Update
We haven't updated this page for over a year now as you may see. We're mainly using myspace these days since we find it much easier and quicker to use.
So go to www.myspace.com/wobblermusic to find out the most recent news.
New release of old songs
The old demos you previously could download on this site, will be released on Termo Records in 2007. We'll add a song we recorded for Hinterland too, which was supposed to be on it but we didn't want the album to be too long. Plus we might throw in a live-track.
For MP3's from Hinterland, look over at Myspace.
Gig-cancellings, fall 2006
We're sorry to say that we'll have to cancel our gigs this fall because Lars got a massive embolism in both his lungs. We had looked forward to all of them, but it will have to wait.
Wobbler on Myspace
Wobbler is doing very well these days and have just put up a page on Myspace, just so we can network a little bit more. Add Wobbler as your friend at http://www.myspace.com/wobblermusic
News!
Merry christmas and a happy new year! And have a nice summer vacation in case we forget to update in time.. Some news is that we made top 5 (or was it top 3 or 6 in some places?) in several polls for album of the year, like at www.progarchives.com, gagliarchives.com and the Norwegian Scream magazine (www.screammagazine.com). The new songs we are rehearsing are very cool by the way. And in case we will forget; happy birthday, Sven Eriksen and Geir Larzen.
Hinterland reviews
It has been quite some time since the last update, so it is about time! We have just started rehearsing some new material. Still a bit early to tell which direction the new material is heading.. Hinterland has been out some months now, and here are a couple of reviews:
- the great nothing
- mondogordo
- dustedmagazine
- allaboutjazz
- ytsejam
- arlequins
- luna kafe
- brave words
- progressive ears
- new york post (an interessting article)
Wobbler and White Willow concert
Hinterland will be released September 6th, so we decided we'll have a release party September 7th (a wednesday) on John Dee in Oslo. White Willow will also be playing. It looks like Wobbler aren't able to have any other concerts after this one 'till january, so this is it - don't miss out. Doors open at 20.00. Ticket: 120 kr.
Back from NEAR-fest
We had the most wonderful time in USA. A true pleasure meeting you all, both near-fest-crew and audience. A big thanks to all who made it possible for us to come over and play.
Concert July 1st.
We'll have a concert to warm up before Near-fest at "Haugvang-lokalet", the local
prog-palace as we like to call it (and the kindergarden by others, since it's a
kindergarden in the day). This will be a part of the concept "Elendig opplegg og
lyd", with mainly our own amps as the sound source -perhaps even a PA(!). Since it's
just a couple of minutes from where we rehearse, we'll fill the stage with heavy old
instruments that hasn't been moved since they were bought.
We'll probaply start playing around 20:43. CC: 60 NOK.
(Hopefully we'll have a copule of
Hinterland cd's to sell as well!)
Norway's Yellow Pages have a map of how to get there.
Update
Our debutalbum Hinterland will be available thru The Laser's Edge shortly.
Here's what it says on their page:
We are now accepting preorders for Wobbler "Hinterland" and will start shipping as soon as they arrive in stock. We are doing this as an accomodation for Wobbler's fans - we would like them to be have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with "Hinterland" in advance of the band's performance at NEARfest '05.
We will be selling Wobbler exclusively through our website from now through NEARfest. After NEARfest we will stop sales until September 6th, which will be the "official" street date around the world."
Other news is that we are working hard to find a place to have a concert here in Norway before we leave for nearfest. Not easy since every stage is closed for the summer. The planned gig at Amatøren, July 2nd has been cancelled, but like i said, we are working on having some kind of gig, even if it means at the local shop or at the barn or whatever.
Latest news
It's been quite a while since the last update. We've got a new web-adress (the old one still works, though), and the result of this is that there are some small bugs - like the guestbook is down, and Geir Arne (the webmaster) must do all updates in stead of us... (notice Lars' silent frustration, overworked webmaster's remark) But a completely new design is on it's way, and should be up shortly.
Since february the album has been mastered as planned, and Michael Bennett has done some fantastic art work and design of the cover and sleeve. There's still no official release date, but June is a good guess. Check www.lasercd.com from time to time for the latest news on that subject.
