DEMO OF THE MONTH [April]

DEMO OF THE MONTH

April 2008: come19demo


Dear friends,

This month brings the first demo and pictures from our new studio. Work have begun and we are on our way to Covenant 2008 tba.

This winter have been unusually dark and long. I was playing around with Joakims Evolver which has some really interesting sounds and possibilities of modulation but I got hooked on a quite simple sound and started to come up with the main melody. Then I just plugged in a bunch of hardware to accompany it; a Sequential P1 for the bass, a 909 for the drums with some compression and the Waldorfs on strings. A few hours later I plugged in a microphone and got what you can hear this month. For now I just recorded some test vocals at the end of the song. I recommend subscribing to this blog so you automatically will get a notification when there are news and updates.

Oh, and I was in London DJing. I love playing my favorite tracks and I love London so there are some new photos as well. Every time I am in town I visit the drawing by da Vinci in the first room to the left at National Gallery. I guess its one of my favorite pieces of art but the Unilever Series Installation in the turbine hall at Tate Modern was breathtaking. By Doris Salcedo, the sensation experiencing it was something I will carry with me for a long time.

Yours sincerely,

Eskil, Helsingborg 16th of April, 2008

P.S. Out now on YouTube is a Swedish fan video of Rising Sun by Tobias Jansson aka ACC:Xess/animator75. Thanks! Please let us know if you make one as well. D.S.

1:29 AM - 24 Comments - 50 Kudos - Add Comment

DEMO(s) OF THE MONTH [March]

DEMO(s) OF THE MONTH
March 2008: "20 Hz Atomheart" demo + "20 Hz Crystal" demo"


This month I want to show the origin of our song 20 Hz from Skyshaper by giving you 2 demos who both played a fundamental part. Also online now is the Photo diary from last weeks show in Helsinki - thanks Finland for agreat time.

I was left alone in Stockholm and we were running out of time. Together with Jacob Hellner I was finishing the "Northern Light" recording session and we needed a B-side for our Bullet single. Joakim was already in Barcelona so I played the rough "20 Hz/Atomheart demo" for him over the phone, reaching across Europe, he got quite enthusiastic and wrote the great "Atomheart" lyrics. But by the the time I got the lyrics I just didnt get it to work and made a new song that became the "Atomheart" song which ended up as the exclusive Bullet single track. We loved the 20 Hz chorus but for the time being it was a sleeping beauty.

Skip 2 years. Me and Joakim are in our studio in Helsingborg on one of our pre-"Skyshaper" sessions (from which you have already heard one track - the December Night session demo) with the only stated goal was just to connect our hardware and see what happened. Not necessarily hits, just sounds without prejudices. So we ended up spending some time on this odd 2nd song -the"20 Hz Crystal demo" which saw the first light of the characteristic 20 Hz verse.

Skip one year to the release of Skyshaper. Somehow, after another break and several versions later, these two embryos has merged and become part of the the song that became 20Hz. Vital late additions was the bassline from the Pro-One synthesizer, Joakims signature FL loops and the Waldorf strings. We spent a lot of time tweaking and figuring out if the strange rhythm of the drum loops in 20 Hz work or not. Most people said no but in the end I felt that no other alternative could match Joakims original loops in their restless tension. Odd enough, the version on the album is also a demoversion. I continued to work on the track on and off for another month but by the time of the final decisions I felt that something had got lost on the way and that this earlier demo just felt better.

Thanks for listening,

Eskil, Helsingborg 29th of February, 2008

P.S. Yes, greetings from our studio from Joakim, Daniel and me. Covenant 2008 TBA have begun. D.S.

11:21 AM - 17 Comments - 30 Kudos - Add Comment

LATE FEBRUARY UPDATE

LATE FEBRUARY UPDATE






Dear friends,


Please find a new demo, this month introducing Daniel (!) and my photo diary from our shows in Spain before Christmas. I apologize for the late update, despite my robot aspiration I find myself more often than not with human flaws. Music does not always run like a clockwork orange.

Best,



Eskil February 12

11:23 AM - 13 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

DEMO OF THE MONTH [February]

DEMO OF THE MONTH February 2008: "Broadway"


Hello there.
I guess this will be my official introduction to the band. It's been a while, almost 12 months, that I have played with the guys and two months ago I wrote the track you can hear as the demo of the month.
I was in Seattle and went looking for some food. It was a wonderful day and I listened to some Covenant tracks on my iPod to get inspiration. Well, I finally found a Thai place that served a nice soup and when I left I set my iPod on random play. Right after "Pulse" a track from the band Sleeparchive came up and I had a feeling that this would do very well with Eskil's vocals.
So I went back to the hotel and started to work on a track. As a working title I used "Broadway" because that was the street, where I had my little enlightenment. Enjoy!!

Daniel, Leipzig, Feb 2, 2008

DEMO OF THE MONTH [January]

DEMO OF THE MONTH
January 2008: "Suicide Drone 73"

I got a new synthesizer called Dave Smith Instruments Evolver. I like the
name of it. I also very much like how it's built and the way it makes noise.
It's tiny: about the size of a VHS-cassette, if anyone can remember those,
but it can make huge sounds. I was trying out the way it responds to actual
playing (no programming, just playing the keyboard) and found that it is
much more responsive than I expected it to be. So I made a simple melodic
loop and fooled around with the settings.

