David’s Adventures Through the World of Music Creation and Sonic Exploration

I did a remix of a track called “Addicted” by the band Strangers in Wonderland. My short version was added to their full length album, “Shadows“, in 2008 but the extended version remained unreleased - until now.

I aimed to do a Pretorium remix but it never got the dark feeling I searched for, hence a “David Lilja” remix. I’m very pleased with the outcome though and think it might be one of my best light-weight, uplifting and laidback remixes.

You can download it for free from their website and this is what the Strangers themselves had to say about the remix:

“This is the famous almost 9 minute long remix of Addicted. In Lasse’s opinion the best remix of them all, perhaps the best version of Addicted so far, surpassing the original version.
David Lilja really did something inspired on this one.”

There are a bunch of other great remixes on the site too, so grab your favourites!

At http://salacioussound.com/2010/04/have-your-say-about-the-streetlab-remix-competition/ you can both listen to, and vote for, the Pretorium remix in Streetlab’s remix competition presented and hosted by Salacious Sound.

This is what DJ Cal @ Salacious Sound had to say about the Pretorium remix:

“I think Pretorium is another one that is under represented at the moment – the production quality is extremely high, and what’s more, it’s a really interesting track. It’s among my top picks from the lot for sure.. reminds me of some old school Massive Attack shit.”

The other entries are really good, so give them a listen too and cast your vote.

This is an old entry that I haven’t published until now…

I’m facing extremely irritating problems with my DAW at the moment. Nothing really works, at all, sort of.

Motu have finally released the new firewire driver for Windows 7 so I could, for the first time ever, use my Motu 828mkII under Windows 7. My Windows 7 installation hasn’t crashed a single time (since February) until now – when I’ve applied this driver. I’m not using Windows 7 to produce music since I haven’t had a functioning sound card (no – the crap on my mainboard is nothing remotely close to a sound card even though it can produce sound). So I’ve been using Windows Vista (64 bit Ultimate edition) which have been a solid platform. Cubase 4 have always had its little bugs and quirks but have been marching on rather good still. I bought Native Instruments Komplete 5 when it was on a big sale last summer and that’s when things started to happen. Absynth can take down everything upon loading. It’s actually a gamble using it and that’s why I haven’t explored it as much as I would. Reaktor, Kontakt, Massive and FM8 works nice though, so that’s what I’m using the most at the moment. I thought about upgrading to Komplete 6 but there’s no point when the shit doesn’t work - is there? And that’s in Vista. It works like a charm on my newly purchased MacBook Pro.

Back to Windows 7. After the driver for the Motu 828mkII have been installed the system is anything but stable. It can crash when I hit play in Winamp, then the screen-saver starts or when the login prompt is shown. Motu won’t acknowledge the problem and my only solution is not to use Windows 7, which I’m luckily only has a free trial version of.

But, I’ve managed to produce two remixes for the Little Boots remix competition. One co-produced with Patrik and one on my own.

Patrik’s own, Gearsluts remix, can be found here:
Little Boots - “Earthquake (Gearsluts Shaky 16th Remix)”

Neither of them got to the finals, but we’re still very pleased with them anyway.

I’ve also produced a remix for “My Despair” by In Strict Confidence and that competition will be decided in March. Fingers crossed!

I teamed up with Patrik to do a remix of “Tricky Tricky” by Röyksopp for their remix competitions. Since we joined ventures on this on we also had to give it a great name - “Gearsluts International vs Pretorium Remix”- and that is exactly what it is. Fingers crossed that it goes all the way this time.

Patrik and I have also started to work more seriously on the upcoming mindXpander album.

It’s going to be an interesting autumn - that’s for sure.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately - mostly regarding music, what I’m doing musically and why.
What’s the point, really? Why do I have all the gear I’ve got? What’s my goal?

I don’t strife to be in-the-spotlight-famous - don’t think I could coup with that. But I’d like to become someone. I’d like to produce and be a part of something people refer to as “really good” or “simply amazing”. I’d like to play live at more trance parties. I’d like to support, or produce, a big music act.

I’m not giving up, nor am I selling my hardware equipment even though I’m using software solely today - and I got more software coming…

I ended up in third place in a remix competition which was extremely fun, but it didn’t seem to get me anywhere.

But in the end, it’s the heart-warming comments that really is the driving force behind my music creativity.

Tongue-tied Twisted at the Digitally Imported forum wrote the following when listening to Heliosphere:
“was gonna call it a day at wrk… simply cant now….!!!!! yyeeaahh”
There are some other really amazing comments as well which I’m reading a little now and then when I need it. Those can lift me up when I’m down and inspire me to continue creating music.

Fans, friends, family and lover - Thank You for Listening and boosting my driving force!

Next up: mindXpander Live @ Mimerlaven, Norbergfestivalen. See you there!