Bern Balders is a pseudonym for an artist who wants to be anonymous.

BB was a student of reknowned avant-garde composer Olav Anton Thommessen in the mid-70's, and a student of Sonology in the Netherlands in 77-79. He initially set out to be an avant-garde electronic composer, already utilising sampling in late 1978, but he was also interested in 'experimental' rock music – a fan of Van der Graaf Generator, King Crimson, Henry Cow and others in the mid-70's, and later, new-wave experimentalists like XTC and PiL. It is perhaps not surprising then, that he should make a record which would combine the songwriting of new wave with the sounds of the avant-garde...

Bern Balders released one single, The Alter-Ego Effect b/w My Spy-Event on his own Do-Re-Mix Records in 1981. This single is a contender for the price of Worst Mastering Job Ever – Bern Balders sent the master off to the pressing plant with instructions that they must remove hiss. This was done by leaving out all treble, so what was really an up-beat track, multi-layered and intricately arpeggiated, was reduced to little more than a droning synth bassline, cardboard bass drum and vocals on the vinyl. Do-Re-Mix label boss Vi Nyler (another pseudonym for BB) issued a statement in an insert to the single, denouncing the pressing and mastering, while also ridiculing his songwriting and vocals. The insert concluded that copies of the single would be available directly from Do-Re-Mix at a cut-rate price. Furthermore, the distribution company collapsed some months after release, and several hundred copies of the single disappeared. Although 2000 were pressed, it is famously hard to come by, and fetches high prices among collectors.

When his career as a solo artist thus received a severe blow just as it were starting, Bern Balders joined his friends Det Elektriske Kjøkken, playing keyboards on a demo recording. He and Lister had been living in the same house in Trondheim in the early eighties. He made another solo demo around 1984, this time taking it to foreign record companies, but no releases ensued, and Bern Balders soon tired of the record industry. He has worked as a sound enigineer since, in particular with recording live sound. He has also worked as a visual artist.

Releases
The Alter-Ego Effect/ My Spy-Event; 7" DoReMix Records, 1981

Related Projects
Det Elektriske Kjøkken