Martin ‘Stegan’ Brostigen (of No Torso, Yoga Grossist, The Phantoms, Knoklene) tunes into his very own calm and charismatic folk-ish style for this solo-EP, ‘Basement Sessions’. Here are Martin’s stories behind the tracks on the EP;

‘No One Forced James’ occured when the whole Mohammed drawing thing was going on. I wondered why many people were so afraid and sceptical to muslims so I wanted to challenge myself in that sense. I found James. James is basically a 85 year old man from Britain with middleclass background who chose to become a muslim in his later years and probably will be until he´s dead. After telling his life story James underlined that he “was not forced” to become a muslim, but that it is his choice. I wondered why he had to underline that. The whole idea of James and his choice made me want to make a piece about it.

‘Remembering Garrincha’ – After watching a VHS of the old Brazilian football team of the 50’ies, I read alot about Garrincha and how he eventually died of alcholism in an early age. In one way football was his only chance to survive from social disgrace, crime and poverty but at the same time money and fame killed him slowly. What saved him also killed him. To me, Garrincha represented every good feeling I had playing football myself, but now no one seems to remember him and the kids want to earn money and become celebrities instead of focusing on the art of football. I think it went the other way with Garrincha and I wanted to make some music reflecting upon my images of him dancing around on the field.

‘Television Tales From The Gym Threadmill’ is a song I made in a few hours after coming home from the gym where I ran side by side other people while watching TV. To be honest I felt quite stupid running for my life not moving even a meter while staring intenseley at different talkshows and programs on tv. I wanted to make something out of it and recorded sound from different channels that night. I think the song represents my own feeling coming home from the gym that night. Swapping between the channels advicing me to live like this and this and think this and this, well, this tune is my little musical answer to all this.

Honest, warm, welcoming, inquiring and genuine, just like Martin himself.