While ze Germans usually hog all the credit for pioneering electronic music in the 60s and 70s, there was actually a rainbow coalition of northern European nutballs contributing to the rich cosmisch stew that eventually got strained down into “krautrock.” Sweden’s Ralph Lundsten is just one of those balls.Raised in a tiny town north of the arctic circle, Ralph was composing quasi-religious ambient space jams on his homemade analog synths back when Kraftwerk’s ancestors were still banging on bongos. These days he lives in a castle outside of Stockholm that houses all the experimental instruments he’s invented over the years (including the DIMI-S, or “Sexaphone,” which produces tones based on how you feel) as well as Andromeda, his space-age recording studio which looks like the control room for planet earth. It’s also its very own micro-nation, which is like a regular nation but cuter! (And less internationally recognized!)In this edition of Motherboard, VBS get our passports stamped at the Andromeda Galaxy Embassy and are welcomed into Ralph’s little personal country.
