When and where was it recorded?
The album was recorded in February this year in Nilento Studio in Kållered.
Who did you collaborate with?
This is the latest fruit of the unique collaboration that spans almost two decades between me and producer and sound designer Lars Nilsson.
We know each other well and our trust allows us to both encourage and challenge each other.
The team in Nilento creates amazing circumstances to create in, the grand piano is out of this world, the piano technician is amazing and the sound in the studio is simply heavenly.
There are so many ways to go.
The recording of the four independent parts was also filmed and will be released on Nilento's YouTube channel when the album is released on all digital platforms.
Each video has its own lighting that emphasizes the feeling of each element. The Nilento team has, to say the least, extensive experience of this type of production, as they have been producing all live streams from Stockholm Concert Hall for several years.
Did you carry this music inside for a long time?
That's a good question because the content of the album is completely improvised.
Creation is a process that goes on all the time, where you get impressions of things inside and outside you.
The album is the result of a kind of "Instant Composing" where the compositions are created in the moment based on the conditions of the present. The music is therefore a result of things I've had inside me all my life and impulses I've never had before and this fact is one of all the things I love about improvised music.
Why a record about the four elements?
I am fascinated by how necessary they are to our existence but how the power of them simultaneously poses a threat to us. This creates an interesting dualism and dynamic and was the inspiration for this improvised suite.
What do the different elements mean to you?
The elements have acquired their figurative meanings through millennia of storytelling in music, art and literature. What fascinates me is the intensity of them, how they can stand for different moods and reinforce but also counteract each other.
“Four Elements” is only released digitally. Why not a physical record?
There is an immediacy in releasing music digitally without necessarily taking into account the length of the material and that appeals to me. The music gets out into the world faster without waiting for a physical production stage to get a physical product out.Maybe it will result in a physical album a little later, not least to do justice to Dan Evmark's fantastic cover and illustrations in a larger format. We shall see.
Will you be performing the music live?
Yes, I will. What's interesting for me, and hopefully for the audience, is that even if the suite is performed several times, it will never sound anywhere near the same. The inspiration and starting point for the different parts can vary each time, depending on the associations I have for the day.
What was a warming glow one day can be consuming flames the next.