Chilluminati

Between 1998 – 2004, Nicholas Sillitoe & Per Martinsen (aka Illumination) regularly used the artist pseudonym “Chilluminati” as a guise for all their remix productions. A playful portmanteau of “chill”, “chillum”, and of course the ever-present “illuminati”. 

At this particular moment in time, the chill-out scene seemed to be all the rage. 

Ambient, down-tempo electronic music spread like a wildfire from the backrooms of small house & techno clubs out into the mainstream, influencing much of club culture, fashion, and lifestyle for early millennials, all around the world. Chilluminati, from Norway (of all places) were fortunate enough to be a part of this burgeoning movement. 

If we rewind a little further back to London in the early 1990’s, chill-out rooms were the kind of haunts that both Nicholas & Per enjoyed frequenting. Without realizing until much later on, both of them had in fact regularly gone to many of the same small underground events without actually meeting. Initially there as blissed-out punters, hearing inspired DJ’s like Alex Patterson and Mixmaster Morris spinning long-drawn out hallucinatory sets, they too eventually found themselves playing more and more chill-out DJ sets years later; producing, remixing, and arranging similarly trippy club nights back in Oslo.

The relaxed nature of the chill-out scene allowed a little more freedom and certainly more “air to breathe” in the slightly suffocating confines of the purist house & techno club culture. 

As DJ’s and producers, chill-out gave Illumination’s “Chilluminati” the opportunity to explore more varied soundscapes, more eclectic music references, and a chance to journey deeper into the soothing realms of psychedelic electronica.

As well as random DJ sets in Oslo under their Chilluminati moniker (their short-lived Wednesday night residency at The “Jazid” nightclub was probably Norway’s one and only bona fide chill-out club nights), in between work on their own respective projects, Illumination, Mental Overdrive etc; Nicholas & Per gleefully set the controls for the heart of the chill when the opportunity arose to start remixing other artists.

Eivind Aarset, one of Norway’s finest exponents of “electronique” jazz guitar, was the first to get the Chilluminati treatment with his blueprint “Superstrings” track, remixed and released on Jazzland Records/Universal in early 1999. 

Instead of just making “just another” standard club remix, Nicholas & Per went quite unexpectedly beyond the call of duty, producing a totally transcendental, downright melancholy (yet uplifting) down-tempo rearrangement of Eivind’s track. Sometime later they also returned back to Eivind’s musical galaxy with a remix of his gorgeous track “Empathic Guitar”.

During this period, several of the Jazzland Records artist stable (and associated acts) had their key tracks dutifully touched by the hand of Chilluminati; thanks to good feedback and encouragement from Sten Nilsen, label honcho at Jazzland. Bugge Wesseltoft’s (“Existence”, “Change” and “Skog”), Sidsel & Bugge’s (“Try”), Nils Petter Molvær’s (“Vilderness”), and the wonderful “Gula Gula” from sámi artist Mari Boine were all given the Chilluminati once-over.

Mari Boine was already a much lauded artist in World music circles. “Gula Gula”, the title track from her stunning international debut album, was originally released on Peter Gabriel’s Real World back in 1989. This daringly beautiful song about the oppression of the Sámi people certainly lent itself to a sonic reappraisal, and when Universal Music wanted to have her back-catalogue remixed by various up-and-coming producers in the chill-out DJ scene, Illumination were thrilled to get first choice on Mari Boine’s crown jewel. 

The Chilluminati mix of “Gula Gula” deftly readapted her original “joik” from a 5/8 time signature into a more traditional 4/4-friendly vocal loop, adding bubbling synths, string stabs, over an infectious down-tempo groove. From an exuberant mix session in a shabby top-floor, stone cold studio in Oslo, the The Chilluminati remix soon went global, destined for ubiquitous chill-out sunsets, beach bars, mix cd’s and the mainstream market.  

The resulting exposure soon caught the attention of the marketing moguls at Universal Music’s London office, who quickly got on board the Chilluminati express. Having already licensed the Chilluminati mix of Bugge Wesseltoft’s “Existence” on their big-selling compilation Café del Mar 6, by the time Illumination’s very own “Cookie Raver”, and Boine’s “Gula Gula” remix both appeared on Café del Mar 8, in the summer of 2001; Nicholas & Per were invited to become official DJ/brand ambassadors for Universal Music’s worldwide launch of the Café del Mar compilation series to the “emerging markets”. This also conveniently coincided with the promotion of their own Illumination artist relase, “This is Illumination” (+47/LoveOD); simultaneously released via BMG/RCA internationally.

This took Illumination and their “Chilluminati” vibe all the way from Buenos Aires to Bangkok, Hamburg to Mexico City, Moscow to Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur to Caracas, Copenhagen to Hong Kong, over a whirlwind two year peirod.

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Nicholas & Per suddenly experienced the somewhat unusual luxury of first-class air travel and designer hotels, but most of all were given the rewarding opportunity to play their trademark “anything-goes-as-long-as-it’s-chill” DJ sets to a new generation of globalized chill-out clubbers in events all around the world. 

Back home in Oslo, recovering from jet lag, airport lounges, and a fairly grueling schedule of “meet-and-greet” promo activity, more remixes would thankfully follow. 

These included personal projects and productions for Nicholas and Per’s very own "WAG’s", Anne Marie Almedal and Aggie Frost, who both travelled along with the duo on some of their globetrotting DJ trips. Society London’s “Desire” (featuring Anne Marie Almedal) and Frost’s “Magika” both received some well-deserved Chilluminati remix love, with both tracks released later that year.

Other remixes for international artists also came by in late 2001. Cirque Du Soleil, the Canadian circus producers, commissioned a couple a couple of Chilluminati remixes; both for commercial release and performance at their opulent worldwide shows (“A Tale”). The delightful British electronic duo Lamb also got a fine Chilluminati marinade with Nicholas & Per’s remix of “Gabriel”, another familiar favourite from Café del Mar Vol. 8.

A bootleg remix of Depeche Mode’s “I Feel Love” also somehow managed to mysteriously surface from the Chilluminati studio haze, as well as a rare remix of Tuxedo Moon’s “The Waltz” commissioned from the Belgian avant-pop label Crammed Discs.

In late 2002, Nicholas & Per lovingly compiled and curated their favourite Chilluminati moments in a seamless DJ mix, “This Is Chilluminati” which first appeared as a +47/LoveOD promo cd, licensed to Universal Music. Due to copyright clearance issues, the resulting mix cd was never commercially released, although some “For Promo Use Only” copies did manage to somehow slip through the net.

By 2004, the album mix was re-edited, re-compiled and finally released as “Illumination – The Chilluminati Remixes”, via Jazzland/Universal Music worldwide, on license from +47/Love OD. 

A final Chilluminati remix rarity to see also see the light of day was Bugge Wesseltoft’s “Skog”, which eventually appeared on a Jazzland box set release “New Conception of Jazz”, sometime later, done during sessions for Illumination’s second album “The Poppy Rocks”.

Nicholas Sillitoe and Per Martinsen stopped remixing/producing together as Illumination/Chilluminati not long after that point, focusing on their individual careers and other music projects. 

Several Chilluminati remixes are currently available for streaming on the original artist respective profiles, others sadly not (it seems). Thankfully the legacy of the Chilluminati output can hopefully live on, in the digital age.

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