Sample Falk & Klou’s Golden Age Styled Library Grooves

Cosmic jazz adventure “Kosmonaut” has an eclectic mix of groove, melodies, and instruments to start building new musical worlds. “CBS” is super melodic and contains the great voice of Hanna Dahlberg.

Truth be told: all the songs are great! [laughs] The album is quite stripped-down and not so song-centric as Swedish Library Grooves Vol 2, more closely matching the original style of KPM and Bruton, which have been major inspirations. How about “Fusion Reaction” which has that Weather Report feel with CJ’s distinctive playing of the fretless bass like a madman. Or “Area 47:1” for a really tight groove with juicy toppings—and not to forget: cowbell!

Living in different cities, we have two studios with primarily vintage gear such as Fender Rhodes, Clavinet, Minimoog, Solina Strings, Yamaha CS-60/80, all kinds of guitars and basses, amps, percussion, a super dope 70s clear acrylic drum kit with assorted snares that we mostly mic with old Sennheisers... There’s also a Tascam 8-track, mixers, a selection of silver flutes—and not to forget: a fair bit of outboard where the different space echoes get the majority of use.

For the flute recording on the track “Winter Embrace,” we used the mic pre in the RE201 with a hint of reverb and minimum settings on the echo, just to add some depth and grit, whereas “Cosmic Travels” goes all-in on both the Rhodes and the Arp Pro/DSX.

Sweden had a very strong jazz/jazz-rock/fusion scene with acts such as Made in Sweden, Björn J:son Lindh, Janne Schaffer, Bo Hansson, Merit Hemingsson, Kornet, KebeneKaise, and many more. Many of them with a distinctive Nordic feeling. By that, I mean melancholic and not-so-happy. Lack of sun, I guess. Those are some of the bands that I grew up with during the 70s, together with Bob James’ 1976 record, Three.

CJ has a George Benson signature Ibanez guitar which he loves to play “Breezin’” on whenever possible. Our song “Common Sky” was written in 2012 and I just thought it had a very Benson-esque vibe in the melody. He’s a legend to us. Such an amazing catalog! “Give Me the Night” is one of those perfect songs with impeccable arrangement and production by Quincy Jones.

“Sunshine” started with a groove and the basic form, but lacked any melody. Later in the summer, I played the track on the kitchen radio, and my then 10-year-old daughter started singing something that fits perfectly, that was actually a song from her school choir. We ended up adopting and modifying it together with the super talented saxophone player Daniel Cederskär and ditto trumpet player Jakob Gudmundsson whom both were featured across the Swedish Library Grooves Vol. 2 album. The drums were played and recorded by mastermind Federico Gucciardi from his HQ in Italy.

Being an old sample head, it simply felt like an honor to be lined up with some of my old heroes. I can now officially brag about being signed on the same company as Bob James! [laughs] The actual record is also available on 12” via Swedish label Hattrick, by the way.

Crate-digging and sample clearing have always been different worlds—the latter being the shitty side of production. Tracklib has flipped that to everyone's benefit!