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ØYVIND RYAN
PERFEKT HARMONI
Mons011/09-20N
1 Lykkelig når du er glad 3'35
2 Pupp
3'01
3 Lisa sier
2'58
4 Nyklint trut lyspære blues
0'54
5 Min
8'29
6 Elskling
3'49
7 Piano 1'13
8 Alt
5'21
9 Hoppalong
4'30
10 Blond og blid 4'45
BACK <<<
The unbelievable facts
about Perfekt Harmoni.
Written in english because that's fun. Today, at least.
Recorded, mixed, arranged and produced 2004-2008 in Larsville, Stugudal
by Lars Lien, Bent Sæther and Øyvind Ryan. Additional recordings in
Brygga Studio (TRH) by Pål Brekkås, and in Seidwise Studios (TRH) by Burt
Rocket. Mastered in the summer of 2009 by Morten Stendahl in Redroom Studio (TRH).
Cover by Knut Løvås
knugunn@online.no. Photo: Oskar Yazan
Mellemsether
The Band:
Even Granås - drums, guitar.
Bent Sæther - bass, guitars, percussion, background vocals, etc
Lars Lien - piano, keyboards, background vocals
Øyvind Ryan - vocals, guitars, percussion, etc
Additional musicians:
Jostein Brå Vardehaug - tuba
Andreas Landmark - trumpet
Line Sofie Aleksandersen - vocals
Jens Stoltenberg (not the prime minister; the musician!) - oboe
Hans Magnus Ryan - stand up bass (double bass)
The
recording of Perfekt Harmoni
Bent Sæther, Lars
Lien and yours truly begun the recordings in November 2004, in Larsville, Lars studio i
Stugudal, in the mountains close to the Swedish border. In was winter indeed,
one to two metres snow, very cold and very dark, and the days in Lars' studio became a
typical submarine-like session. (The world is something that is happening somewhere
else, where there's difference between night and day. It's probably in an other dimension too.)
After I split up with my family - not out of free will, I had nothing on my
mind but that loss. This inevetably became the main theme for the words I was
writing. Songs I had ready for this album of an other sort - the
happy ones, or the ones that dealt with any other subject than God, how
miserable I am and I still love you went out the window. I had never been
so psyched out in a studio situation before, but with Bents help I managed to
get through it.
- Eat more, drink less!
- Can't eat, so I have to drink.
We laid down the basic tracks to twelve songs, and even got so far as to put
on some of the vocals and background vocals and some of the
extras - percussion, keyboards, more guitars etc. A very productive session,
in spite of the shape I was in.
Even Granås came by bus (! yes, there is a bus route!) and stayed three days to do the drum tracks. Even is fun company (and younger than us), and his
enthusiasm for things we got bored with years ago was a great booster.
Even not only plays drums like a God of some young sort - he creates energy and
smiles. With him he had his Mac and lots of DVDs and videos. Dinosaur
Jr's «Everybody lets me down» was a great laugh. And the documentaries on
Townes Van Zandt and Gram Parsons made me think of other things than my own
little hell. For a couple of hours anyway.
When we got home after a week i Larsville, Bent started on what would become
«Black Hole Blank Canvas». Motorpsycho seemed to release a record for every
time I did some work on «Perfekt Harmoni». It took a while. The good thing
about so much time passing was that I was able to write the most concise
lyrics I had ever done. I had time to find that missing word, correct that
specific sentence - and to put the
record togheter, really together; to make a story to go along with the songs. Not just an album
of ten tracks - but ten seperate tracks that had a link to each other
lyricwise, and chronogicaly too.
The story starts i 1997 and ends i 2006. A little novel divided into ten
songs. I had never dreamt of
making a concept album (maybe had a few nightmares), but suddenly I found my self in the middle of it. It
really wasn't the intention. I hate prog.
During a few days in the band Seid's studio (they've got an album called
«Among The Monster Flowers Again»!), Seidwise Studios in Trondheim, we
recorded another bunch of songs. This was in 2006. So much time had passed
that I had started thinking of «Perfekt Harmoni» as "a lost record".
And why not? I had to do that too! Had to have a lost record. Everybody has to.
And the thing was so f?%#ing painful to work on that I took months off -
not thinking about it at all - as if it was finished, or didn't exist. Then,
out of the polka dots in my mirror, I got turned on to it again - and did
some more writing, sharpening the things I had already done. This happened several times.
In Seidwise we started on something I tought of as a new record - newly
written songs; «Nyklint Trut Lyspære
Blues», «Morgenstemning» (not the Grieg number!), a song that was a potential
opener - «Sov», and a longhaired folk rock thing called «Det var ikke jeg. Det
var du».
