A track by track guide...
It's still summer, but for some reason the ClashMusic office has taken on a wintery atmosphere of late.
Perhaps it's due to Swedish duo I Break Horses. Eschewing the Scandinavian reputation for wholesome indie pop, the duo instead aim for something rather more ethereal.
Debut album 'Hearts' layers effect upon effect, with I Break Horses crafting vast swathes of sound. In essence a shoegaze album, in reality the Swedish group have far more going on than any genre tag could describe.
Out now on Bella Union, the album is an ambitious, involving piece of work which never allows studio effects to break free of the core songwriting. Tying down singer Maria Linden, ClashMusic managed to grab hold of a track by track guide to I Break Horses' rather beautiful debut album...
- - -
Winter Beats
I wrote this track out of frustration in Poland. I was there to record the album in a studio and that whole experience wasn't exactly what I had hoped for. It seemed like a great idea at the time though! And I suppose that even though I pretty much scrapped everythiing I recorded there, once I came home, some good did come out of it, and that was this song.
I found a really nice Russian syntheziser there and started playing the arpeggio chord that the song is built on, tested the engineer's patience by asking him to record me while holding that one chord for about 6 minutes haha. I ended up liking it so much I made it the album opener.
Hearts
I was in a Suicide mode (the band Suicide!) when I wrote "Hearts" and in my head I wanted to somehow create a song that blended the aggressive with the romantic. The version you hear on the album is my very first demo version of the song. Was written and finished in a couple of hours.
I think I've always liked this song the most of the ones on the record.
Wired
This was the first track I wrote for the album, it has a sort of classic and very simple rock groove and I mixed that with a very floaty chorus. I had a MBV inspired idea of a de-tuning/pitchbend effect at the end of the song that maybe only I like! We shall see.
I Kill Your Love, Baby!
I like the paradox feeling this song results in, as the phrase, same as the title, is being repeated, almost like a hymn but with a more aggressive textural content. The cyclical synth motifs have a similar repetition and I wanted to build it slowly, so that it feels like a mantra.
Pulse
This is a song inspired by my pulse ( what a revelation!!). Or rather my slightly bizarre phobia of it. I wanted it to sound like a steady pulse with the drums through a haze of synths and guitars. Maybe the BPM says something about my condition!
This song was a complete pain to record, I think I did about 10 different versions of this song before I ending up with the final piece. Naturally, this is not one of my favourite songs on the album.
Cancer
This song is based on the key stabs played on my Korg Polysix, I used that syntheziser a lot on this album. The guitars and the drums in "Cancer" are some of the very few audio files I kept from the recordings in Poland before starting all over in my bedroom studio instead.
I wrote it after a cheap last minute trip to Greece, inspired by the sound of charter tragedy. It was a bit off-season when I was there and the town was closing down. Still, some places tried to maintain the high season leisure mode by playing Mediterranean disco hits over and over. And through my bedroom window it sounded so sad.
Load Your Eyes
This was the last track written for the album and it was practically written by itself. Very quick and easy to put together. And it has a playfulness I like about it.
Empty Bottles
A plain love song. About people living separate lives together. Yet always trying their best in their own ways to reach out and connect. All the takes are one takes I kept to make sure I got the warmth and vividness I was after. There is always the temptation when recording at home to seek the unattainable perfection, and yet doing something over and over is rarely the way to achieve it. What I have found is that usually the best takes of a song are the first ones, and while some other parts may take a while and require a lot of work, the intimacy or the urgency you have for a part when it is first being performed sadly cannot always be recreated to contain that little magic.
No Way Out
I wanted to make a simple and sweet little piece to end the album with. I remember that I had a really bad cold when recording this one. By the end when the drums started to build up more and more, then I too was marching. Into a higher fever.
- - -
'Hearts' is out now.
Perhaps it's due to Swedish duo I Break Horses. Eschewing the Scandinavian reputation for wholesome indie pop, the duo instead aim for something rather more ethereal.
Debut album 'Hearts' layers effect upon effect, with I Break Horses crafting vast swathes of sound. In essence a shoegaze album, in reality the Swedish group have far more going on than any genre tag could describe.
Out now on Bella Union, the album is an ambitious, involving piece of work which never allows studio effects to break free of the core songwriting. Tying down singer Maria Linden, ClashMusic managed to grab hold of a track by track guide to I Break Horses' rather beautiful debut album...
- - -
Winter Beats
I wrote this track out of frustration in Poland. I was there to record the album in a studio and that whole experience wasn't exactly what I had hoped for. It seemed like a great idea at the time though! And I suppose that even though I pretty much scrapped everythiing I recorded there, once I came home, some good did come out of it, and that was this song.
I found a really nice Russian syntheziser there and started playing the arpeggio chord that the song is built on, tested the engineer's patience by asking him to record me while holding that one chord for about 6 minutes haha. I ended up liking it so much I made it the album opener.
Hearts
I was in a Suicide mode (the band Suicide!) when I wrote "Hearts" and in my head I wanted to somehow create a song that blended the aggressive with the romantic. The version you hear on the album is my very first demo version of the song. Was written and finished in a couple of hours.
I think I've always liked this song the most of the ones on the record.
Wired
This was the first track I wrote for the album, it has a sort of classic and very simple rock groove and I mixed that with a very floaty chorus. I had a MBV inspired idea of a de-tuning/pitchbend effect at the end of the song that maybe only I like! We shall see.
I Kill Your Love, Baby!
I like the paradox feeling this song results in, as the phrase, same as the title, is being repeated, almost like a hymn but with a more aggressive textural content. The cyclical synth motifs have a similar repetition and I wanted to build it slowly, so that it feels like a mantra.
Pulse
This is a song inspired by my pulse ( what a revelation!!). Or rather my slightly bizarre phobia of it. I wanted it to sound like a steady pulse with the drums through a haze of synths and guitars. Maybe the BPM says something about my condition!
This song was a complete pain to record, I think I did about 10 different versions of this song before I ending up with the final piece. Naturally, this is not one of my favourite songs on the album.
Cancer
This song is based on the key stabs played on my Korg Polysix, I used that syntheziser a lot on this album. The guitars and the drums in "Cancer" are some of the very few audio files I kept from the recordings in Poland before starting all over in my bedroom studio instead.
I wrote it after a cheap last minute trip to Greece, inspired by the sound of charter tragedy. It was a bit off-season when I was there and the town was closing down. Still, some places tried to maintain the high season leisure mode by playing Mediterranean disco hits over and over. And through my bedroom window it sounded so sad.
Load Your Eyes
This was the last track written for the album and it was practically written by itself. Very quick and easy to put together. And it has a playfulness I like about it.
Empty Bottles
A plain love song. About people living separate lives together. Yet always trying their best in their own ways to reach out and connect. All the takes are one takes I kept to make sure I got the warmth and vividness I was after. There is always the temptation when recording at home to seek the unattainable perfection, and yet doing something over and over is rarely the way to achieve it. What I have found is that usually the best takes of a song are the first ones, and while some other parts may take a while and require a lot of work, the intimacy or the urgency you have for a part when it is first being performed sadly cannot always be recreated to contain that little magic.
No Way Out
I wanted to make a simple and sweet little piece to end the album with. I remember that I had a really bad cold when recording this one. By the end when the drums started to build up more and more, then I too was marching. Into a higher fever.
- - -
'Hearts' is out now.
