Here’s a portion of our concert in Rudolstadt! It’s also the first recording of us live looping on stage. The volume is low, but the sound quality decent – concert was recorded by German radio and will be aired later this year. The tunes we play are called “Brand” and “Langas”. Enjoy!
Download: 915437.mp3
I am first and foremost an accompanying musician – my best skill is to lift up, or add new meaning to, an existing melody with arrangements and stuff. But I have for many years nurtured a dream of doing something solo. I found by accident an amazing video of beatboxer Kid Beyond doing his thing, and then also learned that my teacher Totte Mattsson from Hedningarna was into it. What thing you ask?
Live looping. To use electronics to record and play back your music in real-time, letting it loop as long as you need, play over it and add new layers. I really got the idea and felt compelled, but also overwhelmed by the techy side of it. I had it in the back of my head for many years but never really got to it – there’s a lot to take in, especially when playing an acoustic instrument and not normally using a lot of digital effects. I finally managed to convince my music partner to get in on the action. We first got a laptop and Ableton Live (“yay, just like Kid Beyond!”), but soon decided it was to clunky, to difficult and risky to be fiddling with audiocards and software while on stage. We lowered our standards and got ourself a Boss RC-50 pedal. It was awsome, easy to use and quite flexible even though not as much functionality as some high-end loopers. Wich was all for the best, cause in the end there was very little live to the looping left – we ended up mainly using pre-recorded loops since it fits the music better.
But a few weeks ago I started fiddling with the RC-50 on my own. And DAMN how fun it is. To stack your loops cleverly, adding layers and making them shift meaning depending on what you play, it’s really very satisfying when it works. I have a long way to go before I have something to show for, but I’m aiming at putting together a full soloshow over the summer with just me, my mandola and a little willow flute. I’ll post recordings of work sessions as I progress.
