Sturm Café was founded by the two teenage boys Gustav (born 1985) and Jonatan (born 1985) in 2001 under the name The Xenophobian Alliance. They released a couple of demo cassette tapes which were handed out to close friends. The instrumentation was a cheap digital synth with an Atari for sequencing and an analog 4 channel portable studio the quality of the songs were low but charming.
Later on in 2002 they bought some analogue synthesizers and a digital portable studio and the music started to spread through mp3.com. At this time, the name of the band had been changed to Sturm Café. The name was suggested by Gustav's father. The music had moved to a definite EBM:ish approach with minimalistic analogue basslines, monotonous drum machines and chanting vocals in German.
This eventually led to some live gigs in early 2003. Now people started to talk and the success was a fact when they performed live at Sweden's biggest open air alternative music festival, Arvika Festival, in the summer of 2004. Later that year, they signed a contract with the record label Progress Productions.
One year later, the album So Seelisch, So Schön! was released and climbed to position 75 on the Swedish official album sell chart. That autumn, Jonatan moved to Poland for medicine studies. Sturm Café was put on halt. However, Jonatan moved back to Sweden the next year and the work with the band could continue.
Instrumentation
Sequential Circuits Pro-One ARP Odyssey Moog Prodigy Korg Poly-800 MicroKORG Novation DrumStation Novation Bass Station Roland TR-505 Yamaha RX11 Atari Mega 4 Akai S900 Akai S3000 Korg N1R DOD Graphic Equaliser R-815A EKS Cyclone Multistage Processor Korg D1600 Yamaha AW16G Tama Techstar TS-306 Electronic Voice Module Yamaha Dx7s Yamaha Tx81z
