i’m back!

alright, let me see… i’m back from the eu-tour w/ the ocean/cancer bats/the dillinger escape plan, and i survived!

anyone knowing the dillinger escape plan should know by now what i’m talking about, but these guys proved to be even cooler than expected – their complete crew was incredibly sweet & pro, it made our life on tour so much easier. doing sound for the ocean was quite the run as well – it took me some time to get used to their dynamics, etc, but it turned out quite nice in the end. plus, being able to rock places like the electric ballroom in london really did the trick for me… anyway, looks as if i might have gotten myself some more gigs with them: they are doing a short eu-run w/ anathema by now, for which i only could do the sound on the two opening shows in switzerland. but we’ll reunite for another gig in december, plus i’ll be going to athens with them at the beginning on 2011…
anyway, shitloads of new and exciting stuff happening:

studio-work
- the mix & master for lifeless hill is done, christoph brandes from iguana audioproduction managed to get some more punch from my mixes.
- i started to record a local death metal-band called calcined, by now everything except the vocals is done, i’ll start mixing by the end of november.
- i also started to record a 5 track-ep w/ lost aries. given the fact that their singer won’t be around for the coming three months, i actually had to start with the vocals, putting them on top of their pre-production. we’ll move on with this project by january.
- the cideraid-album has finally gotten the much needed kick over the starting-line: drums were done by julien fehlmann, and sound quite neat… we started to track the guitars last monday, second guitar, bass and vokills will follow throughout december.

live-work
- i’ll be doing sound for zatokrev this saturday at the dawn of doom-festival in winterthur, and might also be going on tour with them throughout a couple of weeks in april
- i’ll also doing sound for them and the ocean on the 4th of december at the sommercasino in basel, plus the mighty knut will open… balls to the wall!
- lifeless hill will headline a release-show for the ep on the 11th of december at the ébull, with yours truly behind the desk.

events
event-wise, there is not that much happening… both cideraid and remote lane (who will start working on an upcoming album in some time) are off the live-radar for now, so i mainly do my own ‘operation: impending doom’-events for now.
- speaking of which: friday night i’ll host the XVIth event of the series, featuring the mighty amagortis, tedh secret and dj deerstruction at the end of the night… café le xxè in fribourg is the place to be, the entry is free, and the ales should be quite cold be then. see you there!

upcoming mayhem

my oh my, it’s again been way too long… so basically i’m going to unleash the motherload of all updates, so here we go:

studio-work
- progsik‘s demo is appareantly reaching out… they’ve sold about 50 copies at the mountains of death, so yeay for them!
- moving on with lifeless hill‘s ep – vocals & re-amping should be done by the end of this week.
- we decided to work some more on cideraid‘s pre-production, mainly to bring producer julien fehlmann in to add his input.  the drum-recording will start on the 25th of september at studio mécanique, and we’re really looking forward to move on to the next level with this album.
- also, i will start tracking a demo w/ calcined by the end of september, this should be fun as well.

live-work
- remote lane played another bunch of shows, and proved to become quite the live-band. by now they’ve developped a pretty tight sound, which makes my job quite a bit easier.
- i worked at the rfi in fribourg for a pretty intense week – not my cup of tea music-wise, but the folks were very nice indeed. lots of running and fixing stuff beyond fixing.
- throughout the whole october and the start of november i’ll be on tour/doing the sound for the ocean as the opening act for the cancer bats/the dillinger escape plan eu-tour. looking quite nice so far, i’m stoked as hell.

events
as always, i got a couple of nifty events lined-up, which should feature some intense headbanging and wall to wall-vomiting later on:
-  operation: impending doom XV is happing next saturday, the 18th at the café xxè in fribourg. we’re having zatokrev and mycelia playing, plus djs hq, mara and winekellar spinning the wheels of steel (or plastic, for that matter), we’re doing bbq on the balcony, the cal of ror-guys will put up a cd-/vinyl-shop, plus stemutz.ch and llyrdwen are exposing some nice pictures taken over the course of the last o:ids. i wouldn’t want to miss this if i were you…
- remote lane will be playing the metal assault-festival in grand-vennes/lausanne on the 1st october, w/ samael etc.
- saïko records will be hosting a festival at the nouveau monde in fribourg on the 5th and 6th of november, featuring some of the greatest indie bands from switzerland…

oh yeah, no rest of the wicked. see you all out there!

