Recording With Geir Arne Ose

Last week I was lucky enough to get a visit from my good friend and drummer, Geir Arne Ose.

We laid down 19 drum tracks in the studio, on 3 days!
Thats pretty impressive. On arrival, Geir Arne  didn't  know  anything about which songs he was supposed to play (or that we aimed for 19 tracks). He did the task wonderfully, even though its over 10 years since he had heard and played on the songs. 

Some of these songs will, of course be released here in the future. 

We had a blast, both in the studio and after/between sessions!  

Went For Angels, Found Fireflies

The different parts of «Went For Angels, Found Fireflies» was composed between 2004 and 2005, but the song was not concluded until 2009. The main structure of the song was built in Tarzana, LA in 2008. I remember hearing, what I thought was fireflies outside on the balkony, hence the name. However, fireflies (in California), are so rare, that it must have been something else (or I was very lucky ;).

The working title for the song was «Sand». At some point I had so many songs with desert themed names or athmospheres, that I started to perform under the alias «Desert Son».

The «Desert Son» name also reflected on the fact, that I had ended up doing most of the artistic work on my songs,  by myself. Everything from composing, mixing and playing most of the instuments.  I’ve basically always been involved in all instrumentation and recording, but at this point I decided to not have a fixed band of musicians, and approach music more as a painter or writer. 

This again, was the birth of this 5 year long album project, and enabled me to do what I am doing now. 

Croak Not Croon

"Croak Not Croon" was composed around 1995. 

I recorded it for the first time in 1995 at Audiofarm Studios, with Mixer/Engineer Svein Erik Åmås

I remember that we recorded it so fast that we had time to record more songs, sadly we didnt have more songs ready for just one acoustic guitar, but we recorded a variation of another song we had, it probably just took, 30 minutes. 

The released version is recorded at a later stage though, and it was almost randomly picked, as I have so many recordings of it. 

This kind of music, has been with me from the very start of my musical life, and Im not quite sure where it comes from. As a kid, I used to keep these songs mostly to myself, since I figured they might not be suited for our teenage audience back then.  Maybe I was wrong, who knows. 

It is still an important part of my musical life, so therefore it is equally important in this 5-year-album/musical-biography project og mine.

Pilot Song

I remember writing the whole "Pilot Song" theme and lyrics in the shower. (yes, I like singing in the shower).

It was heavily influenced by the 9/11 tragedy.

I remember that I was working on new songs for my upcoming album, when heard the news. We rushed to the nearest television and saw the second plane go in. A terrible shocking moment to all of us. 

Both, "Pilot" and "The Stone That Made The World Collapse" was recorded together in one take, and as mentioned earlier, we just went for the "right vibe". The length and structure of the songs changed, whenever we played them.

Both songs became standards on our live shows back then. 

The Stone That Made The World Collapse

"The Stone" came from the same time as many of the Evolver songs (Ninth: Evolver album) but was planned for the "Woo: Suntitled Playlist" release. It was  never released, even though we had the artwork ready and a record label ready to go.

It was the end of the "Woo" lineup and I continued my work with different musicians under the "Ninth Project" name. However the "Suntitled Playlist" songs are a pretty good bridge between the Woo/Ninth music of that time. 

It was based around a lot of eastern improvisations and it ended up quite different from what was originally planned.

The recording of "The Stone" is hugely improvised and recorded live. No edits or anything, including mistakes and ambient noises. This is pretty much the standard. The song form was so fresh that we didn't really know what we were going to do. So it was an instinct thing. And I love that. 

The lyrics is about digging up the remains of an old civilization that turns out to be ours.

It became a standard on live shows.

Amazingly, this song, (and the upcoming release), was heavily influenced by the terrible 9/11 tragedy. It's just mind blowing that this blog (and these songs) fall on the exact date of that tragedy. It's 100% coincidence, they could just as easily be released in January. And I just saw that now, as I was ready to publish this post.

This song and the next was always dedicated to the tragedy of 9/11 attacks. My thoughts go out to all affected by it, which is a lot of people, all over the world. 

With me on the recording:

Geir Arne Ose: Drums

Come

I started composing "Come" around 2002-3. The song has many perspectives and represent many moments in my life, especially musically.
It came (pun intended) around a time when I wrote a great deal of string arrangements, mixed with electronic instruments.
This is one example where I didn't build on the first draft. ..And kind of regret it.

When you have something you think is great, its all about the feel of the song, arrangement, and mix of the right sounds. 
It was mostly recorded on portable equipment, even though we had a studio. I wanted to be spontaneous when working on it. 
With come, I recorded and arranged it in different keys and tempos. In the end I almost forgot which key it was originally. I tried several string sections and so on.

On top of it all, we had been playing it on shows,  the live-version was evolving into an electro-funk thing  (in a higher key and faster tempo), so we became quite used to that power. Parts of the live version was then added to the recording. 

The key elements for the song was something like this:
Melody should have a psalm, lamenting  kind of approach but with more closeness (and freak out in range).
The guitar should have that 60's funky, warm tone and feel to it, (chopped up to brake the realism). 
The strings should be dramatic but uplifting , (it should also have frantic elements, such as the pizzicato and crush tones). 
The electronic beats should be groovy (but in a way that didn't overshadow the simple nature of the melody). 
The synth-bass followed the beats. (before being replaced by electric bass at the end) 

I learned then, that the portable equipment at the time was not good enough for capturing the sounds we were looking for. 
I tried several guitars, amps, microphones, but ended up sampling the guitar from an earlier studio recording and pitch (slow) it down to get the sound I was after, (geeky stuff) and it worked.

The  sample libraries for the string section was too thin on their own (and we have many to choose from). Those with the right sounds for the song didn't have enough articulations and so on. 
So after transposing rearranging many times in order to get it right. It was augmented with real strings (bass, cello and violin) .
I'm never satisfied with anything! And the reason for almost regretting my decision on "Come" was that it took me crazy amounts of time to get the result I wanted. But thats part of the process.  

And that is why I wanted to give you another perspective for this song just so it doesn't seem that everything goes smooth and fast over here. It really doesn't. 

Bjørn Tore Kronen Taranger: Acoustic Drums

Lori

I wanted to shed a little bit of light on the future plans for this project. 

It may seem little, but the statements I make on these matters is pretty big to me, and I have to commit to them for five years, so I'm in a bit hesitant to release too much information before I'm 100% sure that I can deliver. 

The big news for today is that, over the course of this project, I will release 15 albums! 

So, that means that the music here will be available on albums and will be  part of a bigger statement.
All these albums will also belong together as a whole. As one body of work

This has been the plan all the way, but it's a big thing to produce. And I don't think it's ever been done before. It will be huge! 

Now over to Lori.

Lori was created along with the song "Backworlds" and served as a second movement in a way.
The song doesnt take itself too seriously, and has an easygoing vibe. 

It was recorded live (as usual) in a matter of minutes.
Though the composition took me a couple of years (believe it or not) to conclude. 

The song comes from a time when I was playing quite serious music and rehearsed almost every day with my fellow musicians. So it was a breath of fresh air within the repertoire.

For me it's always been about creativity, so a vital part of working with music all day, is to have music that represents all kinds of moods you'd normally experience. 

You get affected  by the songs you play, so to keep it real, I need these different emotions going, to prevent me from getting disillusioned.

It was a light moment and a fun song to play. 

On the session with me (again):

Geir Arne Ose: Acoustic Drums