Drumming for The shadow of Ketil Vestrum Einarsen

I think there is this Idea that all ones ideas should be these isolated Icebergs of immaculate beauty and artistic clarity. I wish it was like that. I am a lot simpler than that. Im more of a creative plumber than anything else. A lot of my computertime nowadays seems to be spent chatting away aimlessly with either Ketil (Vestrum Einarsen) or Jacob (Holm-lupo) in Norway. We bounce ideas and snippets of songs. Trying to figure out where we are going with his whole music thing. The other day Jacob sent me a link to the first UK album.

The dreaded 80s octoban

I hadnt heard it since the early 90s. I was surprised to hear how extremely dated it sounded. Bill Bruford was doing his early rototom stuff and it just had that weird feel and sound to it. Another thing that is really interesting about Rototoms is that sound pretty awful acoustically but record really well...When recording ideas for Ketils album Im letting all of these influences, sounds and ideas bleed in. Ive consciously broken up my playing using very few cymbals. I very seldom hit single hits on the snare drum and I avoid the 2 & 4. This opens up for using small tight drums that cut thru and are tonal and sharp....remembering my conversation with Jacob about UK I decided to get rid of the Hihat and throw in a 12" Rototom there instead. I do all the 8 note stuff with shakers and tambourines instead so that it can be edited sharper for effect.

A tambourine pile

Yesterday I recorded the drums for the third track on the album...weirdly enough called #3 for the timebeing. I started thinking about my childhood and the drummers I liked and as a kid I loved Duran Duran. Roger Taylor was my favorite drummer. He always looked like he was struggling. But always overdubbed these cool accents on rototoms.

One of my childhood heroes with a rototom.

The track starts with a really quiet opening section so I decided to do something extreme for a prog song....played brushes. I love the sound even though I am always struggling when recording. It has to have that feel. Then I started thinking of another of my favorite drummers Stewart Copeland and brought out one of my Octobans and built the 16th note rhythms around that configuration. As I am avoiding the snare on the 2 and 4 I built a sort of tambourine pile on the hihat stand that plays that part. 

So it all came from hearing a bit of UK and thinking about what drummers I liked as a kid. 

Today Ill be working on a new Tom Doncourt track and the Akaba album will be mastered at Cutting room.

NP: Björk - Biophilia

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

The Utopia synth and the Waterphone

Yesterday was good....On and off I have been working on a secret album....adding drums and some synths and general havoc. I think I might have finished my work on the album and had a great time in doing so. Fall is slowly creeping onto Stockholm making it painfully beautiful.

I also did one of my favorite things which is to buy fresh vegetables and start the day by making a slow cooking soup....all the flavours just meshing together hour after hour. Making a lot of it so that I can eat it thruout the week.

The drumming was fairly simple using my Sonor kit and minimal amount of cymbals. Hihat, Crash and Ride. I have started using my 20" zildjian medium ride again which was my first "real" cymbal. I used it on the entire first Änglagård album and has been picked up from time to time. During the Pineforest years I put rivets in it.

After that I did some percussion overdubs just to glue the kit together. Its a fairly slow slong so I added cymbal swells to make it more dramatic and grand...I also did a Roth Händle classic. Since Nanook of the North I have always liked tremolos on cymbalswells...It gives them a kind of feverish shivering sound.

The guitarist in the band loves tremolo guitar so I decided to do a special and pull the cymbals thru a leslie....going from fast to slow to make it more dramatic....Its a cool effect. Try it...!

After that I did some modular stuff...the Utopia synth thru a Polivox filter thru a spring reverb thru a analog delay...One take of noise and then copied to another channel and reversed. Ended the day with some vinyl scratches added to the bassdrum to give it some framing and some bowed Waterphone.

A slow but creative day....and the soup was amazing.

NP:
Hauscka - Subconscious
Simon & Garfunkel - So long Frank Lloyd Wright

Time and how to fight back

Coming back from a tour like Necromonkeys latest US adventure it feels like there is a window where you have a chance to evaluate what you are up to and what you are doing. One of the things that I realized very quickly coming back was how little I missed having my phone charged and being "connected". I can generally get all my computer stuff done in maybe an hour a day. Very few things are that acute....I still have a phone...and no I still dont like it.

Also I want to simplify things. Focus more on one thing at a time....which isnt really like me at all. Atleast I can try.

So the latest plans for the studio are fairly simple. I need to start by cleaning the place up so that I can see the floor again. I remember it as being kind of nice.

When I have cleaned it up...Ill make a new fresh mess....because that is how I work.

I think Ill be drumming today. I think its gonna be great.

I also have some other Ideas.

We played with Akaba in Örebro on Friday night. A lot of fun. Good music and good conversation.

I get along without you very well. Of course I do.

Now Playing: Frank Sinatra - I get along without you very well
Now Reading: John Densmore - Riders of the storm

Gig Reflection Part 2 Mother at Fylkingen Staer (Nor) 13th of February 2014

After a beer or two its time for the main event, the Noiserock trio Staer from Norway. 

The band has positioned themselves on the floor. Im not sure but Ive always felt a bit annoyed when people set up flat on the floor but with Staer its a blessing. It feels like a privilege to be close to see what is going on. The trio is placed with drummer Thore Warland firmly placed in the centre. 

As some of you might know Im originally a percussionist. Thats were I started and I always look for new and interesting drummers or percussionists. I like everyone from Ringo to Aphex Twin to Tom Waits and Harry Partch and back again.

So when we were about to start up my old band Änglagård again I started to look around to see what was going on on the drumming scene. I wanted to do my homework, find out what was going on...and I must say I wasnt really too impressed.

