one more day and then it's christmas break

...and a very deserved one for us I believe. Tomorrow we will do an alternative version of pine tree. We've done an early "neo-bossa-beatles"-version that was alright and we have done a dancable "franz ferdinand meets bloc party"-version that didn't got very well together with the lyrics, but now we think that we've found the version we're looking for. We tried it out last week and tomorrow morning we will nail the piece and commit it to digital media! Yes!


More news tomorrow.
tada!
Markus

3 + 3 songs and more to come!

Hi there!
I know it's been dead silent for a while. The reason for that is simply hard work. The last weeks we've been recording and working with artwork ideas together with Sussie. The dead line I wrote something shortly about was the dead line for the first set of songs that was to be sent to Oxford for mixing. Three songs are completely recorded so far and three more are ready to be “shipped to England” later today, or tomorrow at the latest. The (by far) hardest thing in the recording process has been recording lead vocals. Nothing is of course as important as the vocals and we’re not talking about auto-tuning, pitch shifting or any of that synthetic crap, only about reaching for the inherent feeling that is captured in the song. Joel likes to do full takes, which means that he doesn’t record the same small phrase all over again (of course sometimes some minor "cut and paste"-things are needed). It's so easy to loose the feeling if you don't get the entirety. But I guess all methods are good if they work for you.

We have really been blessed with good functional equipment so far. We've been using two microphones from the late 60:ies/early 70:ies and an old analogue mixer from the late 70:ies all the time without any problems at all. So far we’ve only broken two guitar amps(!). It’s a pity it’s so expensive changing tubes on those goodies…
We haven't had any computer probem.

yet....

oh no, I can't believe I wrote that!!!!!!!


hmm...


Have a good night´s sleep everyone!
/Markus

dead line

We have a dead line this weekend and we've been working like dogs for a while. I'm way to tired to write anything here, so I better not. Good night
/Markus

soon

hey boy and girl! this is latest news.. busy busy busy.. we thought we were fast, and honestly we are working a lot, of course with a lot of coffee breaks now and then and other duties, but the following days we have to work even harder, hard hard hard.. yesterday we worked, today we worked, tomorrow we'll work and this weekend we'll work, or at least some of us, not me.. and guess what, the most of next work we'll work! work work work.. no time for sleep, no time for fun, just hard concentrated mindcreating business with recordings, writing, administration, phonecalls and rehearsing.. last week our english label were here. it was nice. some days of futureplanning and creating new ideas.. it was me, jorel, marx, bassfather, milton, joke and sushi.. and simbaza, but he didn't doing anything than stealing our attention.. not that's not really true, he was in charge of playing games. sometimes it's necessary having some breaks and he told us about the meaning of mediatation which we need from time to time. thanks sim. well i guess that was it for now, we'll get back to you with some more info soon.. soon.. take care /joel w

6 hours

hehehe. I could have said: you do the math!

15-9 = 6

/Marko the math man

5 hour soundcheck

Last week, i think it was thursday, Joel G and Erik went to the studio at 9 o´cklock in the morning in order to record some additionl guitars for a few songs. When I got there about 3 in the afternoon, they were sort of finnished with choosing guitar sound...5 hours.

5 hours!


Anyway, it sounded cool, but I´m glad Joachim is heading over this weekend to shape up some things :-). We will work thursday to tuesday and we will keep you posted on whats going on.

take care!
Markus

the weekend

Yesterday we had a whole day of recordings. Fire is right about done and we have organized for a technition to tune me and Joel's parents grand piano tomorrow, which means that we can finnish "I want this night" this weekend too! The original piano was a bit out of tune and sounded a bit dull. We also took some time yesterday to do some planning and administration related things -always so time consuming.
We will work the entire weekend and will probably get a whole lot done!
Cheers for now,
Markus

late night and long beard

hello again!as you've been told we didn't record that much last week, instead we rehearsed a lot for a concert in kullavikskyrkan last friday.. it was a very nice and interesting evening! we got the oppurtunity to play with one of the finest rockers in town, ebbot from the soundtrack of our lives. he spoke about balance and we played some nice tunes together for example a version of "we'll get by" that would be perfect for a german truck commercial! joel g didn't sing at first, but he caressed the strings of his beloved cello instead to the TSOOL songs. mimmi played the violin. but sometimes people couldn't hear them cause we played too loud, but it was fun anyway. ebbot didn't just sing, he played the churchorgan and the harmonica as well. when ebbot left the stage we continued playing our own songs. and then it was even louder, but it was fun anyway. To sum up, a very nice evening and people got happy! Now it's monday evening and we're having bandmeeting in my (JW) appartement. We gonna finish some lyrics on bullet.. TC and tata! /Joel W

