A moment of clarity

Yeah, so the other day my friend Klaus remarked that this blog was one of the most boring things he ever saw. He said it needed pictures and videos. Now, I haven't really got anything entertaining in my private vaults, well, other than the video of said Klaus drumming and screaming over at facebook... So, instead of showing you more footage of that or of me looking for a screw driver , I'll hook you up with some of the tunes that have inspired the music we're recording these days. Look below! Finally, I have sort of come up with a tentative title for the album: 'Flux' – but I'm still thinking about it. Oh, and I've been asked by Marybell Katastrophy to remix a new song of hers. I am honored to have been asked as I have a great deal of respect for Marie and her music and her partners in crime. I can't wait to get going as soon as we need a break with the album. On to the videos, well, links, really. I've included a little comment to each song.

Silo This is one of my all-time favorite bands. They're so circular and hypnotic, beautiful and packed with beautiful tonal and rhythmic systems, and this track is no exceptions. I recommend the album Alloy!

Talk Talk This is just great, man. Please note the passage from 2:25-3:05, and the mellow ending. Music doesn't get any better than this!

Meshuggah The evil twin of talk talk! Seriously. They are connected in some weird way that I'm trying to figure out. Awesome, hypnotic music. This is the opening passage of my favorite album, Catch 33. Pure enlightenment!

Hooray for earth My aquintance Noel's band. I love his melodies and adventurous song structures and the potential for heaviness that all their songs contain. Great music. They're releasing a new album soon and I can't friggin wait :)



God bless!

Aight. So we’re still recording guitars, one song a day, taking our time, nice and easy. Last night we had a breakthrough, though. One of the tracks that I had dreaded recording because of the pretty complex – and fast – chord structures was done. And it wasn’t even that difficult, hehe. See, we cheated a bit. I’d grab the first chord and play along, and then Kenneth would sit right by me with his hands in place for the second chord, so I’d just let go of my chord and continue playing with my right arm, yeah? And it sounds as though I’m a totally awesome musician now! I figured that if it sounds good, it is good. I’m not that much of a puritan anymore. Furthermore, the song has a pretty complex ending with a whole bunch of guitars and synths on top of each other, yet we didn’t quite know how to finish it, round it of. I was screwing about with some harmonies on the guitar, and there it was… it sounds like perception melting, a collapse of consciousness, very “blaaaaargh”. All in all a good night last night! Today – after work – we’ll get to work on some drum-programming at my house. The song It’s All About Love needs some assistance in the drum department in the verses. Oh, and on a personal note, I’m going skiing with my friend Torsten soon. I have absolutely no monies so take the Cabin Fever Purchase Vow as a stress relief for me. Repeat after me: “Yes, I will buy your album - for myself and a couple of friends. Or at least give you a very generous donation. Yes, the music is godlike awesome. Yes, you of all people have tapped into the truth about all that is awesome.” See! Now, that wasn’t hard now was it?

Mjello. What's up you ask? Well, I presume you ask... Things are pretty mellow seeing as both kenneth and I have a lot to do in terms of work and university-biz. However, we had a couple of days tracking guitars last week. 2 days, to be exact. We had two visitors from the linguistics-department at Aarhus University, who taped us discussing how to approach the guitar work. They were doing some sort of project on how the discourse works in creative processes. Well, let it be known that their tape must contain a whole lot of FUCK and NO and PISS and other vulgar exclamations of woe, because we had a really hard time doing the guitars for the Executive-song. I literally felt like it was ages ago that I'd played guitar and I just couldn't get it right. We spent 12 hours on getting absolutely nothing! Very frustrating, as I'm sure you can imagine. An all time low for my guitar playing. Kenneth gave it a couple of shots as well, and it didn't work out either. The following day we managed to track pretty much all the guitars for the song Spasm. Turned out OK as far as I recall. We decided on approaching things from a different angle. Instead of recording to un-mixed, poor sounding stuff, we decided to beef things up in order to get some more passionate responses in the guitar playing, which proved to be a good idea, so hopefully we've worked around winding up in guitar-hell again. In other news, we finished the drum-touch-up session in the studio and managed to squeeze in a totally new track, the one I mentioned in a previous post. I think the drums are bound to turn out cool as they are multi-layered and climaxes in a wonderful percussive dissolution. It'll be great, but Q is more apprehensive, hehe. And and and I've got an idea for yet another track, that I hope to get to work on today. It's really funny how with the feeling of closing the entire thing approaching, I get all sorts of ideas... If this one turns out cool, the vast majority of the stuff has been written since june. Anyways, cheerio and thanks for reading these endless ego-rants.

