Sekiden were formed in Brisbane in 1998 by Simon Graydon on guitar and vocals, Mirko Vogel on drums and his sister,
Seja Vogel on keyboards and vocals. Mirko recalled starting to drum as a ten-year-old and forming his first band, Vapour, while in primary school, "At first there were about 14 people in this band, like there were about 10 guitarists and stuff and I was the only one left so I was like, well I guess I'll play drums." In 2000 they released a five-track debut
extended play,
Better Music Through Mathematics, via Modular. Matt Attlee of
Aus Music Scrapbook opined, "[it] has got me hooked, even if it seems that the 5 pop gems are over before they begin – but such is the sign of a great release that leaves you yearning for more. The stand out track would be 'Anywhere', blasting its way out of your speakers ... and making full use of the alternating boy/girls vocals."
BrisPop.coms Andrew Tuttle felt, "[it] consists mainly of tracks from their Super Radiotron demo, but the sound on this EP is far more professional... 'Anywhere', my personal favourite, was in my opinion one of the highlight tracks of 2000. This track mixes punky fuzzed-up guitars with cutesy love song lyrics and fat synths. The keyboard explosion sounds in the bridge are a delight to hear, especially with headphones on." The EP peaked at No. 25 on the
ARIA Alternative Singles Chart. MediaSearch's Carmine Pascuzzi felt, "[its] a very intoxicating sound from an eclectic group from Brisbane who thrive on bringing something new from past synths exponents. This is their second release and it contains fuzzy pop gems... There's plenty to look forward to from this act." In May 2003 Sekiden signed with Perth-based label,
Redline Records. The group's debut album,
Junior Fiction, appeared on 25 August 2003 via Redline. It was recorded in October 2002 at Blackbox Studio, Brisbane, with
Magoo producing (
Regurgitator,
Skunkhour,
Shihad) and Matt Maddock as
audio engineer. Sekiden toured Australia, Japan, the United States and Canada. Mirko described his song writing, "Sad music is really easy to make, cos it's easy to be depressed. Writing happy songs that don't sound like you're taking the piss can be pretty hard. Basically that's our aim, to make songs that are happy and that make people feel good about themselves when they come to see us." Sekiden disbanded in 2007 with Seja Vogel joining Regurgitator as an auxiliary musician on keyboards. She was a backing musician for other artists,
Dave McCormack, Heinz Reigler, the Mess Hall and Spod, before starting her solo career. == Members ==