Cthulu Cream

So apparently its 2017 which is great as everybody seems to have become a bit fed up with 2016. For me 2016 was pretty ok with a lot of travelling and touring and then an incredibly productive fall.

Some of the highlights were without doubt the Necromonkey tour in October, Recording with Fredrik Klingwall, The Pixie Ninja album, The Gösta Berlings saga sessions, the Akaba tour in February, playing with Il Tempio delle Clessidre in Genoa just to mention some of the adventures. The Necromonkey tour stands out as it was a kind of weird struggle. Within 24 hours after leaving Stockholm everything sort of fell apart. Losing our luggage at JFK, our Fender Rhodes contact in Brooklyn being a no-show, trying to use a so called repaired set of Taurus pedals that turned out to be glitchier than ever and than slowly piecing our backline back together and finishing on a remarkable high note in Chicago with a guest appearance by our friend Mike Keneally.

Both me and David are fairly resourceful people but these issues and just the sheer amount of them were impossible to solve by ourselves. The tour would had been a very stationary quiet event
if it wasnt for Jim Robinson, Ray Loboda, Jon Yager, Cat Roache and Tom Doncourt. We cant thank you enough. We were also very lucky to get to open for Rikard Sjöbloms band. Great guys and a complete pleasure to tour with.

Jon, Jim, Tony and David in Chicago

Touring is a long series of problem solving, gaffa taping and spotify cruising and than the occasional music playing. Ive been doing it my entire life on different levels and I still enjoy it immensely. When you have a well oiled machinery on the road there is simply nothing better.

Thomas from Änglagård was asked in a interview why he wasnt touring with the band and he said "I try to make my life as simple as possible, touring (with Änglagård) is the exact opposite of that".

Someone asked me why Thomas wasnt touring with the band and I always replied "He is the smart one"

After I came back home a feverish flood of recording started. I try to do as much as possible without questioning or taking things apart. I just record them and wait. I might go back and add stuff but its also very possible Ill just throw them on the heap of 700+ songs I have written and just see how it survives. Picasso is apparently the most producrive Artist of all time and did 144000 pieces...They cant all be Guernica, right? Some of them must be small, simple and spontaneous.

Cthulu Cream is one song that is exactly that. Its simple, naive, clumsy and short. But it is something. And if you hate the song the title is still pretty great.

https://soundcloud.com/rothhandlestudios/cthulu-cream

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

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