Steensland, Simon - Fat Again CD
SKU
33-ALTROCK 007
I have long enjoyed the work of Simon Steensland, a Swede who has released a number of very good albums over the last 15 years or so. He is a multi-instrumentalist and releases heavy, zeuhl/Univers Zero-flavored heavy and dark progressive albums. This 2009 release consists of material recorded from 2005-2008 and features a strong number of players.
Simon Steensland: bass, keyboards, guitar, glockenspiel, harmonium, cello, banjo
Robert Elovsson: keyboards, clarinet
Arvid Pettersson: fender rhodes, accordion
Einar Baldursson: guitars
Morgan Ågren: drums
Aurelia Le Huche: vocals
Eva Rexed: vocals
"Sometimes ago I've asked to Simon a short story about his musical career and which is the aim he want to reach with his music, he answered in this way:
Began playing drums at age 17, but not until 10 years later I started to practice seriously. Bought an used synthesizer from the stoneage with a built in sequencer and wrote my first "song" at age 31. And since then there´s no looking back! I bought a very crappy used bassguitar, and later an accordion, then a marimba, a harmonium, an electric guitar etc.etc. I´ve been a professional composer since 15 years back, and I always have and always will use the "learning by doing" approach to both composing, as well as playing instruments. I have no kind of musical education at all, and I can´t really play any instrument in a proper way, but that´s not important to me.To me it´s important to compose music that I like, and learn how to play it the way I like it to be heard. If I can´t do that with my limited skills, I have to persuade somebody else to play it. Fortunately enough I know people who are both capable and willing to do that, even without getting paid! I don´t play the drums anymore, since there are so many drummers who are way better than me, and I´m very proud and fortuned to have MY favourite drummer ( Morgan Ågren ) as best friend, and to "do my dirty work" for me!
Mostly though I compose music for theatre-plays ( I´ve done well over 50 premieres ) which sadly enough means that I don´t have very much time left to do "regular " concerts or albums nowadays. Still, my fulltime and only job is to write (and play ) music, and most of the time I feel a great artistic freedom doing that! But I do certainly hope that I can find time to complete and release another album ( if you let me! ) in about 2-3 years, but I guess we have to wait and see... Time is a tricky thing to master since you can only work like 15 hours a day, 7 days a week...This album took almost 5 years to complete because I simply did not have time enough to make things happen faster. And that is not the way I intended it to be in the first place. In someway these songs feels OLD to me. In a perfect world music should be heard just at the time it´s written. I very rarely listen to my old records, and I´m not too happy with them overall ( some tracks though I still can listen to with some sort of enjoyment ) but I do listen to the songs that I compose today and will compose tomorrow! Still, I don´t like them all, but I´m very seriously trying to write my best songs everyday! That´s all I can do."
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