MIDNATTSOL vocalist Carmen Elise Espenaes recently completed her recordings for the band's forthcoming as-yet-untitled album. She has issued the following studio report:

"When I recorded the vocals for Nordlys, there was a lot of troubles with my luggage, they lost my luggage several of times and in the end, they couldn't find it all and I Iost all of my personal belongings. This time the luggage was in good hands, but unfortunalty I caught one of the worst days in Frankfurt airport's train station's history. All the trains had a huge delay and when the last train to Mellrichstadt that day didn't go either, I was standing there as a lost moron on the train station didn't know what to do. After hours of waiting and different conclusions I decided to go by taxi to Mellrichstadt, and I can promise you, it was the most expensive taxi trip ever in my life!! ;) I arrived in the little sweet German village Mellrichstadt late in the night and made it to sleep one hour before the recording started.

But even though it was kind of a hell of a chaos to get here, everything regarding the recordings went fantastic! It was my first real meeting with our producer Markus Stock (pictured), and I have to say we had a great connection from the first minute on, having a lof ot fun, but still being very efficient and concentrated. We soon found out that we have the same taste how the vocals should be in the different parts of the songs, so there were no big battles in the backyard. He is so professional and great working with (thanx a lot Markus!). I also got good assistance from our guitarists Alex and Daniel, so cool that they drove all the long way to support me! Alex and I had lots of interesting philosophical conversations, which always ended up with no real conclusion because of phone call interruptions after each sentence spoken, we really have to find time to finish them someday, perhaps we will end up with a brand new philosophical theory ;-) Daniel motivated me with extremely funny YouTube videos in between, sometimes I couldn't breathe for laughing so much! Even though it was on the phone, I can`t describe with words how much I appreciate the support from the coolest Canadian ever and the best English teacher I have ever had, Carl Begai (BW&BK;); I owe you uncountable amount of beers, hehe ;)

Well, the recordings are now accomplished, and I`ll guess you are very interested in how the vocals actually are going to be on the new record. Will it follow Nordlys footsteps, will it be more like the first album or perhaps a totally new direction? Well, I can`t tell you too much about the result, but what I can tell you is my thoughts around the vocal lines:

I think it`s very important to find the right type of singing for that and that special atmosphere and feeling in the songs. I want it be be authentic, honest and still interesting. That means that I don`t want to make any general decisions about my vocal style in advance, I have to feel every song and the different parts of it individually and then I can find the right matching vocal style. It`s such an exciting and interesting process! I think it increases the quality level of the songs and I personally like to have variation when you look at the album as a whole. You see, I often get bored when I listen to an album and the singer uses the same tunes and type of singing over and over again. I like everyone in the band have developed a lot since our debut album, and I think one can hear this very clearly in the new songs. It`s more mature, the interaction between all the instruments/vocals is well harmonized and it`s filled with lots of beautiful melodies to sing along with and last but not least: a lot of METAL!!;)

Well, that`s all for now, hope you like the new songs as much as I do, I almost can`t wait showing them to you guys!! Today we have just started the Mix, so watch out for further reports!!

Thanx for the support everyone, you gave me so much strength during my time in the studio!"