Oh yeah! and Morten Riis has started working out some synth-stuff. He's my art buddy. Here's one of his works.

and here's a picture of me lovin' the crap out of him in oslo last year.

Yo dawgs. So, here's an update on the progression. We recorded the drums for 10 tracks last tuesday and thursday. Things turned out pretty awesome, and it proved a wise decision to spend some time in a proper studio. We finished the session by having a couple of beers and listening to brutal metal. It was fun! I think we'll have to re-record the drums for a song called agitator on thursday where we have a touch-up session. It needs a different snare sound. These songs are so minimalistic that, with the drums being cool, there is really only guitars and vocals left to do. That should take a couple of weeks, so what seemed like a behemoth of an undertaking is actually pretty well under way. I think this will be the best album I've ever done :)

here are some pictures from the drum session. Click for a full-screen view. Photo-credit: Mr. Q


The team - Kenneth, Q, Bredahl and myself - celebrating a job well done.


Let them eat cake.


Men of the year


Awesome conditions


Q recording a song tentatively entitled Kraut


Q's majestic setup. boom goes the drum.

Hey kids. So tomorrow is a big day for this record. We tried recording the drums at our rehearsal space which we totally botched – see the latest entry – so we decided to turn to a previous success. We've booked two days at the same studio we recorded the beta satan album a couple of years ago. Kenneth knows his way around the place, klaus is comfortable playing in the drum room and we've got a certain jacob bredahl (fee!) helping us out. Well, it's his studio, so he'll help us around what ever problem may arise. I'm pretty comfortable about this, seeing as we've prepared pretty much every single detail, and klaus is an amazing drummer so i can't see this not working out. I'll keep you posted, of course.

As for the songs, I wrote a new one on friday. It's totally depressing and a potential suicide risk, however, it is quite beautiful in my humble opinion, and it is going on the album fo' shaw. It's funny about these things... Just materialising out of thin air sometimes. Well, the new track brings the tally to 11, because we've ditched another mellow song I did. And i've got an idea for the album art work as well. I want big, mono-chrome, bright-as-fuck colours on every surface of it. It'd be cool to make the art work refer to nothing at all, somehow. I don't know. We'll see. I have to start thinking about album titles, also! Damn, I haven't given that much thought...

here's a picture of the love-team this time round. Photo credit: Kevin N. Andersen

Hey. Alright, so how's the little album coming along then? Well. Things aren't as simple as I had projected, of course. We're on a tight budget, so we can't afford extravagant studios and what not, so we decided to do the entire thing at beta satan's rehearsal space on account of the fact that we've gathered a fair amount of recording equipment there over the years. However, the room itself isn't suited for recording drums. It sounds tiny and makes the drums sound like hitting wet cardboard with a sausage, which is kinda not what we are looking for. So we tried recording the drums in two different corners of the room, and even the adjacent kitchen, and by golly, it just won't work. So, we're in the process of booking some studio time, stretching the aforementioned tight fucking budget, dammit!

Here's a video of little drummer boy mr Q screwing around with an ebow and me looking for a screwdriver. Riveting stuff right here.

and here are a couple of wide-lens photos for your visual enjoyment. How about that.

The daily diet consists of bananas, kanelgifler, coffee, cigarettes and a couple of beers in the evening. I find recording processes annoying and tedious and frustrating, so it's nice to eat crap and hang out with my buddies while cursing at elusive timbres and stuff. bye for now!