Benny Anderssons Orkester in the studio – HD video clip
June 8, 2011
Shown here with kind permission of Mono Music.
A wonderful video clip from the studio with BAO recording Allt syns när man är naken from the album out on the 15 June called O klang och jubeltid. It’s been shot and mixed fantastically to highlight the individuals in the recording process. Lovely stuff!
The new CD contains 13 tracks, eight of which have vocals. Helen Sjöholm sings vocals on three tracks, two feature Tommy Körberg plus three tracks feature Helen Sjöholm, Tommy Körberg and Kalle Moraeus.
During the summer, BAO will participate in two major television productions as well as going out on tour. In eight towns, the audience will experience an evening filled with music and dance.
Tour dates
Thursday 21 July 19.00 Parken – Örnsköldsvik
Friday 22 July 19.00 Stenegården – Järvsö
Saturday 23 July 19.00 Sammilsdalsgropen – Leksand
Sunday 24 July 18.00 Sandgrundsudden – Karlstad
Wednesday 27 July 19.00 Sofiero Slott – Helsingborg
Thursday 28 July 19.00 Trädgårdsföreningen – Göteborg
Friday 29 July 19.00 Gripsholms Slott – Mariefred
Saturday 30 July 19.00 Galejan Skansen – Stockholm
Friday 22 July 19.00 Stenegården – Järvsö
Saturday 23 July 19.00 Sammilsdalsgropen – Leksand
Sunday 24 July 18.00 Sandgrundsudden – Karlstad
Wednesday 27 July 19.00 Sofiero Slott – Helsingborg
Thursday 28 July 19.00 Trädgårdsföreningen – Göteborg
Friday 29 July 19.00 Gripsholms Slott – Mariefred
Saturday 30 July 19.00 Galejan Skansen – Stockholm
Related links
BAO Tour dates and ticket link
Mono music
Aftonbladet drops in on the recording sessions of O klang och jubletid
Mono music
Aftonbladet drops in on the recording sessions of O klang och jubletid
After having put forward some criticism regarding “Kära Syster” I’m already in peace with the rest of the album, at least with the bits and pieces one can already listen to. And this track seems to be another outstanding one. Wonderful. These harmonies do remind on … what was the former Benny band called? … Here no ladies being missed … The whole BAO stand out for themselves. Another week to pass…
I wish I could just be there as an observer… Fantastic to see!
Thanks Ice (yet again!)
Fantastic to see the individuals in their own spotlight and first listen for me of that track – great stuff!
Love the final footage of Benny & Helen – still pushes for the vocal range to get higher and higher!
Roll on July – first trip to Stockholm, staying at Rival and seeing BAO – can’t wait!!
Oh my! More than half of the songs are new abba songs! The man still has it! I am not so fond of the voices of the guys, but for the rest, from what I’ve heard, it sounds wonderful. Love the cover by the way.
Oh, such beauty, that track is going to be Benny’s best yet, I can feel it.
And such humour in that video with Benny’s falsetto !!
Only question remains is ‘why not in English?’ Actually I am glad it is in Swedish but an English version as well to set the world alight?
Hey, it’s 10 year anniversary of BAO isn’t it? Are they holding something back for later? Ok, I want my cake and eat it, LOL.
Lee
Ice, I see what you mean about the spotlight given to the individual performers, they are all fantastic.
Lee
@Sapphie
“And such humour in that video with Benny’s falsetto !!”
Well, Benny is “recognised” for his falsetto-singing! 🙂
For example in Abba:s – One Man, One Woman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw_fuu9jIOc
Wow. Fantastic clip! New music from Benny always makes my life a little better
So far I just love everything about the new album! The single ‘Kära Syster’, the preview-snippets, the artwork and this great video!
Bring on the Band!
What an outstandingly and riotously uplifting brilliant video it brings back fantastic memories of Hampstead heath, probably the best live concert ever performed in London.
Ice, thank you again. This is a great clip, thank you Benny Andersson!
Nice falsetto, Benny! Great video!
This is so fun to see the workings of a studio. Helen is BAO’s secret weapon. Her lead on the chorus of “Story of a Heart” is the greatest hook I’ve heard in a long time. The song grabs your soul. It’s like ABBA. Thank you Benny, you and Björn are one of the greats! -Robb
It’s beautiful to watch and wonderful how Benny’s new melodies tug at my heart strings. I watched and listened with a stupid smile on my face and a warm feeling in my soul.
Absolutely fantastic stuff! Can’t wait for the album…
Masters at work!! Loved it! Benny’s melodies stick in your brain. Found myself humming this tune all day and then switching to Chess. Anyone else hear the same bars?
Thanks Ice!!!!
Wonderful video I have enjoyed it so much
Benny is a great master of the music.
I always have been an ABBA fan.
