Also, if you’d care to take a look, an old childhood friend of mine is studying animation and has a YouTube channel where she posts some of her work. Please check out YamiNoRisu’s YouTube Channel!

This is a song I started writing last night, inspired by the way the rain shone in the light of the streetlamps outside. It soon became rather clear, however, that the real theme of this song is my fear of being separated from my boyfriend when I go off to England in a couple of weeks.

Filmed with Photobooth, which is why the piano looks “wrong”; it’s mirrored. Also, just want to mention that up close with an extreme wide-angle webcam, from that angle, even Kate Moss would look fat.

And yeah, I fucked up at the end there; I’m no pianist, deal with it. Any opinions are perfectly welcome, of course. That’s why I’m sharing an unfinished work like this. I’m going to write at least another verse and chorus, maybe some new melodic variation later on, but I’m not sure it needs it… what do you think?

Vocals: M. Haraldsen
Keys: M. Dahlsrud
Guitars: A. Lysenstøen, K. Kværner
Bass: M. Johannessen
Drums: A. Skaala

Alive:
Lyrics: Haraldsen
Music: Haraldsen/Skaala/Johannessen/Lysenstøen

Alive

Child of the Light:
Lyrics: Haraldsen
Music: Kværner/Lysenstøen

Child of the Light

The gorgeous and talented Vilde! Her voice touches everyone who hears it. It leaves you feeling happy and sad at the same time. She certainly brings the “jazz” to this duo.

The awesome Kriss! I expect some of the older members of the audience, expecting a traditional jazz concert, were taken aback by his novel approach to music, but they all seemed to like it.

Sgrow!

Check out Sgrow on Facebook and MySpace!

You Wish threw a fantastic show at the STUDiO Festival. Despite their small audience, they rocked as hard as anyone!

Very pretty stage lights.

Fredrik’s falcetto backing vocals were fantastically clean and pure, while the bass rang clear at the very bottom of the frequency spectrum.

I found Simen’s use of the violin bow with the guitar very interesting. His intense playing was, as always, a joy to observe.

Tor Øystein rocked the keytar AND the microphone!

Unn was beautiful and vibrant, and looked entirely at ease on the big stage. Her voice took away the breath of everyone there!

Though doomed to appear in the background as far as pictures are concerned, Hans rocked a solid beat, setting the very foundation for the sound.

You Wish! I do, indeed.

Become a fan of You Wish on Facebook or visit their MySpace.

All photos taken by me.

Please take off the mask
And show me that he’s real
The one who knows me to my last
The one who knows where I begin

Please take off the mask
I know that you’re in there
Let your guard down, let me see
Let me feel you, let me hear

Please, let me in

Please take off the mask
I haven’t seen you for so long
Only the briefest spells of time
When you make me feel so strong

Please take off the mask
You are more than I see now
You have so much more to give
You can heal me if you try

Just let me in

Hold onto your senses
Please don’t try to hide
I’m standing here and waiting
Just dare to take the stride
I’m holding out for you, dear
I’m never gonna go
I know that you’re still in there
Take my hand, break out your soul

Please take off the mask
You don’t have to hide from me
Your defences cannot last
I will hold you finally

Please take off the mask
I have seen it all before
Follow the sound of my voice
You are so close to see it all

Just let me in

Hold onto your senses
Please don’t try to hide
I’m standing here and waiting
Just dare to take the stride
I’m holding out for you, dear
I’m never gonna go
I know that you’re still in there
Take my hand, break out your soul

There is always a slight problem with reviewing bands you know personally, in that it’s not always so easy to be entirely objective. In addition to not really wanting to say anything bad about ones friends, ever, there’s also the chance that they might actually read this at some point, and what if they don’t like what they read?

All the same, I will try my damndest to be as objective as I can.

I have already raved about this band here. You Wish play music of a genre of their own creation, called Ghost Pop. It’s not really easy to describe, but the words “haunting” and “dance music” certainly fit in the mix. It’s a five-piece band, with guitar, drums, bass, keytar and vocals, and the music itself is based on hauntingly beautiful chords and somewhat unusual rhythmic patterns, though it is, perhaps, the vocals that most immediately sets it apart.

You Wish started their concert in a way that would have been extremely effective and awesome, had they been playing at a real concert venue rather than a pub, because between all the people talking, laughing and ordering beer it was a bit hard to tell whether they’d actually started playing yet or not. However, once they picked up the pace they seemed to get everyone’s attention. I was in the front, but looking behind me I don’t think I could see a single face that wasn’t turned towards the stage.

This was my first time seeing them play a full concert, so I was unfamiliar with most of the songs. I found most of them to be absolutely fantastic, and the ones I did know I sang along with as well as I could. If you’re anything like me, you can’t stand still to this kind of music. This was more true for some than others, and there was especially one couple dancing so violently they almost knocked me over twice.

