Jonas Thurén:  Well, first of all we feel that our music has a life of its own. We never really know what it will sound like until the final mixdown is performed. When we write songs, one important thing is to make the music reach out to people somehow.
Another thing that we try to do is to give each song some kind of strong integrity. It may not always be easy to listen to what we do. However, we believe that since many of the songs are so different from each other, different people will adapt to them in many different ways... ...so it´s a good title anyway.
About the band: We're three lost souls in a lost world doing what we have to do. Music has always been a great part of our lives, and always will be. For more details, pop in on our website.

Jonas Thurén:  Sven, the solo-guitar maestro, has amongst other things played guitar with the prog band "Galleon" and  the AOR project "Street talk". Mike, main lead vocals and major noise-maker (keyboards, guitars & basses), has co-worked in the making of a local-scene musical in -94 where he wrote some of the music and played bass. He has also worked as a bass-player on several recording sessions.
Jonas, the drummer, lead vocals, backing vocals & art/graphics designer, has co-worked with the same musical project as Mike. He has also worked as a drummer on several recording sessions. Besides that, all three members have played with several local bands.

Jonas Thurén: Back in the 80-s we were obviously younger and hadn´t quite found our style yet. So we borrowed a lot from those bands and it was great fun, and in the end  it really taught us how to play. Nowadays, we hope that we have evolved enough to develop a style of our own. Our influences today comes from a much wider perspective than earlier. It can be for example a classical piece, or maybe something oriental or whatever. After all we´ve always said: A good song is always a good song, even if it is a lullaby. Jon Anderson of Yes once said that good songs are like butterflies. And, if you want to write good music you have to wait for that butterfly to come to you. So if you can put up enough patience, eventually it
will. And when it comes you´ll have to be ready, because you´ve only got a couple of seconds to catch it. If you don´t, it will just fly off and be lost forever.

Jonas Thurén:  It all began as an idea of re-recording some of the best songs from the Madrigal era. (1985 -1990) These songs were demo-recordings and were of a very poor quality to say the least. As we began diggin´ in the dirt, we realised that most of the songs really could benefit from being rewritten. 
In January of -99 we started to work out the basic structure for each song. The final mixdown was performed in October of -01. Three years may seem to be quite a long time for producing an album, but one must bear in mind that when we started out, none of us could ever dream of that things would go this far. So we kind of kept it as a hobby-project in the beginning, but as it evolved we had to face the fact that the outcome of our tireless struggle, would reach far beyond everyone's expectations.

Jonas Thurén:  We are always writing songs you know...  As for now we have a handful of sketches for new songs. So we will come up with a second release in the future. And if you like "Different ways" you won´t be disappointed.

Jonas Thurén: It´s a bit hard to say, really. As mentioned earlier, we put very much effort in trying to make the songs as good as possible. So for us the songs are equally good. Then there is the personal aspect of the lyrics. In that respect, Mike´s no 1 is "Different ways", and Jonas prefers "The secret".

Jonas Thurén:  It´s all about being open-minded... sadly enough there seems to be some narrow-minded individuals out there that really take the biscuit...
They´ve actually said to us: "-How can you call yourself prog? You don´t sound anything like King Crimson or Anlagaard." We have to ask: Why on earth should we? Anyway, we have nothing against those bands, they´re great as they are. As we believe that Xinema is. But we´re convinced that most people in this area are quite open-minded when it comes to music. Anyway, it´s a statement that we felt we wanted to make, and we sincerely hope that we haven´t offended anyone.

Jonas Thurén:  It can sometimes be rather a difficult task to put a certain lable on things. There´s always a chance that you might fence yourself in somewhat.
Some of our songs could very well be placed under the category "melodic rock", "AOR" or something else. By the time when we launched our website, we were not really shure of what scene we would hook up to. Maybe it will dawn on us one of these days.

Jonas Thurén:  To tell you the truth, we really love the prog of the seventies, since we grew up with it. When it comes to the prog scene of today however, we´re afraid we´ll have to admit that we´re not all that updated. (Shame on us) We´re convinced though, that the future looks bright on behalf of progressive music. Much of it is thanks to the internet of course... And this is probably just the beginning...

Xinema:  Mike: RUSH for gods sake. What else is there?
Jonas: RUSH & Uriah Heep (Look at yourself-Wonderworld)
Sven ? Wasn´t present this time, sorry.

Jonas Thurén:  Buy our record! Seriously, each and everyone that plays an instrument, and performs their own music really deserves respect. And above all, be open-minded.

Mikael Askemur - The multiinstrumentalist. Leadvox, keyboards, bass,  guitars & programming.
Sven Larsson - The best hidden secret in the world of extravaganceguitar playing. Bvox.
Jonas Thurén - Drums. Lead & bvox. Computer art, layout & graphic design.

Discography:
"Different Ways"

Xinema Home Page
http://hem.bredband.net/
b127802/index.htm

Xinema is a three piece prog/melodic rock band from Sweden, and has existed in it’s present form since March -99. Their music can be described as melodic emotional, well played and with a profound intention of making each song a working entity. The band's motto is: "-A good song is always a good song, regardless of genre." Xinema takes great pride in their strong musical integrity, and has always done things their own way. This gives at hand that there's no obvious choice when it comes to placing them a specific genre. The guys themselves feels that they are standing with one leg in the melodic/AOR field, and with the other in the progressive realm.

The members involved has played together earlier, between the years -85 and -90 in a band called Madrigal. Back then the music was quite inspired by the likes of Rush, Genesis, Yes, Kansas and Styx and was leaning heavily towards complexity and skillful playing. During that period, a lot of songs were written and the band toured quite extesively in Sweden.

When that band split up in the early 90:s, the guys stayed in and out of touch with each other during the following years, and worked together as well as individually on many different projects. By the summer of -98 however, the guys occasionally got together, sat down, had a few drinks and talked about old times. Everyone remembered the poor sound quality of their earlier demotapes, and agreed upon that a fun thing to do would be to re-record some of the Madrigal songs, in order to make them sound they were originally intended. To wrap things up a bit so to speak, once and for all. This triggered the formation of what was later to become Xinema.

In January of -99 the newly formed band started to work out the basic structure for each song. By March that year the first outline of the project was ready. It didn't have much in common with the final production though. This is one of the cornerstones in the Xinema philosophy. If a song proves to have weak passages, nuke those weak spots! Then compose new material, incorporate it and see if it works. If it doesn't, well nuke some more and let the process run all over again, until everyone's happy. This is of course a rather time consuming business, but has the benefit of really bringing out the best of everyone.

At first, the band's ambition was merely to produce a full length cd for themselves. Slowly but steadily since there was no time pressure, the work went on. As the project progressed, it became more and more obvious that the outcome of the band's tireless struggle, would reach far beyond everyone's expectations. The final touch to the production was added in October of -01. Xinema has launched the recording process for a second album.


For order CD and more information contact:
Unicorn Records
P.O. BOX 95016, 
Lorraine Quebec, 
Canada, J6Z 4P1.