February 21st, 2009 by boil@boilmusic.com

This past Sunday Jacob finished tracking his vocals, and believe us when we say that Jacob has done an outstanding piece of work. Jacob has managed to lay down vocals that purvey the emotion, power and message that Boil is all about, and moreover, he has done so with patience and without ripping the heads off the rest of the band hehe!

Stig recorded his backing vocals for all eleven tracks in just two days and it sounds really awesome as well. We have tried out several new things, and have been working a lot with layered vocals and different harmonies. Exciting times are ahead as we prepare to enter the mixing stage.

Video from the vocal recording session:

 
As a special treat, and to celebrate that we have finished the tracking phase, we present you with an exclusive live preview of one of the new songs that is going to appear on the forthcoming album. The song is called ‘Redefine’ and was recorded this past thursday at our concert in Ridehuset in Aarhus at the Strange Ears 3 year anniversary party … so here you go:

February 5th, 2009 by boil@boilmusic.com

It’s been a while since our last update from the studio - but that certainly doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy as usual! Fuuuck no!!!

During the last couple of weeks, Stig has laid down all his guitar tracks using his beloved Vintage ‘62 Fender Jazzmaster. In this period, we’ve also tracked a couple of Bjørn’s more clean guitar parts and a couple of his lead parts using the Jazzmaster. We have a general (yet bendable) rule with regard to recordings: when it comes to crispiness and definition, we usually use the Jazzmaster, while we stick to the Gibson Firebird when it comes to kicking ass and taking names. This combination almost always leads to an unmatched, wellrounded sound that leaves room for both guitars.

Mikkel Ib has also started working on the drum sound, just so we have a nice starting point when the main mixing phase commences. The early fruit of his work has already left us with the sensation that, by the time it’s flowing out of YOUR speakers, it’s going to be pure, skin-beating hellishness of the “FUCK YEAH!!!”-ish kind!

Tonight, we’re playing an “out of the studio or we’ll kill each other” 30-minute gig at Ridehuset in Aarhus, just to get the old live bones a-churning again! And from the upcoming weekend and for 8-10 days we’ll be laying down Jacob’s vocals and Stig’s backing vocals.

Well, that’s it! But stay tuned for the next update and rock on till then….

January 19th, 2009 by boil@boilmusic.com

It’s been a while since the last update, but we have been extremely busy tracking bass and guitar for the new album.

Well, Brian finished his bass tracks late last week. He has done an outstanding piece of work laying down the tracks with great feeling AND cojones where needed. We have recorded both a direct signal (just to have it as a back up) and miked up Brians amp, and from the latter we have achieved the crunch and low-end we were aiming for.

By the way, if you need an advice on how to get that angry, hate-filled edge on the bass, nothing really does the trick better than the drummer saying to the bass player:
“That sounded great, but next time try to follow the drums”. Haha, all in good spirit of course!

Thursday we re-visited the bass tracks with fresh ears and fixed the few inconsistencies we were unable to hear during the previous tracking phase.

This past Saturday and Sunday, Bjørn has been laying down his guitar tracks on his trusted Gibson Firebird, and - with a little help from a Mesa Rectifier - we obtained a guitar sound that is as dry as sand in the Mojave. It sounds awesome! Bjørn did his tracks using only 2 of the 5 days reserved for him, so once again we are ahead of schedule. Tomorrow (Tuesday), Stig will start tracking his guitars using a Fender Jazzmaster to get that nice and crispy single coil tone.

Check out the two videos below

That’s all for now
//Boil

VIDEO #3

VIDEO #4

January 7th, 2009 by boil@boilmusic.com

After new years eve we took a few days off. With all the basic drum tracks recorded, it was time for a little extra rhythmic “bling”. Mikkel recorded some extra percussion and a few other things with gear borrowed from the Classical Conservatory in Århus. It sounds awesome.

At the moment Mikkel is fixing the last few inconsistencies on the drum tracks, while Brian has begun tracking the bass. Last night we set up his gear for the recording, and the bass sound has become really heavy while still having the sharp edge we need. It sounds great!

January 2nd, 2009 by boil@boilmusic.com

December 29th
After succesfully nailing 4 songs the day before, we met in the studio at 11am on December 29th. Being ahead of schedule and being quite optimistic about how things were going, Mikkel started tracking one of the most challenging songs for the new album, a song called Transition. It contains a lot of breaks, syncopated rhytms and weird fills. Even before getting anything useful down on tape we suddenly noticed a faint, yet annoying, overtone in the china cymbal when recording, so before moving on with the tracking we needed to find a way to get rid of this.

A few hours wen’t by and we finally found a solution and could begin tracking. ‘Transition’ took almost the entire day to get down, and Mikkel finished off the day with some alternative takes for another song we tracked two days before, called ‘Olympus Mons’.

December 30th
December 30th proved to be the last day of regular drum tracking, as Mikkel actually nailed the remaining songs this day. Everything wen’t relatively painless and he ended up doing the drums for four songs, including a track that wasn’t even meant to be on the album. It probably won’t be, but we got it on tape now nevertheless.

We are taking a few days off to celebrate New Year’s Eve on the 31st and to be hung over on January 1st, but beginning Friday 2nd we are back in the studio doing additional percussion, and with a bit of luck everything that has to do with the drums will be done by Sunday the 4th of January. Then it is on to Brian who will be tracking his bass tracks the coming week.

Happy New Year from Boil

Ps. Check out a second video from the studio below. Watch Jacob give a small tour of the recording facilities and watch Mikkel track parts of the song ‘Transition’.

VIDEO #2

December 30th, 2008 by boil@boilmusic.com

We finally entered the studio on the evening of December 26th to record the ten songs that will comprise our, still untitled, second album.
After miking up the drums and doing a bit of tuning, we did some takes to make sure that everything sounded as good as possible. We ended the day with a celebratory beer and got home quite early to get some sleep before starting the tracking the morning after.

December 27th.
We arrived at the studio at around 9:30 in the morning, and after a bit of warming up behind the kit, Mikkel starting tracking the first song. We started out with a familiar tune called Hypersomnia from the Clarity single, which we recorded last year. Things went pretty smooth and after a few hours Mikkel nailed it with the groove and intensity needed. Awesome!

Next up was one of the brand new songs called Olympus Mons. We knew this one was going to take a lot of time since it is very complex and has a lot of odd time signatures and breaks. Sure enough, this song took the rest of the day to get down on tape but the end result speaks for itself. By 9:30 in the evening, we finally finished the last few things and Mikkel tried out some alternative fills and stuff for the last part of the song… After 12 hours, we ended the day and got home to get some well-deserved rest.

December 28th.
Today has been a really productive day, and Mikkel nailed 4 songs during the 10 hours we spent in the studio.
We started the day with yet another familiar song, namely Clarity, which we recorded last year for the Clarity single. After that, we did Redefine - a rather long song with some crazy drumming in it, and after that a shorter more straight song called Dead Inside.

We ended the day with one of the last songs we wrote for the album, so new that it doesn’t even have a definite title yet. This one only has drums during the last part and it went pretty smooth as well.

So… After two days of recording, we already have six down, which means we are a whole day ahead of schedule; so with a bit luck we can finish up the drum recording a bit earlier than expected and move on to bass before scheduled. We will see how it goes tomorrow.

That’s it for now… stay tuned!

VIDEO #1

December 29th, 2008 by admin

The Danish progressive rock band Boil, entered their own studio Sleepwalker Studios in Århus, Denmark, on December the 27th to start recording their new and second studio album. Here the band will produce and mix the afford themselves. While Boil is in the studio, they will report back to the readers with studio updates and videos, so please come back to read about their progress.