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Norwegian composer John Erik Kaada's new album, Music for Moviebikers - a gentle collection of lush acoustic arrangements set as soundtracks to imaginary films - could well double as a shared dream between Tom Waits and Ennio Morricone had they been residing in a Bergen hostel during choice career moments. It's a kind of chamber orchestra suite, quite different from Kaada's earlier work, though approached with the same sleight-of-hand production techniques that have made Kaada a favorite among DIY musician-producers in recent years.
Kaada's artistic approach is non-traditional, in that oftentimes what you hear has been achieved through rather bizarre means, and not only in the pure performance aspect (as he tells EQ, "People think that on my albums it's all sampling - there are some samples, but also we tried to play like samples"). His unconventional ethos is also apparent in the mixing process, where a deep understanding of the science of sound comes into play, outlining the boundaries which Kaada calculatedly, and continuously, pushes. Never has this been more evident than on Moviebikers - an album where Kaada has further stepped outside of the box, both figuratively and literally speaking. "When I sum up the last 10 years, I've spent most of it in front of my monitors," Kaada tell us via phone from his home country. "I wanted to do this away from the computer as much as possible, achieve something very organic sounding."
A Grave Scenario
After the initial tracking of drums, bass, and placeholder keyboards (recorded to a click track at Kaada's own home studio, Wrongroom, for the purpose of more efficient supplementary tracking in different "facilities"), Kaada was privileged enough to stage a session at Oslo's Vigeland Mausoleum - a vaulted, windowless tomb built by Norwegian painter and stained-glass artist Emanuel Vigeland to store and display his artwork (as well as his remains). "The whole idea was to get that fantastic reverb on tape," says Kaada, who is known for his elaborate signal treatments via various "natural" locales for their characteristic resonance(s). "I recorded some claps and snaps to import into my convolution reverb, like impulse/response, for future reference," information that came in handy for overdubs and mixing, when three Eastern European street musicians caught his attention and were...