So it finally came through, the label accepted the idea I originally told them about over the phone at a gas station in Gothenburg in april 2008.

We'll keep recording and producing our songs ourselves, you gonna get it done you do it yourself.

Can't help feeling a TAD frustrated about having to go through hell's waiting room to make them realize it was the best idea. But that's life I guess, they wanted the best for Ashbury Heights and they felt they needed to try out lots of different solutions before they could accept that they'd found the best.

Before christmas we're going to record the three tracks being considered as second single. These being 'The Scars Of A Light House', 'I Can Kill You So Easily' and 'Unbearable Beauty'. It's going to be tight as hell and just as fun.

We've gotten a few questions in for our second video diary but not nearly as many as we'd like, there's still time so please bring them on!

It doesn't have to be a clever question and it doesn't have to be about music, we're not gonna say the name of the person asking the question so you've got inquisitor's immunity.

Most of the questions we've gotten so far have been pretty serious so a few funny or wild or naughty ones would liven up our day, that's not saying we don't like serious questions but we enjoy all the flavours of the curiosity-stew. Serious questions about the work we do are the main course, but fun and fancy free truth or dare kind of questions are the dessert. We can all use a few laughs now and then.

Of course you're also welcome to ask some difficult questions, we wont shy away from utter seriousness, well maybe just a little.

When I spoke to the label today thay gave me the impression that our first single together with a promotional video would be released before the end of february 2010 and that the album and second single+video would follow no more than two months later so we're really rolling now.

This menacingly tight schedule means that we'll have to work non stop in the studio for about two months but that's fine with me as long as things are finally moving!

I know there's still people out there who remembers us and are waiting for a proper sign of life. This record is all about you now, we've traversed a raging blizzard of nothingness together and now we'll climb to the top of the mountain together.

cheers
A

I've never kept a diary and I only ever written about four letters. I'm not good at diaries, that's one of the reasons I hardly ever write about my day in my blogs since there's not that much happening.

As we sat in the studio working on the song we realized that there wasn't really that much to say. We were just working. The thing about making music is that it's the results that speak, not the craft behind it. I spent two days twiddling knobs on synthesizers, to me it's a great way to spend my time but it would make for incredibly boring viewing.

Next time we do a studio diary we'll definitely get someone else to run the camera, I've a few friends who are journalists and maybe it would be a good idea to let someone who's good at asking questions come up with them. It's really a weird feeling trying to think of questions to ask yourself and then answering them into a camera.

You might notice that we both make all kinds of weird faces but that's just because it's so HARD to think of a fitting face when you're being recorded while improvising questions and answers. First time I saw some footage of me I thought "Oh my god people are going to believe I'm schizophrenic, I make more faces than the genie from Disney's Aladdin".

So the diary is up on youtube for anyone who's interested. If this doesn't hurt our image we'll make a new video when we're recording the next track and so on.

Oh and by the way, it seems that our label is looking favourably upon our work in LPS so hopefully it means we'll finally get to finish the album. If that's indeed the case we can have it finished within three months!

Click here for the diary

While recording snippets for our studio diaries I've noticed something about my speech.

When you work with people that do not understand Swedish you put great emphasis on your ability to communicate in English. As a result from me having worked with a lot of such people my English has been quite good, in fact during my time in England people usually mistook me for one of their countrymen.

But now?

Oh dear.

Seems that over a year of almost constant Sweden has all but annihilated my british accent and replaced it with some stock lingo.

I always thought Swedish English was an awful combinations of sounds. The languages may be closely related but they do not mesh well. As a result people from Sweden usually sound completely retarded when they try and speak English.

Some accents are charming, like the Mexican English, during my travels with Hocico and Amduscia I nearly started to imitate their characteristic south american utterance. Of course I didn't, that could've been interpreted as disrespectful, but still.

French English is legendary for its comical and romantic properties but I digress.

Now that we've already recorded two days of nonsensical banter it's gonna sound slightly schizophrenic when I change my way of speech but I can't really help it. All I can think of is how utterly ridiculous I sound, my mouth will force it's way up my brain and extract different sounding syllables for the sake of its own dignity.

