Exciting day at work

Just an ordinary day in the studio. Calaisa is working with Patrik in the "basement", Bob Hund are finishing their record in the big studio with Per, and the rest of the staff do their things.
In the middle of our relaxed, friendly and creative daily hang-out we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of a house occupation!!!
It's not as bad as it sounds... the truth is there are 10 kids in black clothes standing outside of "Lisbeth's Dam och Herr Frisör". Just standing, nothing more, nothing less.
But it's exiting!

As for our music we have just sent one song to Berlin, to be mixed by Michael Ilbert, and the second one will be on his desk tomorrow. Now that is real life excitement!

New documentary

Today we took the first step towards a new documentary.







Our first and only documentary "Living a dream" tells the story of our lives as musicians, struggling to spread our music and make it in the music business. We had played together for 8 years when we emptied our savings and went to Nashville, to seek a record deal. How that ended is well known by now, at least among you who read this blog.

When Kristina and Richard were finished filming us, we continued documenting everything we did with our little handy cam;
Our summer in Nashville where we recorded the album, supporting Simply Red, Lee Ann Rimes and Celine Dion, a trip to China, touring all over Sweden, "Melodifestivalen", songwriting with Maia Sharp which took us to L.A, and the making of album number 2 in Tambourine Studios.
Hours and hours of filmed material that shows what happened after the fortunate Nashville adventure.
When we signed the contract with Universal we thought that we had a long and successful co-operation with the worlds biggest record company ahead of us, but soon enough we woke up from our dream.
Times are bad for record companies, even for Universal, and now, two years later we find ourselves in a whole different position. We are about to start our own record company, and release the album ourselves. This trip around the world has led us back to where we once started, and we have learned, from our years in this business, to not rely our success on anyone else. We work best for ourselves, we have the musical visions and we know what we want. Plus we get to decide everything!

But to make a documentary out of all this we realized that Calaisa behind and in front of the camera wasn't the way to go, so we called a friend of ours who works with film; Sibel Henriksson and Calaisa worked together last year, making a music video for one of our songs, and we felt she was the right person for the task. So from now on she stands behind the camera, following us everywhere, and eventually you will have the answer to your question: "What happened then?"

"Idrottsgalan" in Lund

After a short trip to Stockholm for a bunch of meetings, we are now back in Skåne to play at the "Mästargalan" in Lund tonight.

This week has been the first official week NOT in the studio, since we were supposed to be finished by now. But we are not, so we keep coming to Tambourine to hang out in the basement in the small studio room with no windows. Our thought is to re-sing some of the songs we are not totally pleased with and edit some small errors, before we move up a level to the big studio again in March.

For all Swedish kids out there. Check out Bobster, last Wednesday's show, when Anna visits "Najs eller Bajs".
http://svtplay.se/v/1430158/bobster/nojesbobster_4_2?cb,a1364151,1,f,102589/pb,a1364150,1,f,102589/pl,v,,1430158/sb,p102589,1,f,-1

Calaisa on TV4

Turn on the TV at 5.40 pm today, and you will meet Calaisa in the studio and hear a little bit of our new music.

or

http://anytime.tv4.se/webtv/?progId=726444&treeId=1007152&renderingdepartment=2.757

AND pay a visit to our new website, that is finally opened. www.calaisa.com

Studio

We are back in the studio. A sentence well used here on the blog, and we have been in the studio for a really long time. At least compared to how many days we spent recording the last record. But that is just the way we wanted it this time. We have let the process in the studio take time, and now that we are closer to finishing the record, it feels like we have grown with the songs and productions and found ourselves in a new way. A musical development.

It's exiting to come back after a break, and listen to what you have done. There is always a risk when you work with songs day in and day out, that you become "deaf" and work in the wrong direction. When you come back after a month and listen with fresh ears you will immediately know if what you've done is good or bad. Our productions still feels really good, so I guess we've passed the first test, our own critical judgment. Hopefully the songs can only get better with all the overdubs we have left to do. Today we work with harmonies.

This morning we had a visit from the local TV station "TV4 Öresund" here in the studio. They filmed some of our work and had an interview, that you will be able to see one of these days. We don't know exactly when, so keep your eyes open.

A new year with many new things. One of them will be our second album that is the result of last year's hard work. We have a few weeks left in Tambourine Studios, and hope to be able to finish the recording during that period. Then hopefully 2009 will be a year full of touring for Calaisa.