The beat is 2 different Roland CR-78 loops and a Roland TR-808 running
through a single Roland Space Echo and a compressor.

This is not a typical Covenant thing at all. But as some people know by now,
when I'm left to my own devices things turn out a little different. I don't
make songs. I make fragments or very long things out of which little
fragments can be extracted to make songs. I know it sounds backwards. It is.
And I like that.

Happy New Year btw!

/Joakim (Helsingborg Jan 2, 2008)

12:24 PM - 21 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment

NO DEMO OF THE MONTH [December]

NO DEMO OF THE MONTH
[December]

Dear friends,

we are overwhelmed by the interest in our demo songs but please post a comment about it. One response in thousand is a bit too little so we are going to keep last months Demo of the month for another month. We would like to know your response and we are doing this for our own sake as well. You don't have to like it, on the opposite, if something goes wrong we expect to hear it from you first!

We plan to start the recording and production of our next album 2008 tba in February so a new album is imminent! We have a new great studio now that we are setting up with all our stuff that you now can find listed at www.covenant.de.

Best regards

Covenant, 1. December 2008


PS. If everything goes well, we hope to present a christmas song later this month...

11:53 AM - 8 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

PHOTO DIARY: Concert Oslo 071109

PHOTO DIARY: Concert Oslo

Dear friends,

During the production of our new DVD In Transit we discovered it is fun to document and share the endeavours of our journeys so we decided to put up a photo diary from our travels starting this month with our show in Oslo last weekend. Experiencing things alone is intense but pretty static and life begins when sharing it with other beings. So we would like to invite you to tag along on our future endeavours. Please find the pictures in the myspace photo folder. Maybe we are visiting your hometown next?

Yours,

Covenant, Nov 2007

2:13 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

DEMO OF THE MONTH [November]

DEMO OF THE MONTH
November: "The Night (Eskil Berlin 07)"


[english]

Dear friends,

thanks for all your interest in listening at our demo and taking part in our "demo of the month" project for our new album. We have started working on a new album that we hope to release 2008! This months demo is a new song from last month by Eskil from the Berlin workshop. We'll see if it will be picked out and refined for our upcoming album. Again, this is just a demo to let all you friends get an insight in our work in progress.

Enjoy!

Covenant, 1st of November, 2007


[german]

Liebe Freunde,

danke für Euer Interesse, in unser Demo reinzuhören und Euch am "Demo des Monats"-Projekt für unser neues Album zu beteiligen. Wir haben begonnen, am neuen Album zu arbeiten, das wir 2008 zu veröffentlichen hoffen! Das Demo dieses Monats ist ein neuer Song von Eskil vom Workshop in Berlin im letzten Monat. Wir werden sehen, ob er für das neue Album ausgesucht und "poliert" wird. Bisher ist es wieder nur ein Demo, das unseren Freunden einen Einblick in unsere aktuelle Arbeit geben möchte.

Viel Spaß damit!

Covenant, 1. November 2007

12:24 PM - 9 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

DEMO OF THE MONTH [October]

DEMO OF THE MONTH
October: "Right Here Right Now (Live Jam 2005)"


[english]
Along with the work on the new album the band would like to invite the fans to the creative process by sharing a demo every month. Obviously these are not the top-produced hit singles rather than outtakes and strange stuff we hope that fans will find interesting to listen to and sometimes maybe even enjoyable!
The first demo out is a late night live jam session in the studio with Eskil and Joakim from the Skyshaper sessions 2005. New stuff will follow as it is being produced.


[german]
Neben der Arbeit am neuen Album möchten Covenant die Fans am kreativen Prozess teilhaben lassen, indem jeden Monat ein Demopräsentiert wird. Natürlich sind das keine top-produzierten Hit-Singles, sondern eher Ausschnitte und "seltsames Zeug", von dem wir hoffen, dass die Fans es interessant finden und manchmal sogar Freude daran haben.
Das erste Demo (ab heute im Player) ist eine nächtliche "jam session" aus den Skyshaper Sessions im Jahr 2005 mit Eskil und Joakim im Studio. Neues folgt, wenn es in Arbeit ist.

6:47 AM - 9 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

NEWS [28/09/07] - New song(s) at the next gig, ...

NEWS
28 September 2007


[english]
Covenant will perform in Kassel the 2nd of Oktober. On stage Clas will be replaced by Daniel Myer of haujobb and the band says they have started to work on an album together with Daniel and will present a new song(s) in Kassel!


[german]
Covenant werden am 2. Oktober in Kassel wieder mit Daniel Myer (haujobb) in Vertretung von Clas auf der Bühne stehen. Außerdem lässt die Band verlauten, dass sie, ebenfalls zusammen mit Daniel, die Arbeit am nächsten Album aufgenommen haben. Beim Konzert in Kassel wird (mindestens) ein neuer Song zu hören sein!

8:59 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment