Carbon Based Lifeforms (CBL) are Johannes Hedberg and Daniel Vadestrid, both born in1976 and based in southwest Sweden. They met when both 15 and are still, amazingly,working happily together, over 25 years later. CBL itself was formed in 1996, as an offshootfrom other projects, but it soon became their focal point, culminating in their first release on‘mp3.com’ in 1998.
The duo signed with the celebrated Lyon based ‘Ultimae’ label in 2002 and have sincereleased six official, full length albums:
‘Hydroponic Garden’ in 2003
‘World of Sleepers’ in 2006
‘Interloper’ in 2009‘Twentythree’ in 2012
In 2014 they left Ultimae and went independent and have released:‘Derelicts’ in 2018
'Stochastic' in 2021.
Derelicts made it to #12 on Billboards Dance/Electronic albums chart, #11 on UK OfficialCharts Top 40 Dance Albums and #59 on UK Official Charts Top 100 Independent Albums.Their music has been extraordinarily well received by connoisseurs within the ambient sceneand clearly beyond, since in 2012 they were also commissioned to write the soundtrack tothe independently produced movie ‘The Mansion’ and the theme to ‘ Green Land’ byWanderword in 2018. In addition to their own work, they have actively participated insuccessful collaborations with several other artists, including Magnus Birgersson of SolarFields in a project to compose the music for the Swedish dancer Olof Persson’s ‘Fusion’performance in 1999.
Johannes and Daniel aim to combine earth and space in their music. Using the combinationof nature and technology as the main inspiration for their work, they like to represent boththe positive and negative effects that this collaboration can lead to, including the negativeimpact that incorrect technology can have on the environment. Johannes often creates thebuilding blocks of sounds and harmonies and could happily tweak sounds forever, whereasDaniel develops the rhythms and sculpts the ideas into tracks. It remains unclear which ofthem derives the greatest pleasure from manipulating the distinctive, squelching sounds ofthe Roland TB-303.
CBL are frequently present among the headliners of the biggest Psytrance festivals acrossEurope and have done many shows in Russia and even USA and Australia.
In 2009 they performed at ‘Cosmonova’, the Planetarium within Stockholm’s Museum ofNatural History, with a backdrop of nature inspired imagery from across the world and thenbeyond too, with the International Space Station taking an impromptu tour of the SolarSystem. The gig sold out way in advance, so they scheduled another night, which also soldout. Those who attended will readily attest to an unforgettable experience. They did anotherfour sold out shows in 2014. In 2018 they did a show in the Moscow Planetarium. The ticketswas sold out in less than 14 hours. The Russian tours of 2018, 2019 and 2020 made somenoise in Russia and was covered by TASS and Aeroflot magazine.
