In just a few weeks we’ll be releasing Ghostly, the EP we have been working on since last fall. It has been a true team effort and we are childishly proud of it. Like in every process that involves a bunch of people it has been a good learning experience. We thought we’d let you in on how it went down.

As you may know, the creative core of Oriel Joans consists of 4 out of 4 members. All of us sing the songs, and heavily depend on each other for the tunes to feel just like OJ. So what we did first was to turn inwards: write and rehearse as many ideas as possible and flesh them out together. Below are some pictures from our November rehearsals.

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Photo: Elias Gustavsson

In December the songs had gone through most of their teething troubles (calypso-drumming, indie-strumming and salooney-humming – basically being played every thinkable way) and we were ready to try out the best of the batch in front of an audience. We booked a show at a tiny bar in SoFo and did our thing. Most of it worked really well.

Photo: Elias Gustavsson

After some further small tweaks in the arrangements we were content with the choice of songs. Four tracks were set to go on the EP: Born & Raised, Peels, Things and Julian (Ghostly originally). Some demo-recording guided our choice of production, and thanks to our friends and families who lended us all kinds of housing, gear and transportation, we were soon ready to head out and set up our temporary countryside-studio. Lars and Kalle took on the task of producing.

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Photo: Madelene

For an extended weekend in February Oriel Joans recorded at Svennegården. A hefty blizzard made the drive down quite the experience, but the rest of our stay in the Östergötland countryside was all barren beauty. While the fireplace was kept alight we dove head first into the music, drank sangria, hung out, and recorded like crazy. Totally exhausting and exhilarating at the same time! Most of the music was recorded live in one take, which is actually a tough trick to pull in the studio. On the other hand we are certain that this method captured a very specific musical athmosphere.

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Photo: Johan Jujje Eriksson

Back home in Stockholm then, and straight into the next studio. Time for vocals and piano – analogue style! Our friend Alex Rigaud sat behind the knobs. He did a brilliant job.

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Photo: Madelene & Lars

The rest of the post-production was done by Lars and Kalle throughout March. Mixing took longer than anticipated, but seeing that 95% of the EP is mixed in MS-stereo, it was worth it. We booked a date with mastering legend Björn Engelmann (Cutting Room) to give our record the best possible last touches, and mixing was done literally 24/7 until we met him. In order to keep the humane touch of the record we asked him to master the songs on tape… And it turned out beautiful.

Once the whole creative process had come to an end we took a breather. We still needed a sweet cover for the record though, so during our “downtime” all of us made numerous suggestions each. Eventually, though, we sat down and made this one together:

And by that, ladies and gents, we were done! Needless to say we cannot wait to send this baby out in the world; on stage, online and on CD. Exact releasedates TBA very soon. Make sure to check out Ghostly at the end of may!

Best,

Oriel Joans

As stated in our last post, we have been hiding in our rehearsal place for a while… Well, this Sunday we took a break in rehearsal and went out playing in public. Great fun. Some tunes were performed in the subway and some at sea… For those of you who don’t know much about Stockholm, its centre consists of a number of islands; between the southern island, called Södermalm, and another one north-east of it, called Djurgården, there are small ferrys that are nice for impromptu busking. And so we did, on initiative by Anna Flytström and Jerry Boman who run a Stockholm version of The Black Cab Sessions called Stockholm Boat Sessions. We chose an old song about a frog for the occasion:

On Thursday we will yet again head out of our graffiti-decorated rehersal cave. Some new songs will be tested for the first time in the tiny bar Bara Vi at Söder. Sweetness ahead!

Hey folks,

Just thought we’d share some fun media that has been turning up lately.

Here’s a cover of The Way We Move by Kristin Hedberg from Kumla, Sweden. Pretty different from the original, but pretty darn pretty as well:

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Also, here’s a video from Louisville, KY, of our record spinning on a lazy sunday afternoon. It has a very domestic and cool vibe to it. Thanks to Kate & Roman the Cat!

On a side note, we are currently making up some new songs and getting some new gear together for our future recording excursions. Things are looking to go in quite fascinating directions… Hope to play more of these new tracks on stage very soon!

Have a fine weekend everyone, ttyl,

Lars & OJ

Here’s the swedish translation of the flattering review from (just another) pop song, the italian blog that wrote about us after our debut album release. It’s most skillfully translated by Margaretha Ekelund in Trollhättan, a very good friend of my Grandfathers, who helped us since the Google translator is quite insufficient. Above is a picture of the original typewriting. You can also try your italian skills and read the original text right here

/Kalle