Interview by Barrie Bardoe
Carbon Based Lifeforms’ World of Sleepers album has been a favourite of mine for many years.
I love every aspect of the album from its artwork, to its lush ambience, perfectly crafted beats, clever arrangements and well chosen dialogue samples. The cover depicts jellyfish which implies ideas about distributed intelligence to me – they don’t have brain centres but they display intelligent behaviours such as predation. The music takes you on a journey and the dialogue samples seem to trigger different thinking pathways for each listener. In my view it is an absolute masterpiece of electronic based music, but it is certainly not their only quite brilliant release. Everything they put out is amazing so it is not surprising that they are now one of the world’s foremost electronic music acts.
Carbon Based Lifeforms were formed in Gothenburg Sweden in 1996 by Johannes Hedberg and Daniel Vadestrid. The two first met in 1991 after discovering they shared similar tastes in music, film and video games. They started making music together and in 1994, they started to work with PCs and formed a music trio with fellow Swedish musician and producer Mikael Lindqvist called Bassment Studios. In the following year, they moved once more to MIDI-oriented music and formed Notch, a group focusing on acid, techno, and house music. Lindqvist soon parted ways and Notch discontinued, but the pair had started to fully explore ambient music after Hedberg’s sister had picked up Orgship (1994) by Solar Quest, which quickly became a favourite. Electronic bands The Future Sound of London and Boards of Canada were also a big influence. The duo decided to explore the electronic genre further by incorporating drone and chill out elements. This led to the formation of Carbon Based Lifeforms in 1996, feeling it fitted “with our underlying themes of the combination of biology and technology, also it alludes to a lot of sci-fi concepts.”
The duo started to attract an online audience via platforms such as MP3.com and was signed to French label Ultimae in 2002. This boosted their profile considerably and the act started playing at trance festivals, sometimes on the main stage which was unusual for a mostly ambient and downtempo artist at the time. Hedberg called the group’s early years “rough” partly due to his fear of flying which he did not conquer until 2009, which left Vadestrid to often perform abroad by himself, sometimes accompanied with a live musician. Their debut studio album, Hydroponic Garden, was released in 2003, followed by World of Sleepers in 2006. Released in 2010, Interloper was the album the group recalled as the turning point where they “grew big” as an act. Since then they have continued to release critically acclaimed albums – albeit no longer with Ultimae – that build on their well earned reputation.
Now in 2025 Carbon Based Lifeforms must rate as one of the most successful electronic based music acts around – and deservedly so. I was lucky enough to be able to pose them a number of questions.
What initially attracted you to electronic-based music, especially more downtempo and ambient styles?
We grew up listening to bands like Depeche Mode, Scotch, Jean Michel Jarre to name a few. With Jarre and later on Future Sound Of London, Boards Of Canada, Solar Quest and Foundland we found the world of Ambient and felt the urge to explore the secrets behind such emotional music where there seemed to be no boundaries.
What were the primary bits of equipment you started out with and what are the major music-making tools you use now?
From the very beginning we started out on the Amiga 500 with various Trackers, ProTracker for instance. When we started using MIDI and synths we were a collective of three and we shared equipment. Novation BassStation, Roland MC-303 and E-mu ESI-32 was among our very first hardware units. Cakewalk was our very first DAW.
These days we have a plethora of synths, Moog One, Mood Model D, Jupiter 6, Behringer UB-Xa, Nord Modular G2 and Roland TB-303, to name a few. We use Cubase for production and Ableton Live for our live sets.
What are some key musical influences and why?
Our influences range from electronic pioneers like Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis to artists like Future Sound of London and Boards of Canada. These artists have a mastery of blending emotion with sound design, which inspires us. Outside of electronic music, we’re influenced by nature, movies and video games.
Given you are a duo, do you have a way of dividing the composition?
Our workflow is quite fluid. Both of us contribute to all aspects, but we often play to our strengths. We tend to specialize in different areas when we’re writing tracks. Daniel usually handles arrangements, beats/rhythm tracks and pushes for us to finish things up, Johannes usually does sound design and melodic doodles and he, on the other hand, likes to spend lots of time polishing details. Collaboration and feedback are central—one idea from one of us will often spark something new in the other.
Do you have any specific approach for composing?
Not really. Usually one of us writes short snippets of an idea and plays it for the other. If both like it we put it in a “maybe”-folder. Some snippets become a whole track eventually, others stays in the “maybe”-folder.
What thinking was behind selecting the dialogue for World of Sleepers?
The origin is basically a stream of consciousness from Peter, a friend and member of our bitpop band Thermostatic. His wife Louise, lead singer of Thermostatic, took bits and pieces, rewrote, cut and added until she had a solid text. We loved the dark theme and it fit perfectly into the track. It also set the title and theme for the whole album. A reminder that we all need to stay curious.
Do you prefer live or studio and why?
We love both for different reasons. The studio is where we craft and refine our vision in detail—it’s like sculpting. It can be frustrating at times, trying to write something good. On the other hand when we are working together and create something we really like, it’s unbeatable. Live, however, has its own magic. The energy of an audience and the chance to reinterpret our music on the spot make it a wonderful experience.
Do you have other jobs, and if so, how do they align with your music commitments?
We used to have day jobs, the both of us. Daniel as a freelance multimedia developer, Johannes as a web developer. The income from our music has increased slowly but surely and a few years back we felt secure enough to drop our day jobs.
What are your thoughts on digital streaming versus hard copy?
For us streaming is vital and the main reason that we can make a living off our music. We prefer listening to music via streaming but at the same time really love the feeling of a hard copy, it gives the music a dimension that streaming cannot. But all in all, streaming kinda wins out based on pure convenience.
Has the democratization of music-making tools been positive or negative?
It’s a double-edged sword. The accessibility of tools has allowed more people to express themselves, which is amazing. However, it’s also created an oversaturated market, making it harder for both new artists to stand out and for listeners to find new stuff. The challenge now is less about making music and more about finding ways to connect with listeners in meaningful ways.
Anything else you wish to add?
We just want to say thank you to everyone who listens, shares, and supports our music. The connection we have with our listeners is what drives us to keep creating. Whether you’re discovering our work for the first time or have been with us since the beginning, your support means the world to us. Stay curious and keep exploring the soundscapes around you.
https://carbonbasedlifeforms.net/