Ill shove my smile in your face

Yesterday I finished drumming and other bits on a new track for Tom Doncourt. I really like the track. I did a blend of the old stuff and the new trying to bridge it somewhat as the choruses were very straightforward. I have started stacking drumkit tambourines and using that instead of hihats or rides. I have almost stopped using cymbals on the kit. I overdub them later often using several different ones so that the person mixing can tune the kit using whatever colours they feel like.

I have gotten rid of clicks in the studio which feels great. Its interesting to work with something until you are done. Take a short break and then start with something. Things dont really go all that faster because you know how long they have taken.

One thing is that I often wrestle with ideas and I always lose. If I get an idea I have to do it. Otherwise I feel like I have shortchanged myself.A couple ideas I did yesterday for Tom that I lost to were....

The real thing isnt as out of focus as this is.

1. A Casio SK-1 sample of the kit starting on the 1s of every second bar.
2. A vinyl crackle that coincides with the Casio sample to give it more framing.
3. A modular white noise rhythm.
4. A Icebell on the every 4 bars in the verses. I pulled it thru the AKG reverb and reversed the reverb so there are these long reverse builds in the verses. Pretty tasty.

After working on the Doncourt stuff I moved on to do percussion overdubs for Ketil. On Ural #3 I did a sort of fake 12/8 african pattern in the choruses. So to emphasize that I did a lot of hand drumming. Two or three dubs on every drum in different pitches to widen it. Polyrhythmic cowbells chattering away.

Today Ill be working with In these murky waters and trying to tie up some loose ends.

Now Playing: Dizzy Gillespie - Salt Peanuts

Im sorry but we have to let you go.

Yesterday I finished sorting out the final track for Ketil. Not that I dont have anymore Ideas. I just feel that I need to move on because I could probably spend a week on the track. Would it be better if I spent a week adding different sounds and textures? Probably not.

¨

One of my favorite things to do is to record multiple overdubs with triangles. You get a sort of weird pingy mosaic that can easily replace other 8th note stuff. I did that for Ketil yesterday. I also added african shakers, Maracas, chimes, finger cymbals, crickets (with the AKG reverb), tambourines, jingle sticks and bells, six snaredrums, castanets, gran cassas.

A picture from last nights cover shoot with Akaba.

Need to run....Ive got a 8 o clock mastering appointment with Akaba.

Now Playing: Mark Eitzel

Headlines

Yesterday I continued working on Ketils album adding more percussion and colours. I also edited in Roland TR-707 Handclaps on all of my Snaredrum hits for the first section. Why? Because Ketil is worth it. Today Ill be finishing the end Orchestral section multidubbing snaredrums, Becken etc. Hopefully Ill have time to add some Celestes and Glockenspiels as well.

Tonight Akaba will be in the studio taking pictures with Kjahart for her debut solo album. The cover is the first thing you see when you pick up an album. Tomorrow she will be mastering two tracks for radio release.

I heard the mastered version of the Anima Morte album and it is nothing less than stellar. The band has really evolved and outdone themselves this time. Really stoked about this release. Loads of great songs and sounds.

The secret pan-european project Ive been working with is slowly moving into place. I get mixes sent to me from a undisclosed location. Its also slightly terrifying. This morning I listened to a mix and I didnt recognize my drumming.....at all. So I went and checked the original files and it was all me.

Very exciting stuff indeed.

Now Playing: American Music Club

The reversed japanese man

Things are going according to plan which finds me both puzzled and worried. Yesterday I recorded drums on the final track on the Ural album (which is the working title for Ketils new project). I wish I could say that Im done but I messed up the order so there is one more track to go.
I think I recorded them in the order of 2,1 and 4.

My drumming on this album is different. I have approached it in a new way. Trying to break up normal patterns and loop it a bit more. The songs are massive with sheets of sounds and chords washing over the listener. Its better if the drums are there supporting in a weird way than chattering away in that traditional sense. Plus its far more interesting for me to do.

