Are you suffering from electrosensitivity? Well of course you are...

Saw a program on Swedish TV yesterday, and I don't really know why I did it because I knew it would severely piss me off in the end. But I was curious to see if they would actually bother to put some SCIENCE into it.

They didn't.

I would actually guess that most people in Sweden have heard about electrosensitivity, or allergy to electricity (elallergi). And herein lies a clue to what makes the whole thing quite hilarious: they talk about it now and then in Swedish media which, according to my theory, brings on more and more cases.

The program in question is called "Outsiders", which is a series showing the lives of a bunch of weirdos and retards. Now, that's my professional opinion. This particular episode featured -- just like in most of the others -- people making wild claims with no evidence to back it up.

Now, let me make this perfectly clear: these people DO show symptoms of discomfort, I will not not challenge that for a bit! But people have to realize how powerful their imagination can be, so to the point that it triggers physical symptoms.

After watching a bunch of weirdos bitch and moan for 25 minutes, we finally get to listen to a doctor who works with these people, and hear her opinion. "Here we go, finally some sense in this one-sided shitfest". Oh yeah, she really laid it down. Apparently it's all a big conspiracy, because accepting this "disease" would be a huge cost on society. Cue, final credit, end of show. WHAT!!?

Let me make it perfectly clear. I do not for one second believe that electrosensitivity exists. I've reached this conclusion from reading reports and results from studies. I do not give a flying fuck what these people say, because I could put a radio mast inside their asses and they would have no clue about if it was transmitting or not! Yeah, I'm an asshole and I don't like to sugarcoat, but this is how the world works.

I made a funny little experiment of my own last year. Me and my wife took the car to check some mountains close to where we live. On one mountain top they had several radio and TV masts (I guess, I don't really care what they were sending out). I asked my wife if she could feel it in her head. Guess what? She started feeling like shit.

This is how the brain works. It makes all kinds of funny assumptions and it tricks you over and over. Not much to do about it, but it does help to know what the hell is going on in there and not be too quick to jump to conclusions.

Towards the end of this piece of TV garbage, we were treated to one of the most fucked up dances I've ever seen, from one of the participants. Why don't you get a real fucking disease? Let's see how well you dance with cancer.

Rant over. Back to work.

Stop thinking and use your ears

So I'm in the middle of the Watain recording session and I'm sitting here thinking about some of the signal chains. It's very easy to listen to much to what people say about what you can and cannot use and stop using your ears.

The setup hasn't been much different than usual I decided to not give a flying fuck about what you're "supposed to use". Hence, we've reached a sound truer to our expectations than I could have imagined when we started out.

All guitars....ALL guitars go through a Behringer Dualfex that I bought maybe 7-8 years ago without much clue about what I needed it for. I find it quite funny that in a signal chain which probably amounts to 8000 euros (it all ads up), the last step before the A/D is a Chinese box that I picked up second hand for 50 euros and that everybody probably hates.

And while we're at it... Main guitars: TLAudio 5001 preamp. Who would ever recommend this piece of "garbage"? Me, that's who. Suck on that. We went through some different pres when we set up the vocal sound as well. Guess which pre we went for?

Bass: PodXT with a 5150->4x12 V30 emulation. I don't think I've ever gotten such a raw bass sound.

Moral of the story? Conventions stink!

Ode to Portugal

Hello Portugal

Could you please explain your perverse obsession with papers, signatures and stamps? Isn't it about time that you get with the program? You ask for every single detail OVER AND OVER and NOBODY ever questions why. Do you really think that you are progressing as a nation with this kind of nonsense? I'm not very happy with how they run the country I'm from either, but at least they have obviously made an effort to make it easy for for people to fill out a simple form and things like that, without getting completely ensnared and entangled in ridiculous bureaucracy that has no place in modern day society. Shame on you, Portugal, shame on you.
"onde está o papel? precisa de um papel!"

Valkyrja Day 1

So the recording of the new VALKYRJA album has commenced. Without having received the pre-payment as usual...but what can we do, no point to waste any time.

We started out pretty calmly. The drums have been rigged up, tuned, tuned again, tuned again. Tried two different snares with different tunings. Nobody could agree which one to use, so we're taking that battle up again today. Not to mention the hours-long discussion on which key to tune the guitars in. I wish we had an independent jury sometimes.

Mixing and...Watain!

Ok, nothing much going on in this blog for quite some time. I just haven't felt the urge to say much because there hasn't been much to say. Everything is recorded now anyway and I'm working with the mixing right now. Have to say, it's sounding pretty good!

I also have some other news that might interest some people. The ones who attended the Watain anniversary gig in Uppsala might have noticed the audience mics on stage. I saw some people discussing it on a forum for example.
Well, here's the whole story: I had the whole setup connected to an Alesis HD24, a multi track recorder, all the mics, everything. The gig was recorded, but there is ONE flaw with the HD24, namely that if the power is cut, everything you just recorded is gone. GONE. And this is exactly what happened when the cursed fire alarm went off. The recording was GONE.
I've been looking around for a solution since then and today I found it. I've managed to salvage the entire performance, and what can I say, it sounds really, really good!

Now it's just a question of what will be done with the recording, and that's completely up to the band of course. Only time will tell.

Day 5

So, some days of no updates but we haven't been resting. Drums are done for 7 tracks and some more songs will probably be recorded as well.

Started with the guitar sound today. In line with the drums philosophy, I decided to go for exactly the same sound as on Dödens Evangelium. Unfortunately I didn't have the mic position and stuff written down, but luckily I have a good memory. Some fiddling with different positions and amp settings while comparing it to the tracks from the previous session that I was smart enough to make stems of and burned to dvds, and we basically nailed it! Renew ourselves? What for?

Day 2

Things are taking shape! Got 3 tracks of drums down yesterday and I spent the afternoon editing them together. Two more tracks done today. While we were aiming for three, it was definitely an accomplishment considering the complexity of these two.

The drums are sounding really good by the way, I've gone for the same kind of tuning that I did on the previous album.

Waiting for a new pair of speakers as well, thought they would arrive yesterday but I haven't heard a word. Hopefully tomorrow...