“A Seven” is an improvisational piece, from (27th of) April 2007 (hence the cryptic name).
I have loads of improvisational pieces, and they’re made while, kind of meditating through playing . Which is a huge thing for me.
I will not present more of this material here, but I had to include some of it, since this is supposed to be a musical diary, after all.
Weighted was originally composed as a sound design piece, which I have many of.
But eventually turned into a song, which were played with my band “Ninth”.
The song is about loss, defeat, disappointment, and despair. And the small lights that can grow out of these really hopeless situations.
This theme was inspired by some friends that were going through hard times, along with my own demons, of course.
Speaking Of The Devil was written when I was about 16-17 years old. It was written for acoustic guitar, piano and upright bass.
It was rehearsed extensively at the time. Along with songs like “March Of The Moors” and a bunch of others, they were to become the first repertoire for my then new band Woo.
After playing in an acoustic band for years which explored all kinds of roots, folk, and world music, I wanted to take it further, by including everything I was into. Electronic music, (with synths and programming), eastern music (with sitars and other strange instruments), everything from techno, funk, and even choral music. And of course with real drums and electric guitars. I was also not afraid to push the instruments to sadistic levels, if the end result was cool. A philosophy that I still have in all my work.
The song was also written with a festival in mind (Dei Nynorske Festspela) I called them, and invited them to listen to the song. But I was too late, the booking was already done, and they kindly invited me to “call back next year”
Well, that never happened.
Destrortion started out as an acoustic piece, a long time ago. It went through several arrangements and phases over the years.
This arrangement was originally produced to be released on the album “Ninth: Evolver”, which never came out (An EP was released though, without this song)
Several songs on that album, had gone trough drastic development stages, or evolvement if you will, hence the name. With work done, both by me, and through several studios and producers I was working with at the time.
This version though, isn’t touched by any external hands (as with all the songs presented in this project), which is part of the point of this "musical diary" that I am releasing.
Destrortion (along with next weeks song) contains some “easter eggs” or tiny “spoilers” hidden in the arrangement, that hints (gently) on things that will come, later in this project.
I wrote One Way as an instrumental and thus I’m presenting it as an instrumental here, I may release a version with vocal arrangement later at some point
This song was performed extensively with my band Woo, but I wrote the vocals mainly to give our singer something to do live. So it really is the original version you’re listening to here.
The song (among others) was inspired by my desire to blend folk music with funk and techno. And needless to say, put it in a rock frame.
I was 16/17 years when I wrote it.
The released version is based on a live show recording with the band Woo.
There should be several video recordings of this song as well. Maybe someday I’ll have time to go over them and release them to the public. But it would be much simpler to play it live and just release that.
Drums: Geir Arne Ose, and yours truly
Eventide was performed regularly with my band “Woo”.
Our live shows usually consisted of songs arranged like medleys, so I could squeeze as many songs as possible into a live show
The drums on Eventide, required the drummer to play with his bare hands, which led to the song being called “Blemon Song” as a working title.
"Eventide" performed at Hulen, Bergen, with the band Woo
Performing "Eventide" at Smuget, Oslo
This song was recorded around 1998/99 with my band “Woo”. That’s about 20 years ago! And absolutely crazy for me to think about.
It was composed around the same time as well, with a tiny bit of “twinkle in the eye” (for lack of a better word).
This was a time when our live shows was pretty energetic. But off stage, we were like most people: bragging, nagging, mellow, sad, angry, vulgar, stupid, complex, worried and laughing.
And so was the music.
And that’s how it’s should be, if it’s gonna be the real deal.
Musicians with me on the recording:
Geir Arne Ose: Drums
