Biking the Archipelago Ad

I co-produced and mixed the song “Better With You” together with Bella Sohlberg for an ad for Södra Bohuslän Turism titled “Biking the Archipelago”. The song was written by Bella Sohlberg and features vocals by her and her father, Robert “Biggles” Sohlberg. Bella also played acoustic guitars on the recording. I played electric guitars, bass and piano and Johan Salomonsson played drums.

“Biking the Archipelago” Ad on YouTube

I’ve been working on the mixes for the Sagan Om Alltings Förträfflighet record the last few days, moving swiftly from song to song. I’m enjoying the process of having several songs to work on simultaneously, and I think the end result will benefit from that. This week and the next I’m also busy rehearsing with guitarist/songwriter Hugo Lundgren’s project. We’re going to start recording next Wednesday, on my 28th birthday, in one of Stockholm’s finest recording studios. We plan to cut the basic tracks (drums, bass and guitar) live without a click track to keep things as organic as possible.

UR premiere

I composed and produced music for UR (Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company) last fall. The episode of the show that features my music has now been aired and is available online at the UR website:

http://www.ur.se/Produkter/179612-Radioskrivarklubben-nordsamiska-Katten-Misse-och-hunden-Nilsa#start=203

The show is called Radioskrivarklubben and features radio drama inspired by children who have collaborated over the stories in workshops. This was the first season that was made in the Northern Sami language, one of the languages spoken by the indigenous Sami people of northern Scandinavia.

I played a covers gig last week with Världens Bästa Band. The gig went well, apart from a power failure halfway through our first encore. We were back after ten minutes though and played three more songs. The show, as you might know, must go on…

This week has been pretty busy, I’ve done a bunch of different things: a few rehearsals, worked on some mixes, done a bit of songwriting with Bella and Gustav, done a bit of beats programming with Bella. I rehearsed with singer/songwriter Christoffer Karlsson for the first time last night. I will play bass with him at a gig sometime in late April/early May. The music is very “Nashville”, which is a bit new to me, and Christoffer has managed to put together a great band, so it will be very interesting and a lot of fun!

Rehearsing w/ VBB

I spent the weekend in Värnamo, three and a half hours south of Stockholm by train, rehearsing with Världens Bästa Band for a gig in Halmstad this Thursday. The band’s repertoire consists of Swedish and international rock classics. We had a great time and I even went for a swim in the freezing water after a few beers in the sauna at singer/guitarist Alex’s place.

I managed to get my hands on a Fender Bass VI yesterday, which was great! Absolutely in love with this awesome instrument which is a hybrid of bass and guitar. I plan to use it primarily with the new band I’ve started with Bella Sohlberg and Gustav Löfstrand. We’re still concentrating on writing songs, but will soon begin to focus a bit more on our arrangements and on finding the right sound for our band.

Mixing Bella & Rehearsing w/ Hugo

I ended up mixing the demo of “Julian” this week. This was a new song from Bella Sohlberg (Fedra) that I played bass on. I had just two or three hours to work on the track, so I had to work in hyper speed mix mode. Fun, although a bit exhausting.

Hugo Lundgren is a guitarist and songwriter who has written songs for an EP. I will play bass on this EP and help out with some parts of the production. We rehearsed together for the first time this week, with drummer Niklas Niskanen and vocalists Bella Sohlberg and Julia Jonas. Hugo is planning to rent one of the larger studios in our around Stockholm and try to cut as much as possible live. Here is an acoustic live performance of one of the songs that will be included on the EP:

“Where the Green Grass Grows” on YouTube

Mixing Joel & Recording Anton

I sat down in the studio with guitarist Joel Svensson last Thursday to mix a few tracks that Erik Errka Petersson recorded for him recently. The music was jazz standards played by a fantastic quartet consisting of Joel, bassist Tom Eddye Norden, drummer Karl-Henrik Ousbäck and pianist Torbjörn Gulz. Joel has uploaded three of the tracks to his YouTube channel, check out this one:

Fifth House (J.Coltrane) on YouTube

Friday marked the beginning of the recording sessions for the new Anton Näslund EP. We cut bass and drums live in the studio and smoothly worked our way through three tracks. Drummer Alexander Carlberg brought in his kit from his own studio, which really helped the sound of the recording. The kit sounded tight and bright and should fit this EP perfectly. We had an awesome selection of mics for it as well, with a pair of Schoeps Colette in narrow ORTF stereo as overheads and a pair of AKG C414’s in Blumlein stereo as room mics. Well, you know it’s good when you can afford to put a Neumann on hi-hat… I brought in a couple of basses for the session and recorded them direct through my Radial J48 DI, which always sounds bright and big. I ended up playing my Epiphone Allen Woody Rumblekat bass on two tracks, and my Bravewood fretless jazz bass on one track. It was fun to try out different basses for different tracks, maybe next time I’ll bring a few more!

Mixing SOAF

I spent the last week and a half mixing my way through the Sagan Om Alltings Förträfflighet record. At this point I’m a little past halfway through it, although I’m trying to work quickly and save the details for later. I recorded some synth overdubs too, and some additional background vocals for a track called “Ta ett kliv”.

Last night I was in the studio with Bella Sohlberg and drummer Johan Salomonsson to record basic tracks for a demo of a new song of Bella’s called “Julian”. She has written this song for her Swedish pop project Fedra. I played bass and Bella played an electric piano while we cut the drums and bass live. Afterwards she replaced the electric piano with an acoustic upright piano, which sounded fantastic through a pair of brand new Schoeps Colette mics I wish were mine… We used the same mics for drum overheads too and I think they did a pretty good job there as well.

Weekly round-up

Just a quick post to summarize this week’s efforts. This week was pretty much the same as last week, mixing, rehearsing and writing songs. Finished a batch of new mixes for Jean and the Mean Machine, and continued to work on the S.O.A.F. record. I have decided now to finish the whole record before putting anything out. I think it will be a lot more fun to work that way, rather than spending weeks just working on one or two tracks. It’s nice to be able to compare different mixes of different tracks, too. Bella and Gustav and I wrote some pretty cool songs this week, and I’ve started thinking about what my live rig should be like. Right now I’m thinking a Fender Bass VI…but I don’t have one of those, so that means I’d have to buy one…hmm, we’ll see. That’s not the only instrument I have in mind; the latest versions of Logic and MainStage allow for some pretty cool experimentation. I’m thinking that with a Bass VI and a MIDI keyboard, plugged into a computer, I could have a lot of fun.

COE press

So, the single “The City Of You” has been out for a week! These were the first blogs to catch on:

http://www.indiekeepscrolling.com/2014/01/q-with-century-of-ecstasy.html

http://meadowmusic.se/en/2014/01/stilett-hurula-the-bland-band-rebstar-and-century-of-ecstasy/

Everything else single-related you will find at centuryofecstasy.com

Had a pretty busy week mixing and rehearsing, and sorting out my application for a Master of Arts program in Music Production! Mixing-wise, I sort of finished the mix of “SPF 25”, at least for now, and started working on another track off the Sagan Om Alltings Förträfflighet album, called “Dötid”. I revisited the Jean and the Mean Machine album, and I will spend a few more hours on it next week, before sending mixes to the band. The songwriting sessions with Bella Sohlberg and Gustav Löfstrand continued to be fruitful, and we’re planning to shoot a live session sometime in April or May. I also rehearsed with Anton Näslund and the band is starting to sound really good and together. Anton has written some new songs, and they’re all really good. It’ll be fun recording them soon!