Asgeir Mickelson | |
---|---|
Birth name | Asgeir Mickelson |
Born | 30 September 1969 |
Origin | Norway |
Genres | Progressive metal, black metal, death metal, thrash metal, doom metal, heavy metal |
Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter, graphic designer |
Instrument(s) | Drums, percussion, guitars, bass |
Asgeir Mickelson (born 30 September 1969) [1] is a Norwegian musician, artist, photographer and music reviewer. Although primarily known as a drummer, he is also a skilled guitarist and bassist.
He has stated on his official message board that he started playing guitar roughly around 1982, [2] and switched to drums in 1988-1989. [3] He took two drum lessons in 1991, and is otherwise self-taught. He began playing guitar again in late 2002 [2] and has stated on his forum that he has been recording solo thrash metal. [4] He has also said that he is working on a doom metal album similar to the works of Candlemass. To this date he has only been employed as a drummer in all of the bands he is/has been a member of excluding Borknagar on their album Epic , where he played drums, bass, and performed the guitar on the track "The Weight of Wind". [5]
Mickelson has been a member of several metal bands, among which the best known ones are Spiral Architect which he co-founded, and Borknagar. He has also contributed session drums and live drumwork for several bands and artists, including Ihsahn's first solo album The Adversary and the albums Visions From The Spiral Generator and The Focusing Blur by Vintersorg. He most recently joined the Norwegian death metal band, Thornbound as drummer.
Aside from his work as a musician, Mickelson has worked as a writer for Scream Magazine in addition to his work as a graphic designer. Mickelson is the lead designer for Scream Magazine and the Inferno Metal Festival. He has arranged Scream Magazine's festival Screamfest and Norwegian Metal Awards. He designed the artwork for The Trivial Act Mindscape album, the last three Borknagar albums, and is currently designing the artwork for Scariot's forthcoming full-length. He is a web designer as well and is currently working on a Norwegian drummer website entitled Blastbeat.no which will feature various drummers from the Extreme Metal world, including such men as Jan Axel Blomberg, Trym Torson, Frost, Tjodalv, Horgh, Bård Faust and himself.
He has owned and run the Multimono recording studio in Norway, where he produced and engineered recordings, including the latest Scariot album. [6] Additionally, such bands as Scariot, Twisted Into Form, Red Harvest, Solefald and Myoclon recorded on its premises. John Jacobsen of Sturmgeist also recorded his Gothenburg metal album with ENE there.
Asgeir quit Borknagar due to creative differences in 2008. In May 2011 Asgeir joined Jens F Ryland in the band Artisan, and also began working on the Artisannorway website. A Metal Soapbox And Music project. [7]
Outside of music, he is responsible for the release of a Norwegian poker magazine entitled, Norsk pokermagasin .
Vintersorg is a Swedish band from Skellefteå, formed in 1994 under the name Vargatron. Musically, Vintersorg has covered a wide number of heavy metal genres; while the band is mostly rooted in extreme metal styles, particularly black metal and Viking/folk metal, it has also expanded into progressive metal and avant-garde metal. Lyrically, the band deals with topics on fantasy, mythology, nature, the cosmos, and metaphysics. Vintersorg means "Winter Sorrow," but the name was taken from The Legend of the Ice People series by Margit Sandemo, where the character Vintersorg is the son of a great pagan leader.
Borknagar is a Norwegian heavy metal band from Bergen, founded in 1995 by Øystein Garnes Brun. The band's style combines black metal and folk metal with progressive and melodic elements. Borknagar's lyrics often deal with philosophy, paganism, nature and the cosmos.
Vegard Sverre Tveitan, better known by his stage name Ihsahn, is a Norwegian musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and composer who is best known for his work with the black metal band Emperor. Tveitan is also a founding member of Thou Shalt Suffer, where he played guitar and keyboard in addition to vocal duties, and Peccatum, a project in collaboration with his wife and fellow musician Heidi Solberg Tveitan, also known as Starofash. Since 2006, Tveitan has primarily devoted himself to solo albums and occasional guest appearances.
Enslavement of Beauty is a symphonic black metal band from Oslo, Norway. Enslavement of Beauty was formed in January 1995 by Ole Alexander Myrholt and Tony Eugene Tunheim. The band spent the subsequent years composing and recording material and thereby developed their expression. In the summer of 1998, Enslavement of Beauty recorded the demo CD "Devilry & Temptation" which gained them a deal with Head Not Found/Voices of Wonder. This resulted in the 1999 release "Traces O' Red" which received very positive response. In November 2000, they recorded their second album, "Megalomania", accompanied by drummer Asgeir Mickelson and bass player Hans-Aage Holmen. In 2007 the third album, "Mere Contemplations" has been released with the I.N.R.I. Unlimited label. Lyrically, Enslavement of Beauty is highly influenced by the works of William Shakespeare and Marquis de Sade.
