Piston DAMP

Jonas
Groth

Singer/songwriter/producer, with more than 20 years experience from stages and studios all over the world, primarily in conjunction with his brother, Stephan’s band, Apoptygma Berzerk. Jonas also has worked with several other artists including Magenta, The Anix and The Dandy Warhols.

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Truls
Sønsterud

Musical arranger/keyboardist/songwriter involved in a variety of musical projects since the late 90’s.

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History

Piston Damp’s primary spark ignited in the year 2000 while Apoptygma Berzerk was on their Welcome To Earth Tour. With his brother Stephan on the road, Jonas had full access to the House Of APB studio, so he and Truls began experimenting with the equipment and writing songs. One of the tracks recorded, ‘Testimony’, was produced by the band and Seb Komor of Icon Of Coil, Komor Kommando and Zombie Girl. The end result of these recordings was an eight track demo called Eventually Everything Turns Cold. Even though these songs were only burned on CD for a few chosen friends, a track called ‘Runaway’ went on to become song of the week on Norwegian national radio (Urørt) in January 2005. The band also played a live gig at Dis in Fredrikstad, Norway around this time and also had a photo session. And yes, audio and pictures of these events do exist somewhere in Jonas’ vaults.
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The band was dormant for many years due to other commitments, but Jonas and Truls stayed close friends and continued to work on songs together when time allowed. On June 24th 2020, after the pair had shared an enthusiastic phone call about cranking the machine up again, Jonas wrote ‘Noget I Mig’/’Something In Me’ in his Love Studio, setting the wheels in motion the very next day for the next phase of Piston Damp.
On August 16th the band had a photo session with Kine Jensen, and on October 1st the music video for ‘Something In Me’ was recorded at Sarpsborg Scene, with Thomas Andersen of Viken Foto Video.

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Something In Me was released on all digital platforms on October 16th 2020 with the following track list:

1. Something In Me
2. Noget I Mig (Danish lyrics to ‘Something In Me’)
3. Another Pain - Blue Hearts Version
4. Something In Me - Pegboard Nerds Remix
5. Noget I Mig - Pegboard Nerds Remix
6. Something In Me - The Anix Remix
7. Something In Me - Technomancer Remix
8. Something In Me - Kleinmelker Remix
9. Something In Me - Extended Remix

'Something In Me' was recognized by both music lovers and critics from the get-go with the original mix, the Danish version, and the Technomancer Remix taking the lead as favorites. By New Year’s Eve the various tracks of the single were streamed, played, and downloaded over 100.000 times.

During the holidays the band decided on 'Loose Ends' as the lead track for their next single. The song was one of the first ever written for the Piston Damp project back in 2000 and was always intended to be a main song. The lyrics were written when Jonas was in his early 20's and are about the realization that everything slowly withers away, whether you want it to or not.
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‘Loose Ends’ was paired with another song, also penned by Jonas: ‘Don’t’. Although this had never been considered an electronic track, when Truls heard Jonas’ band demo from 2010, he immediately came up with a great instrumental backing for Jonas to record his vocal onto. The only problem was that there was no reason for the song to be called 'Don’t', since that word was never sung.
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Jonas: “When I originally wrote the song I recorded it on my Mac and I had to save it under some kind of name. The vibe of the track was so pessimistic and gloomy that I just called it the negatively charged word ‘Don’t’."

When the song was finished the middle section was instrumental and the band was left with several options for the final mix. They could keep it instrumental, sample some interesting noises, or have someone read/say something as a poetic reading. Then Jonas remembered that the song didn’t have the word 'don’t' in it, so he contacted Benedicte Sveinsson aka Computorgirl, whom he had helped on her 2002 debut EP, and asked her if she was willing to sing on this newly recorded track. She was happy to do it, so Jonas wrote the last part of the lyric for her to sing. Every line starts with the word 'don’t.'
There was no formal video made for the single since the world was pretty much shut down during the time of its release.

Loose Ends was released on all digital platforms on February 1st 2021 with the following track list:

1. Loose Ends
2. Don’t
3. Loose Ends - Zone Tripper Remix
4. Don’t - Tröll Club Remix
5. Loose Ends - Extended Remix
6. Don’t - Extended Remix

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