Strings at Kamelen

Hi!
After a week with plenty of rehearsals on both ooc-songs as well as soundtrack of our lives-songs, we didn't record anything this week at all (except for the day before yesterday). I'm well aware of that we haven't been writing anything on our blog for a while and we've been rather busy working. We have tried out different versions on the botanist and continued recording guitars for fire and alternative basslines for a few songs that we might rerecord later on.

Like I said we recorded some things yesterday. Joel G and our sister Mirjam started working on some string arrangements. Mirjam, who is studying violin in Denmark, came home this week and we got the chance to work with her again. Check out the video, it is probably not the version that will appear on the album, but who knows?

Later we will let you know what happened Friday evening in Kullavik!!!
/Markus

sometimes

I´m working alone today. The other day Joel and I recorded vocals for sometimes and today I sat by the computer all alone and "glued" the sound files together in order to be able to send them to england over the cabel. I took a while I must say, so I´ll probably be able just to start recording some guitar overdubs for fire. Tomorrow Erik Joel and I will continue recording and later Martin and Joel will join us. Our producer seems to like our version of sometimes so it looks like we can move on to the next song (i.e fire) for now!

/El Markish

Saving blue

Me and Erik went to see Saving Blue's last gig at Pustervik yesterday evening. It´s a shame they're breaking up. I got me a nice red SB-logo t-shirt though, it sort of eased the pain a little.

Today JoelG and I are recording some pump organs and vocals and some guitars later on if time is on our side. Maybe we´ll write something more later. tada!

/Markus

"Kanelbullens dag" is the best day of the year!

Hi there! Well, as said before we have been busy some weeks with a wedding. But now we're rolling again! Some weeks ago wemet up with our producer Jocke and his wife Susanne. We made a schedule for this autumn, so now there are no moreexcuses for not working! We know what to do and we are inspired...! Yes.

We have 16 recorded songs that have been waiting for us to be finished since june. During the next two months we are aiming to compleat at least five of them. For christmas we will have a promo finished. So far the work has gone well! Today I have been recording some guitars on "Sometimes I'm Afraid".They sound so nice, so nice:) As I'm writing I hear Markus recording his guitar in the background...Tomorrow Joelwill be doing some vocals. I'm sure that "Sometimes..." will be our hit!!!

Joel W caught a nasty cold a few daysago. He is at home drinking tea with melon and eating C-vitamin-pills (at least that's what I told him to do when I visited him yesterday!). I'm sure he will recover soon, he is a strongboy-) Okay, 30 minutes ago me, Markus and Joel had a coffea-break (oh no-we're back in our terrible coffee-habits again...). Anyway, we talked about a new song that I wrote some days ago. We have got many songs, and we're writing all the time.Well, on monday next week we will have a rehearsal for a gig at Kullavik the 19th this month and on next thursdaywe will continue recording...We will update you with the latest news so sit back and just relax! bye for now,

Oh, I almost forgot to say that we're so happy that today is "Kanelbullens dag". I've already got my hands on twoof those delicious things...On top of everything it's also another reason for us to drink some more coffee, you know!/Erik M

a

Another awakening

Hej boys and girls! We are still alive, we didn't stop playing, we just didn't write for a while, but now we are on again with recordings after the summer and the pre-fall. And we are even more motivated than before.. We're gonna have a busy autumn finish the recording the songs, but it's gonna be better and more interesting than before.. Some new creative ideas have emerged along the way.. So you will have something to look forward hopefully, another out of clouds will show up in the beginning of next year.. But until then we'll keep you updated what's going on!
And the photo on the left is from our last show at Sticky Fingers, Gothenburg, last week! Take care and tata! /Joel W and OOC...