Lars Are Nedland, known also as Lazare, from Kristiansand, Norway, is the vocalist, drummer, and keyboardist for acclaimed avant-garde black metal band Solefald. He is also co-lead vocalist and keyboardist for the heavy metal act Borknagar. He composes much of the music and all the arrangements for violin and cello on the Solefald albums, Red for Fire: An Icelandic Odyssey Part 1 and Black For Death: An Icelandic Odyssey Part 2. He also has written some lyrics for the band, including the songs "04.34 pm", "Fluorescent", and "White Frost Queen." He and vocalist/guitarist/bassist/main lyricist Cornelius Jakhelln started Solefald in August 1995.
Quintessence is the fourth studio album by Norwegian heavy metal band Borknagar. It was recorded at The Abyss Studios in January 2000 and mixed by Peter Tägtgren.
Empiricism is the fifth studio album by Norwegian heavy metal band Borknagar. It is their first studio album to feature Vintersorg frontman Andreas Hedlund on vocals and Jan Erik "Tyr" Tiwaz on bass. It was also the last album to feature Jens F. Ryland on guitar until his return to the band in 2010.
Epic is the sixth studio album by Norwegian heavy metal band Borknagar. It was released in 2004 on Century Media Records.
Solefald is a Norwegian avant-garde metal/black metal band that was formed by members Lars Are "Lazare" Nedland and Cornelius Jakhelln in August 1995, with Nedland singing and playing keyboard/synthesizer/piano and drums, and Jakhelln singing and playing guitar and bass. The duo experiment with a wide array of musical styles, frequently work on other projects, and rarely perform live under the Solefald name, leading them to describe themselves as "two stubborn goats pretending to be a band." According to the duo, their name is an Old Norse word for "sunset," taken from one of Theodor Kittelsen's paintings illustrating a poem of the same name by Theodor Caspari, published in the 1901 book Vintereventyr.
Simen Hestnæs, better known by his stage name ICS Vortex or simply Vortex, is a Norwegian musician. He is the vocalist of the similarly named band ICS Vortex, the avant-garde metal band Arcturus and the doom metal band Lamented Souls. He is also a vocalist and the bass guitarist to the heavy metal band Borknagar, and the former bass guitarist and clean vocalist for the symphonic black metal band Dimmu Borgir.
Andreas Hedlund, better known by his stage names Vintersorg and Mr. V, is a Swedish vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who has played in several heavy metal bands.
Meister Mephisto is the first full-length album by Norwegian experimental black/thrash band Sturmgeist, the, then solo, project of Cornelius Jakhelln. It was released on 24 January 2005. It is the 94th release by French record label, Season Of Mist. A live drummer was originally planned to be involved with the recording, but Jakhelln wound up programming the drums instead, making Meister Mephisto the first time Jakhelln released an album that was an individual effort after being a professional musician since 1995. In an interview for Nocturnal Horde, Jakhelln stated that the music on the album was influenced by living for a month in Weimar, Germany. In a press release for Blabbermouth.net Jakhelln stated, "It is no coincidence if Meister Mephisto has Germanic culture as its scene and source." In support of the album, Jakhelln garnered support from various Norwegian musicians, including drummer Asgeir Mickelson of Borknagar and Spiral Architect fame, and went on a European tour with Season of Mist label mates, Carpathian Forest.
Sturmgeist is an experimental black/thrash metal band formed by Cornelius Jakhelln in 2002.
Origin is the seventh studio album by Norwegian heavy metal band Borknagar. Origin explores the band's more progressive and traditional elements and is primarily an acoustic effort.
Scariot is a Norwegian progressive metal band founded by Daniel Olaisen in 1997. The band has been through several lineup changes, and Olaisen is the only original member still remaining.
After is the third studio album by Norwegian black metal musician Ihsahn. This album is the final album in a planned trilogy of albums by Ihsahn.
Spiral Architect is a Norwegian progressive metal band from Oslo. The group formed in 1993 and recorded one demo and one full-length album, A Sceptic's Universe, as well as a cover of Fates Warning's "A Prelude to Ruin" for the tribute album Through Different Eyes – A Tribute to Fates Warning. Since that time, the various group's members have moved on to other bands and musical projects. Even though the group got together for a couple of songwriting sessions, a second album has never materialized.
Storm Seeker is the debut album by Norwegian musician ICS Vortex, released on 22 August 2011 in Europe and 23 August 2011 in North America.
Sarke is a Norwegian metal band from Oslo, formed in 2008. The band has released seven studio albums and is currently signed to Norwegian record label Indie Recordings.