new records & shows coming your way!

whoa, has it been that long since i posted something up here? sorry for the delay, but that’s pretty much a good sign… because it means i’m busy as f*ck.
here’s what’s been going on lately:
- i finished recording / editing / mixing progsik‘s upcoming demo, which was lots of fun. hopefully i’ll be doing some more work with these guys in the future.
- i started to record lifeless hill, a hardcore-band from romont. drums and the first guitar are done, looking good so far.
- the pre-production for cideraid is finally done, we’ll be entering studio mécanique in about two weeks to track the drums w/ julien fehlmann. lots of excitement there!
- i mixed a bunch of neat shows throughout switzerland, such as remote lane @ fri-son/fribourg w/ lamb of god and a week later w/ cynic @ schüür/lucerne, amagortis‘ record release-show @ bad bonn/düdingen, kejnu @ dynamo/zurich, and finally i babysitted a nice midas and some fancy outboard-gear at the jazz-parade in fribourg.

booking-wise i’m currently focusing on remote lane, so here are a couple of additional shows for ya:

100730 –  immortal sphere-festival / wattenwil
100806 –  bad bonn / düdingen (w/ cruszt)
100911 –  v. o. music-club / lausanne
101001 –  metal assault-festival / grand-vennes (w/ störtregn, cyphery, eskeype)

the lads did astonishingly well as the opening act for lamb of god, despite a slight technical hiccup (as in ‘no more guitar for half a song’) during the show – and they actually sold more cds than lamb of god! ok, it’s probably fair to say that lamb of god didn’t bring any, but… still.

i’d really love to point out two shows at this very end of the post, so bear with me:
• you shouldnt’ miss remote lane playing the bad bonn on the 6th of august, this event could be quite fun – plus cruszt are quite a cool band, happy to have them on board too – let’s just hope they don’t get stuck in a post-building this time around .
> go here to follow the event on facebook

•  on the 18th of september, i’ll be throwing the next operation: impending doom-bash at the xxè, and since it’s the first one after the summer-break, we’re having another round of bbq on the balcony, three bands live on stage (among them: mycelia from zurich and rorcal from geneva), a bunch of djs around the clock (hq, mara, winekellar, etc.), and a friggin’ huge merch-stand for all the lovers of nice records and stuff.
> go here to follow the event on facebook

yeahyeahyeah – looking good!

remote lane: important show confirmed!

oh yeah, about time:
remote lane will be supporting lamb of god at their only summer swiss-show next friday the 4th at the fri-son in fribourg – plus i’ll be the aftershow-dj, so that should be fun too.
tickets are on sale about everywhere, go and grab ‘em!

in other news, the day after there’ll be a full metal-event at the nouveau monde, also in fribourg – with mighty impure wilhelmina headlining, plus direct support from redheads are vampires, plus prevail over one’s horizon… i’m posting this because i’ll be doing the sound for impure, which should be fun as well.

again:
100604 – lamb of god w/ remote lane, dj el muerte @ fri-son, fribourg
100605 – impure wilhelmina, w/redheads are vampires, prevail over one’s horizon @ nouveau monde, fribourg

see you all out there!

remote lane: new shows confirmed

remote lane are going to play a bunch of shows throughout 2010, make sure to catch a bunch of these dates… or all of them, for christ’s sake!

100417 – ébull (w/ amagortis)
100501 – moshpit / naters (w/ lost aries, etc.)
100611 – schüür / luzern (w/ cynic)
100730 – immortal sphere-festival / wattenwil (w/ emerald, etc.)
100911 – v. o. music-club / lausanne

more to be announced soon!

looking back on the last three weeks, plus outlook on next events & so forth… the usual mayhem.

oh well… i’m definitely not complaining about not having enough work – good god, it might just work out!
i did a bunch of nice shows, of which some turned out really friggin’ close to my best work up to date… kejnu & amagortis would be on top, i guess – post-folk and death metal, that’s where my head is at, i suppose… .
100319 – kejnu @ oxx/zofingen
100320 – operation: impending doom XIII w/ battalion, radwaste @ café le xxéme/fribourg
100303 – full metal w/ gwydion, abinchova, tschäggättä @ nouveau monde/fribourg
100417 – amagortis & remote lane @ ébull/bulle

on the studio-side of things, here’s what’s been going on:
• demoed the future album from cideraid the 2nd of april, pics can be found here – plus the week after we started pre-production on the drums (again, for pics go here), and now we moved on to guitars. the whole pre-production should be done by the beginning of may, which will leave them about two months before entering the studio… good times!
• finished recording guitars w/ progsik for a three track-ep, vocals should be added around the end of may, with a july-release being highly possible.

alright, now on to more things related to the near future – here are a bunch of dates i’m involved with, either by booking bands, organizing the whole damn event, just twisting the knobs, providing tech-services, or all of it:
100430 – attack vertical @ les archives/bulle
100501 – remote lane @ moshpit/naters
100508 – the ocean & co @ break the silence-festival/bern
100515 – operation: impending doom XIV w/ darkrise, daïgoro, cryless, dj hq @ café le xxéme/fribourg
100519 – high fidelity w/ rita hey @ nouveau monde/fribourg
100529 – metalfactory.ch-festival @ sounddock14/dietikon
100605 – full metal w/ impure wilhelmina, redheads are vampires, prevail over one’s horizon @ nouveau monde/fribourg
100611 – remote lane w/ cynic @ schüür/luzern
100619 – amagortis @ bad bonn/düdingen

i’ll also start work on a six-track w/ lifeless hill, a metalcore-band from romont – this should be fun too, they’ve got a good groove going on.

alright, see you all out there & remember: hit it good. hit it good & hard!

looking back on feb/mar, outlook on upcoming events

well well, the last couple of weeks had me chasing after quite a bunch of things, that’s for sure:

100206 – operation: impending doom XII w/ shadow’s far & calcined
100213 – drumrecording w/ progsik (death metal)
100219 – mixing zatokrev & palmer @ sommercasino / basel
100220 – mixing saïko vs. lovesongs @ nouveau monde / fribourg
100227 – mixing black cargoes & tasteless @ oxx / zofingen
100306 – mixing careless, mötörcöck and inplugged
100313 – mixing impure wilhelmina & lost sphere project @ espace noir / st-imier

plus, as usual, i’ve additionaly visited a bunch of shows, and so on.
since my trusty g5 just broke down a week ago, i had pretty much all studio-work suspended and my schedule became quite the mess – but since i’m now officially equipped with a beautiful imac 27″, things should be back on track quite soon. aside from the obvious oncoming studio-mayhem (such as continuing the recording with progsik, starting preproduction w/ cideraid, and a couple of more things), i’m also looking forward to a bunch of new shows i’ve organized and/or booked and/or will be mixing at… here’s the outlook on the upcoming weeks:

100319 – mixing kejnu @ oxx / zofingen
100320 – operation: impending doom XIII w/ radwaste & battalion
100403 – full metal w/ gwydion, abinchova, tschäggätä
100417 – mixing remote lane @ ébull / bulle
100502 – mixing remote lane @ immortal sphere-festival / wattenwil
100508 – working @ break the silence-festival w/ the ocean, cynic, etc.

plus (yet unconfirmed!):
- operation: impending doom XIV @ café le xxéme / fribourg
- impure wilhelmina @ nouveau monde / fribourg
- etc.

right, that’s about it for the moment… it’s kind of a rush of dates, but still – no rest for the wicked, i guess. see you somewhere out there!

looking back on the last weeks, plus new events

while it seems everybody is calming down and kind of letting 2009 passing by, i’m already scheduling tons of new events out for the next months to come.
the last couple of weeks i had quite the run, mixing a bunch of great shows such as:
- attack vertical @ kiff/aarau (w/ arch enemy, abigail williams)
- zatokrev @ children of doom-festival/l’aeronef/lille (w/ general lee, amenra, etc.)
- attack vertical @ festival roule l’appel/romont (w/ pulup orchestra, persiana jones, etc.)
- yog @ lux/le locle (w/ lost sphere project, rorcal)

obviously those were quite some trips to remember, and i’m still dragging a cold around from the trip to lille, but all in all i’m quite happy how things turned out.

