Oxiplegatz

Cyber Doom Metal - Sweden

Its hard to describe my personal label favourite : Oxiplegatz. This is the solo project of Alf Svenson, the ex Grotesque and At The Gates guitarist. "Sidereal Journey" is one of the releases Im the most proud of, to which I can listen again & again.

Just read those couple of words by Alf himself and youll understand : "Fed up with music I unplugged my stereo and buried it in a wardrobe.

Dissatisfied with what I had accomplished so far I decided to terminate my project OXIPLEGATZ for good. It was something like two years ago, after the release of "Worlds and worlds", my second album. I felt that I had really nothing more to add, looking back at the succession of albums from my time with AT THE GATES and up to now, it felt like another one would only be an unnecessary repetition of the same old ideas. For a considerable period of time I worked in complete silence, spending my days doing various kinds of artwork (which is my profession) and just enjoying not having my thought patterns disturbed by the sound of music.

Still, somewhere in the back of my mind, fractions of a distant voice was humming strange tunes. As time passed I started to write down small portions of stuff that had popped up, and sooner than I realised, a new piece was taking shape. I accepted the idea and sat down to draw the basic lines of a full-length album.

This time I was set to do what I had wanted from the very beginning : an album that was one piece of music; not split up into a number of tracks. I had long thought it a bit too convenient ; create a few scraps of music, put them in succession and repeat them over and over a few times and zip ! Theres a song…. No, I wanted to do it more thoroughly, writing a story and letting the music follow its different turns and moods, blending together along the way, without repeating itself more than necessary. As I use to say – nothing gets better by being played over and over, the best parts should always be short and evasive to make the listener want to go back and hear it again. I also wanted the sound to alter at different parts, better to fit the story, using a wide range of instruments.

It took me quite a while to finish the whole piece, finding it hard from time to time to evoke the energy to sit down and work. I hate to leave a thing unfinished though and finally I had all the material I wanted. The lyrics is somewhat like a short novel or tale, telling the story of race of beings driven off their home world by the presence of a black hole, on a path threatening the stability of their sun. Building a huge spacecraft they bring samples of every species of their doomed planet and set off into space to find a new home, where they can recreate their environment. On the journey they encounter many strange phenomena, things new to them and not always benign.

From my viewpoint the album is by far the most complete OXIPLEGATZ album. I am pretty much satisfied with most parts, though some things leave room for improvement, but one can strive forever without reaching perfection. For the first time-listener the album may feel a bit awkward to start with but I think after a few minutes one gets the feeling of it, as it gains substance and continuity further on. Sure, I could have done things a bit more easy to encompass, there are a lot of great music that I would like to take inspiration from. Some bands have a sound that is really rich and comfortable for the ear. But in the end – why try to do something that has already been done before ?

My purpose with OXIPLEGATZ has always been to experiment and create something different from the main stream. Well – nothing is absolutely new in the metal genre today, but I feel that I have at least succeeded in adding some variation to it…"

Alf / OXIPLEGATZ

Future plans : unknown ; I havent heard much from Alf recently, except that he changed profession from tattoo artist to computer game graphic designer and that hes the happy father of twins!