The band has finally started rehearsing again after a "rehabilitation" -of doing nothing -to get up again after long and hard months in the studio. The first rehersal was far away up in the mountains, at Martin's cabin. A good place to seek inspiration, specially now when Lars' local forest has been cut down (leaving only bare, bleeding fields of the mother north) and the family horse which used to walk along with him in (precisly) the forest has been slaughtered. Without them, many songs would not have seen the day.
The plan is to do a couple of concerts before we go to NEAR-fest, but the only one set is at 2. July on Amatøren, Oslo (Sogn studentby).
One of our demosongs, Leprechaun behind the door, is on the progday support cd, So support Lew and the gang.
Finished!
Late last night we finally finished mixing. This means that it's off to mastering by Bob Katz in USA. It has been a hard job (between the sushi meals) and many long nights in the studio. A very special thanks to Øystein Vesaas who made it possible for us to get the result we wanted, the highly skilled and pleasent person that he is! Jacob Holm-Lupo (from White Willow) has also been great help the last months. With fatherly love and compassion he has wathed over us and shared of his studio wisdom and experience.
Tiny update
Long hours in the studio lately. So much to be done. We finally tested my vintage stereo spring reverb today. Nice! Very Museo Rosenbach! The plan is to be finished with mixing by the end of January. Meanwhile you may read an interview located right here: http://www.vampster.com/artikel/show/?id=14386. It's in German, but you don't mind..
Grand Piano
Today we had yet another trip away from the studio. That is; we brought �ystein Vesaas's portable one to �ystein Hallre's Petrof grand piano. Fantasic sound; early genesis-like.. I think it went well.. Haven't heard any of it yet, but i have a good feeling about it. We could of course to it the easy way, and just use samples. Both �ystein and I have "grand piano samples" with 8 samples per key and so forth. They're good. But not good enough. There's something about the touch and unique sound from the unique piano we used. Also there's a special sound when you hit more than one note at the time, also know as a chord, that can't be recreated with samples - unless you sample the chord and so on. So everything you'll hear on the album will be the real thing. Samples and soft-synths are not an option. Call us purists and old-fashioned (say around 1973), but nothing beats the real thing! Thanks again to �ystein for letting us intrude his living room!
Mellotron M400
Today we pretty much finished the mellotron work on the album. All in all, three mellotrons were used - my 1574 and 1652 and Jo Wang's 1648. Each with a unique sound and touch. Several kilometers of tape with all kind of sounds. I guess you can say the album will be drenched with mellotron, but not just the usual 3vls, flute, cello, 8voice choir, brass and church organ. We used sounds many perhaps won't even recognise as mellotron (like gong, marimba, timpani, guitar, mandolin and rhodes). Also we tried to experiment with'em as much as we could. Pitch bending (which the m400s truely hate), unscrewing and pulling the tape's attack (making the 8voice choir sounding like a choked whale or something), miking the machinery (if you listen carefully you can hear the tapes go back), and of course the huge amount of layers (at the most - 13 sounds at once)..
Spiders from Texas and other wonderous stories
Today Ulrik Gaston Larsen dropped by to record some Teorbe and Lute (baroque guitars). A very talented guy indeed! The most wonderful sound! Gives me a slight resemblance to the opening on PFM's "Appena un Po'" (Per un amico), which is not a bad thing at all..
Also last weekend Kristian recorded some great saxophone.
You are perhaps wondering where the spiders fit in to all of this? It's rather strange and silly acctually (plus i kind of like the headline).. Some months ago i bought a Chamberlin from Texas. And within the machinery was the nightmare when it comes to "the art of buying vintage-keyboards" (except perhaps blown fuses, curly tapes and dryed out machinery in urgent need of oiling). I was cleaning the old thing - it had propably been in a garage for the last 30 years (at least according to the amount mouse-droppings), when all of a sudden i saw something move slowly towards me. I didn't take that good look at it, I saw it was a huge spider and snatched it with the vacume cleaner. This would also explain the hige amount of web inside. Further on during the cleaning i discovered eight spider nests. Everything seemed cool for a couple of weeks, untill I one day saw yet another beast sitting on top of the machine. I knew this was the same kind, since we don't have house spiders that are 7 cm in diameter in Norway. This time I studied it real good, and concuded it could very well be "Daddy Long Legs" - and even though it's poisonous it's not (too) dangerous to humans. But still I'm always on the watch, -freaking everythime I see the smallest spider in out basement..
