Alog

Under the Alog moniker, Dag-Are Haugan (b. 1970, Tromsø, Norway) and Epsen Sommer Eide (b. 1972, Oslo, Norway) create a strange hybrid of music that merges home studio recordings, analogue instruments, laptop technology, and extensive and meticulous post-processing. Haugan and Eide apparently came up with their Alog project name after they decided to rip-off the BASF logo for their sleeve artwork and so needed a four-letter name. They admit, in hindsight, it may have been inspired by the word analog. Echoing Eide’s Phonophani project which correlates the aversion people have towards genetic engineering with the distaste with which many view sample-based recording, the duo say they have no ‘sound hierarchy’, blending their own music with samples and found-sounds. Strangely, the duo initially began their collaboration in a kindergarten basement in Tromsø where they were able to set up their equipment after the children had gone home. This equipment included Eide’s laptop containing discarded samples from his father’s big band record collection. Eide and Haugan have been self-described as, respectively, ‘Digitalman’ and ‘Analogman’, reflecting the duo’s roles when performing live: the former plays two laptops and the latter plays instruments such as analog synth and double bass bow on cymbal (in the studio, these roles are blurred). The duo admits that Eide’s recordings as Phonophani and Haugan’s recordings under his own name both impact on Alog, in terms of both ideas and actual sounds. Nicely, ‘As Complicated And As Beautiful As Always’ (from 2001’s Duck-Rabbit) was intended as a tribute to My Bloody Valentine, and was recorded 10 years after the release of that band’s legendary Loveless album. Bizarrely, however, what sounds like guitars on Alog’s recording is actually derived from a Commodore 64 game soundtrack.