This absolute gem just in from Thomas to celebrate half a century of releases on MarsMelons;

Back in 2000 there were some guys fooling around with this acoustic music as a side project. We called ourself ‘Gunerius Quack And The Jonas Joffers’. We recorded some tracks on a 4-track cassette portastudio and kept meeting up for jams and explorations in this genre we had given the catchy klitch name greengrass. Some more years went by, and in 2005 Mr. Ali Parandian heard our first recordings and was intrigued, he booked us for his festivals ‘Den Store Påskefesten‘ and ‘Den Store Juletrefesten‘. We had also recorded a new 12 minute piece incorporating an adaptation of the repeating vocal line from a Japanese folk song (picked up from an Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.-adaptation of the same folk song). The group started to expand in numbers and the songs got longer and longer. We played some concerts and at one time we were doing a 30 to 50 minute rendition of the Beyonce song ‘Naughty Girl‘ featuring a single repeating riff and a repeated vocal phrase not in Beyonce’s original song going ‘Feel my body, feel my body’. It was weird, it was nice, and we were waiting for something.

Ali got a studio setup in the basement where some of us were living. At this point some of the group’s members had moved away but the core were still jamming and they stuck with it and recorded the six songs that are ‘På Hjernebølger Til Jotunheimen‘. The first track recorded was a version of ‘La Lo Le‘ called ‘Vargen Gjeng I Natta‘. It started as a ten minute piece and got longer and longer each take. The 9th (and last) take (used here) was longer than the maximum limit set on the recording equipment and the recording suddenly stopped, but it was the take so we had to use it. Some say sadly, some say nicely we decided to fade out the track and not include the sudden death of the track. After that we did ‘Mors Vise‘ which was a version of a song my mother knew how to play when I was a little boy. I think it’s a variation on the Swedish song ‘Vem Kan Segla‘. I think we nailed it in a take or two. The next song to be recorded was ‘Storbora‘, a song we had played a few times already, a song with two parts, the Storbora part, and a harder faster part. We decided on using only the Storbora part. The lyrics are;

Michael: Eg får ikkje sove, for eg høyrer ikkje storbora
Iva: Han får ikkje sova, for han høyrer ikkje storbora

Which translates to;

I can’t sleep because i can’t hear the sound of the big waves hitting the mountains
He can’t sleep because he can’t hear the sound of the big waves hitting the mountains

One late night Ali and me wrote a song together and went down and recorded it, it became ‘Betraktning‘. We recorded ‘Nattergalen‘ outside one Sunday morning. ‘God Natt‘ was recorded later that night. Over the next weeks we invited people to come and do overdubs while we simultaneously started the mixing/arranging process. This part was mostly me and Ali and whoever was doing the overdubs.

When the overdubs where done we moved the mixing process to Notam, where Ali mixed and mastered the album. I came in and listened to some button twistings and said, “that’s nice” or “hmmm, don’t hear the difference” but mostly I was happy with how it sounded. It was a long journey, but finally we we’re going to release it! But alas! Some complication with the label and arguing between another band and the whole label died, and our album was never released (all of this was back in 2007). Untill now! 12 years after the journey began we’re proud to bring you; ‘På hjernebølger til Jotunheimen‘ (Roughly translates to; ‘Brainwaves to Jotunheimen‘).

Enjoy!

All songs by Gunerius Quack och dom andra (Part of Vargen Gjeng I Natta Trad.Arr.), who consisted of;

Thomas Bergsten
Andreas Eri Myhre
Anders Eddie Jacobsen
Asbjørn Brekke
Michael Goksøyr
Iva Thorarinsdottir
Tryggve Lund
Bendik Knapstad
Ali Parandian

Featuring:
Bendik Brænne
Tuva Synnevåg
Anders Wasserfall

All tracks arranged by Thomas Bergsten and Ali Parandian. Recorded by Ali Parandian at Big Heart Studios. Mixed by Ali Parandian at Notam. The artwork depicts Gunerius, Thomas’s legendary great great grandfather.