Electro – A Journey in Sound
Reflections and memories from two hard working music and studio fanatics…
This is my mini biography about me, Per Berggrén, and Charlie Daelander. It is about our life long journey exploring our passion for studios, from small and crowded demo studios to huge professional studios. Not least it is a journey where we want “…to fix that perfect shot, the one that never ceases to attract.” Our history is dedicated to all the artists who have struggled and lived most of their life in polluted air, surrounded by radiation and asbestos, with their backs hunched over the mixer, or carrying heavy instruments to dim rooms far beyond the fame and notoriety of a famous musician. I want to explain to new, and old friends that this story that unfolds over time, it is written in all kinds of genres and in different tenses, past and present, with a flow of short image sequences, where it exists, and sometimes with just the sound of recordings where possible.
I begin with a recording made at Charlie’s childhood home. We had both just turned eighteen; it was the summer of 1979 and his parents were away on vacation. We had three borrowed tape recorders, two tape decks and two stereos and had built up a quite a nice studio in the dining room. Our newly acquired *Marshall Boxes were equipped with reverbs and chorus effects, our two electric Gibson guitars sounds awesome and a very cheap guitar was tuned down to make it sound like a bass guitar. Well… it worked.
In that summer, everything was strange and new, the sounds were literally like crackling sparks with a smell of ozone. Neighbors called and complained about the volume but we did not care at all. We were making music. Our driving forces were the Beatles and Pink Floyd, and of course the desire… the desire to play music and record it.
We have our reasons, which are revealed soon, as to why we renamed ourselves ” Batik Shirt” and “Silver Glasses”. But for now, let the recording begin, let time speak for itself.
Batik Shirt intensely shakes his melon-like head above the blue and white patterned batik shirt, unbuttoned in order to make room for his larynx, which is going up and down in order to swallow the torment and fear.
”It’s impossible!” Batik Shirt exclaims with his big mouth opening and closing, stretching his face and chin to the breaking point over the eagle-shaped, aristocratic, nose.
”Silence! Recording in progress! Here we go!” says thin Silver Glasses, hitting the guitar towards the microphone stand.
The typical noise is repeated twice in a row. Amidst all the swaying sounds, Batik Shirt repeats: ”It’s impossible! It’s impossible.”
Now you can hear a wobbling noise and then a roar, much like that from an AM broadcast in a bygone era. ”One, two…” Then silence.
A new swallowing sound, like when you are trying to down a large chunk of tough meat with extreme willpower. ”I told you it wouldn’t work.” Batik Shirt said gloomily.
As if by magic the already substantial noise is doubled and a voice that seems to have been saying the same thing for twenty-five years shouts in triumph:
”Silence! Action! Get rid of the gloom, first, second! One, two, three…” One beat of silence and then…
It sounds as the world explodes. Studded and phased guitars hammering – a wall of sound mixed with congas and the tuned down guitar. Echoes created by the speakers give the room an endless space. (Of course, a meaner description could be feedback). From the borrowed tape recorder you can hear roughly synced tracks of various acoustic effects, like birds, backwards echoes and aah-choirs more or less tuned. The voices plummet without warning. Batik Shirt pans hard right and Silver Glasses left, but without any bias, for he is using a microphone plugged into an acoustic guitar where he sings towards the strings. A rumbling sound is created with weak brilliance but with high dynamics in all registers from 200 Hz to 900 Hz. To be continued.