any day now, i'm one year older, and the album is nearly finished, so it's kind of my present for myself! =)

i promised you these samples last week, but i didn't have the time to post them earlier. this time it's three songs that have been "updated", hope you'll like it:


"DU DET ÄR OK"
(hey, it's gonna be ok)

i've re-recorded the acoustic guitars and the toy glockenspiel, and i've also been working a bit with the drum tracks... i'll record new vocals, and then it's pretty much done..... here's a new translation for the chorus:
- it's not easy to let go
- when your dreams are all you know
- i know it's hard, but hey!
- it's gonna be OK


"JABUTICABA"

with new guitars, both acoustic and electric. just missing new vocals! i love the atmosphere of this song.


"ALLT HAR SIN TID"
(everything has its time)

have re-recorded the two electric guitars. just missing new vocals, AND backing vocals.


oh yeah, same old advisory:

* vocals and some instruments are only Early Production Recordings and MAY CHANGE!
* this is only HALF-finished!
* several instruments are still missing!
* this is UN-mixed!
* this is only for you to follow the progress of the creation of my new album!
* this does not represent the sound quality of the album!

=)

would YOU stay at a job where someone takes 99% of your money, still asking you to work full-time?

making a CD takes months of hard work. it's like any other job.

and i'm like any other person, i need the money for my rent and the food on my table. it's really that simple - if i don't make any money, i will have to stop making music.

SO
if you have downloaded my music without paying
OR
if you're a kind person with lots of money
OR
if you like my music and would like to support me

THEN
please make a DONATION here. it only takes 2 minutes.
or i may not be able to continue recording music.

thank you for your understanding!

the background to this donation page is that i've just received the royalty check from iTunes/other pay websites, and it's a shockingly low amount

BECAUSE

the same day i also found my albums on a free [illegal] download site, and i discovered that the illegal downloads are 1000 times more popular. and this is only ONE website.

this means, that LESS than 1% of the people who download my music from the internet are paying. the rest is..... well, not paying.

and i can't afford to eat.

would you work for free?

=)

or see it like this - taking music without paying is comparable with raping a woman in a dark park.

just because she walks alone through the park, and nobody would see you, it doesn't give you the right to rape her.

am currently re-recording some guitars for the album, and i'll post some new samples during the week. i've been using the electric guitar a lot lately, as you've already heard, and as you will hear in the coming samples. playing electric now is like meeting an old friend from the past that suddenly turns up again, one crossroad later, both of you brimming with new experiences and insights, still being able to continue as if no time has passed.

i never believed in the beginning and end of things. it's all about continuation. everything is a continuation of something else.

maybe that's why i've forgiven my blue electric guitar and opened up my mind to my musical past and now let all my influences co-exist at the same time — folk, chanson, blues, pop, jazz, reggae, samba. they are all like different-coloured bricks in my musical foundation, and it doesn't feel strange at all, this explosion of colours.

i've tried to find the origin of this quote, but everywhere i find it, i also find a different source. so i guess lots of people have said it —

the mind is like an umbrella — it only works when it's open

the present is the moment where your past still lingers and where your future is constantly being reborn. come dwell with me below this open umbrella!!!!

isn't it wonderful, the sound of spring rain?

=)

please allow yourself to enter this four minute thought. it's written by THICH NHAT HANH from vietnam, and is called:

PLEASE CALL ME BY MY TRUE NAMES



=)

yesterday i watched the japanese movie NOBODY KNOWS, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda.

it's one of the ABSOLUTELY BEST MOVIES i've ever seen. ever.

it's incredibly strong and touching, inspired by a true story about a woman who abandons her four children in a tokyo apartment, to pursue her own "happiness" with a new man.

the movie follows the children, who have not been registered at birth and therefore do "not exist" and cannot leave the apartment. the oldest boy is left with the responsibility of the household and looking after his siblings. he's brilliantly played by Yuya Yagira, whose performance made him the youngest ever BEST ACTOR winner at the Cannes Film Festival.

this could have been such a sentimental, manipulative movie, if the story had ended up in the hands of a "western" director. and i read an american review that said this movie is boring. and it is in the hollywood sense: there is no obvious plot, no action or fast cuts, no hero. only the children trying to survive, day by day, week by week, month by month.

it's very realistic, often filmed from a documentary-like point-of-view, unsentimental but melancholic, sometimes painfully beautiful but never depressing. it's slow-paced, which to me is only emphasizing the situation of the children not being allowed to live normal children's lives. it's not a movie for restless people wanting 2½ hours of braindead entertainment.

it's a movie that grasps your heart with the gentle fragility of a child's hand.

KORE-EDA is not looking for anyone to blame, and you could see the mother herself as a victim. the movie is more of an "attack" on a society where people don't want to know what's going on with their neighbours, than an "attack" on individuals.

as the japanese director said in an interview:

"I'm not interested in creating heroes, superheroes, or antiheroes. I simply want to look at people as they are."

here's the FRENCH movie trailer, because the english one has a horrible speaker-voice promising the "greatest adventure imaginable", which is very misleading and genuine bullshit. the french trailer has subtitles and no speaker-voice.



reviewers have called it "miraculously fresh", "absorbing, humane and deeply moving", "astonishing", "stunning" and "a delicate, casually heartbreaking film".

to quote a reviewer from IMDB, it shows the contrast between the courage, maturity and innocence of children, and the selfishness and childishness of adults.

please watch this movie. you will never forget it.

