you can play and mix with house and techno by putting it on 33 RPM in the bar early in the evening. It's really a toolbox for the retro future like in the TV series Loki, in the parallel world and the other Microman that stayed in the South of London, became a dad and married that copper coloured girl of his dream in 1999. Timelines and paradoxes and shit, that is in every move. How to navigate the mind and stay sane yet having fun and dance away high as a kite?

How far can you go in production and writing music? The first part of this mix for Avenue Red is 130 BPM and is a fraction of a longer theme of songs that were written under the premise of just that: 130 BPM and from start to finished master in one sitting. Keep it simple and dancefloor. Then we break down to the living room: Tempo and mood varies more, looking back at the UK old Black Dog / 808 State / Orbital vibe. And now it goes dark: Bass, drone, sub-tones bleeding into noise and industrial, then the classical / ambient melodic ending." Mathtiiaas Rosén, January 2022

Discogs :: https://www.discogs.com/artist/19539-Microman

https://soundcloud.com/mathtiiaas_rosen