Thulean Archives

How on earth did I manage to record two albums in prison? That doesn't make any sense, does it? Well, let's find out.

The first year in prison I spent in Oslo jail, a fairly old school prison. But because I am from Bergen, I wanted to do time in the Bergen prison. And I was sent there. And that was a mistake on my part. The authorities there had some sort of personal vendetta project against me. And I was quickly, instead of doing time in a normal prison block, sent to the isolation block. And the one year I spent in Bergen prison, I spent in the isolation block. And after that they sent me to Ila Prison, an old ex German concentration camp, actually. But let's go back to Bergen first.

So Bergen Prison was a new prison, that is what you would call a hotel prison. So I had a shower in the cell. And of course the purpose of that shower was not to provide me with these luxurious facilities, but because they wanted to keep the prisoners isolated, so you had no excuse to ever leave the cell. And we were also allowed to have a music device there, like a discman or something like that. So I used the opportunity and I asked my parents to buy me a music processor. That is a synthesizer that you can also record music on. Now, the inspector in the prison block, I was in, wasn't in on the personal vendetta project of the director. So he let me have it. And it took 14 days before the director found out that I had been allowed to have what everyone else were allowed to have. So I only had it for 14 days. But during that time I recorded "Dauði Baldrs", "The Death of Baldur", the synthesizer album. And since I wasn't allowed to have it in my prison cell, I asked my parents to come pick it up. And in the music processor was the little 3.5 inch disc that we could give to Pytten so that he could master it.

So after one year in isolation, they sent me to Ila Prison, the former German concentration camp. And after one and a half year there, they decided to send me to Ullersmo prison, where I was also sent directly to the isolation block. But they didn't want me there. So they asked me, well, where do you want to go? And I said, well... they gave me some options and I said, well, I do not want to go to Trondheim, that's for sure... So, of course, they sent me to Trondheim prison. And shortly after I arrived, they decided to confiscate all my clothes. Because for some reason they claimed that I was wearing a uniform. I wasn't, but, you know. Everyone else were allowed to wear their normal clothes. But for some reason they had decided that I was supposed to wear prison clothes. Naturally, I protested against that, was handcuffed and sent to the isolation block again.

But working or studying is mandatory in Norwegian prisons. And of course, I was in the isolation block, and I still had to do something. And the only thing I could do was to study. So I studied IT and such like. And because I was studying, I was allowed to have a little computer in my cell. And then I remembered that maybe I could make some music here. So I got the old music processor sent to Trondheim. Had it for one week, maybe two, I'm not sure, before they decided that I had too many things in my cell. So I had to choose something that they had to take. And I wanted to keep the computer because I could write books on it. So they took my music processor, but only after I had recorded Hliðskjálf. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how I managed to record two albums. Synthesizer albums, but still, in prison. Thank you for watching