This is sort of what I found or things quite like it.

Hours and hours of practise.

And to me it sort of actually feels like this.

Complicated drumming.

There are amazing drummers out there but when I listen to them all I hear are chops, math and endless hours of practising but sadly enough....almost no Ideas or visions. No personality. To me Bill Bruford, Stewart Copeland and Jaki Liebzeit are still people I admire and look up to as their feel is so personal and strong. The superdrummers nowadays that are perceived as being great are of course very impressive. But their drumming never moves me, it leaves me cold. 

Staers drummer is very much the opposite. He has chops but his ideas and approach are filled with personality and a very unique dialect. His way of moving around a kit is inspiring and his body language speaks volumes.

The start of the show. 

The bands guitarist and bassplayer build a massive stompboxlaced wall of dark noise. I have to come clear though on one point...when you have two musicians with a whammy pedal each and multiple Moogerfoogers you know that clean harmonies and sing-a-long choruses arent on the menu. They sound more like two tuned tanks trying to pocketpark in downtown Dhaka. 

Its a rivetting display of sounds and layers but not exactly hummable.

But to my immense joy even though bass and drums lock occasionally the playing field is pretty much open for this truly remarkable drummer.

The encore 

His style is very loopy which I love. His drumming is based around a open doublestroke moved freely around the kit. I have never heard a drummer play in this manner before. The actual drumming technique is definitely not new, he uses a very simple basic foundaton of drumming but utilizes it in a refreshing and exciting way. As a bonus I can also tell you that it is very uncomfortable playing like this for extended time. Well atleast for me.

He also used a very cool sonic technique. Contact miking his cymbals and then pulling them out thru a mixer and into an amp. In my experience cymbals generally dont need too much miking 

but this added another dimension to the sound.

From the first note to the last I stood there with a big stupid grin on my face.

I have played the clips to my wife and some of my friends and they all look at me with a slightly confused look on their faces. A mix between Why? What? and a splash of Whatever....

But I was there and I saw the light. 

And it came in the shape of an exceptionally talented Norwegian Drummer.

Drumming inside the box and the blind juggler

Im back in town after spending a couple of days away from computers. First some time at the summerhouse and then we went up to Falun where me wifes family has a great place down by the lake. Some running, some swimming, some reading...But no music which drives me bananas.

The drive to and from Falun is one of my favorites....we have driven it numerous times. But since someone stole our car radio a couple of years back we actually have a chance to talk to each other without interruptions...Its a luxury. Even just commenting on how other people drive (which is usually very fast and dangerous) its communication. 

But after three hours with three kids in a fairly small car Im pretty worn out...So this will be short.

Thank you all for your suggestions and ideas concerning the two in/four out box AKA the blind Juggler. Ben Minto found a schematic for it...now I just need to find someone who can build it.

Heres the schematic.

The Blind Juggler Schematic

If you think you can build it...drop me a line.

Tomorrow Ill be returning back to the studio for some ideaswork. There are a handful of really cool ideas that are bouncing around as well as a lot of keyboardwork for a fairly secret project. Hopefully I can talk about it all very soon. I think Ill be recording some ideas with a simple autopanner just to show you the main idea of the blind juggler.

Video of the day is from my sessions with Carl Hasselrot. He brings something very collagey, loopy and very long and then I try to vomit out as many ideas I possibly can in 4-5 hours. Keys, drums, Waterphones....you name it. It is a lot of fun. Then he gets all the files and pieces them together into something completely new.

Drumming for Hasselrot

Now Playing: David Byrne - Strange Ritual

(Drumming and) Manipulating time like the chunky kid in Harry Potter.

I have played drums for 30 years now and its still terribly fun to do but somewhere along the way (probably around 1998) I realized that I probably wasnt going to be "the drummer" or end up on the cover of Modern drummer. I was never really that great and I always preferred playing with bands and music I liked. Around that time I also bought my first keyboard and my awareness and focus started to moved beyond my battered old Sonor phonic plus kit.

When we recorded Make Believe with Pineforest Crunch at EMI studios in Skärmarbrink, Stockholm.
I was talking to the engineer, the legendary Pontus Olsson and told him.

"My dream is to be a studiomusician and play drums on recordings"

He promptly solo´d a very odd and slightly off fill and commented.

"So...you want to be a studiodrummer, eh? Well...that fill wont help"

At the end of this year I have been drumming on a bunch of different albums and I must say that it is really fun. I like combining drumkits, cymbals and different drumheads. Creating combinations. My focus has obviously changed a lot. I think a lot about how the drums will fit in the final production more than how to showcase my chops (which are few and far between) in the most flamboyant way possible.

Another thing I really enjoy is overdubbing percussion. There is so much to do when it comes to percussion on recordings. It is very similar to keyboards in a way. Just by adding one hit you can change the atmosphere and feel of a song. By adding 16th notes you can create an illusion of the track being faster and quarternotes will probably make it feel "heavy". Manipulating time. Like Magic. Like the chunky kid in Harry Potter. Or Gandalf. Or Doctor Who. Or Richard Dawkins. Like the smart guy in the wheelchair with the weird boxy voice. Manipulating time.  

Here is a little film of me adding some Rototoms to a Carl Hasselrot track. The idea is that Im playing a bunch of different phrases so that he can move them around as he likes. Just to give the track a bit of a push....when needed.

Rototoms are also really interesting is that they sound so much better when you back off from them and get a bit of room but sound horrible and flat while you are playing them. Also I was a big Miami Vice fan as a kid.

Have a great monday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t615AFnapEU