just add voice.

so, thomas called me up at four in the afternoon saying he'd written the lyrics for a song we call doomsday (but in swedish). it turns out he'd been having one of those clear vision things going on and wrote the thing in an hour or so. i downloaded the lyrics and not much to my surprise, it was real good. so we took care of that energy and met up in the studio to started recoring the song. some of the lyrics didn't really work out so we changed a few rows and words and then the whole thing grew naturaly. we had a real good wibe tnight and i think it shows in the end result.

as we record i usually only have one earphone and keep the the other ear free. i do it for two reasons: 1. i want to hear exactly how thomas sings and 2. i really like the way thomas sounds! i figured i'd let you in on the fun so i recorded this video on my cell inbetween pressing rec and stop. hope you all enjoy the uncut, unautotuned and truly naked sound of thomas and the italian gestures that come with the drama of the lyrics.

///misha.

all we need is a little patience.

so, we have drums for all tracks. i still have two songs to add my guitar magic to and then rework some of the old magic that didn't seem all that magical after listening to it later on. anders is on his last song and then there is thomas and his five songs left to sing. some lyrics still need to be written, but in all fairness, if anyone dare think he might be a slow worker, he's in fact been engineering and mixing everything we've recorded and is 85% done with the mixes to the songs that are fully done. that's some amazing work that 1. i would have never pulled off and 2. deserves some serious acknowlegement! hail thomas, now let's work on them lyrics.

we have a good schedual mapped out and we're keeping it so far. as soon as all songs are recorded with the basic drums, bass, guitar and vocals, we're going to add other instrumentation. i'm really looking forward to that since it almost always takes the songs to whole new dimensions. then, in may, the rest of us wait impatiently while thomas finishes the mixes and we get to organize the songs into an album. then, there's more imaptient waiting as we send the album off for mastering. but when that is finally done and we have a complete record with artwork and all. we send it off to aural music and (yep, you should be able to guess this by now) we wait for september and its release.

so, wait is the disease and impatience our cure.

now what?

//misha.

bang your head to this.

three very content guys.

a small victory.

we're getting there. recently we've:

* recorded the last drum tracks.
* recruited mattia marchi and his photographies for the artwork.
* teamed up with erik svallingson again to make the artwork.
* added more x's to the recording scheme.

and next week we're shredding guitars.

baby steps, people, baby steps.

///misha.

been caught stealin'.

we've been blogged!

i'd love to say i'm a real hacker, but this guy tipped himself off. he put us in his dowladable mp3-shuffle and got asked about our stuff so he put out a lot of old material on his site. so if there are songs you are missing from our catalogue that we are not giving away, this guys got them. check out this, this and this. he's got more on us than we do, and i love the dedication!

///misha.

so this is christmas?

happy new year!

we're entering a new decade and 2010 is looking quite exciting already! yes, i know, i sound a bit like a salesman saying it. but i really am looking forward to it! were looking at a release of the album in september but before that, lingua celebrates ten years as a band in july! we really should throw a big party, any suggestions? before that we need to lay down all drum tracks before mid-january because there seems to be something weird going on with our presonus recording system and it needs to be returned for repairs before the warranty runs out. after that we can use another recording system with less pre-amops. so we start out a bit hectic, but that's quite alrigt.

meanwhile, stockholm is experiencing a classic winter with tons of snow for the first time in ages so me and my daughter are out hitting the snow covered hills with the sleigh.

talk to ya soon
///misha.

temple of the old soundgarden.

ok, you've waited long enough and we've been teasing you a bit too much with our stupid pranks. so here's a clip from when we rehearsed a song called "outside their temple" (or at least that's what it is called at the moment) for the gig at the cave earlier this fall. the sound ain't that good, but you hear the important stuff and get to see at least three out of four cool guys (sorry 'bout that, patrik) somewhat rocking out.

oh, and don't forget to jump to 0:48 if you don't want to hear me ranting about pedal effects and anders lack of egoism.

