The wonderful Finn Harrison in my kitchen.
Told you so.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Studio Update #4
Me and Fredrik from the last session (Photo by Martin Gustafsson)
Today the sessions for the Anima Morte album will be continue. With a bit of luck there will be a fair amount of Mellotronrecording and weirdness. Last session we recorded the Roth Händle pipe Organ, Loads of Mellotron (Eight voice choir, String section, Black sabbath choirs, Pipe Organ, Tubular Bells and Timpani)
Its gonna be a lot of fun....and with a bit of luck some of it might end up on "tape" as well...
Monday, February 24, 2014
Studio update #3
Studio update #3
Apparently the first batch of Necromonkey CDs have reached the US shores which makes me very happy. Its taking alot longer than we hoped for to get the discs over there so we appreciate your patience. If you want to order one please drop us a line at Necromonkeyness@gmail.com
Today we recorded vocals on the Akaba track Riflegun. Åsa is very convinced the title is gonna stay...Im not too sure. It really is a pleasure working on this album. We have been at it for some time but it still feels very fresh and Im also under the illusion that we know what is going on thematically.
After Åsa left I started mixing track 6 for the ...in these murky waters album today. This track is based around the Optigan disc Banjo sing a long which is a weirder one. Not so much weird but I have very little in my life that connects to finger picking banjos.
As I am working on the album I try really hard to make it as interesting as possible. Sometimes it is about breaking up the arrangement or shifting the focus. In this video Im doing a treatment on the Banjos...where Im pitching it down and puling it thru some effects. When its played at the right speed it sounds a lot more....interesting....I think.
The thing is by doing this I started getting other Ideas and added some Mellotron Timpanis and all of a sudden everything changed.
Book review : How music works - David Byrne
How Music Works - David Byrne
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I have been a fan of David Byrne for pretty much as long as I can remember. As a kid I saw Talking Heads videos on MTV and was always impressed by how creative, strong and weird I thought he was. Also I liked the fact that he was smart, arty and funny. It was always inviting.
I bought my first David Byrne book in japan. It was a book of photos from his travels. On the same trip I bought a book with Freakshow posters. And who wrote the foreword in the book? David Byrne. A couple of years later I stumbled across his book on Bicycles (It really is the future, you know).
As I have started driving to work I usually turn on a ted talk that I can listen to in the car. Its a great format and I have the illusion that some of it might stick. When I saw that David Byrne had done one I was very happy indeed. He spoke about the architecture of the rooms were music is performed and how it effects the music that is played there. Or the other way around. Operahouses, punkclubs etc etc
A couple of months later I stumbled across his new book and it wasnt a hard sell.
In this fairly lengthy book David Byrne is doing two things...From his own experiences and studies he wants to explain how Music, the Music business and how Music performance works....also he is trying to avoid an ageing rockstar biography. And he is a enthusiatic writer. He has read books and studies on the subject. He writes about music history, music architecture, resonances and acoustic phenomena (I had no idea all the planets had their own harmonic character...) and the finances of the modern recording industry.
David Byrne is a writer who feels strongly about his subject and he has a naturally inquisitive mind....but he looses me occasionally in the book. Especially the chapter about the economics of the Music Industry become lengthy and dare I say it....boring. It is very difficult to make ends meet in the modern music industry....I sort of had a clue about that. But Byrne is passionate about it. So in this case maybe it isn´t the writers fault but the readers...I cant muster up the energy to look at pie charts of record label finances. I probably should but it doesnt light my fire.
Now and then David Byrne writes from his own experiences with CBGBs, "world music", Brian Eno and the Talking Heads....and all of a sudden his language changes in the book. He is a lot more fluid and to the point. He is funny and witty and the words come easy. I love these sections and probably thats why I liked his book on bicycles too....Subjects that reside within him are simple for him to write about, stories and tales he knows and as a result...while Im reading I hear his voice in my head. In the rest of the book I sort of see him shuffling thru papers, post its and quotes from other sources.
A good read....but bring sandwiches and coffee. It might take a while.
Video of the day 24th of February - Tobias recording the Stylophone 350s
One girl playing the Stylophone 350s and three obviously deaf people looking on.
...and here is what Wikipedia thinks of the 350s.
The more versatile 350s version of the instrument was used by UK experimentalists Camberwell Now, and appeared on their album All's Well. The 350s dual-stylus version was also extensively used as a lead instrument by British band Pulp from 1992 to 1994. Its glacial tones are particularly evident on their breakthrough album His 'n' Hers (most notably the songs "Happy Endings" and "Pink Glove") whilst the 1993 album, Intro – The Gift Recordings, features a track called "Styloroc (Nites of Surburbia)" which revolves around a riff played on the first model. Pop/rocker Richard Barone features the 350s prominently on his 2010 album "Glow" (Bar/None Records), particularly on the title track, its instrumental reprise, and cover of T.Rex's "Girl," on which it is played by producer Tony Visconti.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Video of the day 23rd of February - Fredrik from Anima Morte recording Mellotron 8 voice choir
Todays video is from last weeks Anima Morte sessions.
The Mellotron he is playing on is the first Mellotron I got I bought it from the bassplayer of Änglagård. Its been toured a fair amount and is in good working shape...I use it pretty much every day. On top of the Mellotron you can see Markus Reschs new creation. The digital Mellotron, the M4000D.
Other people who have enjoyed the 8 voice choir include Genesis, Radiohead too mention but a few.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Video of the day 22nd of February 2014....Akaba sessions.
Tobias Ljungkvist and the Vox String Thing
A great day in the studio yesterday. We started off listening to a Akaba track called Everything Matters to sort of close the book on the track but realized very quickly that it needed....lead vocals and drums (maybe).
So we moved on to another track with the horrible working title Rifle gun. Its a weird track and were are not completely sure wether it will make it on to the album. So we started by having Tobias recording his signature instrument, the baritone guitar.
I think its very important to do stuff in productions that work as question marks. So we pulled out an old Vox String Thing and pulled it thru NecroDavids Peavey.
This pushed the track in a completely new direction so we recorded two takes with the tremelo at different settings to create a weird fluttering effect. As bass we added the Stylophone 350s. To give the choruses more high end energy and movement we recorded two takes of Mono/poly arpeggios. By doing this we had changed the whole feel of the track making it much more electronic in a slight 80s fashion. The half tempo drums I had recorded sounded utterly out of place and probably wont be used. To get the drums more harmonic we used the Vocoder plus to make the electribe follow the chords....and then we ended it all by recording a Chamberlin Piano thru a rather dull sounding Boss Leslie pedal.
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