Young, talented electronic dance musicians, aka Join The Riot are recording their debut album for all to see in a glass box in the middle of the Swedish capital this month, using an Audient ASP4816 analogue mixing console.
The five-piece band have commandeered the display window of a hotel situated on the corner of one of Stockholm’s busiest streets, built a studio in it, and are spending the whole of July working on the album, in what they have aptly named ‘A Glass Cage Of Emotions’. Throughout the month passers-by can watch what’s going on through the many windows and even listen to their sessions via headphones on the street.
“We’ve been working on the album for a little over a year, and figured that when it came to recording it, collaborating with the Scandic Malmen hotel to promote its music profile at the same time as our new album, would be much better than renting an expensive studio,” says vocalist Henrik Ljungqvist. It’s certainly getting them noticed.
The temporary studio is centred around British company Audient’s ASP4816 desk, kindly supplied by Sweden’s largest music store, Deluxe Music. “It’s brilliant. It’s really cool to have such a professional desk in our studio,” adds Henrik, indicating the Audient ASP4816. “We’ve never worked with this kind of stuff before,” he admits. “Our sound engineer came in for a couple of days and gave us a few lessons on the mixing desk (it was new for him too), but when he’s not here we’ve been learning new things about it every day.” A credit to the tenacious nature of the band as well as the console’s well-known intuitive design.
“The cool thing is we’re not only using it for recording,” continues Henrik, explaining about their forthcoming gig showcasing some of their new tracks, including their latest single Us against the wall. “We already have a mixer that we use for gigging, but we realised that the Audient has way more channels than ours, so we decided to use it for the live mix as well as recording.” Loaded with the key features of a large format recording console, the compact, cost-effective ASP4816 features Audient’s legendary analogue circuitry, and fits neatly into the Join The Riot temporary studio set up.
In addition, the bandmates are planning a live streaming concert especially for Brazil, where they have a burgeoning fan base. “We’ll set up some cameras in the studio,” says Henrik, who’s also been working on promoting everything and clearly energised by what they’re doing. “The other day we had a spontaneous gig. There’s a door in the corner of the ‘studio’ so we just opened it! We became street performers, but indoors – so we still had that great sound.”
So the people of Stockholm are being treated to free entertainment, but it turns out they are contributing to the vibe of the album too. “We get to feel the pulse of the city here. We’re usually sitting in a dark room making music, and this is totally different: it’s light and you can hear sounds outside when people are passing, so you get inspiration that way as well.”
“It’s really cool to have such a professional desk in our studio”
Without a label behind them, the band have had to do everything themselves. “That’s something we’re very proud of,” says Henrik passionately, despite the learning curve having been steep on occasion. “Sometimes the things you want have to take a bit longer. At least then you’ve created something exactly the way you wanted it.” An excellent philosophy from the five upbeat ‘Stockholmians with a passion for pop.’
The new album is out in September 2015 after their impressive stint in the Glass Cage, with a good chance that it’ll be named after this month’s experience. The last EP Buckle Up was described as ‘a pop album with substance’, so we look forward to more euphoric, sugar-coated dance tunes, transporting us to warm summer nights with this one.
Good luck in your Glass Cage Of Emotions, guys!