anyhow, here’s a bunch of locals events, and/or events i’m somewhat responsible for, that i highly recommend:

091226 – cideraid @ bad bonn/düdingen (w/ timor)
this will be cideraid’s last local show for quite some time before they record the new album!
100113 – saïko records presents: high fidelity w/ fredy rotten @ nouveau monde/fribourg
090115 – full metal x @ nouveau monde/fribourg (w/ a thousand year slavery, falling down, cryless)
100128 – dj el muerte @ café le xxéme (from folk to grind II)
100130 – cideraid @ wenk/aarau (w/ zyanide)
100206 – operation: impending doom XII @ café le xxéme (w/ shadows far, calcined, dj)

recent events and an outlook to the next couple of weeks

the last two weeks proved to be extremely rock’n'roll and heavy on the emotional side of things:
• operation: impending doom XI (14th of november – w/ cruszt, voice of ruin, dj kéké) turned out to be one hell of a party, with enough stories for ages to come.
• the ocean and unhold delivered the real deal friday night/20th at the kiff in aarau, and saturday night/21st at the nouveau monde in fribourg – with julien fehlmann handling the sound-duties for the ocean, i kind of felt clumsy to do unholds sound, but it turned out rather good.
• sunday/22nd turned out to be a good day for rock’n'roll as well, skyblend took over the ebullition in bulle for a week of residency, and i handled some basic sound-duties. i will be joining the rehearsal on thursday and prepare with them for their upcoming cd release-party on saturday/28th… should be fun.

on the future-side of things, here’s what i’ve been sketching out over the last couple of days:
• dj el muerte – from folk to grind (yours truly, 28th of january), café le xxéme/fribourg
• operation: impending doom XII (6th of february – w/ shadow’s far, calcined, dj tba), café le xxéme/fribourg
• operation: impending doom XIII (20th of march – w/ battalion, support tba), café le xxéme/fribourg
• plus i’ll definitely be mixing attack vertical on the 9th of december as the opening act for arch enemy at the kiff/aarau, zatokrev on the 10th of december at the children of doom-festival in lille/france and again attack vertical on the 12th of december at the l’appel-festival at the hôtel de la ville/romont. good times!

new projects / events

i’ve just finished a bunch of projects, which are definitely worth mentionning:
- the audio-installation & live-engineering for the theatre ‘apokalypse’ at the university of fribourg / switzerland (directed by simon helbling)
- the recording/mixing for skyblend‘s first ep.
this four-track was recorded live during two days at la fonderie and the mix was done at my homestudio, while mastering-duties were handled by julien fehlmann at studio:mecanique. the ep turned out very groove-oriented, which is a pleasant but not overwhelming surprise – after all, it’s the bands real strenght. plus, i got to work on a bunch of overdubs, which got my creative juices flowing in multiple ways.
skyblend have got the release party scheduled for the 28th of november at the ebull in bulle, i’ll probably be mixing them live, and might even join them for a little live-rendition of one of the recorded tunes… we’ll see.

on the event-side of things, a bunch of shows just got confirmed:
- on the 14th of november, i’ll be hosting the eleventh rendition of my ‘operation: impending doom‘-events with cruszt headlining, voice of ruin supporting, and the mighty dj kéké providing afterparty-tunes. for those of you who ain’t got a clue, he’s the one who’s pretty much responsible for hooking me on to the wonders of modern metal back in the days… metalact, represent!
- on the 21st of november, berlin/tchaux-collective the ocean will be headlining at le nouveau monde, with support coming from nebra and vancouver.
- cideraid will both be playing the bad bonn (26th of december, w/ timor), and the wenk (31st of january, w/tba) as part of the last couple of shows before they start working on their first lp.
- attack vertical just got confirmed as support-act for the mighty arch enemy on the 9th of december at the kiff in aarau, where i’ll most likely will be handling sound-duties.

that’s it for now – as usual, stay tuned… cause i got about 100 other things up the pipeline!