Part 2

Before you started making music together, did you in any form exchange concrete ideas, goals, or strategies? Generally speaking, what are your preferences when it comes to planning vs spontaneity in a collaboration?

On this record we didn’t have many concrete ideas musically before we started out, and I think Arne likes this approach. Me on the other hand can get a little anxious when I don’t have at least some melodies or riffs just to get me started. The way we make music, any idea will never become the way I’d planned, -if I ever had a plan, and that’s a good thing.

The whole point of creating together is essentially to do just that. And it always makes it better. Having an idea, -like a chord or three notes that sound good to me, can set of a cascade of ideas as mentioned before, without it I can start to question what to do. But as always just starting playing together will eventually mount into something, that evolves into something else and so on.

We are very open with each other about hopes and fears, both musically and as friends, best friends I dare say. To me making music is a very personal thing, a vulnerable process. Sharing ideas can be scary, not to mention improvising; expressing yourself in the moment can be very delicate, you’re putting yourself out there, and you don’t know how it will be received. You have to trust yourself and the other person. I think that’s why it’s so amazing making music with Arne. It’s full disclosure, and any anxiety turns into excitement, like “what’s coming next, what will happen now, where are we going”, I don’t know, -and it’s a great feeling.

I’ve come to embrace the anxiety in a way, it gives the process and music a nerve, like it matters. It’s not the same to me, I care deeply about it, and I care about us two making it. That’s what makes it meaningful.

We knew we wanted to make a record, but there’s no guarantee when you have three days and not a bunch of songs like in a “regular” band. On our first record I had the recordings of the before mentioned street poet from Miami, which gave the music making process some sort of frame or concept, together with a kind of complacent rage extracted from the Kill Bill movies; “A Roaring Rampage Of Revenge”.

This time we had talked about the recordings I had (still on some old minidiscs) from my travels around the world when I was nineteen beforehand. I wasn’t quite sure what was on them, but I had a vague sense. During the creative process everything kind of fell in its right place (as they often do), and it became apparent that travelling, or being on the move, or maybe just staying in a small place for a while had something to do with what we were making. Glimpses of different places, different landscapes, some still, some moving.

To me the whole process of making something from nothing, was also somewhat of a journey. Whether you go fast or slow, or take a halt somewhere. I’m not sure how conscious this process was, maybe it’s easier to conceptualize it afterwards, I guess it all came bit by bit.

For instance Arne pulled out this Casio-piece he had lying around, from another project. We listened to it, and put it in our grinder, and it became the opening track “The long way around”. So I guess we actually had some ideas before we started, we just didn’t know it ourselves.



It ends with a recording of a train in India or Sri Lanka; even if you don’t know where you’re going, or rather especially then, you might find yourself in a very interesting place.

Describe the process of working together, please. What was different from your expectations and what did the other add to the music?

Arne does the mixing, and at this and the previous record we actually became a file-sharing project during that process. I have left the barn and we have left the project for a couple of days, and it wouldn’t really help to be two going at it.

Partly because we usually know where we’re going with the material; a lot of the balancing and shaping of the sound is done while recording it. Mixing can also be an introvert task, you sit there and listen and balance things, and having me shouting “turn up the bass” from behind wouldn’t be very helpful. Arne is also very intuitive in this process as well, where I might have started using physics and calculations, he’s using his gear with his ear.

Some of the more contemplating or avant-garde pieces on this album, like “Six feet over”, became album worthy during the mixing process. Arne was playing around with an almost afro-cuban-inspired version of an old riff we recorded just for fun, added some mellotron, and sent it to me. Years ago I would have protested not beeing part of that process, now it just felt right listening to it, like it finally made sense; when it’s good it’s good.

I have to admit though, I’m positive this version will not be the last you’ll hear from that idea, it has something more to it, something we haven’t figured out yet. I can’t wait to go back into that barn and find out where it could take us. We’re not just playing it by ear, we’re also playing it by eager.