TagKMH

JMM master & jazz trio recording

Today I sent the finished master of Jean and the Mean Machine‘s debut album to the pressing plant. The release date for the album is November 18th, and the duo will go on a short tour in support of the album, starting a couple of weeks before the release.

Last week I recorded Daniel Angebrand Trio in KMH’s Studio 2. The trio features Daniel Angebrand (trumpet), Alexander Brott (guitar) and Jonas Grumstedt (bass). Here’s a track from last week’s session: Daniel Angebrand Trio – It Could Happen To You.

Weekly round-up

The gig with Tiny Union last Wednesday night went really well! The venue (Landet) was pretty much packed with people and we got a lot of nice comments from the audience post-gig, which was nice! The band that played after us, Brödet, were really good, so it was nice to catch their gig as well. At the moment we’re looking for a new rehearsal space, and once that is sorted, we’ll get on with the songwriting and hopefully book a few more gigs!

I recorded guitarist Vitor Celestino and drummer/percussionist Neto Oliveira again last Thursday in KMH’s Studio 2. This time around they brought Guto Lucena, who played flute and soprano saxophone. We recorded live takes of two Brazilian songs with everyone playing in the same room together.

Last night I went to see Jonatan Larson, who plays drums on the upcoming Sagan Om Alltings Förträfflighet album, play with The Royal Concept at Debaser Medis. They played an absolute killer show, I was actually quite blown away by their energy, this being the first time I saw them live.

Studio work & Tiny Union debut gig

I engineered two drum recording sessions this week in KMH‘s Studio 2. The first one was with drummer Jonathan Lundberg for two ballads off jazz/fusion bassist Johannes Zetterberg‘s upcoming third solo album. The second one was with Brazilian drummer Neto Oliveira, who played with guitar virtuoso Vitor Celestino. I had Vitor playing his seven string acoustic guitar right next to me in the control room, which was a pretty amazing experience for an old failed classical guitarist as myself.

Tiny Union will play our first gig next week on Wednesday, 17 September. The venue is Landet, Telefonplan (Stockholm). There’s a Facebook event for the gig, and there will be another band, Brödet, playing as well as a couple of DJ’s from Heaven Up Here spinning records!

Mixing & recording

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks working on the mixes for the Sagan Om Alltings Förträfflighet album and the Jean and the Mean Machine album. I did some additional acoustic guitar recording on the last track of the former album last week. Both albums are now getting close to finished. I am meeting Johannes Jacobsson, who’s producing the Jean and the Mean Machine album, next week to make some final mix tweaks before mastering.

Today I mixed a jazz quartet recording that I engineered earlier this week. The quartet consisted of four fine musicians: Tom Eddye Nordén on bass, Rasmus Blixt on drums, Johan Christoffersson on alto saxophone and Filip Ekestubbe on piano. The repertoire was a mix of jazz standards and original compositions. It was apparently the first time these four guys played together and it sounded great! Hopefully some of the cuts from this session will make it onto SoundCloud eventually. I’ll keep you posted.

To wrap this up, here’s a brand new video featuring a beautiful song that I mixed recently:

Espan Festive – “Colorblind” on YouTube

 

Graduation

I graduated from the Bachelor of Arts degree program in music and media production at KMH (Royal College of Music in Stockholm) yesterday! This means my first three years at KMH have come to and end. I will be back however after the summer to begin studying for a Master of Arts degree along with three of my classmates from the bachelor program.

Day:Dream was a very successful event and we managed to pack the venue with an enthusiastic crowd. People whom we spoke to after the show said they appreciated the smooth transitions between the different parts of the show, enhanced by video and audio. It was an interesting and exhausting experience to make everything work on a tight schedule, but I think we pulled it off in the end.

I will spend the summer working on four new albums and an EP and I am very excited to finally have the time to do this! The last few days I’ve revisited the mixes of the Sagan Om Alltings Förträfflighet album, which I hope will be finished within the next couple of weeks. It’s also time to put the final touches to the Jean and the Mean Machine debut album, which has been on hold for the past few months due to different circumstances. After that I will get to work on the Century Of Ecstasy album. The last bit means I will record some new material, and also re-record some old stuff that I’m not pleased with.

To wrap this up, here’s a treat, a video from Christoffer Karlsson’s gig at the Dubliner in Stockholm on May 6th, with me on the bass:

Christoffer Karlsson – Talk To Me on YouTube

Day:Dream premiere

Tonight’s the night for Day:Dream, a multimedia show featuring myself and ten of my fellow students at KMH (Royal College of Music in Stockholm.) The show features videos, music (both live and pre-recorded material, and any combination of the two), dance and interactivity. We have worked collaboratively with all parts of the show on and off now for the past few months. I will, among other things, perform a rearranged version of “Dötid”, from the upcoming Sagan Om Alltings Förträfflighet debut album. Tonight’s show at Teater Pero will be the only chance to experience Day:Dream live.

Live video shoot & gigs

Last week was another terribly busy one. Stockholm Sessions filmed five songs with my soon-to-be-named band with Bella Sohlberg and Gustav Löfstrand. Our performance of the song “Your Eyes On Me” will be released by Stockholm Sessions next Tuesday on YouTube.

After the video shoot, which took place last Friday, I went to Halmstad for a covers gig with Världens Bästa Band at a private event, and then back to Stockholm for a country/pop/blues/funk gig last night with Christoffer Karlsson at The Dubliner. This morning I laid down some bass for Sadia Gaya and now I will start mixing the audio from last week’s video shoot mentioned above. In the midst of everything I’ll try to finish my bachelor’s thesis and, oh yeah, my class at Kungl. Musikhögskolan (Royal College of Music) is working on a multimedia event titled Day:Dream that will feature music, video and a smartphone orchestra. Phew…

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!

Busy week

This week has started out pretty busy with rehearsals, mixing at home and a big band recording in the big studio. Monday marked the first rehearsal/songwriting jam of the year with Bella Sohlberg and Gustav Löfstrand. We’ve started a new group together that is yet to be named. We’ll focus on writing a lot of new material during the first half of 2014, and then hopefully play some shows in the second half. Tuesday marked this year’s first rehearsal with Anton Näslund, who brought in a couple of new songs which we (the band) tried to arrange and play. Anton plans on recording three new songs in the next couple of months, so there will be a few more rehearsals before moving into the studio.

Last night I assisted a big band recording in KMH’s (Royal College of Music) Studio 1 and got to sit behind the magnificent SSL Duality desk and hit record/stop and push some faders. Pretty easy task and quite enjoyable hearing the thirteen-piece brass section coming out of the speakers. In between doing all of this the last few days, I’ve also spent some time at home mixing the upcoming debut Sagan Om Alltings Förträfflighet single “SPF 25”. I’m already quite pleased with what I’m hearing, but I’m going to work on it in a few more studios before I know I’ve got it down.