Mimedyr "Mínym" (2019)

Hello Joseph! While browsing ProgArchives today I was very pleasantly surprised to find that my band Mimedyr had been mentioned several times, among them Tapfret's great review three days ago.

As both of you have noted there's not very much information about us on the internet, I will answer your questions if you have any.

The album Mínym was composed by the four members of the band:

Kjetil Lund (main vocals, bass, guitar additions)

Espen Christiansen (guitar)

Gunnar Myhre (keyboards, vocal additions)

Brynjar Nilsen Lid (drums)

I'll try to make an outline of our influences at the time. While making Mínym (2012-15) we were collectively inspired by the prog classics. A lot of Genesis, Gentle Giant, Yes, KC, you name it. Some of us listened a lot to the Canterbury Scene, jazz rock (Mahavishnu, later Soft Machine, Holdsworth), and also the RIO scene (Henry Cow, Art Bears, three of us traveled to London for the Linsay Cooper memorial concert). We also collectively like more modern bands like Opeth and Meshuggah.

Mínym was composed over a long period and had countless revisions and iterations. The themes came first, then it was molded around a compositional frame. There were several principles in play to make the album feel consistent, like an intent to have recurrent, recognizable themes progress throughout the album. This is partly inspired by a fascination for classical music.

I was (and still is) inspired by the astrophysicist Carl Sagan, especially his Cosmos series, and this gave me the idea of the story of Mínym. While you meet some familiar elements from science fiction; advanced AI, megastructures made of nebulae, Dyson spheres and self-replicating space probes, the main theme of Mínym follows a tragedy mirroring the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria. It's a powerful story of how we as a civilization lost an immense amount of books of art, science and history. Mínym is one of many conscious space probes sent from a distant, advanced civilization in the Milky Way: A messenger who reaches Earth to explore, and to kindly invite any intelligent life it would meet to the galactic community. But Mínym is captured while hibernating and the humans won't listen to it's message.

So again, thanks for the attention. It is very inspiring to hear that people listen to our music. While Mínym was released in the shadows, we have been busy making more music without the dictation of a record company. Our next album Lokarsteg is almost completed.

Best regards,

Gunnar Myhre

I hope I didn't seem overly critical about the lack of exposure on Mínym. I'm definitely glad that your energies are focused on your art and its creation is exclusive the estate of the artists. I wouldn't have it any other way. I just feel it needs to be heard and it generates some funds to keep the ball rolling for future albums.

Thank you Gunnar for the music ...