BW&BK; has received MIDNATTSOL vocalist Carmen Elise Espenaes' overview of her recent recording sessions for the band's new album, Nordlys. It appears below:

"If I should describe my studio recordings with three words, it would have been a lof of fun, travelling and tea . You know how it is, you have an important thing to do and are looking so forward to it, and what happens: you feel the bad vibrations of influence coming over you. But: not even a morning voice comparable with a desert could stand in my way to Mastersound studio. 'All for Nordlys'- no matter what! The first day in studio started with a trip by a mix of different kinds of means of transport: boat, car, plane, bus and train. With other words, I am not going to miss travelling for a while ;) But: I am going to miss my personal belongings for a while (hopefully not forever), because, you are never going to believe this; KLM lost my baggage each of the three times I flew over. That means, I walked around in studio with Alex` big Norway-socks, at least 8 sizes too big, and a white t-shirt I got from KLM after some hours begging at the airport in Stuttgart. The worst thing about it is that I had my most important business documents with me with no other copies. 'Don`t do this at home kids!!!' And don`t lose a bottle of boiled tea water over a half-naked body either, it MAY hurt a bit, hehe ;)

So, as annoying the circumstances were, the recordings themselves were fabulous. With such amazing and professional people to work with, I couldn`t have felt safer and in better hands. A big thank you for all your effort and support!! They didn`t only take the responsibility for the recordings, Alex was also running in and out of the kitchen serving me tea (more than 40 liters all in all). Like you can imagine, it was a really funny experience. And by the way, when you are around 'Tosso', you have to be a stone not to laugh. We also laughed a lot when I was walking around (no kidding!) in the studio while recording for a special song on Nordlys, that was really really funny. One time we heard something very strange on the recordings of this song. Finally we found out that I had stepped on a cable or something and I had to look very carefully where I stepped afterwards.

Funny for someone, stress for other ones, was the third day of recording. My plane was going to leave in the morning, but I wanted sooooo badly record the new song 'Open Your Eyes' before leaving, so I convinced Alex and 'Tosso' to stand up early and come to the studio. We had one hour to record, with other words, not years of time, but it was so great to sing and we were so "in" the song, that I almost forgot that the taxi was waiting!! Perhaps it was 'Open Your Eyes' that opened my eyes, I don`t know, at least I ran out of Mastersound studio and…..actually made it, 5 minutes later the plane would have gone without me. I thought such things only happened in movies, but of course, you can never know J The best thing was that we were finished as well, so I could travel home with a good feeling.

But laughing was not the only emotion while recording, I have to admit that the different emotions in the songs hit me not only while, but also after singing, and sometimes I felt a little sea in my eyes. I am sure you have felt the same sometimes; you feel the emotion of a song so true and deep inside, as if it would be yesterday. A real fantastic feeling was the whole process of listening to the great instrument recordings and also listening to the recorded songs with instruments and vocals together. You have played it in the rehearsal room, sure, but when you listen to it without playing or singing yourself, at least for the first times, it`s so special, if not a kind of magical. But hey, that`s what music is about…for me at least."

Carmen

As previously reported, Nordlys is currently being mixed by producer/engineer Tue Madsen at Antfarm Studios in prepartion for the mastering at Finnvox Studio by Mika Jussila. The album is set for a March 28th release through Napalm Records

The tracklist for Nordlys is as follows: 'Open Your Eyes', 'Skogens Lengsel', 'Northern Light', 'Konkylie', 'Wintertimes', 'Race Of Time', 'New Horizon', 'River Of Virgin Soil', 'En Natt I Nord'. There will a bonus track on the limited edition, entitled 'Octobre', sung by guitarist Daniel Droste (AHAB) alone.