There was an unfortunate mishap with the vocalist’s microphone in the middle of the concert, whereupon she was forced to switch microphones with the bassist (who is also backing singer), but after this, the concert went relatively smoothly. Pub sound is never as good as you’d want it to be, and the sound tech was less than attentive to the band’s gesticulations regarding monitoring, etc.

For such a tiny stage in such a dingy pub, the stage show was amazing. They were all wearing make-up and masks, feathers and glitter, and little butterflies pinned to their clothes. They were all rocking out and communicated with the audience pretty well.

The vocal harmonies were gorgeous and, given the monitoring in that place sucks on the best of days, very clean indeed. The main vocalist and the keytarist, who sometimes shares the main vocals, sing very well together, and communicate well.

I very much enjoyed the concert, and would like to recommend seeing this band to anyone who has the opportunity. So far that probably just means Norwegians, but keep your eyes peeled; you never know when these guys are gonna break through internationally. They’re certainly not far off from making it big here – I’m absolutely sure of it!

Photos were taken by me with my mobile phone. Sorry about the quality, or lack thereof.

All instruments: MajorDundee
Vocals: M. Haraldsen

MajorDundee at MetaFilter Music requested that I record vocals for this song. I thought it was a beautiful piece of music and so immediately agreed. I hope you’ll like it, too. You can find a bit of info about the song as well as the lyrics here.

Dundee, wherever you’ve gone, I hope you’re well.

Tess’s Lament

I’m honestly quite terrified. I don’t even know why I’m scared anymore… I’ve sorted everything out, I have nothing more to stress about, I ought to be able to relax, but for some reason I still can’t. It’s like I just realised I’m going far, far away and I am freaking out.

Not to worry, I’m sure it’ll pass…

Made it to a concert while I was there; “Dialekt Rock”, with Lasse Eriksson, from Närpes. This won’t make much sense to most people, but Närpes is a burrough in Finland where they speak just about the weirdest Swedish dialect in the world. Lasse Eriksson has made a thing out of it, and he writes and sings songs in this dialect, challenging his audience to try and understand them, occasionally fitting in a few other odd dialects as well. Highly entertaining!

I had a very uncomfortable trip home. We left on Saturday morning to go to a family reunion thing. My parents dropped us off (us being the boyfriend and I) in Vasa to hang out for a couple of hours, since the family reunion mostly consisted of my mother’s cousins (and not their kids), none of whom I know. Anyway, it was very hot and I was feeling a bit under the weather since the previous night, but it was okay. We had some lunch, but I didn’t have much of an appetite. When we were picked up and got to the other place, we got some dinner, but I didn’t eat much of that either.

The next morning I had a very small breakfast, still not having much of an appetite, besides which we had to get up at 6:30 am. It was a long drive to Helsinki, and when we got there I still couldn’t eat. I was hungry, but I didn’t want any food. In the end I managed to eat a small bag of crisps and a chocolate bar which sustained me until dinner, at which time I finally had almost a full meal. I went to bed almost straight after dinner, spending some time reading before trying to get some sleep. I woke up very shortly after because we had some rough seas. The rocking made me feel slightly seasick, so I got up, put some clothes on, and went to buy myself a coke. Then I went out on deck where I stood for about two hours before daring to go back to bed when we were nearing Åland.

But after we’d left Mariehamn, the waves once again brought me out of my half slumber, and I went out again. It wasn’t until we entered Stockholm’s sjärgård and the sea completely calmed that I went to bed again and fell asleep. I slept for as long as I can, which brought my total up to about three hours for the whole night.

Needless to say, when I got home I was entirely destroyed. We watched some TV, had some snacks and then went to bed. This morning I slept until I woke up of my own accord, which was bliss.

Anyway, falling asleep in my seat. I’ll blog about something relevant tomorrow (or something).

Nice and warm weather here. Was a bit too warm the day before yesterday, but then a thunder front passed by and it got cooler and less humid. Also, forgive any typos; this keyboard is really old and not very good. Waiting to head out to the airport to pick up the boyfriend who’s arriving today, so that will be nice. Haven’t seen him since Sunday morning.

I’m working on a new song. Or, the lyrics are old, I wrote them when I was here last year. You can find them here. I think I’ll call the song Summertime Lullaby when it’s done. I’ve got a melody for it. Tried to play around with chords a bit on my grandmother’s piano earlier, but the grandfather clock in the living room is so loud that it’s impossible to play anything that’doesn’t go in 60 bpm, besides which you can’t play tight when you’re trying to find chords. So I gave up cause the clock annoyed me so much, but I do have a general key now, at least.

I want to submit this song to the MetaFilter Music July Challenge, which is to make a summer tune. It’ll be a tight deadline to try to finish and record it by the 31st when I get home in the evening on the 26th, but I might just make it.

Definitely going to the beach today. Hope the water is as warm as it was on Tuesday.