Back from the gig of the summer!!

Yes!

We´re back from Frizon and an amazing gig at Magasinet. The day started of fine with Joel and I singing the Turkish national anthem at the “soccer stadium” for the annual festival soccer tournament. It all started with a few people from the Frizon Crew walking in to the backstage area saying –oh, do we know anyone who can sing any national anthem except “du gamla du fria”, “the star spangled banner” and “god save the queen”? I sort of replied that I think our singer knows the Turkish one! Good, they said, We´ll meet you and Joel at the soccer ground in 20 minutes. Hehe. I had to learn the anthem in 20 minutes (Haven´t heard it before). I didn´t learn it by heart though, Joel put the words down on a note for me. Anyway, It was great fun singing that anthem in a Caruso-sort-of-hairy-strong-manly-style. I think it was a success…

Later we got interviewed by Wilhelm Blixt from Dagen regarding music, faith and genres. Thank you Kim who practically set up that interview for us!

The gig was amazing like I said. Martin was in fact at a wedding nearby, so he missed the sound check and Joel had to play bass and sing. Martin almost gave us a heart attack when he phoned us saying –I´m late!!! He finally showed up half an hour before the show and we all could calm downJ! One cool thing with playing at the Magasinet was that they open the big doors only minutes before the show actually starts, which also makes one rather nervous since you couldn´t tell how many people there were until a few minutes before it was time to enter the stage. Frankly we were rather nervous because we didn´t know if we were to expect 50 or 500 people. It showed later that it was the latter!!

Here is the set list with some comments:

Intro –Joel W:s psycadelic 9 guitar layer intro for the first time

I want this night to be over

Pinetree

The worm –first time live, what a rocket!!!!!!!! (click here for a clip from frizon, not that good soundquality though...)

Oasis –first time with the new chorus

Botanisten –This is one of the strongest songs playing live for me

Sometimes –A new intro that we tried with Botansten that came out great

Like a lily –The new punkier version of like a lily

Fire –I got to do my nervous “at the drive in”-feedback things on my guitar in the end of the song. Hehe, me like ;-).

A few of the songs has still their old “work names” and will be named different on the record. We will tell you later exactly what songs will be renamed.

I big thank you to all of you who showed up and made our gig so special!!! It was really the best gig with out of clouds for me and I think that you could tell that by looking at me during the show!!!

Big thanks to Mia, Kristin and Edla for your loving support, Emmanuel from olive shoots for the pictures, Kim for the interview and for reading our blog ;-), Mattias for the ride to Frizon and Olive shoots for the ride back home! Thanks Frizon for being so easy to work with! A great arrangement!!

Take care,

Markus and the rest of the clouds

parapluie

Hi ya!
We had a good night at Parapluie's 2 years anniversary party yesterday. Great music and nice people! We rehearsed the worm yesterday evening for quite a while before we went to Parapluie's. We tried a new chorus (lyrics and melody), but It´s so hard to make it stand out!Anyway, this afternoon will also be our third lyrical aftornoon in a row and we will also spend the evening in our concrete bunker practicing for the Frizon festival next weekend. Lot of work, great fun.

El Markish

Helsingborg at 9 pm.

ok, first gig for a rather long time tonight. We´re going to Helsingborg and the city festival to play at "pilgrimstältet". We´ve been rehearsing a couple of times this week for the first time since we recored the same songs earlier in june and it felt really good I must say! We can't wait to get up on the stage tonight! Unfortunately we haven't finnished the lyrics for 'the worm' yet, but we will give you a brand new version of 'like a lily' -shorter and grittier!

btw, don't miss our booking agency Parapluie's 2 year anniversary at Pustervik in Gothenburgh on the first of August.

hej då,
Markus

Rain

What happened to our summer?
Warum regnet es so viel?
stäng av kranen tack.

umpah!

