You can now stream all EF albums at Last.fm...

- Give me beauty... Or give me death!
- Hello Scotland Remixed EP
- I Am Responsible

Enjoy, guess this will be a limited offer...

http://www.lastfm.com/music/Ef

Day 4: The last day…

Tonight we got 6+ hours of sleep. Danny fell asleep at the mixing desk around 03.00, so we thought it would be good to rest our bodies and tired minds before the 4^th and last day starts.

We all overslept a bit and was up on our feets around the same time as Magnus came to the studio. As usual we start the day with a can of coffee and reading in our small book what to do. Now it’s mostly bass and guitars left. Some songs we recorded all guitars all over again due to lame sound, some songs we just needed to add some 3^rd and 4^th guitar on, to make the parts more heavy, melodic, ambient etc.

Since we’ve created all songs as a three piece it’s hard to record all the other guitars, bass etc since they are hardly even figured out. Danny have made a great job writing them together with Magnus heavy influence. Magnus doesn’t really like our Coldplay-ish stadium rock parts, which he have tried to make us play differently. And it have only turned out to the better.

When the darkness swept over Gothenburg we got a bit stressed up. This was the last day, and a real life was waiting for us outside the Music A Matic tomorrow morning. There was still plenty to do, and there was so much more we really wanted to put on tape before leaving the cozy studio atmosphere like percussion, more cymbals, strings, trumpets, glockenspiel, maybe even some more organs etc. This we’ll have to record the next 10 days in various locations, before we send it to Magnus early November for mixing and mastering.

Around 23.00 we was kicked out in a friendly way by the owner. We helped him put the 200 cables together, and saved all our projects down to a harddrive. This is it – the foundation of our 3^rd full length album. It’s a bit scary. What have we accomplished so far? Our heads are all messed up, and I don’t think we listen to the songs in the same way anymore, if we even listen at all. We’ve heard some parts, some songs probably more than 1000 times the last 3 days…

The recording session continues again next week…
It will be great to take a shower and sleep in your own bed again.

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Day 3: The tired day...

The sun is shining outside, but it’s freaky cold. A typical and perfect crispy pre-winter day in Göteborg. We can see our breath while walking to the nearest bakery to buy some fresh baguettes for breakfast.  It’s strange to be outside, among other people, traffic and life. The life outside the walls of the studio is hard to understand when we’re sitting inside our safe haven.

We worked til 04.00 with adding bass to two or three songs, can hardly recall due to heavy eyelids and empty stomach. But Danny is hell of a bass player… and guitar player, and grand piano player. We’ve noticed that he record most of the instruments. That’s how it is to be a trio and record a “epic post rock album” – everyone need to contribute with their skills way more than normal.

Today we put the last two song foundations on tape. It feels good to know that we only have the fun part left now, the many re-takes of guitar tracks, the piano parts, the ambient stuff, the glockenspiel, some bass, vocals, trumpets and a lot of strings. We don’t really have all plans worked out yet, but we hope we will the next two weeks, then we need to send it to Magnus again for mix and mastering at great Tonteknik Studios in Umeå.

 Magnus gave up on us after 12 hours of staring into the computer screen, cutting and trying to get Danny getting 110% perfect grand piano on tape. We tried to make him change his mind by getting him drunk on cheap Danish people beer (low alcohol beer) – with no success. Instead we’ve decided to spend yet another night in the studio, making guitar re-takes and some small drum fixes. Things we can do by ourselves.

While feeding ourselves with snacks, cakes, Hustlers, candy and cheap Danish beer we notice that we’re not really making any progress – instead we call it a night already around 03.00. Last day tomorrow, let’s rest and make the most of it. We surely need some sleep right now – to be focused and brilliant tomorrow. Good night.

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Day 2: Getting jiggy with it.

The clock just passed midnight… We’re now working the night shift. Danny is trying out some bass for the songs we’ve recorded so far, Tomas is working on music for our second video clip, and me (Niklas) is trying to survive the craving for burgers.  The hunger feeling is really getting to me now, and I’ll soon try  to sleep it all away cause I can’t stand it much longer. Last 8 hours I’ve only eaten cookies.
It’s hard to recall what we’ve done today, it’s all so blurry right now, since we’ve been locked up in the studio for almost 17 hours… But I’ll give it a try:

Tomas surprised us all this morning with freshly baked buns which he bought on his short trip outside the building.  The guys spent the night here, and surely got two hours of sleep. So we started the day by listening through what Danny and Tomas had succeeded to record the night before, and they had found some splendid guitar sounds and re-recorded most of the guitars for the track we already had recorded.
Since everything was sound checked we wanted to spend the day to record as much basics as possible, and skip all re-takes and small fixes. And we ended up with three more songs on tape. This means we’re keeping pace with the time schedule. Magnus is doing  a hell of  a job in our crazy cold control room. The vintage stuff needs cooling and the air condition is getting the job done – no questions asked.