Today we're recording some more vocals and then it's time to bring the song together. We're gonna try and film a little while finishing up so that you'll get a chance to hear a little music. Some proof that we're actually still in the game.

Just got back from our first day in the studio and I gotta say: wow.

It feels amazing to be able to stretch your creativity and imagination to their very limit and realize that the technology isn't going to give up.

I'm so used to working in very confined home studios, impromptu affairs held together by enthusiasm and duct tape (I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for duct tape). Sitting down in a massive music powerhouse where the only limit is your own capabilities is so gratifying that I'M at a loss for words.

We started out with completely deconstructing the song Shades of Black and then building it up again piece by piece.

We re-recorded the vocals in just a few inspired takes and now they sound better than ever. It's one of those things you can't do at home in your parents basement, recording a track from beginning to end and having it sound just great from the start. You always need to take it piece by piece and do a hundred takes because you have to be both technician, producer and singer at the same time. It's a real pain recording and then sitting down for a minute to assess your contribution and then repeat that whole thing.

With Lars (our studio technician/assistant and owner of the place) around for studio wizardry, there's always someone around doing the boring stuff so that you can concentrate on being creative. He doesn't want to be on camera so you wont see him much in the studio diaries (coming later this week!), but he's a sweet man and we love him.

The track was always kind of light hearted and happy but I didn't want it like that anymore. We're remaking it into a dark and ominous piece of supernatural disco with a riff that's more bad than a whole platoon of ressurected Michael Jacksons. Ok, maybe not THAT bad, but still pretty damn buff!

Well, I better sign off lest I start rambling. We're enthusiastic with the way things are going right now and hopefully you'll get to see AND hear something of it soon.

Good night!

Ok let's see...

Previously on Take Cair Paramour:

Halfway through the recording process in october 2008 Yaz announces that she will quit Ashbury Heights immediately following the november tour.

Together with Kari I spend two months re-recording the vocals but the original demo fail to impress our label.

I tell them that my current studio setup is several years old and would fail to impress even a time travelling Chris Pohl visiting from 1995. 

The label buys me a new laptop so that I can make a more convincing demo. The computer is faulty at delivery however and it takes almost three months before my new studio setup is actually up and running. When it finally starts working however, it's dazzling. I never knew one could feel so warmly about a piece of machinery before (not to mention a record label).

I rejoice at the possibilities brought about by superior computer power and spend another month adding effects and extra layers of sound to my demos.

Sounding infinitely better through the powers of cpu-straining effect plugs and software synthesizers, the demo now floors the label and enthusiasm is palpable.

The question of who should mix the album was actually raised as early as spring 2008, now the question becomes a discussion and this discussion soon turns into an epic quest.

To this date we've been in talks with about 20 different producers, three of them have actually contributed with a mix. Neither those three or any of the others have worked out however. They've been sometimes disappointing and sometimes ridiculous, occasionaly insane and often overpriced but never have they seemed to really care about the music. It's simply maddening trying to find the right person for the job.

And to make things worse: now time's getting short.

So this week we shall enter the behemoth LPS studio in Sweden to mix TCP ourselves. Well, at least we're going to try doing it. It's time for Humpty Dumpty to attempt putting himself together for a change.

We're thinking about making a studio diary and posting it on youtube. Would anyone out there be interested in that?

 

I can't sleep.

I haven't been able to for weeks, I'm up playing video games, watching movies until 3 or 4 before I finally stumble to bed. There I lie awake for hours while thoughts flow through my head like a flood. My dreams are bizarre, disturbing visions that make what little sleep I get completely devoid of rest.

I feel like I'm in Limbo, sometimes when I wake I question wether I'm even alive or if I died in my sleep. It doesn't feel like I'd really notice the difference.

I hate hanging around in nowhere like this, waiting for a train that never comes.

When this year begun on the night of december 31st I promised both myself and people around me that 2009 would be a different year. It would be a year of action, a year when everything I've worked for all my life finally came together, a year when I finally did like Ikaros and left the ground behind me.

Instead 2009 became the Quagmire of the decade with constant delays, constant boredom and endless disappointment. I feel as if my brain had dried up like an old sponge from lack of stimulation.

There is a light within me right now, a silent prayer that awaits each new dawn like a child awaits Christmas, ever hoping that this day will be the last day of waiting.

