Music bios are often just nonsense packed with made-up words nobody relates to. On Bandcamp I write my own album notes, keeping things essential and immediate. So, I figured I’d write this crap here myself too. I’m Benjamin Sievers, born in 1993 in Bremen, Germany, and the person behind Nordsun. Rooted in the flatlands of northern Germany, my music reflects a deep connection to nature. I first began making music under the artist name Splitter. Between 2009 and 2016, I released five albums, two EPs, and several B-sides and remixes, shaped by my two biggest influences: Nine Inch Nails and Boards of Canada. As Splitter I chased machine precision. I only played instruments by hand occasionally, and almost always quantized them. Most of the time I composed straight into the MIDI editor. My last Splitter album, Altfeld, was the peak of this precise, machine-like approach. A metropolis of sound built from buildings, streets, and machines. Finishing it marked a turning point: I began playing real instruments again, leaving imperfections in, and found that music exists to be lived through, not checked off. Around that time, not only my music but also my life changed. While making Altfeld I lived in Berlin as a broke apprentice. After finishing my training, I moved to Augsburg, started working, and for the first time could afford better instruments. Living far from my northern home, I became more aware of my northern soul. Out of this grew the dreamy, melancholic album Tales of a Beautiful Life. Because it differed so strongly from everything I had done as Splitter, I decided to release music under a new name. A name connected to my homeland but also reflecting the surreal worldbuilding I always pursue in my music. In the northern hemisphere, the sun never shines in the north. Nordsun means “the sun shining in the north” - a surreal name for the surreal soundscapes I create. Nordsun is, above all, handmade music. Immersive sonic landscapes where instruments grow into matter and effects become space and time. Our brains always seem to need boxes to put things in. So here you go. Here are the Nordsun boxes: Electronic Music, IDM, Ambient, Downtempo, Shoegaze. My biggest influences remain Nine Inch Nails and Boards of Canada. I also listen a lot to Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Loess, Slowdive, and Trentemøller. All of that flows into the music. Still, nowadays I usually start making music when I’m looking for sounds that don’t exist yet. After releasing Tales of a Beautiful Life, I professionally remixed and remastered two Splitter albums and re-released them as Nordsun: Lost At Sea and Thea. Originally produced as a teenager with limited mixing skills, I freed these albums from their muddy early sound. Although they date from 2011 and 2012, the reissues make them appear chronologically after Tales of a Beautiful Life. To keep the chronology clear, I created a catalog system called “sunbeams”: • sunbeam -2: Lost At Sea (original 2011, reissue 2022) • sunbeam -1: Thea (original 2012, reissue 2022) • sunbeam 0: Altfeld (original 2016, reissue TBA) • sunbeam 1: tales of a beautiful life (2021) • sunbeam 2: remnants of a beautiful life (2024) • sunbeam 3: Lunar Cycling (2024) <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Nordsun">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.