More work in Stugudal. Two sessions i 2008. One alone with Lars just finishing
and mixing things, and another with Bent and Lars where the finish was reopened
and finished and mixed one more time! Inbetween these sessions we added tuba, trumpet and female background vocals with Pål
Brekkås in Brygga
(Lars old studio in Trondheim).
- Does anybody know a female singer who
could come in?
- Yes, Oskar said, and brought in Line Sofie, daughter
of the most famous singer-songwriter in Norway, Åge Aleksandersen.
Can she
sing? was all I could think of. She could, in fact her mother must have a
great voice, because she sings a lot better than her father.
Then it was time to master the record. It took months. And months.
In the end I said Stop!
and paid a huge bill.
The record wasn't mastered as I wanted it at all.
I took
the original master
to Morten Stendahl (Redroom, Trondheim), and he did a straight forward job that I was happy with.
And then (now it's about finished...) the master and the ready-to-print cover was sendt to the
cd-plant in Germany. And it disappeared!
No crisis - as backups was on least three harddiscs, but a delay once
more.
It wouldn't have been «Perfekt Harmoni» if things went smoothly.
Knut Løvås did the cover. One of the few steps that didn't involve
any setbacks. Good man!
The songs
Lykkelig når du er glad
This record starts with the
same chord on the same guitar with the same sound as the last chord on the
final song of my previous album.
(Not many of you got that, did you?
:-)
Similar agendas and blurps will not be revealed.
The melody and lyric
to this tune is partly something I wrote in the 90's when my eldest son was
born. Real feelings. It was hastily recorded by Monster Blomster during the recording of
«Stadig Flere Velger Feil» (released 1999), but not used then.
We did it three times
during the sessions for «Perfekt Harmoni». The last one in 2008, and that's the
one were the song finally got to where it should be.
Lykkelig når du er glad
can be translated Happy when you're glad, but it doesen't sound the way it should
in English, and the joke in the title somehow disappears. That's typical, it's two different languages.
Pupp
Pupp means tit.
A happy song and another old one. It's been dug up several times over the
years. New lyrics every time. This lyric suited the melody and the
feel of the song perfectly. It's from the time when my second son was brought
home after birth. I was beside myself, but the kid only cared for his mothers
tits. He looked happy and surprised every time he got them in sight, and it
was as if he was delighted that the world he had gotten into had such
offerings. Simon seemed optimstic.
Most songs need time to grow into
shape. Some of them can seem to be finished when they first are written, but
most of them gains weight and... and something else... if they are allowed to mature.
I'm NOT the
type to write a song one day, record it the next and ship it off to the plant
first ting in the morning the following day. That would be hazard.
Lisa sier
Of course it's «Lisa Says» in English.
Had to do this.
In my dialect it's just
the same as in English; Lisa say = Lisa say.
I'm not a big VU fan, by the way, more of a small one.
But I'm a huge fan of John Cale's 70's albums.
Written a few weeks prior to the
recordings in 2004.
I was thinking What about a nice poptune like the ones
we used to have in the early 90's?
Then: Wham-bam Lisa say
♫♫. La-la-la.
♫.
Lisa say...
Took maybe ten minutes.
That's how hard it can be. On a good day.
The word that pops up in my mind on
such occasions is of course WAIT!
Everything in the lyric is true. This is my «Don't
pass me by», but it's not ironic or dramatized at all.
«Lisa sier», «Blond og Blid» and «Hoppalong» were the first songs we
recorded.
I started with these because they were the ones I was most unsure of.
It was a relief when Bent and Lars ok'd all three of them.
- Oh... so now we're left with the really good ones... GOT YOU!
One of my
drives is to surprise people. And/or to prove them wrong. For half a year
«Underdog» was the working title of the album.
Nyklint Trut Lyspære Blues
«Freshly Frenchkissed Mouth Lightbulb Blues»... no. No, it doesen't
work.
Recorded in Seid's studio - Seidwise Studios with Burt Rocket as technican in
2006.
(His
real name is Bernt Erik Andreassen
- and he thinks Burt Rocket sounds more professional! Ehm...)
Finished in Larsville with Lars on piano. We had fun!
And it's always nice to do short
songs.
Even had broken his arm (!),
so that's why Snah (Hans Magnus Ryan) was asked to join on bass and why Bent played
the drums.
Think about it; the tightest and biggest Norwegian band ever, and: - Could you
swap? You play the drums and you play the bass, or Bent... you play the drums, I
play the guitar.
Min
This melody is sort of a sister to an old Monster Blomster song -
«Liebeslied», which again are directly related to «Hertzsmertz». I love these
songs!
I started writing «Min» in 1995 or 1996, and rather particularly, the first
lyric is about the same things, altough in a different way, as it turned out
some eight years
later.
«Min» wasn't suppeosed to be eight minutes long - it just turned out
like
that.
