Favorite Girls and Wedding night 45s

Its been a pretty weird and wild year. A pretty confusing one as well. When people ask me what Im working on I often have a hard time remembering what Im actually up to which is strange as Im in the studio pretty much every day working on stuff. The year ended with finishing the debut album of Norwegian experimental proggers Pixie Ninja. The album is really interesting as they arrange the material in a fairly unique way. Pretty much no themes come twice. This means that the production has to lead the listener between the themes and melodies. I have realized that this is crucial in how I view music I work with. I am aware that this is only how I view it and its possibly pretty abstract from the outside but in my head a piece doesnt work if you confuse a listener without cathing their fall or showing them the right card at the end of the trick. There has to be a narrative in the production.  

Yesterday was supposed to be some kind of new beginning in the studio as I got a really good solid vinyl player to the studio. A direct drive vinyl player. The idea was to start messing with scratching and manipulating vinyl. Not a very revolutionary idea but for a 41 year old prog rock drummer it is really exciting. I hooked it up and started messing with some LPs but I couldnt get it to work properly because the LP stuck to the mat I guess so a bit more tweaking needs to be done. The 45s work better.

One cool thing is that I got a chance to hear some of the vinyl Ive bought at fleamarkets over the last couple of travels. Just before christmas I visited Houston to go to Andy McWilliams and Lindsay Burns wedding and went to a Mexican flea market in the afternoon before the wedding.

The fleamarket was massive and there were possibly 3-400 stalls. Great for weird and unique last minute christmas shopping. My son is into the whole Pokemongo thing so I bought a couple of cards for him. I have been going to fleamarkets for over 20 years so I think I have developed a fairly good eye for the different levels and sublevels of crap that seems to be in abundance.

At one of the stalls they had some vinyl and vintage video games. Everything was pretty dusty and it all had that classic Flea Market sticky surface. I picked up two or three little 45s. One thing that I have really enjoyed about getting the turntable is that its like the the birthplace of ideas. I have been walking around thinking about the infinite possibilities of this new piece of equipment.

So yesterday I had the chance to try it out. One of the discs was a 45 called education in sound. I put it on and found that it was an educational disc about the wedding night and how it works which I found to be a bit eerie considering I was going to a wedding 3 hours later. It was oddly enough fairly modern (not graphic at all) and ttalked about how the groom needs to be patient with the bride.

Anyways...I recorded a little piece yesterday using the Volca Sample and some little words from the Education in sound...

https://soundcloud.com/rothhandlestudios/beginnings

There is something very rewarding doing these pieces as they feel like a scavenger hunt. I also like how one sounds triggers your imagination to find the next.

So there we are. The last day of 2016. Scavenger hunts and intently listening to wedding night 45s.

Ill see you on the other side.

Love, Always.

// Mattias

Bob Marley - Its Reggae.

I live in Stockholm. Its the capital of scandinavia. I live close to a subway station called Fridhemsplan. Now there is a mall there where you can buy things to make you and and your house look better than it does now. But when I moved here it was the most dangerous part of town at four in the morning. Im not sure how they measure that but its a statistic and statistics never lie. Stastitics are relatives to facts. They are not the same thing...but sort of.

Radioheads Kid A was a #1 in America. Fact.

Gargamel has never succeeded in killing a smurf. Fact

Karl Bartos (from Kraftwerk) has been banned from playing Bingo in Dusseldorf because of frequent rumours concerning rigged numbers and games.

About ten or fifteen years ago at this subway station there was a man with a long coat. He would open up the coat and inside there would be rows and rows of CDs and he would look you square in the eye and say.

"- Do you want to buy CDs? Bob Marley - Its reggae."

And I always thought that was hilarious. All of the covers had the Lion, Haile Selassie and the rastacolours and ganja plants and of course....Bob Marley on them. The fact that he still needed to clarify that just to make sure that there was no confusion concerning the genre in question. Bob Marley - Its Reggae.

So today I had a slow morning and stopped by my trail of fleamarkets on the way to the studio and I bought some 45s. The annoying thing is that I found six 45s at the first fleamarket and nothing and I mean nothing at the others. But fleamarketing is a bit like fishing. If you get a bite in the beginning you can stand around for hours just waiting for a second fish. The notion of a good day for fleamarketing is sort of a joke. 

Im rambling...But in that first batch I found the single you see at the top. I love Ray Charles and was very happy. Its not rare or anything I just like him and I love the 45 format.

But this cover had a bonus that I discovered when I looked closer. Scribbled with a blue pen someone had written bluespianist on it. Just to clarify things. It made me very happy. It made my day.

Because immediately I thought about a man I met ten years ago with a coat filled with CDs. 

Bob Marley - Its Reggae. Fact.