Thank you for sharing
Cheers Pepe from Argentina
I could watch this all day. Thanks, Ice! I’m amazed at how well these three voices blend.
Just downloaded the amazing music.
I am … …speachless!
Just you wait.
Thanks, Benny!
…and, by the way: the title of the album is taken from the old Song Books, isn’t it? The ones we sang from at school way back in time when schoolkids did so-
So, I understand it like this, that the lyrics for the title track is a tribute to this old book? All schools had these song books (ion my time, it was named ‘Treklang’, but ‘O Klang och Jubeltid’ is a well known title, not only in Sweden.
Correct me if I’m wrong-
Have been listening all night to the album, and this is beautiful!
Johnnii
Hi!
Thanks to modern techniques I also had the album on my Laptop 00:15 h sharp 🙂
I played it once in the night and play it today in my office…2/3rd of the album is really outstanding beautifull!
I love the album where it comes to tracks like the Sorgmarsch, Brudmarsch, Vilar Glad, Jag Hör… and Flickornas Rum.
But “Skära Syster”, Manstralar Klar, Midsommarpolka and Alla God Ting need to grow on me…
The second half of the Album clearly shouts: “It is time for a new musical or bigger musical works, Benny!!”
KR
Stefan
Perhaps the most impressive piece to me is the ‘Brudmarsch’ /Bridal March: an outstanding track! I just wrote a good friend that it is like an old folk tune rediscovered; acoustic and floral, emotional and real. No ‘schlager’ or musical number, but an elaborate piece close to that Source I believe Benny is secretly drinking from. Old ABBA fans will find it too ‘folky’. Benny once said about a certain traditional swedish folk tune that it ‘moved something within him’. Well, his music often does that to me, and this one in particular.
Cudos also to Björn here for writing some of his best lyrics. ‘Jag Hör’ gives me shivers: like he stated in an article you can read here on this site, Björn shuns religion, but claims the right to be just as emotional about the wonders and mysteries of life as those who confesses a religious belonging. ‘Jag Hör’ has Tommy singing about ‘voices and music’ from ‘The Other Side’, musing about life and anxiety (and wonder) about death.
And Benny gives it all: listen to ‘En Dag I Sänder’ around 0:59 -BAO suddenly goes beyond ‘Story Of A Heart’ and flirts with past pop oeuvres.
John
Some translated reviews here:
http://fansofhelen.weebly.com/
I have resisted downloading the album so far, instead I am waiting patiently for my CD sent from Abba Fan Club today!
Lee
Building off what John said above — don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this but it seems that “Brudmarsch” (or at least the 30-second sample I heard on Amazon.co.uk) is the fiddle counter-melody from “Vilar glad. I din famn”! It also sounds a bit like “Prariens drottning” in places…
Brudmarsch is one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. The way the song builds to the heavenly choir near the end is pure genius!
Great album! Got my copy today (delivered superfast by the ABBF Shop!) I’m speechless and have goose-bumps all-over…
Get this cd asap! 🙂
Am I the only one who hears “There’s no one quite like grandma” at the beginning of “O Klang Och Jubeltid” – not a good start. 😀
Having listened all the way through I’d say there’s a lot of déjà vu for me. It makes it instantly likeable but it’s not breaking new ground. I hear bits of KFD and scatterings of previous BAO and ABBA. “Månstrålar Klara” has a rhythm that puts me in mind of “Put on your white sombrero”; “En Dag I Sänder” actually contains part of the melody of “WAISAD” – around 35-40 secs; “Sorgmarsch” is reminscent of “Song from the second floor”; “Jag Hör” has a line or two that sound like they’ve been dragged staright out of KFD and “Brudmarsch” has been mentioned by others.
I love “Flickornas Rum” which doesn’t remind me of anything yet. (Well not anything Benny related anyway.) 😀
I’m enjoying it – already played it through several times and some tracks I’ve repeated enough to really irritate those around me. 😀
I must say that “De Ljuva Drömmarnas Orkester” is one I will skip. Anything in the ilk of “67 trombones”: anything that might want to make the singers do that marching on spot movement is a no-no on my CD player. 😀
I’m a massive Benny and Bjorn and Abba fan. My respect for their skill, talent and work knows no bounds. I view them as one of the greatist gifts God/mankind gave us.
however, I have listened to snippets on Amazon several times and have second thoughts about buying. the polkas sound the same as any other he has done, which of course come from a fantastic tradition. I ‘get’ the weaving of chords and melodies as Benny strings them together and am in awe as a pianist who could never write a line or hear one, but it sounds very derivative Someone mentioned there was one b & B classic. which would be yours? Just like story of a heart. sorry to be negative because i truly love their work usually. Have all the melodies run out?
