Ambient Midi

Elektrical Aktivity (1996). Norway's reputation as deliverer of high-quality techno and Electronic music with names like Bleep, Biosphere, Volcano, Mental Overdrive, and Istmik, is well assured with interesting new names coming up all of the time. This debut CD from Mind Over Midi of Kristiansund, gives new proofs that one should not forget Norwegian Electronic Music for the Finnish innovators. Mind Over Midi compiles the best stuff from the "Elektrical Aktivity"-EPs and adds some new stuff for his debut full-length. What you get is dry, monotone, intelligent Trance and Electronic music, rooted in the European Electronic music of the 80s…

Voices, analogue warmth and endless echoes are the order of the day on this new 10 track album by Mind over MIDI. Released by the Shimmering Moods label, it’s an ambient album that works essentially as a whole. Each track is around the 5-minute mark, but bleeds seamlessly into the next one with such ease that the collection feels like a single piece.

Helge Tømmervåg from Kristiansund on the west coast of Norway has been working with electronic music since the early 80’s, and he debuted on Beatservice with the Elektrical Activity EP-series in 1995. His fifth album Monopoly picks up the threads from the Project 3 album (2002), with its combination of arctic ambient and Berlin-minimalism. This time focused more on ambient soundscapes, with hints of the “classic” electronica of early Aphex Twin. The compositions are shorter and more focused, and the feel of the album is somewhat lighter…

Mind Over MIDI is the project of Norwegian Ambient producer and musician Helge Tømmervåg. His discography goes all the way back to 1996. Transit is the second release for Shimmering Moods. Coincidence or not, this album is a great match with Andrew Sherwell’s Nostalgia: here too the arrangements of (virtual) choirs define the atmosphere. Floating and stretched to suggest timelessness, even though the individual tracks are relatively short (each around the 3-4 minutes) which is quite unusual for this kind of music.

A collection of forgotten fragments, abandoned ideas, loops, alternate takes and outtakes. Recorded in 2006, mixed and arranged in 2019.
If you can picture the very furthest, coldest, darkest part of Norway, that’s where Mind over MIDI resides. If you want to get an idea of what it’s like there, and can do without the frostbite, then this is the perfect solution. Helge Tømmervåg produces sweeping, icy synthscapes, with digital snowflakes since 1995.