Track by Track is written by the Artist giving us some insight into their latest work. Today we feature “Eyemouth” from Göteborg Sweden.
Eyemouth from Gothenburg, Sweden, presents a soundscape with a unique blend of mellotrons, organic elements such as vibraphone, santur and accordion, together with an atmospheric and almost psychedelic rock instrumentation. With a distance, reverie and dark undertones, the music aims to provide a deeper understanding about the different aspects of life
BLACK AND BLUE LATITUDES
Three
In the beginning of the creation I always pictured the drone sound to completely dominate the track with some far away vocals on it. Just to make it really dreamy but still harch. But we really fell in love with the vibraphone, the accordian and the piano and made it a bit more normal. It’s still dreamy though, at least I think so. We recorded the piano with ribbon microphones in Gothenburg. I had a hard time getting it right in the song but after using an Urei 565 Eq it became much better. Later we re-recorded it through a SSL 6000 console in Varberg, and I think it had a really pleasing effect.
Like most of our songs, it’s about having to deal with aspects and consequenses of hiding parts of you from others and from yourself.
I Remember
This is a song about searching for the dark roots behind your destructive behavior. Guitar and accordion in a senselessly banal riff. We pulled in every synth we had and let it build up, except for the modular system which in most cases lead the atmospheric path. I never realized the complexity of the guitar in the end until Joakim tried to teach me how to play it during live shows. Martin Ekberg who also plays in the swedish and very obscure group Mark & Martin plays the bass. Even though I told him exactly how to play it, he did something completely different to it and I love it. To make the programmed drums a bit more organic I used a TC 1210 which turned out very well I think.
Stolpe
Two persons unaware of each other but with a spiritual bond is drifting in sleep towards one another. They never meet, but some nights they get closer to each other than other nights. Daytime it’s all gone, but every night they strive, trying to get into the right vibration and be lead by the blue light. I love the sound of the santoor, and though I’m not actually a santoor player, I still love to play it. It’s very meditative, and it’s perfect to run through the modular synth. So many overtones. The song is basically build up of the santoor and a Waldorf XTk. Sandra D’aubigné does the “singing” part as lovely as a siren.
Tectonic
Maybe this is the closest to a lovesong you get from us. But the love expressed is rather a love for your higher self than to another person. I’m using the earth as a metaphore for your own body and its transformation from alive to dead. The background sound is mostly wind from a ventilation shaft, and though it’s hardly audible, I think it really opens the door for the mellotron strings and choire in the chorus.
NON COMPOS MENTIS
Phlegmone
One night I suddenly heard a sound from the telly that sounded exactly like the sound I sometimes hear during my sleep. There was some kind of distortion, and I threw myself over the video recorder. It’s the drone sound you hear after the Birch trumpet has ended. That sound made the whole song evolve. When contemplating on that sound it, brought me back to the feverish state from my sleep, and I somehow associated it with a language I made up as a little child. Fortunately, I had some tapes with me and my sister as little children where I´m speaking that language and my sister is screaming, so I used that in the background. The main lyrics where recorded under a water tower in Växjö with exceptional acoustics. There were some people passing by looking really troubled. I found a shaman drummer who also is drumming on a couple of our other songs, and she gave the song yet another dimension.
Blood On The Earth
I think the song has a dark vibe which resemblence the mood I was in when I wrote it. It’s about having a dualistic relation to something you know is dragging you down. At first I thought the production sounded a bit too clinical, but when we later recorded the track on a SSL 6000 console, it all became satisfying.
Responsible
We wanted the song to be very simple and I liked the idea of just two chords. The lyrics and the melody sort of fell upon me within a minute. We recorded the piano in Joakims apartment, a lovely piano but totally out of tune, and I loved it. After finishing the session I looked down on my hands and saw my cuticles bleeding immensely. Rough piano. I think the acoustic drums have a solving and freeing effect that the trombone takes even further.
Will There Be A Light
I’m really happy with the balance between acoustic and electric elements in this song. The piano, the mellotron vibraphone and the drums we recorded at Sonores Studio here in Gothenburg. In this song the tapes of me and my sisters show up again. Once again, a song dealing with the past, guilt and what’s to come. It was much harder to play the mellotron vibraphone than I had imagined. I had practiced at home on a stage piano with a vibraphone sound, not realizing that of course there’s no release on a mellotron. Meaning you have to hold down the key to make the sound decay. A new way to play and a much more difficult way too.
NOERA GENESIS
Come This Far
Maybe you could call this song a bit up tempo, at least in the eye of mouth. While writing this song I had all the lovely images in my mind of La Belette by Didier Comés, that I really enjoyed as a teenager. The song has somehow a cold feeling to it. Maybe it´s the guitars that does it, with their almost metallic kind of sound.
The Rise Of You
On one hand, I always thought of myself to be very rational and not lead by emotions, and on the other, I always knew that the world within me is a somewhat chaotic mess and I do take unrational decisions. I believe all people have those contradictious elements within, and most of us are trying to defeat the one or the other, instead of embracing both of them. And if you don’t come to term with them, things can start to go severely wrong. Maybe it’s not a problem for most people, but for me it is.
In My Mouth
I wrote this song after an awkward night. It wasn’t an Out of Body Experience, but rather a lucid dream. In that kind of dream you usually are able to control the dream, at least more or less, but in this I was stuck and knew I was dreaming. It went on forever.
Sometimes
Once again, the shaman drumming. I’m so incredibly happy for this and the way Sara is sensing the skin of the drum with her fingers in the beginning of the song is so beautiful. That tune entering in the middle of the song and making you almost seasick is actually a heavy processed piano, also recorded in Sonores Studio. I think the riff is a good ending, and I really think it could go on for twentyseven minutes. At least when we are playing it live.