I have to agree with Damo and John – I’m just not “getting” it like I’ve got all the old stuff. I didnt buy it, and thats the first time ever I’ve not sent off for a new BAO or abba realated CD from the off. I have listened to it free on Spotify, and have to confirm that I wll not be buying it at all. It is just too much the same, with no comparable classics from the other BAO CDs, and certainly no Story of a Heart, which I was heartened at when it came out as I thought we were going to get a return to more (whisper it) Abba sounding stuff (what with 2nd best to none also coming out back then.I suppose En dag i sander is the closest to what I’m after (a mix of Rickirocknroller, supertrouper and story of a heart in my book!!)
Maybe I’ve finally become “disillusioned” (see what I’ve done there), and, ever the optimist of some kind or revisit to the abba years, maybe its really the end of any hope of that.
Of course none of my comments mean I dont recognise the great composer Benny is , and hey, even the classics greats had their off-symphonies!
Just not for me (in my presnet state of mind!)Just on this occasion I had hoped for some come of progression…or is it really a regression I’m really wanting?!
So, Benny writes ‘Story Of A Heart’ to get radio airplay in the UK (probably on the suggestion of Universal Music) to launch the Benny Andersson’s Band English album and now it’s apparently effectively ruined the core BAO output designed for Swedish audiences of a certain age. Ruined because it’s not “ABBA enough”.
As for the person that has flicked through the 30-second samples and decided that the melodies have run out. Oh puh-lease!!
This latest CD represents standard BAO fare, nothing more, nothing less. And is as a consequence fabulous. Fabulously diverse, fabulously produced (the new studio is sounding great – have you heard how crystal the vocals are?) and fabulously constructed.
The Swedes will be hurling themselves around the dancefloor to it in the Folk Parks this summer and each song has been carefully constructed to show off the individual members’ talents.
Much like the last BAO album and the one before and the one before.
Why people should be so disappointed in this one is a mystery to me – unless as I suspect, ‘Story Of A Heart’ prompted naive people to think that Tommy Körberg and Helen Sjöholm were going to be substituted on ‘O klang…’ by two ‘other’ singers.
Just saying!
I can’t agree more with martin. I have listened to the cd a lot and it’s growing and growing. I dare to say it’s one of the best benny’s cd’s ever. Martin is totally right about the fantastic quality of the recording. And there already some classics on this album. I honestly think it’s utterly brilliant!
I dont think it IS standard BAO fare, thats the point I was trying to make in my own OPINION. I have EVERY BAO album (and the commercially planned BAB one!) and bought them each as they came out, even November 1989 (and youngsters – that was before the days of something called the internet) BAO and Abba are two entirely different things – (and sounds), and one should not buy a BAO album expecting to hear “other” voices or sounds other than what we know BAO sounds like. But then Benny did rather cross them over himself with the SOAH album and that track (and I suppose Stars as well). Maybe that was the move that shouldn’t have been made. (But is BAO and BAB the same anyway? possibly not – aimed a a different market) But I just dont think you can compare this new selection with any of the overall quality of song/tune writing of its predecessors, and although I love that when you follow an artist they do not change direction totally so you can no longer enjoy from them what you first fell in love with, its still not what I’d expect. (My own most personal example of this being Depeche Mode who moved WAY to far off their orginal sound)And certainly nothing like the standard of every single track of Kristina (Swedish version not the english one – again though a different type of sound again to both BAO, the band with 4 people in it (!) and the musicals. Hopefully we will get a chance to hurl ourselves around Glasgow to ANY of BAO music, as we did some years ago, before they became so “mainstream” lol.
I had dismissed this album on listening to the short clips on Amazon. Now I have the full version I think it is as good as the other BAO albums. Perhaps one of the best overall.
There are always tracks I delete from my playlist. This time I am not interested in the first 3 tracks of the album, Alla goda ting and Jag Hor which I think are all substandard (although the lyrics seem like they could be interesting on O Klang and Jag Hor which, if I fully understood them, could possibly change my opinion a bit).
En Dag i Sander is a great little pop song (I think I prefer it to SOAH), Fickornas Rum is a lovely little Classical pastiche, Vilar Glad and Brudmarsch make a stunning ending to the album – both in concept and execution these tracks show Benny at his best (and I hated the Royal wedding version). Can you really imagine anything better for any bride to walk down the aisle to then this Brudmarsch? Arriving at the altar at the heavenly climax. And the lyrics to Vilar Glad are so beautiful. These two tracks together make for very moving and wonderful music.
Sorgmarsch is full of atmosphere. One of the best of Benny’s bleak pieces which combines Scandi melancholy with klesmer influences. It plays around with the bottom 3 notes of the minor scale, changing the rhythm and metre so each of these 3 notes is stressed at different points in the piece.