=)

in the documentary i was talking briefly on how i believe that everything is connected. i've always believed that. and as i'm in an existential mood today, here are some thoughts about time.

we see time as linear, as a long endless line that started when we were born (or before, depending on our beliefs), and ending when we die, made up by hours tiled up beside eachother.

once i read a book, whose author and title are now faded from my memory, which claimed that our experiece of time as passing is something we have only created to easier be able to see the whole picture. (it's very existential, i know!!! but i warned you =)

it would be TOO DIFFICULT to understand your whole life at once, and therefore we have to divide it into days, into moments, to be able to see the whole picture.

it would be like watching an old painting that's 1000 meters wide and 400 meters tall. it's impossible to see it all at once. we have to start somewhere, and then take it from there, beholding one part at the time. moment by moment.

when we understand that time never passes (because it never arrives - and how can something pass when it never arrives?) we become aware that there is no difference between today and yesterday and tomorrow. there is no difference between today and a year ago. (even though we number the days and years to have some kind of order) they are only moments flowing into eachother.

the japanese zen philosopher DOGEN wrote this in the year of 1242:

"Because flowing is a quality of time, moments of past and present do not overlap or line up side by side"

this also means that what i experienced a year ago is not necessarily more distant than what i experienced this morning.

DOGEN gave time the function of being inseparable from existence, using the word TIME-BEING (UJI in japanese):

"Do not think that time merely flies away. Do not see flying away as the only function of time. If time merely flies away, you would be separated from time. The reason you do not clearly understand the time-being is that you think of time only as passing.
  In essence, all things in the entire world are linked with one another as moments.
[...]
You may suppose that time is only passing away, and not understand that time never arrives."


these moments, that we only see as passing, are our life. moment by moment. birdsong by birdsong. dish by dish. person by person. tropical rain by tropical rain.

we're trying every day to fill our life with things that will make us happy. this will never make us happy.

it's like your home suddenly wouldn't have any electricity and you're going away for the evening. you're running out of time and are desperately trying to find your keys so you can lock the door.
  but as there is no light, you can't see where you've put them.
  you know that your neighbour's electricity is working, but you wouldn't go looking in their apartment for your keys, only because they have lights, would you?

we will never find happiness outside of ourselves.

it's been waiting all the time for us to stop looking.

it's here and now.

=)

just returned from jogging along the canal where i live, with a gorgeous feeling inside me. the air was warm, as before a thunderstorm, and rain clouds were gathering above the city.

first, a few drops, landing on my cheek. then slowly increasing.

and that LOVELY smell of spring in the air!!!!

when i'd returned home after something like 30 minutes, the sky opened. i sat down on the stairs outside my flat, enjoying the fresh, warm, summer rain, as stray rays of sun found the rooftops through sprinkled patches of blue sky.

have you ever watched raindrops hit the palm of your hand? landing, extracting as the tension of the drop is broken, and reaching out for the small wrinkles and grooves in the skin....

as if to water the seeds in your lifeline.

=)

as i am a man who keeps his word, here are the two songs i've been working with recently, recording piano and guitars (acoustic and electric), the vocals are new too, will probably re-do them again as my throat was hurting a bit this evening.

anyway, here they are:

"SOM OM INGENTING HAR HÄNT"
(as if nothing happened)

added piano and electric guitar (here with a tremolo effect). i've also addded a snare drum, and changed the acoustic guitar from nylon-string to steel-string. maybe i'll record an electric slide guitar for the solo? ....i think that'd be gorgeous!

"HUR SKA MAN GLÖMMA"
(how do you forget?)

it's a song about not wanting to forget, so all the instruments add to the mood, even the drum machine brings a certain loneliness with its monotonous blipping. the arrangement is not completely finished, but i'll give you quite a bit of the song anyway, because i really like it myself. the steel-string acoustic guitar is also new compared with the previous version. i love the electric slide guitar! and karin's trombone solo of course.....

now i'm so happy i had to re-think about these songs. the new arrangements go better with the over-all sound of the album. they are more "rock" or what you would call it. more blues? more latin? more whatever. more me!

hope you like it as much as i do!

oh...... =) - please note:

* vocals and some instruments are only Early Production Recordings and MAY CHANGE!
* this is only HALF-finished!
* several instruments are still missing!
* this is UN-mixed!
* this is only for you to follow the progress of the creation of my new album!
* this does not represent the sound quality of the album!

=)

there's been a change of plan in a couple of the new songs. this means that bandoneon player mikael augustsson has left the "crew" of musicians and will not be playing on the album because of different reasons.

it's crossed my mind to replace him with an accordion player (accordion and bandoneon is ALMOST the same instrument), but have decided not to.

instead, i have re-arranged the songs that are affected, and made the brave decision to play the piano (myself) in these songs and even an electric slide guitar. i haven't played slide for years, so it's a wonderful opportunity! i did play slide guitar regularly, but now it's been a while. some 6-8 years to be exact....

i'll post the result during the week, i'm SO happy with the resulting sound. it brings a very different mood than a bandoneon would have done. as i use to say, "WHAT HAPPENS, HAPPENS", and i begin to enjoy the process of adjusting to life's ever-changing circumstances.

life is never stopping to move, to evolve, to change and surprise us.

and as long as we're "prepared" for the unexpected, really — what could go wrong?

an open mind is the key.

— to what? you may ask.

i don't know! but it's the key.

=)

the whole documentary is available here for download [free, of course] with english subtitles:
» http://movie.jcschutz.net

let me know what you think!!!!

=)