Untitled Document

Two times the trauma

Line up:
Mattias Eriksson : Lead vocals & Acoustic guitar. Other assorted instruments.
Mattias Olsson : The rest of the assorted instruments.

Guests & friends :

Ulf Åkerstedt : Bas trumpet, Sub bass trumpet, Tuba.
Per Styregård : Trumpet
Gunnar Nordén : Bass & Lap steel.
Ane Brun : Vocals
Sofia Talvik : Vocals
Jakob Hellman : Electric guitar.
Hugo Törntorp : Fender Rhodes, Hammond L100
Mats Lundgren : Fender Rhodes.
Reine Fiske : Electric guitar.

Description :
I met Mattias when he started working at the Record Company Exergy Music and we started talking at one of their functions. He had come in contact with the label after sending them a demo with his band Celestine. Apparently he and Åsa (the labels manager) had found a lot common ground when it came to the wrongs and rights of the music industry. Anywise Mattias and me started talking and before we knew we were recording with his band Celestine. Started off with a three song demo and then continued the collaboration by recording an album that should be finished in September 2004. During the autumn of 2003 Mattias approached me about recording a bunch of his own songs in a simple and fast manner so we recorded three songs in one weekend and decided that we wanted to deepen the collaboration and decided to form a band.

Soon after that first weekend we started to get offers from venues in Stockholm to do gigs and so far we have done probably ten gigs just me and Mattias but we have been talking about developing the concept a bit with bringing in more people into the stage presentation.

So far we have recorded a three-track single called ” a little sign ” which should be out in Sweden in the beginning of November 2004. The album will be finished later but will hopefully be out by December/January.

The music we make is a very weird blend of influences and sounds… Mattias writes all the songs and then he presents them to me on a acoustic guitar and then we just start to record. A lot of times the scrap vocal survives until the end and a lot of the time the arrangements are made up on the spot and are based on often very simple sonic ideas. Mattias has an ongoing flirt with American folkmusic and is very much into the band Songs:ohia (whom I have never heard ). So my role in the whole thing is more or less to decide how we can find a new and possibly more different approach to it. Trying to avoid lap steels and Banjos (even if we have used both)…

Another strongpoint besides the songs is the fact we are trying to do this as fast as we can and try to release more songs faster so that we can be more spontaneous and not get buried in the whole band this-is-our-only-chance-to-make-a-mark-in-musical-history–rubbish. This also opens up a high risk that you might encounter some crap ideas on the way but hopefully a couple of good ones as well…

Whenever we have felt that our own abilities on an instrument have been too grave we have called in some reinforcements. We have invited people to guest on the album for the sake of adding musical voices and widening the perspective on the songs. Also…all the people who play on the album are real favourites of ours.

Lyrics and album info

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Pictures from Dieselfabriken 20050326-20050327