//misha.

transmission

anders was the last one to join the band but the first ever to join a band i was in who was a complete stranger. we'd been posting adds around stockholm since we didn't know any bass players at all, or at least no real ones. all our friends were guitarists and even if they would have wanted the job we wouldn't have given it to them. we wanted someone who had chosen the bass for his/her instrument.
the first one to try out was a guy called fernando and we invited him to play with us and jam. it all ended after only one rehearsal. it seemed he had picked up depeche mode from our list of influences a lot more than anything else and maybe i should have left them out in the first place.
anyways, by the time anders called i'd learned my lesson and this time we decided to meet first and talk. if we clicked, we'd take it from there. we talked a lot but did not really like each other. i can't really remember what we talked about specifically, and to be honest i do not trust my judge of character skills from nine years ago, but we didn't share that much and anders seemed a bit too uninterested and unimpressed (i had an ego to please). so when we found a shared passion for the tea paty (this was by the time trip tych was relesed) i turned to my two favourite features, optimism and naiveté, and invited him to try out for the band.
he quickly found his place in the band and didn't care much for songs alredy written. he suggested his own material and didn't really listen to my suggestions for how to play his instrument. all this may seem like bad moves when trying to make the cut for a new band, but i wasn't out for a puppet i could tell what to play. i wanted someone who would see the faults in my songs and arrangements. or maybe i was looking for that, and anders revelation opened new subconcious doors. never the less, in anders i really found that guy. at times when i've been trying to come up with cool stuff for some parts but found nothing, he can just go "why don't you just shut that guitar up?" and be absoultely right about it too. in a band with me and thomas, who know no boundaries to the layers upon layers of bricks we add to create that wall of unstopable sound we want to be, you need a guy like anders to sometimes tap you on the shoulder and remind you that sometimes: "less is more."
the funny part about that first meeting is that, when talking about it a few years later, anders reveals that he felt exactly like me. he found me stiff and self-centered, but our common love for the tea party made him at least try out for the band. and for that, i thank him, and jeff martin.

with that said, i leave you with one of canadas finest:

sneaky peaky

from what's to come

music by lingua
photo by mattia marchi

if only tonight we could sleep.

friday nights gig was good fun and intense, but it was also quite clear that it had been a while since we last stood on a stage. the scene at the cave was amaing and the place was great! it was as if debaser went hard rock and moved out to sundbyberg (that last comparasing scentence is not for everybody). we did a set with lingua songs and followed it up with a short and chaotic rövfitta gig. bergman, the fifth member of rövfitta, was there and got to sing a couple of songs as well as harrison reprising his version of 'obama a go go'. we filmed the gig and might put something up here if the quality is better than shite, but 'til then go check out some pics right here.

//misha (who else).

living after midnight.

i remember quite clearly the first time i met patrik, or at least the first time we jamed together. i'd been playing in arize for a month or two and we hosted yet another party at our rehearsal place a friday night. i even think it might have been an after party, but i'm not sure. why we never got kicked out of that place i cannot tell. anyways, there was quite some people there and patrik was one of them. we started talking about good music (as all musicians do on first date) and we connected at bands such as down and corrosion of conformity (among others) and after a few beers and some talk we decided to jam. as soon as we started playing i felt this instant connection with him. we built riff after riff and added layers to everthing we did. i can't really remember a single riff from the actual event, but i do remember it was magic. patrik must have felt the same because after an hour and a half thomas came in and said the neightbours were complainting about the noise and that was the only reason we stopped. we could have played for at lot longer and almost did after thomas admitted his little hoax to get us out of our intruments and back to the party. instead, we started a band. lifer was quickly joined by thomas and sounded a lot like stoner, except this was way before anyone used the term stoner. we just called it rock. we used to go out at night and record our songs on a four track tape recorder. sometimes i dust of my old collection and listen to the material. it was far from original, but we had some good fun making the songs.
lifer was put to sleep after only a year or so and when we started lingua i hadn't been playing with patrik for years. i wasn't even that keen on playing with him anymore because i was way, way, way deep into my tool-obsession at that time and patrik didn't play that kind of drums. in fact, one of patriks biggest idols is tommy lee and that guy play some mean straight forward drums, but not much else. it took me years to accept his style. we faught like hell over a lot of songs and even though i can't understand why we never just went separate ways i am glad we didn't. because it took me years to see that our strength was the straight forwardness in our songs and not the technical. or, to put it in better words, where i stray in weird beats and odd markings patrik keeps it toghether with a straight beat with litte or no over acting. today, it's what i want and expect from him and i am glad he never changed. i am glad he kept his style and put a very big part to the unique sound and style that is ours.

