Lagoona
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Lagoona was a dance and techno band, consisting of the two music producers Andreas Viklund (1980- ) and Björn Karlsson (1976- ). The band was based in a small town called Porjus in northern Sweden. Lagoona was one of the first groups to call themselves "online artists" (October 1996) and they released their free MP3 single on the Internet as early as May 1997, long before the format became widely popular.
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[edit] The early years
They first started making music in the tracker scene under the name TSEC (The Solid Energy Crew), and released their first two tracker songs in October 1996. Their music got very popular on the internet, and being one of few artists to release legal MP3 songs created a lot of attention to the band. In early 1998, their first album was released. It was named "Dreams" after their first online hit from 1996 and it was completely home-brew and released by the bands own label. The money from the album helped the band build a real studio, and when they started using MIDI instead of tracker software, they changed name from TSEC to Lagoona (October 1998).
Since then, Lagoona have peaked most major MP3 music charts on the net at some time. They got two songs at the #1 spot of the MP3.com music chart ("The journey" and "Emotions in trance" in year 2000), and several other top-10 songs (including "The promised land" at #2). In the MP3.com genre charts, all songs they released (over 40 tracks in total) reached a top-20 place at some time. At some periods, Lagoona had more than 20 songs on the MP3.com Dance top-40, and they got more than 2.4 million song plays from MP3.com (and totally more than 8 million downloads with all sites included) - which makes Lagoona one of the most successful internet-based bands in Sweden (along with bands like Aura Productions and Trance[]Control). Lagoona did also release their music on other sites, like Beatmaka.com, Weedshare.com and Javamusic.com, where they also reached the #1 spots, and they were ranked in the mp3charts.com "Global Top 100" for more than two years in a row.
[edit] The later years
In the last years, Lagoona started working with vocals. The band recorded two songs with Dutch singer Lizanne Hennessey ("Always in my heart" and "Be my friend"), and one song with Swedish singer Åsa Holmberg ("Into my dream") who also joined the band on their late live performances to sing the vocals. Lagoona did over 30 live performances all over northern Sweden, playing as opening acts for major Swedish artists like Markoolio and Da Buzz. They were assisted on stage by DJ Magho (2000-2002) and DJ Isecore (2002-2004). The band have also had a number of record contracts, but never released any commercial album or single of their own. Their first release was a remix on the Eskimo single "Dreaming of me" (In.Disc/NorskeGram). They have produced music for British/Australian popstar Gina G and released single tracks on several international compilation albums, with the latest being "Cream of the clubs 2004" (ZYX/DanceStreet) and "A trip in Trance 3" (Blue Dot). However, Lagoona always considered themselves to be a non-commercial band.
Among their merits in the later years, their "Final destination" became the most downloaded song of 2003 at Beatmaka.com after staying several months on top of the charts. "Final destination" is also the only Lagoona song where both members are singing the vocals. At the same ranking for year 2004, Lagoona had three songs on the top-20 ("Into my dream" being the highest at #12). Lagoona also got #1 at the Weedshare top chart with "Into my dream".
[edit] Today
Lagoona broke up in 2004, and the two members are today working on other musical projects. Their music can still be found on the Internet, through various websites and filesharing systems. And the music is still free to download, as it has always been, and perfectly legal to share with others over filesharing systems since Lagoona allows (and encourages) free distribution.
The official website of Lagoona which used to be found at lagoonamusic.com, has been closed down after being online for close to ten years. The new official download site is the music section at Andreas Viklund's website, which contains the entire Lagoona MP3 collection.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Lagoona albums
- Dreams (1998, using the artist name "The Solid Energy Crew")
- Magic Melodies (2000)
- The Journey (2000)
- Generations (2002)
A fifth album called "Seventh heaven" was reportedly recorded in 2003-2004 with vocalist Åsa Holmberg, but it was never released.
[edit] Compilation and remix features
(this list is not complete, please help by adding releases you know of!)
- Tekno Magazine CD (1997, featuring a number of .XM modules by TSEC)
- Eskimo - Dreaming of me (1999, CD single featuring a Lagoona remix))
- Beatmaka Club Attack 2 (2001, featuring "Show me")
- Electronic Underground - best of MP3.com (2001)
- IncrediTrance #1 (2002, featuring "Hot for you")
- A Trip in Trance 2 (2002, featuring the TBO&Vega remix of "Show me")
- A Trip in Trance 3 (2003, featuring Kaveh Azizi's remix of "Into my dream")
- Cream of the Clubs 2004 (2004, featuring "The promised land")
Beside these releases, the two members have also made releases under their own name during the time of Lagoona. Andreas was a member of the Kosmic Free Music Foundation (KFMF), and has been featured on the Kosmic Archives album series and on the classic musicdisk "Return to stage 9". Both members have also released single songs on compilations for various labels under own artist names.
