The good news is that it looks like my album is going to be getting picked up by a label! I can't reveal too much yet, but the guys running it are very established and it will be a great home for my music. This means it will be able to get A LOT more exposure than I could ever generate on my own. The bad news is that this also means that we need a little while longer to get it all properly prepared, so will have to move the release date back a little bit, most likely sometime in June. Sign up for my mailing list or follow me on Facebook to get updates when it's available.

In the meantime, have a first listen to the opening song on the album, Glass & Stone.

Coming soon, I will be releasing my album Drum Therapy! I've been working on it on and off for about 18 months, and this past winter pretty much hibernating and finishing it off. Keep reading for some album art, tracklist, and more info on me and what this is all about...

01. Glass & Stone
02. Heikki
03. Nomad
04. The Thickness
05. Aperture
06. Lux
07. Drum Therapy
08. Moon II
09. Paper Rain
10. Let Me Down

Tor was raised in a small mountain town on Canada's west coast, in a non-musical family, and was isolated from a lot of musical influence. It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he first tried his hand at music production. After he and the local kids began listening to a lot of the Hip Hop coming out in the mid 90’s, he began to experiment with the basic audio editing program that came standard with his family's Pentium 90 computer and ended up remixing Outkast’s entire album 'ATLiens' by copy / pasting different parts of the songs.

Later, while living in Australia, he expanded his production knowledge and started making original music, and had the opportunity to remix some popular Australian producers and Hip Hop acts. After being offered a deal on a well-known indie label, but not feeling ready to take the next step, he shifted his attention to running a small recording studio from home and honed his mixing skills. Eventually, becoming frustrated with the ups and downs of running a studio, Tor abandoned music-making altogether and moved back to Canada, settling in Montreal.

Several years later, Tor was back in Australia on a road trip, living out of a van, working on farms and wanting to reconnect with music production. He came up with the idea of producing a remix concept album that sampled indie hero Sufjan Stevens, and blended the beats with left field and underground Hip Hop. The result was ‘Illinoize’, an album that gained a lot of attention; being featured in hundreds of blogs and magazines, getting tens of thousands of downloads, and leading to a publishing deal with Stevens' record label.

Now based in Vancouver and inspired by the positive feedback he received from ‘Illinoize’, he decided to finally attempt his first proper album, ‘Drum Therapy’. It's an album that he had the title and concept in mind for over 10 years, but had never felt ready to attempt writing it. It combines down-tempo layered melodic beats with the unmistakable sounds of dusty samples; Tor mined everything from 60’s Italian film scores and long lost Turkish psych records to Celtic folk hymns and deep south gospel. He also played many of the non-sampled elements and treated the sounds to give them the warmth and texture he had always wanted the album to have. He is now ready to independently release it and is adapting the album into a live performance that brings the music out of his bedroom and in front of an audience.

In between working on tracks for my upcoming album, I've been lucky to have worked on a remix for Emancipator, which just got released on his album 'Remixes'.

I'm stoked to be on the same release as talented artists like Emancipator, Blockhead, Ooah, and everyone involved. Check out the whole album at http://emancipator.bandcamp.com/album/remixes-2 and stream my remix of Siren below.

Most of the feedback I get from people these days is asking me what the hell I'm up to, so I thought it was time to share. I am part way through producing a full length album of original tunes that I will be releasing sometime in the coming months. One of the songs on it is called 'Aperture', which you can stream and download for free below. Keep an eye out here and along the social networking channels for more news as the album progresses!

Download

(10MB zip file - CBR 320kbps)

(26MB zip file - Lossless CD Quality)

Also, if you're a label / PR / management type and want to talk with me about what I'm up to, feel free to email me at torsmusic@gmail.com

March 5th, 2010: Illinoize turns 1 year old today, and with over 50,000 downloads and still hundreds of new listeners every week, I want to say thank you! Also, everyone who has taken the time to email me, make a donation, or write about it in their magazines, blog, or tell their friends - a HUGE thank you!

I would also like to give a shout out to Asthmatic Kitty records for contacting me and extending a license for me to use Sufjan's samples - a really refreshing and awesome move from them, in a time where unfortunately a lot of record companies are still trying to resist the changes in how fans listen to, distribute, and manipulate music.

If you haven't heard Illinoize yet check it out, and if you like it become a fan on facebook, and keep checking back here for updates!

Cheers

Been back in the studio cooking up another remix. Here's the spiel:

This one-off remix samples the stuttered rhodes, vocals and strings of Toronto Violinist Final Fantasy's track 'The CN Tower Belongs to The Dead' and mashes it up with the acapella 'Work It Out' from legendary MC, Q-Tip.

For now, this is just a one off track for a bit of fun, but I might include it in an upcoming project I'm working on, I haven't decided yet. You can listen to it below, or head to the download page for FLAC versions as well as the Instrumental.