I received an e-mail earlier today indicating that the final mix of our forthcoming single might be finished within the week. I pray that it will be the starting point for a 2010 of fulfillment, of love and of endless parties that celebrate the night and dawn with equal fervor.

Amen

I wrote this blog already, but myspace managed to make it magically disappear. So here I go again.

Seems myspace isn't big enough for us fledgling musicians, they figured we could use another forum to further our careers. Being a rather desperate sort I'd do anything short of violence or eating animals to further my career so I immediately signed up for iLike.

Now iLike has a player just like myspace so I figured I'd put up some tracks. Some people have asked us to put up some obscure or unreleased material lately. Now our answer to this has been "unfortunately there isn't any", until now. Because I found something weird on my computer today and thought: "what the heck, it's good for a laugh".

What I found was a remix by Swedish house artist Elle A from 2006 of the track 'Mad' from our first demo. The song in question was one of three tracks on our 'Angora Overdrive' demo that we didn't like enough to put on 'Three Cheers For The Newlydeads'. It was a strange piece of music that didn't really fit in with the rest. I guess we wanted to do something a bit more EBM-like because the song sounds to me a bit like a cross between Nitzer Ebb and Sisters Of Mercy. Or perhaps it simply sounds like Ashbury Heights in military school.

The original song can be heard on youtube where some well-informed person has uploaded it for everyone to hear. I always felt Ashbury Heights found it's identity very quickly but there were a few songs in the beginning that tell the tale of how we did it. I always loved groups like Front 242, Ministry, Nitzer Ebb and DAF and naturally I did try to incorporate elements of their music into my own. It took a while for those heavy influences to settle in with the ABBA-esque harmonies and poppy melodies. Mad was the one track where they wouldn't play ball at all.

Elle A liked what we did early on and she liked Mad the most since she doesn't like melodies very much and monotony really gets her off. She asked if she could do a remix and since it's always fun to hear how others interpret your art we let her at it.

She made a duet of it, which is really funny because that's what I always tend to do when I do my remixes. I never liked 'Mad' as a song and I thought this remix was kind of weird, but I loved that she put her own vocals on it. When I got to do my first remix a year later I did the same and to this day I haven't done a single one where I haven't added some of my own voice. So wether I liked it or not, it was a huge influence on me.

Listening to it now I'm reminded of 2006, the year we got our first recording deal. We were so incredibly optimistic back then. The world was our oyster, or at least we thought it was. I think about how this remix spent the last three years on my computer without anyone ever hearing it. It's kind of like a secret origin story, like the ones in comic books. 

It's an oddball remix of our least endearing track, but maybe that's a good way to go for an unwanted stranger?

Good night

Since I wrote this I was urged by other people involved in the story to remove the remix from iLike. The reason was that they felt the primitive quality of the remix did not reflect well upon their current work.

I apologise if I got anyone excited for nothing but I promise I'll make it up to you soon!

Sincerely
Anders

  

It's been quite a while since I last wrote something here, I guess I've been busy somehow. I'm not sure that anything special has transpired but nonetheless time has passed very quickly lately.

I did a remix for God module that I'm not really happy with (Not because it turned out bad but because I got lazy when the deadline was four months away and waited to the last possible moment to do it and I can't really bring myself to be pleased with stuff that got done too fast, even if they sound good), then we did one for Blutengel that I actually think turned out quite well, considering the circumstances (Chris Pohl contacts me and says "here are the files, hope you work fast because we're in such a hurry you wouldn't believe").

We also did a song for a short movie, that turned out great and I'm hoping that it gets out for everyone to hear soon.

The most important news however, is of course that our album is finally entering the post production phase this november.

We'll start out with a single called "Shades Of Black", this was the first song written for the 'Take Cair Paramour'-album after finishing 'Three Cheers For The Newlydeads' more than two years ago. I wrote the refrain while walking through the winter landscape of my parents adopted hometown of Timrå. The song took form very slowly and it wasn't until a year ago that it actually started to resemble a real piece of music. It's a song about our love for gossip, about the attraction of scandals and the lack of nuances found in a sensation-hungry tabloid. I think it's a very typical theme for a synth pop song and I never did it before so here we go.