Allt syns is typical Benny in his search for utter melodic simplicity. But, just as in Super Trouper for example, this very simplicity means that the arrangement can have a ball. I love the slightly raucous vocals and harmonies and it all gets quite ABBA-esque – especially with that interesting and unusual bass line which Benny loves (this one reminds me of Under Attack). And a beautiful middle 8 here!
De ljuva drommarnas orkester is a delight. Not one, but two gorgeous melodies (combined very cleverly like in Nu Mar Jag Mycket Battre) and sheer joy throughout.
Midsommarpolka – humorous and also with some lovely melody. This might not be quite as good as Vitalins Vals but I love hearing the new ways Benny finds to make musical jokes. His playing around with rhythm, metre and phrase length can be perplexing but it shows great sophistication, wit and a deep understanding of folk styles. I always have to listen to these kind of pieces many times before I can understand what’s really going on. Then the logic of the structure reveals itself. It’s quite a feat to combine child-like simplicity and sophistication in this way. The very ending of the track practically makes you laugh out loud (and may cause dancers to fall over) and it is not easy to make such an obvious joke in music.
I got my copy of the CD on Saturday (excellent service by Nordic Musik for £13.99 inc. postage, I recommend them to anyone in the UK still planning to buy the CD).
I can’t agree with those who think that Benny has lost his touch or is running out of ideas. I completely agree with those who think this is exactly what I expect from BAO and is brilliant. The 30 second clips definitely don’t do the tracks justice.
Completely contrary to my expectation, the title track is probably my favourite, along with ‘De Lluva Drommarnas Orkester’, ‘Midsommarpolka’, ‘Kara Syster’ and ‘Flickornas Rum’, but I love all the tracks. I don’t see why anyone who likes BAO would be remotely disappointed.
Update. I’m warming to it. Not least ‘O klang…’ itself (reminiscent of ‘No-one Quite Like Grandma’ lol).
My fave album though is still BAO!
Wow, this article is getting some traffic. I’ve got a pre-order in at Amazon for this album, but still don’t expect to see it for weeks. It sounds like everyone really enjoy the tracks and are not disappointed. I can’t wait for delivery!!!
-Robb
Ian. You’ve sold it to me!
;His playing around with rhythm, metre and phrase length can be perplexing but it shows great sophistication, wit and a deep understanding of folk styles. I always have to listen to these kind of pieces many times before I can understand what’s really going on. Then the logic of the structure reveals itself. It’s quite a feat to combine child-like simplicity and sophistication in this way. ‘
It’s exactly this that was so clever about Benny’s best compositions that intrigued me as a musician trying to work out where the songs ‘were going’. This is the ‘growing on you’ that people used to talk about. Not meaning that they didn’t like the songs initially, but they were sophistically crafted pieces of rhythm and melody that once you’d ‘got’ them, there was absolutely no other way they could be.
I’ll be back. And thanks.
Even the swedish press agrees: This is the Best BAO album yet!
The songs, the melody lines -and some of Björns best lyrics so far: it is simply beautiful!
To compare BAO with ABBA?
Naah, for scandinavians, Benny Anderssons music is a larger Universe:
From the first Hep Stars recording sessions, his ‘fingerprints’ are recognizeable, helping out during the Hootenanny Singers recordings gave him a chance to play folk music and nurture that passion. Benny and Björn fitted well together with their backgrounds and respective bands.
As Agnetha and Anni-Frid came along, ABBA was born naturally, and these four musical talents with years of experience, made that group unique.
But ABBA withered away: the recording sessions in the Summer of 1982 shows clearly the four had already parted.
What you’re hearing in BAO’s music is that ‘Benny touch’ that you also hear in music he has written and produced ever since he started, and continuing well into the 30 years after ABBA called it a day. It made an ABBA song an ABBA song no matter if Agnetha or Anni-Frid sang solo or together.
When listening to Edith Piafs songs, I often think of how lucky she was to be given such well crafted material: If I was a singer, I’d be thrilled to be allowed to sing songs like ‘Kära Syster’, ‘Fait Accompli’, ‘Stars’, ‘Jag Hör’, ‘Du Frälste Mig I Sista Stund’ and ‘O Klang Och Jubeltid’. You can hear an instant classic when you hear it.
If I only had the time to translate ‘En Dag i Sänder’ into english: there’s a story there, small pieces of a whole story in between the lines; -as in ‘Kära Syster’ and ‘Sommaren Du Fick’. Björn has these short stories compressed into great lyrics!
The title track too: a play with words on the old Student Songs, about old friendships and old ideals…
You’ll want to sing along, and boy do I sing along!
John
Just listen to my copy of “O klang Och Jubeltid”. Björn was up to his clever self. The lyrics in “Allt Syns När Man Är Naken” have hidden meaning. Som jag är ( as I am)is present. Agnetha is smiling. What a great album.I especially liked “En Dag I Sänder. 🙂 -Robb