Studio Diary – Part 1

Hello everyone.

So, now it’s about time that you get an update and some pics from the studio:

Day 1 starts with me in the pouring rain, taking an early train across Denmark. As agreed, I go to Nansensgade and meet up with producer Anders Rhedin (Choir Of Young Believers, Jong Pang etc.), who I a few weeks earlier met at our concert in Vega. We will spend the next 3 days together producing Kites and Komets.

The last days, and actually through the last six months, I have thought so many thoughts about these recordings, concerning the direction of the music, how the recordings should sound compared to the live sound, how the collaboration will work etc. From the first pre-recordings, which I arranged in my living room with organ, glockenspiel, spoons etc, I wanted to preserve an organic, hand-played sound in K&K. We have tried to keep that in mind in the live-arrangements, with the fantastic guys In the band, where the beats are all hand-played, etc.
It’s important to me that you can hear the people behind and inside the music. Another thing is that I have always thought that I wanted the final recordings to have tighter beats with more body and get the songs’ hook lines to stand out – cut the songs even sharper. This is what I see as the biggest challenge: to preserve the organic, hand-played and unpolished universe, while the songs and arrangements are cut to the bone, and pushed to the max.

Anders and I get together and start listening to the pre-recordings, and talk about which angles and directions that could be the right ones for the upcoming versions. We agree that the sound should be tight, dusty and catchy, with the vocals and the melodies as the primary things. As I have previously experienced, it is often interesting to work with producers who are outside the project. They enter with an objective view of what they hear as the strengths and shortcomings of the music / arrangements.

As the days pass, the songs are taking form. Anders is fortunately very good – both as a technician, but he also has a really good ear for the different parameters in the K&K music. We seem to have different strengths.

I end up going back to Aarhus as the 3 days have passed with 4 half-finished tracks that I can listen to, consider changes to, and get responses to from the band. I am looking forward to follow the development of my songs, and to stand with the finished result and show it to you.

More updates from the studio will come in a short while.

Best,

K&K