We're working with Gareth Jones on this, it's a real thrill for me since he did produce a lot of my favourite artists and bands like: Depeche Mode; John Foxx; Bronski Beat; Einstürzende Neubauten; Erasure; Nitzer Ebb; Nick Cave... I could go on.

I hope that we'll create something special that makes all of you who waited for such an ungodly amount of time feel that it was worth waiting for.

Our move to Berlin is well underway and I estimate I've only got a week or so left in Sweden. I'm looking forward to settling in under a metropolitan sky once more, to learn a new language and to meet new friends in a new world.

Good night

Summers in Sweden always pass by like a thunderstorm. It's incredibly intense for a few lousy weeks and then it just disappears, leaving in it's stead a creeping chill that makes you hug your coats and jackets with increasing fervor.

Today's Kari's birthday. She got a cooking for dummies book, a pearl bracelet and of course, her favourite cake to top it all off. That book'll be a boon for sure, she'll need to polish her survival skills for when we move to Germany later this year.

Because our distributor went and did a silly thing, going bankrupt that is, we were once again delayed in releasing our new album. But now everything's fine again, Out of Line cut that infected limb loose and is better off for it.

Now we're looking forward to releasing a single and a cool video later 2009 and releasing the full album in early 2010. We'll look into doing something special to compensate all of you people who will have waited the better part of a year for the record when it gets out. We've written some extra tracks while waiting for the action, perhaps we'll do a special edition with a bonus-cd. Or maybe we'll make a t-shirt that says: "If you're waiting for a new Ashbury Heights album the line forms right behind me".

By the way, I want to thank everybody at M'era Luna for a great show. It was wonderful to be able to deliver a good performance after a row of gigs marred by technical difficulties.

The last couple of days we've been working on a song called "The Invisible Man". I realize that's not the most intriguing title, considering it's been used quite a few time's already and the fact that most products bearing the name have been god awful (I'm a big Queen fan but some things not even household gods get away with), but I felt I had something that needed to be adressed.

That thing is this:

I am not invisible, I was just always here. And that goes for all of us.

I've always tried to distinguish myself from the gray mass, wearing outrageous clothes, listening to weird music, writing my own weird music. No one could say I've been very successful but then again, very few of us ever are. This is of course a question of how you interpret success, but for the moment I'm talking about fame. Most people feel good with a little fame, a little sizzling notoriety even. Few of us seek larger amounts, most settle for just being the guy/girl who knows all about picking up dates, or maybe the local wiz at computers.

Everyone who ever had a little dash of fame on their hands knows that it wilts quickly, like a delicate flower in a glass of water.

From the days before I had any I remember feeling invisible. I remember feeling bigger when i was noted for some project or achievement.

I never got along with my hometown, it's a cramped mess of a burg packed with boring stiffs and unfashionable alcoholics and I never fitted in. I was the only guy here with my kind of ambitions, at least it felt like that. My comrades never really understood my struggle, they probably never even cared, although they'd never put it like that. They didn't care about deeper meaning, they just wanted an ordinary job, drink lots of cheap beer and get laid (The so called Swedish dream).

When I moved to Gothenburg I met lots of people who were just like the people I'd left. I went to lots of parties, lots of bars and clubs, but all I saw was Standard Swedes.

I felt alone, invisible. 

Then it dawned on me that maybe the gray masses felt invisible too.

I saw them all though, every day and every night. They were never invisible, they were just always there.

When i got back home to my old town I noticed how beautiful my mother's garden is. I didn't really notice it before but God, it's like an explosion of colour and sweet perfume. The garden was never invisible either, it was just always here. I stopped noticing it, just like we all stop noticing old news. Old becomes ordinary and that equals dull.

Most of us stay long enough on this planet to become old news a hundred times over. I'm sick of feeling invisible, and I have promised myself never to treat anyone like they were invisible.

Fame makes us shimmer, makes us radiate a while. But it doesn't create anything that wasn't there before. Famous or not, we are all humans.

Few people know about celebrities before they walk out into the limelight, but they were never invisible. None of us are.

We were just always here. Since the day we were born to the day we die.

There ain't no other way to be around.