Small town, big feelings (II): P, C & C in the Aerosol Grey Machine Studio

We have news from the Aerosol Grey Machine Studio, the studio owned by Christoffer Lundquist. Per Gessle and Vibeke Saugestad are involved.

According to The Daily Roxette and Roxette Service, Per Gessle has been working in a new Swedish solo album since last year. It will be released in May.

As usual, Per recorded the demos in T&A Studio (Halmstad) with MP Persson, between May 2002 and February 2003. When they began, they did not really know if it could be a solo album or maybe an album by Gyllene Tider.

After the summer 2002, Per planned a project with a small band: Clarence Öfwerman (keyboards and Roxette's producer), Christoffer Lundquist (bass and backing vocals) and Jens Jansson (drums and percussion).

Between December 2002 and February 2003, they have been working in the Aerosol Grey Machine Studio (owned by Christoffer Lundquist since 1998), a house in Vollsjö, a small urban area (788 habitants) in the Sjöbo Municipality (Sjöbo Kommun).

AGM is nestled in a beautiful rural environment in southern Sweden. The AGM is primarily an analogue studio with lots of vintage equipment and an two live echo-chambers. Lodging is close: "Gubbens hus" (The old man's house) is a three-room house with six beds, bathroom, shower, kitchen, micro wave oven and TV, within walking distance from the studio.

It seems Per, Clarence, Chris and Jens have called Helena Josefsson from Sandy Mouche in order to do the backing vocals in the album.

We will have more news about it in May. Just read Per Gessle's words below.

LJdM

I did it on my own responsability. I decided to not to contact the record company before everything would already be finished. I started by writing down thoughts about the album. It should be about small town thoughts, but with big feelings. Clarence Öfwerman and I got rooms at the local bed & breakfast, a single room each. No families, no kids, just the two of us and Christoffer. We started our days by watching music movies, and finished them by playing disco. A lot of things we did imprinted on the album. If you would grind the three of us and everything we like it would sound just like the album. Christoffer has played a lot of guitar, he proved to be quite good. I play the bass, because I don’t know how to - so it gets to be charming. A guitarist doesn’t play the way a real bass player would. You do those sexy things you hear a bass player do, the fast climbs along the neck, but you do it at the wrong places. And maybe a bit too often. You get tasteless and totally ruthless. It’s fun when you can’t play for real, you get happy.

Recordings with Roxette can be enormously finical and stretch out over a long period, with many different studios involved. This time the three of us have worked really intensive, which gives the album a very clear identity. Roxette’s albums are more… I would say anonymous, if the word didn’t have such a bad ring to it. Totally different. Just the reverse.

It's been a totally fantastic recording. An incredible recording really. We have stayed in a hostel and worked basically around the clock, five weeks down in a snow-covered Skåne. Christoffer and Clarence have shared my dream to make a warm, immediate and yet kind of thoughtful album. Small town. Small thoughts but Big feelings. I don’t think I can get any more personal than this.

Per Gessle

In 2003, Christoffer Lundquist, Per Gessle's new producer, was looking for a female voice. And he asked people in the area. They mentioned my name, since I have sung with a lot of other artists from the south of Sweden. And I got to the AGM studio to record. Per Gessle wasn´t there but he liked it and I was in!

Helena Josefsson - H.J.

Vibeke Saugestad is a Norwegian singer that has released this week a new album, Overdrive, a follow up to her first solo album, 2001's Into The Shimmering. She also sang and/or played keyboards in the bands Weld, Thelyblast, Thinkerbell, and Yum Yums. The album is produced by Christoffer Lundquist and the musicians are David Birde (Brainpool), Magnus Börjeson (Beagle), Morten Henriksen and Tomas Dahl (Yum Yums). David and Magnus are the songwriters of most of the songs.

According to music reviews, whereas Into The Shimmering toned down Vibeke's rocking tendencies to fit into a softer, somewhat balladic mould, Overdrive is generally much more uptempo and hard-edged. The album includes the songs: 'C'mon C'mon C'mon', 'Lovesong', 'My Final Invitation', 'Here She Comes Again', 'All You Ever Need'.

LJdM