I started playing the song, and when I was finished it wasn't three minutes -
it was almost three times as long.
- What? Eight minutes?
- Yes, nearly nine. You fiddled along ...
We turned it into a Crazy Horse-number - it just had to be done like this
- and Bent and I took fifteen minutes to add the ooo's into the same mike.
Elskling
The relationship is over. You try to take it like a man, and try to understand
what happened and what you're suppeosed to do now.
Even if ... you get the words to this song ... there's a good portion of
hatred in it. And some very real anger.
The basic of the melody was written around 1993, but it took me years to
realize that it actually was a good one. When I first heard Allan Edwals «Du
och jag» I knew I had stumbled upon something rare with this song, ten years
after I'd written the basic tune. It was bent into shape, I wrote the lyrics -
and there it was! Timeless. For me, I must add, as it fitted perfectly into
where I was in life - ten years after I started writing the song.
«Elskling» is one of the songs on the album I'm most proud of.
(«Min» and «Alt» are two others.)
And Elskling means... Lover or darling or sweetheart... ish.
The oboe is a real oboe played by a real oboe player! He's also a piano tuner,
and that's why he happened to be in Larsville one day I was there. I have
always liked oboe. Well no, not always; all the terrible children programs in the
early seventies had oboe playing. I probably hated it, but that changed
dramaticly later on. Julian Cope's wonderful album «World Shut Your Mouth» has
some very poppish tunes with oboe.
And, as always, I was stunned to find that
scholared musicians actually can't play. Out of tune, wrong notes and
off the beat. No clue of anything whatsoever. 41 takes. The first take was probably as bad as the last one. I
should have given the man a sheet with some dots on and hired a director with
a whip, but I thought it couldn't be that difficult to play that simple
whisteling tune he was suppeosed to do. Wrong again. Thank God (or
Macintosh or Bill Gates or whoever) for
Pro Tools and the opportunity to paste and edit and getting things right.
Bents mellotrone playing added an extra dimension to the whisteling tune.
- Sounds like a Danish folksong! (Bent)
- Must be something out of Hedemarken! County in Norway known for folk music.
(Lars)
Piano
A song with lyrics written on guitar in 2002 or 2003. It wasn't until five years
later it was
turned into a piano instrumental. At one point a demo, recorded on a cassette
player (with the ex shouting and cursing in the background), was meant to be IT.
- This hurts! (Bent)
Alt
(~ All... All of it... no... Everything... no, not that either...)
This is one of the funniest things I've ever recorded. The more instruments we
added, the more stripped down it sounded! Totally the opposite of what I'm
used to: A song is recorded - drums, bass, keyboards, two or three guitars,
some percussion...
and then suddenly there's no room left for the vocals!
We enjoyed this
so much it became sticky. And it glued. When Bent and I drove home
after the first session
it was a relief to put on something else on the car stereo (we had been
working on «Alt» all day), but inbetween
songs one of us could (accidently) hum something from «Alt», and it was
pleeease, oh fu€*&æ#!
When we got back to Trondheim Bent gave me a record I
had read and heard lots about, but never had the chance to listen to - Dennis Wilsons
«Pacific Ocean Blue». When I got home and closed the door I was so exhausted I
couldn't see straight, but I managed to put it on - and it was like ... directly into the veins. (Not that I ever have tried heroin...) It fitted
perfectly.
«Alt» isn't a funny
song, though. I want it all back - that's the essence of the lyric.
The rhythm and the riff and the melody came one winterday in february 2004.
(I've checked this. Can come up with the exact date too!) It was one of the very few times I
just knew that something great was happening between my fingers as I sat there with the
guitar. I tried to write the lyric - many different sets of words written in
half a year -
until I sat back and figured out what I really wanted to say. Then it became
easy. And simplistic: I want it all back; the dirt, the happy times, the quarrels, the sex...
Yes, the sex! It's a porn number.
Hoppalong
So what do you do? You can't get it back, and you're on scratch again.
Lost
weekend.
Or lost weekends. Out on the town, out of town, out of your mind, fuck around.
It only gets soarer.
«Hoppalong» was written autumn 2004. It became very true of mye life in
2005.
- At last! An Åge Aleksandersen number! (Bent)
Blond og blid
Back on scratch once more. The ground is very firm this time. The kids.
They're lovely. Smiles. And a knowledge you wouldn't think they had.
(Perfectly normal thinking for a grown person - forgetting what you knew when you were a kid yourself.)
And they're both blondes. In Norwegian it is not an compliment when
someone is called Blond og billig (Blond and cheapish... eh
well, no.), probably elsewhere too, and there's
of course lots of blonde-jokes.
But this isn't a joke.
