In five days

Don't bend, don't water it down, don't try to make it logical,
don't edit your own soul according to the fashion.
Rather, follow your most intense obsession mercilessly.

Franz Kafka


In five days I will start recording together with my dream team.
I'm happy to be part of my own CD :-)
Mattias Perèz on guitars, Anders Jormin on double base.
Petter Ericsson sound engineer.
At Studio Epidemin, Gothenburg.

Thank you guys for accepting my invitation to be part of this project!
All in all, it's a play.
We'll play.
Let's play with the thought
of growing wings.

Eva

September 2009, Faroe Islands. First lines of a song for my coming CD started here.

Silence and sound

Women who run their own business...

In this old photo is my grand dad Sven, sitting on the table, and his mother Emma, sitting on the chair. Emma was like me and many other, a single mother with her own business.

Emma, the daughter of a miner.

Today I've been doing parts of the business side of my project of producing a solo album. I have compleeted and send in an application to the Swedish Arts Council. Deadline for this application is tomorrow. I have never written such an application before, and now I aim to release a cd on my own label. So it's up to me to take care that I at least send in an application. Competition is sky high but if you don't try you don't get anything anyway.

Here's the art side of the cd. Lyrics I have been working on since 18 month back now, some parts of it even older.

Eva

Petrichor - the scent of rain

My daily joy.

My daily challenge.

Creating my own music.

So this is the first announcement, I will record a solo album by the end of October this year.

And it's the first album on my own label.

After a long row of amazing collaborations I have decided to do something like this. Channel all the lyrics and melodies that I have made myself.

When I look at all the twelve songs I have choosen for this album, I notice there's rain in several of them.

Rain as the sign of freedom, water of life, of relief.

And there's a lot more coming too. I go to my roots, I have a lot of inspiration from my mountains where i grew up. It's also about dance.

I will let you know more as the work proceeds.
You are most welcome to  check my blog for more updates around this new baby of mine.

Eva

Lightenings in the sky over Gothenburg

It was really spot on, in connection with my Tove Jansson celebration weekend. I imagine this was the celebration for the hatifnatts.

From my balcony yesterday late dark evening.
No rain.
Hardly no thunder.
But many lightenings high up in the clouds.
Spectacular!

August 9, Tove Jansson birthday

With all my heart I want to celebrate the author and artist Tove Jansson who would have turned 100 years today. She's one of my house godesses.

Tonight we celebrate Tove and raise a glass of apple lemonade in her honour.

As a sign of my affection of her work and life I have been to the forest today and enjoyed an enchanted moment with my daugther and our little dog. Walking back home in the light rain of a summer afternoon. That we fancy rain might be one of the links back to Tove Jansson's writings. In her books the stormy and rainy weather is just making people more filled with energy and adventure.

I brought a water lily and some spicy scented myrica for Tove.

In my young years my mother used to read loud from Tove's books in the evenings. It was a casual and yet highly appreciated little reading ceremony we did every evening. Gathered around the kitchen table we sat listening to the advetures of all the creatures and animals living in Moomin valley.

Later on I read some of her other books. And books about her and her artistry. Once I have seen her paintings in an exhibition at Millesgården. Fantastic!

Earlier today I enjoyed going to the local second hand market. I found two green silk tops and a white lovely transparent blouse with embroidery on the back. The shirt is smaragd green, and that is a color for Tove, I think. In her writing Tove is very specific with colors.

I also found two tea cups of the kind my grand mother Agnes always used.

Eva

Yoda of the scythe

It totally made my day, meeting with master Birger.
We sat talking about how to cut the meadow with a scythe. All about technique, weather conditions, general advice, and how to maintain the scythe and make it sharp.

Birger went after his best scythe, the one he used in competitions as well as in daily work on his farm lands.
Carefully cutting the grass, beautiful and neat.
He also let me cut the grass and corrected my technique. The tip of the blade must be more parallell to the ground. He make half moon shaped cuttings but slightly shorter from side to side than I tried to do it before.
It was truly a special feeling to hold on to this scythe that has served so long in his masters hands. As if the iron handles had softened and transformed in the contact with human hand.
Birgers lovely wife Terese came to sit with us too and we all had a good talk in the summer afternoon.

I was suggested to go to Birger if I wanted to know deeply about the traditions. He's the elder, the knowledge holder of the traditions that passed down in generations. He had a lot to tell, I say! This is indigenous knowledge for me, connected to the life in harmony with nature here in the north. Connected to my family roots of farmers in Dalarna.

Birger with his scythe.

Birger gave me this whetstone to sharpen my scythe. An honour to be given such!

A rose that unfolded this morning in my garden.

Summer workshop week with Myst

Music is in the air.
Myst have had a week together in Göteborg. Long time no see, but now we've had full days of digging into our music again.

God is in the small details.....

Three days rehearsals and two days recording. One new song has seen the light, Ahmad wrote the piece and Eva added some lyrics. It's called "A Song I Wrote For You".

Seven songs from our repertoir last year has been recorded for demo, that makes eight songs all in all this week.
Here's some pics from work in the studio:

Martin and his new tattoo.

Youssef Hbeisch, percussion.

Ahmad Al Khatib, oud.

Martin Holmlund, double bas. Sara Nilsson, violin.

Eva Rune, vocals.