By Keith Walsh
When bassist Robert Heggdal of Norway’s Permafrost works on remixes for the band, he is influenced by the electronic music that he heard growing up. “One of the bands I first heard on the radio, when I was like 12 or 13, was Kraftwerk,” he told me. “It really shocked me that that kind of music was possible. I couldn’t understand it.”
Heggdal’s remixes of the melancholy singles “Closed Eyes” and “Femme Fatale” were created using using synthesizers inside Logic Pro, in a Mac environment. “But my remix is not necessarily aggressive. It’s more leaning towards pop,” he said. Because Permafrost keyboardist Daryl Bamonte lives in England, Heggdal, who’s in Trondheim, Norway, took the liberty to add a tasty synth bass parts to these remixes, in addition to restructuring the song’s arrangements.
As for drums: “I using the Logic Pro drummers, which I find fascinating. I’m more and more going over to a plug in called Superior Drummer. Which is really, really, rich in sounds and it’s almost like hearing a real drummer. But for the remixes, I don’t need it to sound like a real drummer – it need it to be synthetic somehow.”
About using the studio as an instrument, Heggdal tells me: “Yeah, I love a lot of tweaking. I’m a programmer at work, so I like spending time on getting it just right.” Heggdal works in the IT industry in Trondheim, he said.
Heggdal met Permafrost founders Kåre Steinsbu and Frode Heggdal Larsen in the music scene around Molde, Norway, in the early 80s. He explains: “They started Permafrost in 82. Of the original Permafrost, only Kåre and Frode are left. I’m four years older, I was in a punk band at the time. And these guys that started Permafrost were like 12 or 13 years old, and they sounded just amazing. They were in another league. So I just fell in love with their music.” Heggdal’s band was called Anfall, meaning “attack” in the German language.
After this original incarnation of Permafrost disbanded not too long after the cassette-only release Godtment, the members went their separate ways. Heggdal stayed in touch, and after moving to Oslo in 1994, he suggested that they get the band back together, with him on bass. He joined officially in 2001, along with drummer Trond Tornes. Keyboardist Daryl Bamonte joined in 2016. But it wasn’t until a couple years ago, with the recording of the new singles released this year that Permafrost truly found their voices again.
Permafrost are: Frode Heggdal Larsen, on guitars; Kåre Steinsbu vocals; Robert Heggdal on bass; Trond Tornes on drums; and Daryl Bamonte on keyboards.
On Friday, Permafrost will release their wonderfully catchy latest single, “Restore Us,” as well as two radically different electronic remixes – one by Paul Corkett, and the other by MAPS. Stay tuned.
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