How to write a song...

Or, at least, how I have made some songs. Of course, most of my songs have been made from fiddling around on the guitar, coming up with interesting guitarthemes and lines, finding a suitable melody and then finding the arrangement. But every once in a while a different approach happens. Having a computer available makes it possible to relate to recorded music differently, and this might lead to ideas for how to compose and record differently as well. Cut and paste, sampling and looping, although not impossible in other media, is at least facilitated by the use of a computer. These three songs are interconnected in this respect, in as much as the last two would never have happened hadn't the first one been available to me track-for-track.

Fastened Bulbous - Holes.
(This song is available on WiMP and Spotify)

This song was made in the traditional way, albeit the traditional Fastened Bulbous way, which means that when the drums was recorded, the bass, guitars and melody were quite different from the finished song. This song even had a different name, Ah-oh!. As Holes, it is found on the second Fastened Bulbous record, the EP sometimes called [20:09] . This record was made a couple of years after the band in reality had ceased to exist. Being unable to find enough time for rehearsals made it impossible to keep the band going, so we disbanded in late 1996. I can't remember who came up with the idea, but sometime in early 2000 we decided to meet for an afternoon or two to rehearse and record a few songs without any intention of starting again like "a proper band". The main idea was to borrow rehearsal space from Skrømt, lay down the drum tracks, and continue the recording process in Per's more-or-less sound proof living room (mostly less, I think - poor neighbours). As it turned out, we could only rehearse and record one of those days, but we managed to record drums for a handful of songs, among them Holes. Apart from turning out considerably different from how it started out, what I remember best from recording this song is that Per had a bucket over his head while doing the vocals.

HelgeA - No. 13 (sketch).

A couple of months later I tried to find materials from that recording session that would make good drum loops. One of the snippets I found was from towards the end of Holes (recognize it? I think maybe I sped it up a notch). I first used it for this ditty called No. 13. Why this title? Frankly, I can't remember... Titles, at least of the more experimental and instrumental things I make, is usually whatever pops into my head when I'm about to save the changes to a track or a session. Anyway, this still-unfinished song was made for an unrealized collaboration that Lasse Marhaug and I had talked about. The idea was that Lasse should make some additional noise to it, but this never happened (we were probably too busy watching old Jess Franco and Doris Wishman movies). Another sample to be found here is from renowned tapeloop-artist Samuel B. Johnson's song Et rop på veien. So, that's not me playing accordion and shouting. In fact, behind the name SBJ we find Tor Arne from 4K.

Fastned Bulbous - Kreta Kano.
(This song is available on WiMP and Spotify)

In late 2000, Fastened Bulbous' eminent bassplayer, PG, decided to move away from Trondheim. Before that occurred, though, we decided to repeat what we had done so successfully earlier that year; to meet for an afternoon to lay down some tracks, continue work on them later, and release another batch of songs. This resulted in the yet another unnamed EP, which, to differentiate it from the earlier one, can be called [21:38]. In preparation for this project, I picked up the unfinished No. 13 and came up with some bass- and guitarparts. This then became Kreta Kano, named after a character in the novel The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (around the same time I also made a song named after Kreta's sister, Malta Kano). Besides the loop from Holes, I added another sample from a different Fastened-song, a hihat loop, for the middle part of the song. This loop was in a different tempo, and I remember, as a non-expert in using the software for this kind of process, struggling quite much to find the (more-or-less) correct tempo. Edit: In fact, it is a sample from a song by Brise-Glace (shhh, don't tell anyone or we might have to pay compensation for the use of the sample), but the tempo had to be adjusted nonetheless.

I am not sure if this song was meant to be a demo, with the intention of recording a "proper" version, or not. Anyway, we decided to use it as I made it. Btw, this song is supposed to be PLAYED LOUD, as it used to say on old heavy metal records...