It’s hard to say anything about the sound yet since we’re currently only recording the basics… Probably we’ll start with the fun part tomorrow night: adding funny instruments, percussion, tons of guitars, and hopefully the grand piano. We’ll probably add strings, horns and vocals later this week on our own. But it surely sounds promising.
But it feels like the songs are more straight forward, more mature and a little bit shorter with an average length of 8 minutes. We hope you’re as excited as we are…

Day1: The sound check day

So here we are, the first day of recording what will become our third full lenght album - hopefully. It's a typical autumn day in Gothenburg, Sweden: rainy and grey. What can be better to enter a warm and cozy vintage studio with loads of atmosphere and history. Can't even mention half of all the crazy instruments and stuff that are collected and in good shape at the shelfs of Music A Matic. And not to mention all the big bands creating incredible records here.

We met up with Henrik (one of the owners of the studio) around lunch time to get shown around in what will be our home for the next four days. And also to make Magnus Lindberg, our producer / sound engineer, familiar with the equipment.

Pretty soon we started to put our stuff in the right places, trying out different amps and guitar sounds. Magnus and Henrik started to discuss what microphones  to use and putting them in right positions. I think we ended up with about 15 for the drums, and some for the guitars. And it was time for the most boring part of the recording process, the sound check.  It took way longer than expected, mostly because of guitar sounds that wasn’t too comfortable. Lame reverb, cranky distortion, noisy sounds on the clean sound etc etc.

After a few hours, a numberous liters of coffee and a pizza each we was quite satisfied and tried to use the last hours of the evening to put the foundation of the song "401 Lwa" on tape. Speeded on Hustler Energy drinks we tried to loosen up and feel relaxed to make as few takes as possible. Two hours later we was satisfied with the different parts recorded, and just did some easy guitar overdubs, before we called it a day. Some went home for sleep, some decided to continue working out wonders... The work continues 10 am tomorrow.

Moutique Agency have started to gather interest for our first European tour in 2010.

It will take place mid-April til mid-May, and will be the first of many to promote the release of our album that will take place in the same time period.

The tour will be focused on following countries / territories: Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Luxemburg, Switzerland and Austria.

If you're a promotor in any of the mentioned countries that wan't ef to play at your venue - please contact: nadin@moutique.de

If you're a blog, netzine, paper magazine or any other kind of media and want us to help promote the album and tour - please contact: ef@andthesound.se

More news when we have them.

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September passed quicker than we thought. The autumn came upon us within a blink of an eye. Cold winds, yellow leafs, dark nights.

ef have been spending late hours in the practice room - creating new songs, trying out different ideas, arguing about what's a keeper, and what's not. We've thrown tons of material, just to keep a few kilos. It sounds pretty different, I suppose. Why repeat ourselves?

We’ve decided where to record it, and whom to handle the recording. ..
In mid October we'll spend four long and inspiring days in the vintage heaven: Music A Matic Studios (Soundtrack of Our Lives, The Knife, Millencolin, Kent and many many more) together with Magnus Lindberg of Cult of Luna behind the knobs. After this session we’ll do some recording ourselves – adding small electronics, vocals etc. Magnus will later on mix it all together way up north at Tonteknik Studios, Umeå.  We hope for a April 1^st release.

We think it will be about 8 tracks put on tape. No titles are confirmed yet.

http://www.musicamatic.com/

http://www.tonteknik.se

http://cultofluna.com/

.. ..

Yesterday we was sad - today we're happy. Rained turned to sunshine - literally. A positive email, reply turned to a email conversation which turned to making some quick decisions. We didn't need to think very long though... We're now with new booking agency:

From now on we'll work with wonderful MOUTIQUE AGENCY based in Berlin, DE.

We're incredible happy to announce that we're now a part of their great rooster including acts like Do Make Say Think, Explosions In The Sky, Death Cab For Cutie, Blonde Redhead, Stars and many many more.

Moutique will book EF exclusive for Europe incl Scandinavia and UK.

As our very own Danny expressed himself yesterday: "Sometimes you need to close some doors, to open new ones".

Find out more about Motique @ www.myspace.com/moutique 


Do we need to explain how happy we're about this?

See you in 2010.

Love and joy!
/Niklas, Tomas, Daniel - ef.