Yesterday I took the train to Vaasa to record my next album at Nordic Audio Labs. I’ve been really impressed by Martin Kantola’s microphones so I was more than happy to travel here for some days. And after a day full of some intensive mic tests & two long record sessions I feel very inspired about the project so far!
The album will be an acoustic one. No overdubs or electronic instruments — unless you count the mics. The truth is, these mics feel like musical instruments. They allow capturing musical performance in such detail, that the result is something quite spectacular. We are feeding a live convolution reverb to the studio space, which transforms the acoustic atmosphere completely. It actually feels like I was in an old monastery. The impulse response for the reverb was recorded by Martin himself with his panphonic surround mic and the result is magical. It is a totally different thing to play with a reverb in headphone monitors than actually feed the reverb in the space where you play. While playing, I could really interact creatively with the space by using its dynamics and sustain. The feeling was very similar than couple of days ago when I played in Suomenlinna in a tunnel that has amazing acoustics.
So, today we recorded about 100 minutes of music (two sessions with plenty of improvisation) and tomorrow we’ll probably record at least another 100 minutes. And from this material I will edit a full length album that I hope to release later this year.
And hey, one more thing before I catch some sleep! Today was the opening of my new installation! If you’re in Helsinki, you can hear it in Vuorikaiku until the 24th!
Zzz.