I also did three different modular noise patterns.

#1 The Electro Harmonix Random tone generator thru a delay and into the Prophet 5 filter controlled by a very slow LFO. Bleeps and squeaks abound. It ends in a spring reverb.

#2 The voice pattern..A japanese language record and the talking synth thru a tempo delay. Same general treatmenat but obviously more vocal and in tempo. Very odd. The talking synth is vomiting vowels in tempo as the japanes man is talking in reverse in the background.

#3 White noise and buddhist chanting. White Noise thru the delay and a original Buddha box (as in the ones you get at a temple) thru the filter and then out thru the delay. Loads of resonance for those Jet plane type sounds we all love.

The best thing about all of this is that I have already sent the files to Ketil so according to the new Fall of 2014 rules it has more or less left my table.

Today will be short as Im picking up the kids so Ill try to finish this....! Feels pretty spectacular.

Now playing: Thus Owls (because they are amazing)

Beating a horse to water.

In the middle of drumming again. This week will be mainly focused around two of my favorite artists. Ketil Vestrum Einarsen from Norway who is a softspoken volcano of creativity and ideas. I have played on two tracks so far and started to record on the final track on his new album. I wasnt in the studio for very long but I was really happy with the stuff that I did. Ketil is really great at programming drums in a kind of swingy, groovy loopy fashion. The kind of stuff that I cant play in a convincing manner.

So I started using my old Casio SK-1 and started sampling his rhythms. Its gonna sound great thru filters and echoes...I found a really good bell hit on a 7" single with african drumming which turned into a snare. I will be drumming on top of all of this but it just feels great to create an atmosphere with different elements.

Oh yeah...and the other legend Ill be working with is Tom Doncourt and his new album. Havent starting taking apart the track yet but Tom is one of those guys who will always surprise you. His music is smart, multilayered and frighteningly personal.

Had a weird dream last night. I dreamt that I was live producing the Doors onstage at a gig and was sort of conducting and building tracks infront of an audience. I was playing double drums with John Densmore and it constantly felt like I was rushing. Jim Morrison seemed happy though.

Its gonna be a great day. Ive made up my mind.

NP: Sufjan Stevens

Video of the day 19th of February 2014

Recording murfed Omnichord for my dear friend Ketil.

A Omnichord is an electronic musical instrument, introduced in 1981 and manufactured by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation. It typically features a touch plate, and buttons for major, minor, and diminished chords. The most basic method of playing the instrument is to press the chord buttons and swipe the touch plate with a finger or guitar pick in imitation of strumming a stringed instrument.

Omnichord thru the Moogerfooger Murf

Nowadays me and Ketil have a band together called Kaukasus together with british singer and multitalent Rhys Marsh. We will be releasing a single in March and

the album will explode onto the world..in April....

How do you define a russian mountainrange?

Me and my wife are working on an album about dreams and sleep. The idea is based loosely around an effectpedal which makes everything sound a bit drowsy and woozy. This has meant that ll of a sudden Im a lot more focused on dreams and sleep in general. How much am I sleeping, dreams? About what?

Im not really into the Idea that dreams mean all too much or have heavy symbolic meaning. That whole thing about Freud having 300 different symbols for penises just doesnt really fly, now does it?

I woke up this morning feeling pretty beatup. The reason being quite simple. I had a really frustrating dream. I was in a meeting talking about the new Kaukasus album. (Kaukasus is a progrockband consisting of me, Rhys Marsh and Ketil Vestrum Einarsen). We were talking about all the different qualities, levels and different aspects of the band.

But we couldnt define it.

And so the discussion started over again. 

My entire night consisted of trying to reach a definition. What is Kaukasus?

This probably all stems from the fact that we are reaching the end of the process. The album is mixed and done. We are sorting out details like bandphotos, albumcover, recordlabels. I spent last night listening to it.

So we sort of need to define what it is stylistically. Making the music sound great was very easy and fast..now we need to figure out what the music looks like.