Straight from Roine:
Hi ALL.
I just returned from a fabulous week in the studio,where all of the band were laying down the basic tracks for our new CD .
First of all , a big NO ,Hasse Froberg is not leaving the band and he have no plans or no desire whatever to go to India to teach,nor have his wife or kids .(april fools..)
Then a big YES ,Zoltan Csörsz have recorded with the band and we are all VERY excited about the quality and the sheer committment that Zoltan have put into this recording. It's too early to tell if Zoltan will play on the tour,but we won't rule it out ,it all depend on
our individual schedules,what however seems unlikely at this point is
that Marcus will sing lead (april fools) or can commit 100% to drumming
on this tour or future tours,more news to follow later.
The
recording week have been a great experience for us all,we've been in a
great studio facility that have tons of vintage gear and we've had it
24/7 so we've lived there and we've worked with our trusted team of
Petrus Königson as engineeer and we've had Per Nordin there
videofilming the sessions,so we have hours and hours of filmed material.
The result is as far as we can see a great symphonic & progressive rock album that have more of the Retropolis/Stardust/Flower Power vibe but perhaps a bit more "progressive" in the sense there are no short easy listening songs ,however there are very melodic and likewise catchy sections integrated in these epics. A few of these songs were really difficult to play,the intricacy of time signatures had us on our toes,but it was great fun . Yes there are similarities to songs like Stardust We Are or Garden Of Dreams but perhaps even as much to the Transatlantics epics.
The
energy level was on a hi all the time and I guess it shows, again
Zoltan did a terrific job behind the kit,easily as good or better than
his work on UTF,it even has a bit of Terry Bozzio tom tom extravaganza
and a few short solo spots that are all terrific.
The sound
quality is head and shoulders above what we got from the Medley on
Paradox Hotel,Petrus is a genious and the Varispeed studio with it's 3
NEVE desks and old U 47 Telefunkens,Neumans etc. is the coolest and the
best studio I've ever recorded in,the result is top notch and the vibe
there was all late 60's and early 70's.
We had the
pleasure to use a custom modified ( by expert Brian Davenport) Hammond
B 3 that sounded just fabulous and along with that we will, or have
used real Minimoogs ,Wurlizer,Fender Rhodes pianos and a Grand Piano. This
means that this album will see more of the vintage keyboard sounds than
on any other TFK record,I feel it goes well with the songs that have
great melodic and warm melodies that take me back to the glory days of
Procol Harum,ELP,Genesis,Yes,Focus,Gentle Giant,Jethro Tull,Deep Purple
and The Beatles. I have tried to remember the feeling of standing on stage when the band sound great and
we really feel like we're moving air and we're moving peoples hearts
and I've tried to write from that perspective,perhaps with a less
intellectual style and more of a direct soulful vibe.
Now we have a few weeks of overdubbing vocals and percussion,xtra guitars and keys and hopefully by mid June we have delivered a steaming hot new CD album to Inside Out that we're proud of and that will take you back to the glory days of prog.
In my opinion TFK have never sounded better and never delivered such a compact collection
of what we do best, I admit we took a few (interesting) detours but
this is what defines the band,this is as close as it gets to what I set
out to do 12 years ago.
btw, Did I mention that Hasse will be singing with us next tour ......and next ...... And we'll make shure to prepare the drumkits with asbest too........ and no drummer will take the lead mike,nor will we turn our amps up to more than 11, we will try keep it just below that 11 mark.
Roine (april 2nd 2007) .
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