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

Video of the day January 30th 2014

The guitarplayer in Pineforest Crunchs (Olle Söderström) father used to go back and forth to to New York a lot. On one of the flights he got placed next to a short english gentleman. He was terribly nice and they started talking. Olles father told the man about his kids and said that his son played guitar in a fairly popular Swedish popband. The man said that he dabbled with music so Olles father asked of course it was something that one might have heard off...and the man replied...Yes I used to play drums in a little band called Genesis.

So when Olles father came home he naturally asked Olle if he knew of a band called Genesis

....and their drummer. 

Why am I telling you this story....easy. Because it is Phil Collins birthday today.

Video of the day is of one of my closest friends Fredrik Klingwall bashing around and making all sorts of horror noises for the Anima Morte album. If you are into italian horrormusic...you should check them out. They are currently working on a new album that will probably 

(as far as I have heard) be amazing... 

Fredrik Klingwall playing an open Pianoframe

Drive.

Saturday night I went to celebrate Mats Lundgren on his 40th birthday. Mats plays bass and Keyboards in Pineforest Crunch. We have known each other since 1994 or something...He is now in the band Atlas with Ludvig Andersson.

In honour of this big birthday I thought I could share an old war story.

I think it was the spring of 2000. We had put together a package tour in the U.S with three bands Pineforest Crunch, Andreas & Jag and Reminder. We had played a show in Los Angeles at the Viper Room and after the show we ended up at a party with one of the A & R people at Interscope. We were just hanging out drinking beer, listening to music. The Counting Crows were there which was a big deal for the guys in Reminder as they were huge fans. I started to talk with one of the guys in the band and I told him that I was a huge Jon Brion fan so one of the guys dials a number and hands me the phone. Jon didnt answer but I left a very confused message on his answering machine. 

After a while there was a lot of commotion at the door and a bunch of police officers stormed the place. Apparently some neighbours had called them about the wild and crazy party we were having. We were very surprised as we thought we were just hanging out.

So the police broke up the party and we all stumbled into the van. Mats was the designated driver so he got behind the wheel and started driving. We told him to get out of Los Angeles and stop at the nearest Motel Six so we could get some sleep. 

We all relaxed in the car and people started drifting off to sleep. All of a sudden the car stopped abruptly and someone ripped open the van door. A avalanche of sunlight poured in to the van. We were all pretty groggy and messed up from the night before. But as soon as we fell out of of the van. We saw a very well known building. 

Alcatraz.

After the party Mats had felt pretty OK so he decided that he could drive all the way to San Francisco thru the night. "everybody is asleep anyway and we have a show in San Francisco tomorrow night so I might as well...Drive." 

On the back of Pineforest Crunchs third album Panamarenko there is a picture of Jonas brushing his teeth with Alcatraz in the background.

In some small way I think that illustrates (one of the many things) what so great about Mats. He is that guy who sees a problem and sorts it out. In a very softspoken way. He just does it.   

And when everyone else is asleep with their heads filled with counting crows, american beer and Jon Brion it feels good to know that Mats is behind the wheel. Driving through the Californian night.

(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

A new beginning

So its apparently time...again. Back in the old days of the Roth Händle studio I had a webpage. It was voted the worst webpage online due the amounts of scrolling and windows you had to open. I have to agree. It was a mess...nowadays the webpage has been overtaken by some guy who seems to think cheap insurance is the way to go. But atleast it was something. Now there is no webpage just a fairly active facebookpage and a twitter account that sort of twitches and moves in a fairly random fashion.

The studio on the other hand is very much alive.

By a weird clash of calendars I ended up spending a lot of time in the Swedish countryside this summer. It was terribly nice being with my kids and all but what it meant was that I for the first time in a long while had the opportunity to think about what I am up to. And it forced to make some radical changes and decisions.

I decided to focus more on projects that I was directly involved in as a writer and not as an overdub musician. I wanted to have a bigger part in the artistic direction of the projects I was involved in...and I also decided to cut back on touring with other artists. By making my mind up things started to change. Im still an overdubpuppet by more on my terms and by that with more passion. I have forced myself to become more social musically and have started a lot of projects that will come into fruition next year.

This past year has been terribly active. And next year seems to go into overdrive.

These are some of the artists that have graced the studio in 2013.

Necromonkey, Akaba, Kenny Håkansson, Walrus, Kaukasus, Paul Sumner (UK), Velasco (Ita), Ingrannagi della valle, Nacht, In these murky waters, Paradox, Carl Hasselrot, Zorg, White Willow (Nor), Emma Nordenstam, Molesome, Kinski Pop, My god damn Territory, Staphan O Bell, Page, The Opium Cartel (Nor)....and more.

If you have ideas that you think belong at Roth Händle studios....drop me a line at

Rothhandlestudios@gmail.com

Have a great christmas and thanks for stopping by....