VACUUM

For the time being I still consider the Army Of Lovers page as the main one. So news involving Alexander Bard's non Vacuum activities will be found there.

News added 2000-11-03
Vacuum without record deal!!
After some time of speculation about the future of Vacuum. The Culture Of The Night album was only released in Russia, in a batch of 5000 copies. No release plans has been out from Stockholm Records for quite a while. By way of David Haglund Vacuum gave this message to the Vacuum e-mail list:

Dear friends,

Heard from David that you are talking about a split of Vacuum. Well, it´s true in one sense! We have left Stockholm Records. Why? Well, it´s a long, quite boring story, but in short we disagreed on everything. That´s a good reason! We are currently working on different projects and we are not focusing on Vacuum right now except the live-shows. But we want you to know that we have NOT split up and you will see more of us in the future. We also want to add that if we had had a record-company who believed in our ideas and music we would have continued but as things turned out we had not. We have enjoyed big-time success in Russia and Marina and I have loved every second of it and we hope to perform live soon again. We will keep in touch with David in everything that we do so he will keep on feeding you info.

Live gloriously,

Mattias & Marina + Vacuum-crew

In a related context, Mattias has apperently some sort of contract, at least publishing, with Sony Music. What this leads to is not yet clear.

News added 2000-03-05
Icaros finally hits the shops.
This week finnally saw the release of Icaros. As usual two singles are out. One two track in a card board sleeve and a four track remix CD maxi-single in a jewelcase.

News added 2000-02-01
News update.
I realise that there was quite some time since I last enterd any news here. That is mainly becuase Stockholm Records has not been very fothcomming with news about the uppcomming album. On occasions in the past year and a half there has been rumours that the replacement single for Let Mountain Come to Me would be Icaros and that the release would be imminent. Well we have heard that one before...

In the meantime Alexander Bard has quit the band. The official version is that he will still be involved in composing and producing. It also seems as Anders Wollbeck and Mattias Lindblom has got a composing deal with Sony to write songs for other artists.

The album Seance At The Chaebol was apperantly released in Denmark, Italy and Russia. And rather quickly removed from Denmark and Italy, leaving Russia the only country to sell it. They then started to rework the album even more. Supposedly the people at Cherion (who is behind Brittney Spears, Backstreet Boys etc.) would be involved. The album will now be called The Culture Of Night instead.

Anyway around Christmas 1999 Icaros was released to selected radio stations and started to get some air play. It was said the single and video clip would be out when the radio started to play it a lot. As that seem to be distant at the moment it is not known what will happen again...

News added 1998-08-22
New album update and live show.
About a week after the live show I visited [ See the live page] Vacuum performed in Stockholm. This was at Kulturhuset in conjunction with an exhibition called Mot Månen [= Too The Moon]. They did three songs: Tonnes of Attraction, I Breathe and Let The Mountain Come To Me. The show was for about a hundred people. My guess is it was done due to Marina being owner of an art gallery.

The show was visited by Vacuum fan Csaba Kovacs who took a few photos and joined them backstage and asked about the new single and album. The single should be out 'very shortly' [yeah right, this was two weeks or so ago and still nothing out... What are Stockholm Records up to???]. The album will be out in Sweden in October. There will be a new track compared to the already released version of the album. Science Of The Sacred will be removed and four tracks remixed.

News added 1998-07-29
New single, and album update.
The video for Let the Mountain Come To Me was first shown in early July on ZTV. I have also come across a pre-release copy of the two track CDS. But so far nothing has been released in the shops. To be honest I do not know if there is a serious brain breakdown at Stockholm Records. Anyway the CDS contains a 3:30 long version of the title track, and a 4:37 long remix by Anders Hansson of Parallel Universe. The sleeve contains a large photo on the front and a small one on the back. They are from the same photo session as those on Tonnes Of Attraction. I liked the video, and I quite like the song as well. But I do not think it is as catchy as Tonnes Of Attraction. As the single has not been released yet, the album is not likely to turn up until September, October or even November.

News added 1998-07-19
Interview with Mattias.
Vacuum's singer Mattias Lindblom was interviewed in today's Göteborgs-Posten (the big morning paper in the Gothenburg area). He was out on his own promoting the upcoming album. He talked about the success in Italy, and how he got 'scared shitless' when in Napels, Italy, there had turned up 250.000 people on a festival which Vacuum attended. The reporter also states that the guy he is interviewing is quite far from the androgen type that is featured in videos and on sleeves.

Mattias also states that there have been a lot of fighting in the studio, as both he and Alexander Bard has very strong minds. However that is also good in the end as this usually leads to a good result. Anyway he thinks it good to be out on his own and get away from Alexander's chatter. He also explains what a 'Chaebol' is. It is a Korean term used for the mega corporations like Hyundai that manufactures everything, from umbrellas to cars and aircraft's.

He dodges questions about his former band Obscene Phonecall which was a cover band and Mattias was the drummer. But he tells a bit of his side show, a trio. Not to be mistaken for a solo career. They play songs by the likes of David Sylivan, Japan and Depeche Mode on various bars and restaurants. He thinks Vacuum is in a very exciting era right now and that they will probably make five more albums. He is also looking forward to Vacuums tour, which will take them here on August 7th.

News added 1998-04-27
New album and single.
It seems as the new single Let the Mountain Come To Me will be out in May or June. How ever there is rumoured to be promo CDs circulating already. The new album Seance At The Chaebol, originally planned for April seems to be delayed also. First to May, then to June and according to the latest news it may even be August or September. The reason is of course the fact that Tonnes Of Attraction failed on the charts and the radio. How ever this is not a real cause for desperation, as it apparently is already released in Denmark, and supposedly Italy should also have it soon. What are you still reading??? I thought you run away to the import section of your local record dealer.. :)

News added 1998-03-13
Tonnes... finally released!!
Tonnes Of Attraction is now out on two different CDs. The song is composed by Alexander Bard/Anders Wollbeck and produced by them and Anders Hansson. Hansson has also remixed (Extended Version).

Alexander Bard has formed a new group called Vacuum. However, he has talked about this project since Lit De Parade was out as a single (Vacuum is credited as producers on the sleeve). Apart from himself the band is made up of Anders Wollbeck (who as it seems will not appear on videos, sleeves etc.), Marina Schiptjenko (who has left the synth group Page to join Vacuum) and singer Mattias Lindblom. Alexander meet Marina on the TV show Tryck Till where they both were to judge new videos by other artists. They found out that they had very similar musical taste and ambitions.

Vacuum has had an enormous hit with their first single, I Breathe, which was out in late November 1996. All tough the video clip had been aired on ZTV (the channel were they meet) since early October. The video was filmed at a high voltage laboratory. It sold gold, which is very rare for singles. The album, The Plutonium Cathedral, was out in late January. The next single out was Pride In My Religion in early May. They toured Sweden in the spring. The video for I Breathe as well as single and album sleeves have been much acclaimed.

The autumn of 1997 saw the release of the third single, Science Of The Sacred. It did not make very well in the Swedish charts.

All prices are in SEK. Postage and packing will be added. See the ordering information page for more details about ordering. If you click on the button below, you can convert SEK to your currency. Gradings are for second hand records only. Follows the guide lines in magazine 'Record Collector'. See 'Grading & Abbreviations' in the 'Information' section for further details about this.