//misha.

on the road again.

well, it was time. it's been eleven months and, to be frank, that's just too long to stay away from what you love. we said that we would focus on the album and to not play any shows, but when our dear friend ludde called and asked us to play at his birthday party, we ran out of excuses not to say yes.

so for all of you who live in sweden and near its capitol city, this is where you want to be friday october 23rd:

the cave, landsvägen 49, sundbyberg.

it starts at eight and ends at one. i feel no need to point out where to put the am and the pm. you figure it out.

//misha.

the meeting.

i was seventeen when i first met thomas. we stood in line for another lousy meal in the school cafeteia as i noticed this loud and cocky young man wearing a machine head t-shirt from the burn my eyes album. i absolutely loved that album (the only machine head album i ever really loved). and as we stand there i see some black ink on his t-shirt. fuck, i thought and had to ask:
- "don't tell me you've met them?"
thomas turns around, looks at me without blinking, making a face or anything and says:
- "i drank beer with 'em too."
i was envious as hell!
it was the beginning of a thirteen year long friendship. and from that day on we used to talk at recess and lunch breaks. i had my metal band called southgate and thomas had his arise (nope, not the famous arise. and after being spelled wrong on a compilation album we kept the misspelling and were named arize before arise released their debut) and shared a common interest in bands such as deftones, tool, korn, fear fctory and sepultura but also in eighties pop music such as depeche mode, ultravox and duran duran. thomas was a bit too loud and wild for me, i was used to geekier frieds, but his self confidence created a fascination i could not rub off.
in my other band i was the only songwriter, as i'd been in all my other bands before as well. so when thomas asked me to join arise and fill the vacant bass spot i quickly accepted his request. i was happy as hell to be playing in a band with so many good writers and innovative musicians. the first year was real good fun. erik (thyselius, now in scarpoint) banged the shit out of his drums. he tried using those drumsticks made of metal but kept breaking those too. he had a china cymbal that, after a year of beating, looked like the wu tang clan w logo. no joke! richard (dahlberg, now in construcdead) was the stiffest guitarist i'd ever seen. if he looked up from his hands to watch the rest of the band, it was enough to give him a stiff neck. but man could he play! i never play solos and never have, i'm a rythm guitar guy, so i was very impressed by richard's skills in both rythm and lead. thomas, he had the lungs from hell. that tiny chest he used to have (wheigting in at 65 kilos back in '96) had an enormous roar louder that anything i'd ever heard. still today when he yells, it hurts my ears. normal pepole yelling are annoying at the most, thomas hurts your ears. anyhow, i tried to keep up with the guys but soon it stood clear that i wasn't really that into metal anymore. so i left. i thought the band would carry on without me but soon they split up instead. after six months of rest from music and just talk about a new direction, thomas and i started lingua together with patrik. this was in july 2000 and that story is a whole other story in itself.
but inbetween bands we've done so much more. accoustic, trance, trip hop and what not to explore all we could in music. we used to take long walks (or drive far with the car as soon as thomas got his licence) and dream about a five record deal with sony. i can't remember how many times we've been drunk together and helped each other out of situations or gotten one another in them. we were kids when we met and grew up together. and now we're men with families, still in the same band, making music better than ever. thirteen years of music, friendship and good memories. for that i am thankful. it don't get much better than that.

//misha.

just a tiny taste will do the trick.

i added some licks and tricks to a new song yesterday and here's how awesome thomas found my unique skills. i'm not anticipating them to pay my bills though.


///misha.

billion dollar babies.

we did some promo pictures now that we are back in town as a group
(and thus in no need to use puppets).
here are a couple of results from that session.

all photos by jakob berglund. ask before you use.