Men And Flies

The idea behind the album, the man behind the fly so to speak, was for me to change horses, try riding side-saddle or maybe just shaking my fear of horses.... actually this music has nothing to do with horses but it has a lot to do with Lars Horntveth. Lars is making his debut as a producer besides dissecting and arranging the music. In the process we wanted to cross paths with a waist high pile of vinyl records that included Colin Blunstone, Bergen White, Dr John, Curtis Mayfield, Alice Coltrane, and Allan Toussaint all found floating around my living room floor the color of red wine on one of our first brain-storming cell assassination sessions.

My songs have always been driven by my guitar playing and that was the obvious place to start to give the songs a different flavor. So I lay down my guitar for the most part and tried to write songs on the piano, an instrument I didn’t know how to play so I learned some things along the way and pounded out the ideas to Lars. The songs started taking shape and we found a work rhythm that flowed effortlessly. At least a year passed before we had enough material, my writing drawing inspiration from the songs already recorded. Lars would chop the songs in half, insert an instrumental passage and we would both search for new melodic hooks that could be incorporated in his unique arrangements. We put together a band, picking people we knew would take the tracks to a different level, Kenneth Kapstad, Nikolai Eilertsen, David Wallumrød, Mathias Eick, Erik Johannessen, Morten Qvenild, Lars Håvard Haugen and an eminent string section consisting of Frode Larsen,Øyvind Fossheim,Stig-Ove Ose,Audun Andre Sandvik and Marius Flateby. Recording was done all over the place making the most of a mobile setup but we left the mixing to the brilliant Jørgen Træen.

We are really excited about this album, it exceeds my expectations and Lars has been pushing for us to continue our collaboration and make another one...

To be continued.

Martin Hagfors