Carl Abrahamsson: PTV & White Stains: "At Stockholm" revisited

Genesis P-Orridge at around the time of recording AT STOCKHOLM.

At Stockholm was the first full length album by White Stains. After a turbulent first year of existence, circa 1987-1988, the band had evolved from loud psychedelic rock to considerably more experimental vibes. A great instigator of this change was Thomas Tibert, who became an integrated member late 1988. This intersectional dynamic is clearly audible when listening to material from the era. Compare, for instance, the two final "93" singles (The Awareness and The Result) – essentially pop music in contemporary clothes – with the first ever White Stains performance at the Hultsfred festival of 1989: violent and experimental ad-libbing.

Other interesting things happened at the time too. I made plans with Genesis P-Orridge to set up a Scandinavian spoken word tour for a mini-version of Psychick TV, ie Genesis and then wife Paula. There were some poetry festivals occuring here at around the same time, so we traveled to Copenhagen and Gothenburg, and then also did one in Stockholm. The gigs were more like performances than readings, as there was backing music and live tape manipulations. In all, a very trippy mix of lightheadedness and heavy duty existentialist spiritual poetry.

While in Stockholm, we recorded readings of approximately the same texts that had been used live. This was in Thomas' wonderful home studio (called The Reality Studio, as a nod of appreciation to the 23rd mind of William Burroughs), where also all of the White Stains material was recorded, from The Awareness single up to the The Somewhat Lost Horizon soundtracks.

Genesis was ultra-professional (as always) and as far as I can recall most of the recordings were "first takes". After this wonderful and impressive experience, Thomas and me merged the voice and tape recordings with the White Stains tracks we had prepared before, during and after the visit. We also had help from the very talented Per Aronsson in the structuring of things.

Then the project took on a life of its own. My newly started publishing company Psychick Release also acted as a record label (or vice versa), and took on the challenge to release the album. In 1990, it came out and was very well received. The flow aspect with 70 minutes of non-indexed music was appreciated, as it facilitated/facilitates focused listening and not just impulsive track skipping.

Later on, the album was re-released on CD by Etherworld (US, 1995 approx) and Voiceprint (UK, 2004). It was even later on released as an LP by Vinyl On Demand (Germany, 2011, as part of a beautiful Psychick TV box set), and has always had a presence somewhere, somehow. I even saw a bootleg of the Psychick Release edition in Russia in 2007 – truly an honor, as it was so amazingly well made.

But now it's back to the old homestead again, as Highbrow Lowlife presents the full 70 minute flow version again, remastered by Thomas Tibert for your uninhibited listening pleasure.

To celebrate this release we have posted a classic video clip from the era, aptly called At Stockholm, at the YouTube Channel. It was made by Fetish 23 in 1990 for the Psychick Release Video Trance Mission, vol 1. It features Super-8 footage of our little Temple Ov Psychick Youth spoken word tour with Genesis in 1989, including meetings with Nick Cave and Freddie Wadling. There will be more videos from this era uploaded soon.

AT STOCKHOLM 2013 REMASTER is available all over the digisphere from September 19th, 2013. Purchase includes a PDF booklet containing all the lyrics. Why not get this album straight from Highbrow Lowlife's own web shop? If you'd like to listen before buying, try Spotify or other quality music streaming services. Thank you.