Anekdoten

From King Edward to Anekdoten

Anekdoten formed in Borlange in 1991 (the Swedish Wikipedia says the group began in 1990 as a trio called King Edward, playing mostly King Crimson songs, and gained the cellist Anna Sofi Dahlberg in 1991). The line-up has not changed: Nicklas Barker, who appears in older credits as Nicklas Berg, on guitar, vocals and Mellotron, Jan Erik Liljestrom on bass and vocals, Dahlberg on cello and Mellotron, and Peter Nordins on drums and percussion. Marty Willson-Piper, formerly of the Church, has toured with them since 2015. They are known for the Mellotron and a heavy sound dominated by pounding bass, in the early-1990s Swedish Mellotron wave with Anglagard and Landberk, and are often compared to King Crimson.

The band released six studio albums on its own Virta label: Vemod (September 24, 1993, the title meaning tender sadness), Nucleus (1995), From Within (1999), Gravity (2003), A Time of Day (2007) and Until All the Ghosts Are Gone (April 10, 2015). Live records include the Live EP (1997), Official Bootleg: Live in Japan (1998) and Waking the Dead (2005), and Chapters (2009) is a compilation. After Progfest 94 in Los Angeles they toured Europe and the US, and the band site claims sales of over 100,000 albums. Barker and Nordins also made Symphonic Holocaust (1998), horror film themes with Stefan Dimle and Reine Fiske, and Barker is in My Brother the Wind (Twilight in the Crystal Cabinet, 2010).