The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

Ebbot Lundberg on vocals and Bjorn Olsson on guitar launched the raucous Swedish outfit Union Carbide Productions, whose late-eighties albums fused the raw energy of Captain Beefheart with Stooges-style punk in thrilling combinations. Guitarist Ian Person later came aboard, yet by then Lundberg had absorbed the sound of Love along with other late-sixties psych-pop groups and began redirecting the music accordingly, which bred internal tension. Once the group had issued several recordings in this altered style, Union Carbide Productions disbanded and its members pursued separate paths. Lundberg, Olsson, and Person reconvened in 1995 to form the Soundtrack of Our Lives, a project that explores the same psychedelic terrain from the 1960s through fresh, unpredictable, and inventive approaches. Far from a mere revival act, the Soundtrack of Our Lives operates as a contemporary unit that advances those earlier ideas far beyond anything imagined at the time.

The Homo Habilis Blues EP appeared in 1996 and was swiftly followed the same year by the full-length Welcome to the Infant Freebase; after its release Olsson stepped back from live performances while continuing to contribute in the studio and maintaining his solo work. Recording for a follow-up began in 1998, yielding Extended Revelation for the Psychic Weaklings of Western Civilization by the close of that year. Entering the new century, the band secured an American deal through Universal’s Republic imprint, which issued Behind the Music in 2001 and Origin, Vol. 1 in 2005. A wide-ranging multi-disc anthology titled Present from the Past arrived in 2006, the EP Bonus Future Excerpts CD in 2008, and the paired singles “Thrill Me” b/w “Swim Like a Bird (This One Has Not Flown)” and “Utopia” b/w “Just a Brother.” Also in 2008 the Soundtrack of Our Lives unveiled the ambitious double album Communion on Yep Roc in the United States. The single “Karmageddon” surfaced in 2010 ahead of the 2011 compilation Golden Greats No. 1, which gathered tracks spanning EPs, singles, and albums across the group’s history. In early summer 2012 the band delivered its next studio effort, the thirteen-song Throw It to the Universe.