Mjello. What's up you ask? Well, I presume you ask... Things are pretty mellow seeing as both kenneth and I have a lot to do in terms of work and university-biz. However, we had a couple of days tracking guitars last week. 2 days, to be exact. We had two visitors from the linguistics-department at Aarhus University, who taped us discussing how to approach the guitar work. They were doing some sort of project on how the discourse works in creative processes. Well, let it be known that their tape must contain a whole lot of FUCK and NO and PISS and other vulgar exclamations of woe, because we had a really hard time doing the guitars for the Executive-song. I literally felt like it was ages ago that I'd played guitar and I just couldn't get it right. We spent 12 hours on getting absolutely nothing! Very frustrating, as I'm sure you can imagine. An all time low for my guitar playing. Kenneth gave it a couple of shots as well, and it didn't work out either. The following day we managed to track pretty much all the guitars for the song Spasm. Turned out OK as far as I recall. We decided on approaching things from a different angle. Instead of recording to un-mixed, poor sounding stuff, we decided to beef things up in order to get some more passionate responses in the guitar playing, which proved to be a good idea, so hopefully we've worked around winding up in guitar-hell again. In other news, we finished the drum-touch-up session in the studio and managed to squeeze in a totally new track, the one I mentioned in a previous post. I think the drums are bound to turn out cool as they are multi-layered and climaxes in a wonderful percussive dissolution. It'll be great, but Q is more apprehensive, hehe. And and and I've got an idea for yet another track, that I hope to get to work on today. It's really funny how with the feeling of closing the entire thing approaching, I get all sorts of ideas... If this one turns out cool, the vast majority of the stuff has been written since june. Anyways, cheerio and thanks for reading these endless ego-rants.

Oh yeah! and Morten Riis has started working out some synth-stuff. He's my art buddy. Here's one of his works.

and here's a picture of me lovin' the crap out of him in oslo last year.

Yo dawgs. So, here's an update on the progression. We recorded the drums for 10 tracks last tuesday and thursday. Things turned out pretty awesome, and it proved a wise decision to spend some time in a proper studio. We finished the session by having a couple of beers and listening to brutal metal. It was fun! I think we'll have to re-record the drums for a song called agitator on thursday where we have a touch-up session. It needs a different snare sound. These songs are so minimalistic that, with the drums being cool, there is really only guitars and vocals left to do. That should take a couple of weeks, so what seemed like a behemoth of an undertaking is actually pretty well under way. I think this will be the best album I've ever done :)

here are some pictures from the drum session. Click for a full-screen view. Photo-credit: Mr. Q


The team - Kenneth, Q, Bredahl and myself - celebrating a job well done.


Let them eat cake.


Men of the year


Awesome conditions


Q recording a song tentatively entitled Kraut


Q's majestic setup. boom goes the drum.

Hey kids. So tomorrow is a big day for this record. We tried recording the drums at our rehearsal space which we totally botched – see the latest entry – so we decided to turn to a previous success. We've booked two days at the same studio we recorded the beta satan album a couple of years ago. Kenneth knows his way around the place, klaus is comfortable playing in the drum room and we've got a certain jacob bredahl (fee!) helping us out. Well, it's his studio, so he'll help us around what ever problem may arise. I'm pretty comfortable about this, seeing as we've prepared pretty much every single detail, and klaus is an amazing drummer so i can't see this not working out. I'll keep you posted, of course.

As for the songs, I wrote a new one on friday. It's totally depressing and a potential suicide risk, however, it is quite beautiful in my humble opinion, and it is going on the album fo' shaw. It's funny about these things... Just materialising out of thin air sometimes. Well, the new track brings the tally to 11, because we've ditched another mellow song I did. And i've got an idea for the album art work as well. I want big, mono-chrome, bright-as-fuck colours on every surface of it. It'd be cool to make the art work refer to nothing at all, somehow. I don't know. We'll see. I have to start thinking about album titles, also! Damn, I haven't given that much thought...

here's a picture of the love-team this time round. Photo credit: Kevin N. Andersen

Hey. Alright, so how's the little album coming along then? Well. Things aren't as simple as I had projected, of course. We're on a tight budget, so we can't afford extravagant studios and what not, so we decided to do the entire thing at beta satan's rehearsal space on account of the fact that we've gathered a fair amount of recording equipment there over the years. However, the room itself isn't suited for recording drums. It sounds tiny and makes the drums sound like hitting wet cardboard with a sausage, which is kinda not what we are looking for. So we tried recording the drums in two different corners of the room, and even the adjacent kitchen, and by golly, it just won't work. So, we're in the process of booking some studio time, stretching the aforementioned tight fucking budget, dammit!

Here's a video of little drummer boy mr Q screwing around with an ebow and me looking for a screwdriver. Riveting stuff right here.

and here are a couple of wide-lens photos for your visual enjoyment. How about that.

The daily diet consists of bananas, kanelgifler, coffee, cigarettes and a couple of beers in the evening. I find recording processes annoying and tedious and frustrating, so it's nice to eat crap and hang out with my buddies while cursing at elusive timbres and stuff. bye for now!

last night we started work on the album. retrieved re-useable files from the demos and sorted out cues for the guys I have helping me out this time. Speaking of... My good friend Kenneth is pushing buttons, recording and producing the damn thing along side myself, my good friend Klaus Mr Q Hedegaard is playing the drums, and my good friend Morten is doing the synth-stuff. The connaisseur of danish bullshit will notice that, yes, that is in fact pretty much Beta Satan, except for Kaare. The live band will be made up of these guys and myself. It's gon' be awesome.

yo dawgs

This is a blog! It shall henceforth contain the musings of yours truly in regards to the going-ons in Cabin Fever-land. It shall serve as a more in-depth, intimate, journal-y blahblah than the usual look-how-cool-my-band-is-myspace-page. It shall not be pushed upon thee as do some of my dear colleagues with their shameless self-promo. I've had enough of that shit, it is tiresome.

First order of business is a promise to track the development of the recording of the debut album. There will be video, cover art ponderings and a whole lot of me talking out of my ass about stuff I am concerned with during the different processes i'm facing. Why, you ask? I don't know. Does one need a reason for every little thing? If you don't care, then fuck off and don't come a-knocking. But I'd like you to care, being the narcissistic little cunt that I am.

best, johannes