In
Sweden the word paraply means umbrella. Paraplyet means the umbrella.
Just a little Swedish trivia back in the old country! Anyway smart-ass
critics aside, the fantastic and gifted Swedes strike more Engelsk
(Swedish for English) pop-rock gold with the 2009 CD from Citizen
K entitled Meet Citizen K.
Subtitled, Somewhere Up North, the sixteen track CD features
Citizen K himself, Klas Qvist performing on a number instrumentsfrom
guitars through vintage keyboardswhile backed up a fine drummer
called Kim Gunneriusson and theres even a trumpet player
to add in some impressive Beatle style textures. Qvist is a fine guitarist
and his keyboard arsenalincluding some ethereal mellotron textureswould
impress Beatles proteges like Jason Falkner. A modern pop masterpiece,
Meet
Citizen K
is excellent and a true joy to behold from start to finish. The
16 cut album
is further enhanced by brilliant production by Qvist and Mats-Ola
Tranella
sound that no doubt takes a cue from Brian Wilsons immaculate
work on SMiLE
and Pet Sounds and beyond. Fittingly, Klas is also a
big fan of recent albums from Brian Wilson and The Wondermints including
the revival of SMiLE in 2004. Isnt it amazing how guys
who were taught to say the words: prata du svenska? (do you speak
Swedish?) and tack så mycket (thanks so much) could sing so
well in English! Track two, Same Old Sun will impress
fans of the Fab Four and their Apple label signings Badfinger, a band
possibly inspiring the essence of track 2, also called "Badfinger."
Pete Ham would have no doubt loved Klas' amazing pop work. Another
Qvist influence, Jackson Browne is noticeable not only in the music
(kind of, but painlessly!) but also (strangely) on the CD cover art,
which basically reinvents Brownes Saturate Before Using album
art with a cool Citizen K twist that takes this CD somewhere up north
indeed! Is
Meet Citizen K the most perfect pop album since Odessey
And Oracle? Buy the great "black vinyl CD edition" of
the album (available Stateside from long time pop maven Bruce
Brodeen's Not Lame sell site and from Village
Records) and find out! www.ParaplyRecords.se
MUSIC WEB EXPRESS 3000 presents
KLAS QVIST {a/k/a CITIZEN K}
Guitars Center Stage
Guitarists making waves in the music world,
their new recordings and gear!
Musical Background
Early
70s, thats when I learned the piano. This was pre school.
Piano was my main instrument for many years. I picked up the guitar
when I was 12 and then, gradually, the keyboards sort of fell into
the background. I also play the bass, some percussion and other string
instruments such as autoharp and mandolin.
Its only now, after years of playing behind other people or
in countless groups and projects, that I seem to have started something
resembling a career on my own. I was inactive for a couple of years
when I concentrated on studies and family life etc, but since 2001,
Ive written and recorded on a more regular basis. In 2004, I
released a CD under my real name, then switched to Citizen K to make
it seem more like a cross between a solo performer and a band, and
to avoid the singer-songwriter trap. The CD of 2009 can therefore
be seen as a second debut.
New CD
A friend of mine came up with the album title. I had thousands
of titles I thought I might use, but we eventually settled on my friends
suggestion, Meet Citizen K Somewhere Up North. It was recorded
between May 2007 and July 2009 in a studio in Borås, the town
in Sweden where I was born and where Im living right now. The
album is digitally recorded. The initial idea was to use an analogue
24-track tape machine, but we ended up using Logic. We spent the first
couple of sessions recording very stripped versions of every song
on the album with me, playing the acoustic guitar and laying down
some guide vocals to a click track. Then, we pretty much spent the
following sessions on all the other instruments, like the drums for
instance. All the drums were recorded in a session that went on for
a couple of hours. My friend Kim did a fantastic job. Kim, Michael
on trumpet and my girlfriend Annika on tin whistle and backing vocals
are the only outside players on the album. Its a reflection
of a whole number of thingsevents in my life and musical influences.
Ive been listening to folk, country, pop, psychedelia and classical
music and I wanted to put as much of it as possible into the mix.
Im a follower of the artistry where the listener doesnt
know what to expect through the duration of the record. This is something
that most of todays albums lack. Its all mass production
and run of the mill mentality, which, in the long run, has damaged
the music and the adventure behind it severely. And my guitar style?
Very hard for me to explain. Its a melting pot of a number of
things Ive picked up over the years.
Favorite Guitars
I used my old Fender Stratocaster, my second ever electric
guitar which I bought in 1983. I also used a 12-string Eagle (an electric
guitar), two acoustic Furch jumbo guitarsone 6-string and one
12-stringand an acoustic 6-string Landola. I used DAddario
strings. The acoustic guitars were recorded with two microphones in
order to pick up as much of the sound as possible. I cant remember
exactly what mikes we used for the acoustic guitars, so I prefer to
just leave it. Then we made either two or four guitar tracks that
we spread throughout the mix. Sometimes we used a stereo setup, for
example on Not Enough Time on which I overdubbed the 6-string
and then the 12-string to create the illusion of two guitarists playing
together in one room, but its actually just me.
For the electric guitars, we mostly had a Music Man with a Marshall
4X10 that someone seemed to have left behind in the studio. Sometimes,
we used the original Logic plug-ins, which upset my engineer Mats-Ola
Tranell a great deal, since he still, to this day, refuses to accept
that the plug-ins might sound just as good as (or sometimes even better
than) the Music Man. For one of the songs, Stitchys tune,
I needed a volume pedal for my Strat, but when I left the store, I
had bought an entire Boss multi-effect board.
Musical Influences
My influences can mainly be found in the music made between
1965 and 1975The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, Buffalo
Springfield, Tim Buckley, Traffic, 10CC, early Queen and many others.
Ive always liked artists who look for inspiration outside the
rock genre, even if they produce fairly simple and straight forward
music themselves. My favorite guitarists are David Crosby, George
Harrison, Roger McGuinn and Richard Thompson. If I were to pick just
one guitarist, Thompson wins without a doubt. Hes absolutely
unique and unmistakable. In my teens, when I had purchased the Strat
Im still using, I was heavily into Ritchie Blackmore. I think
you can still here it in some of my solos. I know there are some people
who make fun of him for his behavior onstage, the way he treats his
old band mates and stuff, but I think hes great.
My most influential albums? Well, if I were to pick one, it must be
one of The Beach Boys albums, Surfs Up, simply
because I associate it so strongly with where I was the first time
I heard it and it will stay with me for the rest of my life and Ive
glanced towards that album more than once when Ive written,
arranged and recorded my own stuff.
Upcoming Plans
Hopefully, Ill do some live work this year, but since
I want the time between albums to be as short as possible, Ill
go into the studio again soon.
Web Site
Please visit www.myspace.com/citizenksweden
for more information. You can read my blog where I, among other things,
comment on recent and forthcoming events in my life and career. Dont
be afraid to provide comments. See you there!