Biography
The most well-known project of Swedish sound artist and composer Peter Andersson, raison d'être produces haunting, funereal soundscapes mixing electronic textures, acoustic instruments, and field recordings. On more industrial-tinged early releases like 1992's Aprés Nous le Dèluge, Andersson layered unsettling samples with drum machine rhythms. Through dozens of releases on labels like the revered Cold Meat Industry, as well as Andersson's own Yantra Atmospheres, he continued to refine the project, losing the rhythmic elements and incorporating neo-classical influences. Albums such as 2000's The Empty Hollow Unfolds consist of chanted vocals combined with clanging metallic noises and manipulated acoustic instruments. While releases like 2014's Mise en Abyme tended toward harsh, unsettling electro-acoustic drone, he returned to the dark melodicism and Gregorian chants of his mid-period work with 2018's Alchymeia.

Andersson began making music in 1988. His earliest recordings were made under a whimsical, scatalogical-themed project called Grismannen. Dementia, an 8-bit project influenced by techno, synth pop, and EBM, existed in 1991. Andersson started recording music as raison d'être that year, and debut album Aprés Nous le Dèluge was released on cassette in 1992. The project's first CD, Prospectus I, was issued by Cold Meat Industry in 1993, followed by Enthraled by the Wind of Lonelienes (properly spelled on later reissues) in 1994. Cold Meat Industry continued issuing albums such as In Sadness, Silence and Solitude (1997) and fan favorite The Empty Hollow Unfolds (2000), while cassettes came out on smaller labels, and rarities were rounded up on compilations Reflections from the Time of Opening (1997) and Collective Archives (1999). Lost Fragments, an expanded double-CD version of a previous CD-R, appeared in 2002.

Studio albums Requiem for Abandoned Souls (2003) and Metamorphyses (2006) preceded the project's first live album, 2008's The Luminous Experience. The Stains of the Embodied Sacrifice and digital release Spiraal both appeared in 2009. Live Archive, a triple-CD containing live recordings previously only available digitally, was issued by Infinite Fog in 2010. Live recording When the Earth Dissolves in Ashes, raison d'être's final Cold Meat Industry release, appeared in 2012. ?ollected Works (2013) contained further tracks from compilations and other projects, and Tales from the Tabula Rasa (2014) gathered early works by Andersson, recorded between 1988 and 1991. Drone-based studio album Mise en Abyme and live album Feasting in Valhalla also appeared in 2014.

De Aeris in Sublunaria Influxu, raison d'être's first collaboration with Troum, was released in 2015, followed by XIBIPIIO. In and Out of Experience in 2017. Solo studio album Alchymeia was released by Cyclic Law in 2018. Live collection Anima Caelum was released as a limited cassette by Old Europa Cafe the same year, then issued on CD in 2019. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi




 
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