Unmistakably Nordic in flavor, Sofia Talvik somehow still conforms to American interpretations of her own original music, a North Sea siren blending sparkle and melancholy, creating a special niche of folk music.
Sometimes when you're working on something creative, like I'm working on my album now, you get alot of other creative ideas.
Isn't it typical, just as I decided which songs to have on the album, I get so inspired I write a new song that I just have to add as well. Not that I'm complaining, a moment of inspiration is always welcome and wonderful. Last night it ended up with this song:
Summer must be the worst time of the year to record an album.
My dicipline is running low when the sun is shining. One isn´t spoiled with warm weather here in the cold north so I´ve taken the opportunity to enjoy it while it lasts instead of sitting in my bunker.
Anyway, I haven´t been as lazy as you might think but I haven´t had any nice bits to put up for show here on the blog. Today´s been a really productive day, until I realized the battery in my guitar must be running out and some of the songs I´ve recorded today has an irritating loud buzz to them. It´s sad but I have to throw them away and record them again.
I´ve got a new lovely musician to add to my orchestra (isn´t myspace wonderful!), at least for this album. His name is Myles and he may be playing some (grand?) piano on some of the songs. Todays hit "Dominos" is just shipped off to get some beautiful piano instead of my strumming guitar, I can´t wait to hear what he´ll make of it.
That´s all for tonight folks, my shoulders are aching and I´m off to bed.
This is my daily routine: come home from work, embark myself in my bedroom studio and play until my fingers bleed.
It gets really hot in there as well as I have to have all windows and doors closed. So today I had to cut off a pair of nylon stockings, make little holes for my fingers and use it as a glove on my left hand because my palm was so damp and I couldn´t change the chords fast enough and kept getting stuck. Not very stylish I tell you, but it worked!
Anyway, I feel rather content with todays recording even though I kept getting cramps in my hands and my fingertips are kind of sore now
I decided to post a little sample of today´s recording of "It´s silly now". I haven´t begun recording the band yet so it´s just me so far. Maybe I´ll add new versions later and you can all hear how the song evolves with more instruments.
I suck at playing to click track so I need more life like drums, hence the drum tracks. (For you who don´t know what a click track is, it´s a beat that makes an awful plopping noice to keep people play the same beat all through the song, and don´t play slow at first and faster in the end. It makes me stressed out and makes me play off beat though I normally keep a rather steady beat.)
Well anyway, Toontrack has made a fab program (promoting promoting!) called EZ-drummer which makes it EZ for dummys like me to make a nice sounding drum track. You can make fills and all sorts of stuff but I just make a straight beat and leave the rest to Fredrik – the drum master.
This is the only pic I could find of Fredrik, he looks really evil here but he´s really very sweet and he´s married to one of my dearest friends, Anna.
This technical stuff makes me a raging lunatic. This is the third time I´m writing this blog entry as this damn monzilla keeps deleting it when I press post. Well Ill just give it another go.
This is the blog about the recording of my forthcoming album Street of dreams.
Street of dreams is a song about the feeling of insecurity of not being good enough, but this album will not only be good enough, it will be a great album, full of emotion and thought. During the process I´ll post pics and sound samples from the new songs so that you can follow me from the beginning til the end. (and is all of you Swedish guys are wondering why this blog is in english, well, I´m just too lazy to write two separate blogs.)
As a first timer I booked myself into a studio and recorded the album by schedule in a week. It was efficent but stressful. This time I´m doing it in the comfort of my own home. This way I hope to get a different feeling to it, more intimate and soulful.
I´ve prepped my bedroom into a soundroof cave and rigged my little studio equipment by the bed. It´s a Mac Book, an Inspire sound card, a JJ labs microphone and me. I´m one week in recording and I´ve recorded about 6 songs so far. I´ve hired talanted Fredrik Strömberg to program my drums. He´s working with the EZ drummer kit from Toontrack which we both adore! My band is still on summer vacation but when they´re back I´ll put them to work, although I might have to abandon my cave when we record the contra bass (it´s so huge I doubt it will fit in here).
Here´s some photos from my “studio”.
My microphoneThe midi keyboard is living on top of the laundry basket.The midi keyboard is living on top of the laundry basket.My fabulous view over Hong Kong...I wish! This pic covers one wall in my bedroom and makes me long back to sunny Hong Kong.La Studio
