Peter Bjorn and John (left to right)—
John Eriksson, Peter Morén, and
Bjorn Yttling.
Swedish indie rock chameleons Peter Bjorn and John know a
thing or two about change. For more than a decade, they''ve
shown a knack for completely reinventing their sound,
from the jangly garage pop of their 2004 breakthrough
Falling Out to the densely processed electro textures of
2009''s Living Thing. Their latest outing, Gimme Some
(StarTime International), finds the trio going back to a
bare-bones, punk-meets-pop live setup—all of it colored by
natural reverb, vintage analog effects, and a new set of ears
at the controls.
“We wanted to try something less mystical, with just
guitar, bass, drums, and vocals,” explains bassist Bjorn
Yttling, who has been PB&J''s producer from day one.
“So we had that in mind, but we also wanted to bring in
somebody new to help us do it. We listened to a lot of
American, English, and Swedish records, and the
best drums we heard were on records produced by
Per Sunding.”
Sunding has worked with a slew of
Swedish and Danish artists over the years,
including The Cardigans, Superheroes,
Swan Lee, Bob Hund, and his own band,
Eggstone. He''s also a co-founder and in-house
producer at Tambourine Studios, which is outfitted
with a late-''70s Neve 8068 console, a Pro
Tools HD3 Accel rig with Apogee AD/DA-16X
converters, and a large live room at its hub.
With its dry, deadened surfaces, the room
presented the band with challenges as well
as comforts. “Dig A Little Deeper” gets its
echo-washed ''60s psych-pop sound largely
from placing John Eriksson''s drums in the
stone-tiled kitchen, and Peter Morén''s Vox
AC30 guitar amp at the end of a long corridor,
with just two Sennheiser 421 mics set up
in each space to capture the source and the
ambience. By contrast, the basic take of “Eyes”
was tracked entirely in the live room, with
Yttling playing one bass line on an old Kent
guitar through an Electro-Harmonix Bass
Microsynth, and overdubbing the sliding bass
on a Fender Precision. Eriksson''s drums were
miked with a matched pair over the top of
the kit, creating the stereo illusion that you''re
actually sitting in the drummer''s chair, while
Morén''s vocals were run through an ancient
Dynacord tape delay unit for a classic slapback
echo effect. (Think John Lennon''s “Mind
Games,” for starters.)
“We used that same delay on some parts for
‘Breaker Breaker,''” Sunding says, citing one of
Gimme Some''s more overt punk-rock workouts.
“The drums went through [Digidesign''s] Lo-Fi
plug-in post-recording, just to add some of the
grittiness that the bass and guitar were getting. But
John is a really talented drummer, so I shouldn''t
take too much credit. The whole thing is really
in the way they play. Each song has a character
in itself. You need to have a good performance—
even if it''s with crap equipment—for those
dynamics and nuances to come through.”