Track By Track: Snøskred on Empty House

Empty House is self-produced by band members Klaseie and Laastad, and recorded by the band at Greener (base for fellow Norwegians Gold Celeste), Trondheim between June 2014 and April 2015. Below you can watch the video for "Lexington Hotel", followed by the guide to the album

Motor City

The name of the records comes from the opening phrase on "Motor City": "Empty house, there’s none left in town". The song is about the city of Detroit and how it’s changed after the decline of the car industry. Although there’s still industry in America, there’s less of it left in Norway and one can’t help but wonder about what it means to live in a country where nothing is being made anymore? When everything is outsourced, what does that do to us as individuals and as a people?

Although the lyrics are far from upbeat there’s still a sense of hope in the always ascending melodic lines of the instrumental parts, and just yesterday there was actually a news story about the slow roll movement (people biking slowly through town, just taking in the city) and about how there’s now much more activity in the city centre.

Matador

"Matador" is an old-fashioned ballad. We listened to Serge Gainsbourg, as you do, before recording this, and it inspired us to be unafraid of a little musical drama. Contrast is key, and over the static, almost dry, drums and bass there’s waves of strings and piano chords underpinning the lyrical content. The lyrics are about how life has a tendency of throwing you off-balance just the moment where everything seems to be going right, forcing you to think through who you really are and how you want to live your life. Hopefully, such a wake up call inspires you to make changes for the better that you wouldn’t even have considered if everything had gone according to plan.

Preparations

After the seriousness of "Motor City" and "Matador" it’s time for a silly song about silly people. "Preparations" is about the kind of people you see on Discovery Channel in the daytime, convinced that the end is at hand, stocking their basements with canned food and weapons, wiping the sweat off their forehead with a dirty old t-shirt. That kind of thing. Lars Ove takes the lead vocals for this one and channels that guy on the street corner, you know, the one proclaiming that the world is about to end.

Blurred Out Lights

The basic tracks for "Blurred Out Lights" was the first thing we recorded for this record. It used to be a bit of rocker this one, and you can still hear it in how Kyrre bashes the drums even though we ended up turning them way down in the mix. The lyrics are inspired by a documentary about bicycle couriers and how their mindset changed when they got on their bikes. We tried to reflect the zen-like state of mind that these people go into when they ride through the traffic of a major city, mixing chaos with calm.

Mirage

“Mirage” started out as just barely being something you’d consider a song. Lars Ove amplifying the sound of his phone through his guitar pickups, Karl playing intermittent slide guitar glissandi while mumbling something something about how memory works and the passage of time while Kyrre sounded like he fell over his drums. Thankfully Martin held it all together, stoically playing the same bass line over and over. Martin is always the smart one in the band, and once we got to the studio he played that same bass line so perfectly that we ended up looping it for the entire song, starting anew every 96 or so seconds. A skeletal beat from a 606 came along shortly thereafter and several tracks of guitar presented themselves too. In the end this is what we ended up with: a vague mirage of a song, almost, but not quite, there.

Lexington Hotel

“Lexington Hotel” came via a dream after another late night viewing of Scarface. I was in the middle of a mobster shakedown and woke up thoroughly confused and sweaty. Three drumkits, phase-confused guitars, pitch-shifted congas, vibraphone and electric guitar clusters are intertwined to lure the listener into this dream world.

Puzzle

A simple song living in a complex world. The melody and lyrics are innocent, while guitars are tumbling and falling around them. It was the last song written and recorded for Empty House, and it came at a point where a lot of the elements that makes up this record already were there: Fripp guitars, echoing drum machines, the viola sound of an Arp Omni. Too easy.

Homeless

Basically three different stories of people who’s ended up living on the street after the financial crisis of 2007-08 in America. When major banks put their desire for revenue above making financially responsible decisions the fall from the middle class to homelessness if frighteningly short.

And with that Empty House is over. Thanks for reading, now you should listen instead.

Empty House by Snøskred is out on Friday via Riot Factory