Tobias Hellkvist

Multi-instrumentalist Tobias Hellkvist (b.1984) was born and raised in the south of Sweden, just outside Malmö. He's a songwriter/soundartist/producer and has been making music since his early teens. Some of the works is just him with a guitar and some of it is computerbased - soundscapes with dreamy, meditative textures.
In early 2007, he finished his first official album called Transports, which mostly contained electroacoustic/ambient material. This album was self-released and produced by Tobias himself. He also got some attention for making an acoustic cover version of the song "Step Aside", originally written and performed by the danish electronic/postrock band Efterklang.
In the summer of 2008 he released his second album, Sides. It's an album where Tobias continues to explore different sounds and textures. At the same time he shows a completely new approach to his songwriting, involving lots of different instruments such as piano, accordeon, harmonica, flute, vibraphone, glockenspiel, vocals and drums. This results in a more diverse album than his previous.
About a month later, a split EP with scottish act Metronomes (aka Al Paxton of Stapleton) was released, containing three songs by each artist. One of Hellkvist's contributions was an acoustic cover version of the song "Ships of the North Atlantic", originally by Stapleton. Vintervarm (from Sides) was also featured, as well as Always Problems, a previously unreleased track made exclusively for this split.
The first collaborative project Tobias participated in was with Gothenburg-based artist Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words (aka Thomas Ekelund). They were introduced by Avi Roig from Seattle, the man behind the non-profit web publication It's A Trap!. This introduction resulted in a 25 minute piece entitled White/Grey/Black. This was later released on Roig's own IAT.MP3 label as a free download.
In early 2008, Tobias hooked up with longtime friend Ola Pålsson, after talking about working together for a long time. After about a year of composing songs in Tobias apartment in Malmö, they started to search for musicians to play with, which turned out to be the hardest part. But after a couple of months they had assembled a group of people to play with, and the band Pixie Carnation was born. They went on to record their debut EP Fresh Poems in February 2009, and it was self-released three months later by themselves.
Simultaneously, Tobias had been working on his third fullength album, entitled Evolutions. This album is yet to be released, but hopefully it will see the light in June/July 2009.