Megaptera.

Megaptera are one of my upper-Tier-II entries in this archive's dark ambient / death-industrial cluster. Active about 1990–1999 in Sweden, the project is cited in the period press alongside Brighter Death Now, Inade, Schloss Tegal and Anenzephalia as one of the most important post-industrial acts of the 1990s, and was noted from the catalogue's 1991 début as one of the early pioneers of death industrial. The duo line-up of Mikael Svensson (also known as Deaf Machine) and Peter Nyström across the catalogue's post-1991 active period produced the records on the proto-CMI cassette label Sound Source, then on Slaughter Productions, Art Konkret, SSSM, Release Entertainment, Malignant Records, and the long-running home Cold Meat Industry. The catalogue's structural feature is the dense, hypnotic, soundtrack-based industrial atmosphere with bass-driven metallic machine rhythms - what THE BRVTALIST's later profile described as "being trapped inside some HUGE cathedral-like warehouse filled with grinding machines, and in company with a crowd of people humming and worshipping something unpleasant."

The founding configuration was Svensson + Magnus Åslund (Pettersson) recording the first Megaptera tracks together in early 1990. Per Nyström's later THE BRVTALIST interview, Svensson and Åslund had started to experiment with old gear that Åslund's mother's new boyfriend had access to - a 4-channel portastudio plus an analog delay. Nyström at the time was making music with Magnus Sundström as Fiskebåtarna and First Aid; he later borrowed a drum machine from friends in the synthpop band Cell Division and joined Megaptera. The opening-period gear configuration shaped the catalogue's early aesthetic: the BOSS RRV-10 reverb (the metallic sound of which Nyström later identified as one of the catalogue's most distinctive sonic features), the Roland SH-101 synthesizer, a Casio VZ-1, and the sample-sourcing from John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing.

The catalogue's début release Near Death (1991) appeared on Sound Source, the short-lived (1991–1992) cassette side-label of Cold Meat Industry that specialised in limited tape editions of CMI artists' débuts. The début cassette was at catalogue number Sound Source 1917 and contained 7 tracks (My Lonely Brain, Illusion, Faith Is Not A Natural Life Force, Horse Benediction, Immortality, Fabrique, Kranium); per the later Urashima 2023 vinyl reissue, the début was the catalogue's opening statement. The Sound Source label home positioned Megaptera alongside the early-1990s CMI cluster including Archon Satani, Brighter Death Now, Deutsch Nepal, Raison d'Être, Morthond and Crematorius.

The early-period entry was the 1992 LP Songs from the Massive Darkness. Per Nyström's later THE BRVTALIST account, the record was influenced by Brighter Death Now's Great Death; Svensson and Nyström connected the gear they had in Nyström's boy's room and recorded the 6 tracks in about 4 hours - Nyström's later recollection includes a vignette of going downstairs for a quick dinner while one of the tracks was being recorded, with Svensson sitting on the bed playing the Casio VZ-1 with his feet in the meantime. The session captured the early method: the metallic BOSS RRV-10 reverb, the SH-101 synthesizer pulled across the foreground, the Thing-derived voice samples in the background, and the uncalculated track-after-track recording approach that gave the album its raw early-1990s death-industrial character. Songs from the Massive Darkness remains per Nyström the catalogue's personal favourite single record from the active period.

The 1994 CD Beyond the Shadow was the catalogue's first proper CD release. The commercial-entry record was Curse Of The Scarecrow, recorded by Svensson + Nyström + Magnus Sundström on the Amiga 500 and EPS sampler. Per Nyström's later reflection: "It really became a hit for us. Magnus Åslund left the band already in 1991 and Mikael and I recorded this album together with Magnus Sundström on his Amiga 500 and EPS sampler [...] we felt that we were doing some really good tracks. We did not think, just recorded track after track. It went very easily." The album appeared on Release Entertainment (the Relapse Records sub-imprint) via a VUZ Records connection; per Nyström's later biographical record, the VUZ intermediary later mishandled the financial arrangements: "the guy ripped us on the money. I was very blue eyed, and thought everybody was as polite as Marco Corbelli, but that wasn't the case." Marco Corbelli was the Italian death-industrial figure operating as Atrax Morgue and the Slaughter Productions label.

Megaptera contributed Don't Desecrate the Dead to the CMI Absolute Supper compilation; per Nyström: "it was very important that we got Don't Desecrate the Dead released on Absolute Supper. It really promoted Megaptera well." The 1990s catalogue circulated across Slaughter Productions (Corbelli's Italian death-industrial-cluster label), Art Konkret, SSSM, Malignant Records (the American dark-ambient and death-industrial home), alongside the long-running CMI relationship. The catalogue's active period ended in 1999 - about 10 years after the founding session - with the later 2001 CMI 2CD Beyond The Massive Darkness the farewell release. The 2CD digipak (8-panel format, limited edition of 2,000 copies) combined a reissue of the 1992 LP Songs From The Massive Darkness (CD1) with a remixed version of the 1994 CD Beyond The Shadow plus two new tracks (CD2); per the catalogue's later reception text, the album text confirmed the project's discontinuation after the about decade of activity.

VAGO · c. the Age of Discovery