...or in the words of the genious Tomas Öberg: "trallalla lilla molntuss".
We've now been thinking our selves sleepy (to be honest we were all tired allready from the beginning...) after a solid evening of lyrical compositions. Today's work has been a brand new song that we cal "the worm". If things go as we plan we will atleast try it for the first time at one of our festival gigs this summer.

Oh, and regarding the beard; it's still there! ...and it smells delicious...

We took a little break while Erik and Joel W are still working with the lyrics. In the background I just heard Erik ask a question: -Why do we die?...

We almost forgot the list markus mentioned earlier. Here it is -All the recorded songs:
The worm ---The botanist ---I want this night to be over ---Fire--- 26--- the oasis--- bullet in the air--- Tell the time--- Breath my way--- Pinetree--- "that summery love song we don´t have a name for yet"--- Simbaza--- Sometimes I´m afraid
and three oldies dressed in new clothes:
Like a lily--- Revelations in a cold season--- Stop

We have also recorded a few demo songs at kamelen and probably one of them will be rerecorded for the album.

This will leave us with about 20 songs to choose between.

Good night and enjoy your breakfast.
Joel G and Markus (the one looking like a drunk clown)

5th time to night

Those lyric nigths/mornings has been really good so far. It´s our 5th time tonight. Some of the songs has been totally rewritten, at least regarding the lyrics. I don´t think that we´ve really written down all the recorded songs yet, I think I only mentioned 12 of them earlier in june. Anyway, we will write down a list of all the recorded songs later today, gotta go now.
/Markus

refinement night

hey'ya all! for 2 solid evenings we've been having cosy tea and coffee meetings refining our lyrics and friendship. everyone has been tired as usual but it was a good experience to actually talk to eachother without really playing.. hmm.. to be honest the guitars were present from time to time anyway. it was a good time having a poetry-slam! for the first time in out of clouds' history we've been writing and banging our heads together to squeeze out all lyric ideas. it has been some results so far, but of course we won't share them with you yet. U'll have to buy the album later... so no "free" downloading tonight fellows!

Another thing we've been doing is discussing whether joel g should shave off his beard, or let it grow until the release of the album. What do you think? Let us know what u'd prefer!
Over and out.. Take care ladies and gents!

/Jo El W, Jo El G, Mart in, El Markish (Erik is practising with his guitar)

Step 3

step 3
It´s been a week since our busy recording period and it´s time to start the third step of the process. This blog started of in the middle of step 2, i.e: the actual recording period. I would like to call step 1 the "preproduction period". The thing is that most of the songs that we recorded ( well, in fact all of them) has already been recorded during the autumn ´06 or winter 07:, i.e Step 1. A few of them were recorded with the intention to be tracks entirely ready for the album. But due to us being totally unable to hear the songs as a third person, we needed to do new versions of every single song :-). It´s so hard to kill your darlings you know... Anyway, the preproductions are really crucial, because they save you loads and loads of time once you hit the studio for real.

Step 3 is the loooong period when you decide together if the recorded songs are "the right versions?" and once that is done you get to this list:
Lyrics, l-e-a-d v-o-c-a-l-s (that´ll take time), overdubs, string arrangements, "choir-arrangements", additional recordings of: strings, pump organs, percussion, grand piano and organ, soundeffects, instruments that we don't even know yet and blablabla...

Anyway, what we're facing is a massive and interesting period of additional recordings at "studio Kamélen". YES!!!
We might head over to England to record some vocals as well, but we´ll start at the cosy Kamélen.
We´ll Keep you posted during the third step as often as we can!
Take care!
/Markus

habits.

It has been a few days since the first recording session ended.. We've recorded more than we thought we should do even though it has been very hectic. So we think we can be satisfied so far hopefully! But it was with tears in our eyes when we left the studio, it has been our "home" for 10 days and leaving it felt like going home after a fantastic trip abroad or a summercamp.. We'll miss it.. During the week some habits emerged along the way.. Due to too less sleep we had to drink a A LOT of coffee to stay awake, which led to very dramatic changes in our bodies which led to very dry and funny jokes..

But also some great ideas, especially some takes we had close to midnight.. But we hope that we captured the feeling of those songs.. Well well..
Now everyone has started working with "ordinary jobs" for a short while to get crumbs on the table, then next week we'll continue rehearsing and recording again at "kamelen". Kamelen is our own little cosy studio in Gothenburg where a cat lives.





