Hymns from Nineveh

My beloved reader.

Welcome back! As you might know from my previous blogpost, tuesday was a diffucult day. It was a bit like the picture above, out of focus, a blur. And as i mentioned, we listened to the things we did yesterday, and they weren’t bad after all. But we also spent some time on deciding what to do now. We aren’t the place we thought we would be by now. These things (often) happen when you make an album.

The old plan was to chose 5 songs at the time and finish them one song at the time. This plan didn’t work, so we decided, that we from now on, everytime we meet, will work on one new song and one song we already have begun recording. I think it will be a more dynamic process and the songs can “communicate” with each other. Hopefully this will also result in a more homogenous record. The focus is sharpened.

Hi, Reader!

Today the temperature went above 10 degrees celsius i Copenhagen for the first time this year! Winter has finally and officially retreated! Hurrah!

Aske is still in London, performing at the JAJAJA party tonight. So when I today tried to kill some hours, I came across a video on youtube, I hadn’t seen for a while: The enchanting Swedish sister-duo First Aid Kit performing one of my favourite songs, Fleet Foxes’s Tiger Mountain Peasant Song in the Swedish woods.

I don’t know what it is with the Swedes, they are so clever at making good popsongs. Perfect for a celebration of the spring.

They’re giving two Danish shows in March (VEGA & Voxhall) – unfortunately I’ll be whalewatching in the Faroe Islands by then.
Here’s the song I mentioned before, and below that, a new, beauhuhuhutiful video.

Just two short recommendations before I’m off to slumberland:

My dear friend, Mikael, the mind behind Aarhus-based poprockers Munich has just launched a new solo-project called Kites and Komets . Generically speaking it is RnB-ish electro/soul with an acoustic twist. The songs (which are “only” demos for now) speak to your mind, your heart and your feet at the same time. Mikael and I have co-written “Rewinding floors”, and I do some highpitch vocals on it as well. Keep a close eye on this project – It can’t avoid becoming huge.

Another band, which already has become a heavyweight name on the Danish and international scene, are Danish folk-act MURDER. A press release states that they are working on their third album together with Slaraffenland-producer Petter Samuelsson. MURDER was the reason why I picked Good Tape Records as my label. Their “Stockholm Syndrome” (2006) is one of my favourite albums and it was also on several “Albums of the 00’s”-lists. I can’t wait to hear the new material! They might play some of it on their Danish spring-tour (on which Hymns from Nineveh have the honour of being the supporting act).

Goodnight/Jonas

2 PM:

Today is different. The first thing I did this morning was to bake a bananacake. That is a good way to start the day.

Got to the studio, where Andreas Brixen (lead singer of Bodebrixen, who is in fact a very talented drummer) had gotten ready to play drums on So mournful and Selma. I am not that good with drums, but I like the drums on The National’s fantastic album Boxer, so we will try to aim at that drumsound.

Later today my brother in law, Mads (of upcoming band Monkey Face) will come and do some electric guitar on the two songs. I’m looking forward.

5 PM:

Andreas just left. He ended up doing a lot of different stuff, including some crazy, stumbling outbursts on the drums with no beat what so ever. Mads has come and is currently doing some simplistic one-note things on Selma. Yeah!

6 PM:
Done for today. The things Mads did, made me get some ideas, I wouldn’t have got if he wouldn’t have come. Mads also did some outrageously distorted guitars on So mournful – Aske was a soundwizard here. So mournful is developing into an orchestral thunderstorm. We’ve decided not to do anymore on this song for now – we could go on for ever!

So – now I have some days off. Aske and the rest of Bodebrixen is going to London to play some gigs. If you happen to be in London the next couple of days, be shure to go!

/Jonas

Day 4 was what you could easily call an “off-day”. Nothing went as we wanted it to. Maybe it was because it was monday.

Creativity, inspiration and all the good ideas had run dry.

That’s how life is sometimes: when you HAVE to deliver, you just can’t.

Do you have any good advice on what to do when such situations occur?

/Jonas

9 am.  Woke up in a rainygray copenhagen. Heavy eyelids. Excited about what is going to happen. Don’t really know.

10 am. Arrived at Pinligtavshed. Coffee! Lovely.  Aske and I discuss what we should do with the ideas we got yesterday. Aske says: Let’s start all over. I say: OK. But I’m outside my comfortzone here. Aske says: Yeah, I can feel that. Let’s begin with the piano.

10.25. Aske sends me outside so he can concentrate on writing down technical stuff. So here I am. Outside. Smoking. Drinking coffee. Waiting for the magic to happen:

11.00. Aske records the pianopart for So mournful the elegy so comforting the hymn. It is b e a u t i f u l.

12.00  I try to record the guitarpart for So mournful, the one, I couldn’t play yesterday. I did it! Aske had an idea for an improvement, and I did that as well – turns out that they can easily function alongside each other. So now we have two different guitarparts. Hurrah!

12.30 Aske chops up the doublebass so it fits in the new tempo. Still sounds great.

13.00 We search for some good sounds on the JUNO, and Aske makes a loooooooooooooooooong, high pitch tone on the outro-chorus. Sounds like a large swarm of mosquitos inside a cathedral.

13.30 Aske and I simultaniously get the idea, that there should be a pounding bassdrum on the outro chorus. Not too techno, though.

14.00 Caspar stops by and listenes to what we’ve been working on. It is nice to get a fresh pair of ears on something, when you’ve been working with it all day. Fortunately, he likes, what he hears. I think, we’re done on So mournful.. for now.

15.00 I call it a day – it has been a good, but tiring day. Still got heavy eyelids. It might sound as if Aske has been the one who worked the most today, and that is very true – my job today was to think and to approve and to make coffee.

Now I’m off to Aarhus for the weekend – Sunday I will join my sister’s band at their releaseparty for their coming easter-album.

Have a nice weekend.
/Jonas