I think however the norwegian winter will end them rapidly. And speaking of which, -winter came all of a sudden two days ago! Welcome!
The Mighty Hammond C3
While winter aproaches and the mist has lain thick over H�nefoss, we've stayed indoors recording Hammond Organ. �ystein Vesaas brought his studio down to my basement; the hammond lair. We thought it was best to bring the studio to the hammond and not the other way around, concidering it weighs over 200 kg and doesn't fit into any of our cars. Still we didn't know or think �ystein would bring all of the things he did.. We packed and rigged for over four hours.. Over 12 microphones should cover the whole spectrum of the (Leslie 122) rotating speaker's sound; at short range - top and bottom - right and left, ambience, noise from the actual keyboard manuals when I slapped and occationally played gently on them, and the squirky wheels of the combat tank - C3. There was even a microphone on the outside of our house for a while! All mikes would then go into several ultra fantasic tube preamps, making a stunning sound to say at least! The Leslie 122 breaks up at very hi volumes, so to get the Emerson sound (who used a 147 and breaks up much faster) I had to turn everything up to 11.. close to 12.. And the room came to life along with the growling sound. There are no neighbours around the farm so this is no problem. The only concern was weather or not the over 30 years old speaker could take it. It did! As a matter of fact it did very well!
To play on the hammond C3 is a very fysical thing, with the big uncomfortable seat (at least after 9 hours), huge "church organ pedal manual" and heavy volume pedal. And after a couple of hours finger tips had blisters and nails popped. Sweatty.. Short of breath.. Focusing on the playing, sounds, expression and everything.. And of course there's the common Hammond electro shock, which is a part of the game; making my arm go numb. According to Martin sparks stood out of my ear phones. The next day my finger's felt like seaweed.. Like i'd been standing on my finger tips an entire day. But today, on day three, we finished the job! And it was great fun! Big thanks to �ystein!
NEARfest 2005
It's now confirmed that we'll play at NEARfest 2005! When we started the band we had two goals; 1) make an album (-perhaps even release it!) 2) play at NEARfest.. Now it seems that both of them will be fulfilled! More info at www.nearfest.com
After this we could either just quit or perhaps make one or two new goals..
Div news
Martin and Lars are back again from their trip down to Osnabr�ck, Germany. The Mellotron M400 they picked up was once owned by the guy who wrote Michael Jackson's Thiller. Lars is now trying to make a hit of that dimention.. But first he needs to finish the keyboards for this album. Last night he went ape shit with his Arps. He tried to imitate a symphony orchestra using only orchestral sounds/presets from the Arp Pro Soloist, Arp Axxe, Solina String Ensemble and the tiny Stylophone. Perhaps a bit over the top with 12 different monofonic sounds (one for each orchestral instrument).. But the plan (as always) is to experiment, try and perhaps fail, make too much of everything, and then in the end start peeling off.. Last thursday Ketil did some flute in the studio. Loads of great id�as and of course an incredible preformance. Further on has Morten finished the acoustic guitar parts. Super fantastique!
News extra-extra
OsloProg04 went ok. The audience were fantasic! Ketil Einarsen on the flute and backing vocal did a spectacular job, lifting us up to a whole new level.
We've also been busy in the studio lately. Things are slowly starting to sound the way it should. Morten is currently doing some acustic guitar.
Also Martin and Lars are preparing for the annual mellotron trip. This weekend they'll go to Germany to pick up Lars' mellotron M400 nr 2!
Studio report
Aaah, yes... Nothing like a whole day at the harpsichord. Yesterday we visited the harpsichord-man himself, H�vard Skaadel, in Drammen to record some baroquish / il balletto di Bronzo -like harpsi stuff.. A beautiful, huge Zuckermann built by H�vards uncle. Such a magnificent sound! Other vintage keyboards has been recorded as well lately.