The song is also about being in a car, driving away from the
ones you
want to be with - every mile is a mile in the wrong direction - but you're forced to
go away, to be somewhere else; to rip that part of yourself out of
yourself.
Sometimes it's hard to be a man
♫ ♪
Part of the melody was written in time to be one of the tracks on «Øyvind Ryan-Gruppen» in 2003, but it didn't get recorded. Finished around
2006, this time with a lyric.
I fell in love with the refrain and wanted it to repeat endlessly at the end
of the song, like... twenty minutes?, but the other producers thought
that even three rounds was a bit much.
I think it turned out quite well. I have had time to get to know this record.
Now I want to do something less heartbreaking.
The outtakes
Lisa gikk til helvete
Recorded in an hour - or as live as it sounds. Used as one extra track on
the «Alt»-single in 2008. An old song, it could have been the title tune on
the Monster Blomster cd «Lisa Gikk Til Helvete» (obviously), had we only recorded it.
I have always loved this one. The meody, the lyric and
the phase of it.
It's one of those fast smartass poptunes from the early
Monster Blomster years that I'm very proud of.
Not one word is changed from the first draft.
A real treat for those who actually purchase singles.
God natt (og sov godt)
Finished - could be on the album, but it was intended as an opener, and was
shelved in favour of «Lykkelig Når Du Er Glad».
Written as I was beside myself with despair, and in a rush, just before the
recordings started.
It's a song about the metallic
taste of sleeping pills. That, and that wish Sleep well!, when you are so
afraid to stay awake and alone with your brain running at top speed that you'd
rather hit yourself in the head with a hammer than risking to lay awake.
I don't know if you've been there.
Blå
A ballad that Bent turned into a Dinsoaur Jr number. It worked mighty fine
until I tried to sing the bastard. Can't do J Mascis.
The song will turn up sometime in the future, it's too good to shelve.
10.000 ting (and several other titles)
This one wasn't even recorded, but it belongs on the album. The melody was
one of the last songs Monster Blomster rehearsed before splitting up (the very
last?). I wrote the words at the time I was moving out in 2004, but I didn't
have a melody to go with it. And then I remembered this old one that had the
right rhythm for the lyric.
Like flies on shit / Party people all over the place / And in your face / The
thief and the whore corpulate /
Couldn't care less, couldn't cope at all /
Couldn't resist could you, comrade?
In Norwegian it sounds even better
:-)
Livet for deg
Another one that didn't get an attemt. Melody "written" (more or less stolen,
or "inspired" as some say) in the late 90's, the lyric was written a
couple years later.
It's a nice song - it works perfectly - everything about it it
just right, and it's a straight forward tune. So straight forward I might get
sued.
The lyric is grim and honest, but again - true and spot-on.
I love it.
Hei idiot
Idiot 2
Even kjører seng igjen (instrumental)
Three rush-attempts at this loop-with-a-guitar-riff.
Lars and Bent vetoed "no", and in retrospect it was a just "no", so that's
that.
- This is just... the oldest guitar riff in the world. (Bent) (Lars
nodding.)
But it isn't. Just their way to say "not a good one" without creating to much
fuzz.
The words to this song didn't do it any favours either.
The instrumental version was sickening; Even laid down maybe five different
figures on the drums,
the idea was that they shouldn't benefit each other,
but rather freeze the
rhythm.
«Even kjører seng igjen» means... Even drives his bed again.
(...no.) Have you ever gone to bed right after you'd absorbed a good amount of alcohol?
(Get it? No?)
Perfekt harmoni
The title tune wasn't finished. As usual.
One of the sweetest songs I've written. I think. And a genuine tune.
The first letters
(PH) is also the letters used when meachuring the degree of base saturation -
or in Norwegian ~ one persons bad temper.
Clever, clever...
Morgenstemning
Short'n'fast pop tune with too much lyrics. Catchy, though. Written in
2006.
Burt added an organ
that made it very "Elvis Costello and the Attractions".
Recorded with
Snah on bass and Bent on drums.
As good as finished, backing vocals and all, but we didn't have time to mix it.
Sov
Nice thing. Again a song about sleeping. Pleasant sleep, this time. I will be
doing this later.
Det var ikke jeg. Det var du
( ~ It wasn't me. It was you. Well... no.)
Ugly thing. Music inspired by
The Louvin Brothers' «Knoxville Girl» - or something
in that
tradition. Changed into a Crazy Horse-on-moonshine number.
I will be using this soon.
"If there's a light in the tunnel... it's probably an oncoming train."
(Guttorm Hansen, 1920-2009, Norwegian Labour politician, said so in the early
1980's.
His firstname, Guttorm, translated into english (no, no, no!) means ...
Boyworm.
Not many know that.)
Reviews
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(in english)
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Musiq.no
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