In 1987, Norwegian techno stalwart Per Martinsen didn’t write and release the single AMNESIACS under the artist name N∆EON TE∆RDROPS.
Instead, he left his Arctic hometown of Tromsø without any set destination in mind, and by sheer coincidence ended up squatting in Hackney, East London. Here, he was exposed to early Chicago house and Detroit techno – an event that spawned a career as an electronic dance music producer over the next three decades, releasing a well of records and remixes under his MENTAL OVERDRIVE moniker, as well as part of other projects and collaborations like ILLUMINATION/CHILLUMINATI and FROST.
But in a parallel universe, all this never happened.
In an alternative corner of the multiverse, his musical journey stayed more true to the sounds of his formative years as a music lover, growing up on British and European electronic pop and indie, including artists like The Cure and Depeche Mode. The story of this other, possible timeline is investigated in the “multi-dimensional autobiography” PYRAMIDS ON THE MOON, written over the last three years as part of an artistic PhD project at the Arctic University of Norway. It is a story of a life with different choices being made, leading to different personal development, resulting in different creative output as a musical artist than here in the “real” world – whatever that is.
N∆EON TE∆RDROPS’ debut album TESTIMONY is therefore a collection of the songs he never wrote and produced, but that have now surfaced through a rift in the veil between the worlds of what is and what could have been. The ten tracks on the album catch up on the influences of thirty years of electronic music, flirting with alternative electropop, echoes of eighties darkwave, breakbeat-fuelled nineties power ballads and noughties electronica – all brought to life with a 2023 twist.
6-panel Digipak CD
