The story

A band that grew up with the internet

Two cousins in Gothenburg put a track on a free download site in 1998 and found listeners around the world. What happened next is told here five times, from five points of view: the internet, the stage, the money, the platforms and the machines. Every statement rests on the sources listed under each article; where the sources disagree, the text says so.

Close-up of both in front of the graffiti wall, looking to the left.

The artist and the internet

Born on the internet

A track on a free download site, a guestbook that filled up from a dozen countries, a forum that ran hot and a download server on a home internet line: how trance[]control found its listeners, and how they answered.

1997–2007

The crowd with their arms in the air.

On stage

On the bill

From a release party in Stockholm to Colorado, Berlin, Montreal, London and Sacramento: the nights trance[]control played, and the DJs and live acts it shared them with.

1999–2005

Cover of Beyond 2001 – the resurrection: a burst of blue light radiating from the centre of a dark frame.

The music business

A cheque from MP3.com, nothing from the label

Free downloads that sold CDs, a record deal that ended in a bankruptcy, a VIP subscription worth ten times a shop CD: what the band earned, what it expected, and what never came.

1998–2026

Cover of Beyond 2000: a chrome spiral on a dark blue background, with the title beyond 2000.

Platforms and the dot-com years

When the platform closed

MP3.com went from a guide to MP3 files to a company worth billions, lost a court case, was sold twice and shut down. The band had lived on it for five years.

1997–2004

A small studio room: grey egg-crate foam on the walls, a painted blue and purple circular backdrop behind a desk with two computer monitors, a black office chair, a rack with a red synthesizer module and a white keyboard on a stand.

Technology

From a 386 to a home server

A computer that sucked even then, a studio broadcast around the clock and robbed in a night, a software studio paid for by listeners, and a download server on a 10 Mbit line.

1995–today

The band's original websites, its forum and guestbooks are preserved in the Time Machine, where the source register lives too.