Now THAT is what I'm talking about! It's ear candy. The thing is, I don't really like heavy metal--except when I think back, I remember that the song "Smoke on the Water" was THE song in whatever summer it came out, and it convinced me that "rock music," whatever that howling seething THING was, was evil, and exciting. Your song touches that old nerve.
What I love about your stuff, Hakan, is that you've found a genuinely new way of making the humble blues harmonica speak music. Your work is uncanny, which is to say, it's both familiar and unfamiliar. It gets under one's skin. It bears the same relation to down-home juke joint blues from the American South that Ikea bears to hand-hewn benches in the Tennessee mountains. It might be fair to call you "Swedish Modern Harp." What's clear is that you've found something new and different, and I applaud you for that.
And yes, of course: the groove is ponderous, saturnine. It's doesn't swing. But that's fine. It's not trying to swing. It's trying to do something else--something trippy and tranc-y and....heavy. And it does that beautifully.
Reminds me of the sound John Lord gets smokin' it up on the Hammond running straight into a Marshal stack in Deep Purple. (which of course did "Smoke on the Water" and plenty of other fantastic songs).
WOW ! Now that was awesome..great job Hakan. Gosh I love the harp. With a little doing,the harp can be added to ANY type of music. And you prove that here. Way to go.
In another post someone referred to you as a mad scientist. You are indeed sir a mad scientist and it's great. Keep it up!
Last Edited by on Nov 06, 2010 8:37 AM
Mad scientist! Maybe mad (ina positive way I hope). But I don't think there is much sciene in my music. I'm like a child fooling around with my toys - harps and electronic stuff - and trying to catch cool riffs and licks here and there and putting them together to Frankenstein's monster. OK, maybe I am a mad scientist after all?
.....In my modest harp experience, I think you have done what some guitar greats have done. You have made harp music that when other players explore it later, people will say, "That is like Hakan." ----------
That's great ! Have you ever played like that with other musicians ? If not, would be worthy to try it, I can see you with a doom metal band (In Sweden, should not be too hard to find !).
chromaticblues - Black Sabbath it is! I was practicing a cover of Black sabbath's "Sweet Leaf" two weeks ago and then ideas came up that resulted in this video. The last year I have done covers of Iron Man and Paranoid so Tony Iommi has probably influenced me.
I have tried a little to play with other people but I want to play my own stuff so...
Last Edited by on Nov 07, 2010 8:40 AM
Nice job Hakan! I got it right away. You got the sound and feel of Sabbath down. My first gig was a rock band back in the eighties. I pretty familiar with that type of music. I'm a tube amp junkie so I never consisered experimenting with pedals, but when done right. It sounds very cool!
This harp sounds like it wants to kill somebody. It has the kind of understated aggression that characterizes the best heavy rock, I've always seen it as sound on the verge of snapping. The harp gives it a unique tone though, more ragged -- which I like.
Hakan: When I go back to the cut, what grabs me right away is the chord thing you do in alternation with the tonic-chord single-note riff. It sounds IV-chord-ish, but there's something else going on in there and I've never heard that particular flavor (if you don't mind a mixed metaphor) anywhere else. What are you doing?
Adam - I don't know exactly which place you mean. But generally, if there are unfamiliar notes then it's because the special tuning with pitch raised one semitone in draw hole 6 and lowered one semitone in draw hole 3. Of course draw hole 6 will sound like OB6, but the sound will be very special if I play in draw 3 and 6 which allows me to play one full octave with tounge blocking. I think that is the one you mean.
It is creative and different, and well played. But permit me to be devil's advocate for a moment:
The sound is so synthesized and dirty that the actual instrument is unrecognizable. Nothing about the music suggests this is a harmonica. Pretty much the exact same thing could have been done on a keyboard. If you threw in some bends, some chugs, or something harp-specific, that COMBINATION with the synthesized tone would be unique and perhaps more interesting - it would help the listener identify the instrument. I fully acknowledge that from some perspectives, that isn't important at all. It is MUSIC first and foremost.
There is no law that says we have to defend or promote the harp. But you did present this to a crowd of harp players.... ---------- /Greg
Per Greg: "Nothing about the music suggests this is a harmonica...Pretty much the exact same thing could have been done on a keyboard."
So? Personally, I don't particularly enjoy Hakan's heavy metal harp stuff since I don't personally like that style of music. BUT, if you like that style of music, i think what he does is fantastic. I dig the aesthetics of what he is doing even though I'm not into his particular style of music.
Where is it written that you have to play the harmonica like it's a harmonica?
There's more to music than imitating what was played on some old blues record. "Masking" the harmonica is, IMHO, extremely cool. I will sometimes use pedalboard electronics to get sounds for certain types of music that are so unharmonica-like it has caused experienced musicians to look around the stage trying to find the keyboard player, which i think is aesthetically and musically very cool. I have frequently said about my own playing that I don't play the harmonica like it's a harmonica.
To my ear, it is precisely because he does NOT use the usual harmonica specific techniques hat makes Hakan's playing interesting. Even though I don't enjoy the particular style he is playing in, I think the "masking" is very cool. That "Pretty much the exact same thing could have been done on a keyboard" (per Greg) is, IMHO, not a fault.
In a jazz band i play with, the bandleader/guitar player and i both use pedals. Sometimes, you can't tell the sound of the harmonica from the sound of the guitar and sometimes the guitar seems to emerge from the sound of the harmonica or the harmonica seems to emerge from the sound of the guitar, We've been playing together for a while, so we are able to stay out of each others way when we do stuff like that and what i play does NOT sound much like it's coming from a harmonica. And I don't consider that to be a bad thing at all.
Now, I wouldn't spend much time listening to most of Hakan's stuff myself, because I personally don't enjoy heavy metal type rock and its lack of groove. But HOW he is playing it on a harmonica is, IMHO, totally cool. I could not possibly disagree more with the opinion my friend Gregg has expressed.
G'day Hakan, I showed your clips to my jamband. now they are hooked on your playing and want me to learn your version of whole lotta love and bad to the bone, and keep offering me effect pedals. what have i done? :)
@hvyj - you're taking my comment out of context. I ALSO said "There is no law that says we have to defend or promote the harp. But you did present this to a crowd of harp players...."
Hakan is using the harp as an input device to make digital music. Absolutely NOTHING wrong with that but neither is there anything HARP about it. There are advantages and disadvantages to different "input devices", and I merely suggested Hakan might consider exploiting some of the harp's unique qualities to further differentiate himself. Maybe I didn't do it clearly, but that was my intent. ---------- /Greg