Well folks, that's it so far, we're exhaused but happy in the same way. Keep on following the next adventures of AuTo-klAuS.. Take care and over and out..

/Joel W

15 songs so far

It´s been another super long day. Last night we manage to get a twisted version of 'breath my way'. A very slow and stumblin' one with a nice saloon piano. We also got really nice new versions of 'the botanist' and 'fire'. The previous version of 'fire' sounded like a mixture of at the drive in and Håkan Hellström. Very nice, but not very out of cloudish though...

Today we rerecorded 'Like a lily' and 'revelations in a cold season', which are the only songs we thought was worth another try from our older material, except for a wildcard we will try to record tomorrow called 'STOP'.

One disturbing thing though: We recorded three songs with a metronome i.e dangerously close to the ****-way. The songs came out far more better than they did without a metronome. That's what happen when one turns into mr bigmouth ;-).

/Markus

12 hours

We arrived at the studio exactly 12 hours ago. Long day, ey? We are planning on doing some more things before we pack up for the evening.

Like I wrote before we decided to rerecord some songs that we committed to digital audio during the week(hehe). We did our 25th live take of the worm just before dinner. Will we ever be pleased?

These are the songs recorded so far:

pinetree

the botanist

fire

tell the time

I want this night to be over

the worm

carried

Simbaza

the oasis

Bullet in the air

Erik B dropped by this afternoon and took some pictures. As some of you know he has been taking a break from ooc during the past year and we haven´t seen him much, so it was great meeting him again. I almost forgot, we dropped by the harbour to get a nice bath.

/Markus

analyse

Today we started of with just listening to all of the songs we recorded so far. Some of the songs were recorded at the speed of light and had to be rerecorded. Typical. The rest sounds nice and fresh.
We record everything live in the studio to get the spontanious feel, which is also a good way to get the material NOT sounding like **** or their likes... Speaking of ****, at a party yesterday we bumped into two really nice fellows who played in a band heavily inspired by ****. Well, now I have ** go, it´s time to do some recordings on "the worm" and later on "botanisten". We´ll put up some pictures later on. Take care!

love,
Markus (I don´t have anything against ****, it´s just that...ehrm...well)

ps. I´m NOT speaking on behalf of the band and this is not an official statement or anything ;-).

så att jorå

Nu har vi blivit väldigt moderna, dvs internetifierade så till den milda grad attvi skaffat ett blogg-konto. Vi tänker även bli bevandrade i det anglosaxiska spåket, varför större delen av bloggen kommer att vara på english. So, anyway. Idag är vi dock lite trötta efter flera dagar av inspelningar så vi orkar faktiskt inte tänka i andra bananer. Det blir svenska idag. Swedish. Sorry.

Som ni kanske vet (eftersom ni säkert kommit hit från vår hemsida el myspace) håller vi på att spela in vår debutskiva tillsammans med Joakim Sehlstedt. En vanlig dag i studion har hittils inte sett ut som planerat. Det är nämligen så att vi är ett band med 5 tidsoptimister, vilket
innebär att vi inte kommit igång i tid en enda dag. Den enda dan vi verkligen var på g (förrgår), hade Martins bilbatteri laddat ur så vi fick haffa en vänlig själ som hade koll på gamla mercor. ok, det här lär ju inte vara ett dugg intressant, så vi slänger in lite bilder från studion istället.

Ni äter vi lite tårta som vi fått av en snäll person och snart skall vi ta midsommarledigt resten av dagen. Det blåser och regnar ute -en helt vanlig, härlig midsommar med andra ord!!

Det bästa med att spela in är inte att det är så otroligt kul som det faktiskt är, utan att slippa raka bort det taskiga skägget med motiveringen: "jaghinnerinteförviharsåmycketattgöraplusattdetärrocknroll"

VI hörs!

/Markus

Ps Maybe someone else have the strength to write something in english tomorrow.

Ps2. Hoffentllich jemand will etwas in deutch schreiben manchmal.