Inspiration can hit at any time, anywhere, and be triggered by anything.

We had finally finished “Come Back”. Despite being quite content with our latest achievement we did not take that as a reason to stop working. Being a band is not static, it’s always going forward, it’s like trying to reach an ever moving horizon.

Kathrine was back at the factory. She’d brought her guitar, as you do when going to factories, and she was noodeling around with the guitar and the home studio software, trying to record an idea she had.

At this point in time Kathrine was quite new to using the DAW (Digital Audio workstation) On a side note, Håkon bought Studio One when he started using home studio software, so we both opted for Studio One as we wanted to make it as easy as possible to send files, compability, etc between us. (People with knowledge and expertise will probably tell us that it doesn’t matter what DAW you choose, but, as we’ve already told you, we had no clue of what we were doing).

At some point she ran into a problem, or a challenge as happyclappers likes to call it. She didn’t know how to do certain things in Studio One, so she decided to call Håkon for technical suppport (never do that, not if you want proper help at least).

As it happens Håkon’s apartment was only a few minutes walk from said factory, so IT support could come to the rescue in minutes.

The cavalry arrived and the issue was quickly sorted out.

Kathrine then picked up her guitar and played the part she had tried to record. This was a new idea she had for a song.

She had only strummed an A minor when Håkon immediately stopped her. “Play that again” he said.

Kathrine started again, an A minor chord that resonnated through the room. In Håkon’s mind a song started to form.

The combination of the A minor chord, the way it was played and the reverb in the room formed a picture in Håkon’s mind. A row of naked trees in the middle of a field, barely covered in snow, black bits of soil poking up here and there. In the background, a cloudy darkening sky. All seen through a window of a timberframed-thatched- roof-farmhouse. In other words, a classic danish winter landscape.

About a year earlier a tragedy had struck in their circle of friends, and the “anniversary” for this event was just around the corner.

The mood the chord had set made Håkon think about the the darker sides of life, when you’re being reminded of the sad and bad things that has come to pass in your life and “it’s that time of life again”

or “the anniversary of misery”

Immidiately the words “winter’s here” came to him.

Håkon stopped Kathrine in her playing and asked her to play the A minor chord again, but this time to also sing “winter’s here, again” while playing. With an emphazised pause between “winter’s here” and “again”. The point being to give the feel of someone lost in painful memory.

So Kathrine did, and we knew in that instant that we had a new song.

The song Kathrine came to record was put aside and we took up this newfound project. We had the first few chords, some lyrics and the story behind the song. All we needed now was the rest of it. Famous last words.

But not this time.

This time the words and the chords came to us, offering no resistance at all. So nice when that happens.

Kathrine played the chords on her Yamaha 300 acoustic nylon string guitar and Håkon embellished with a few simple tones on his Yamaha steelstring acoustic. Together with the lyrics this was more than enough, it was just what we wanted in terms of mood, feel and message of the song.

It was time to call it a night. In just a few hours we had a new song, chords and lyrics, all complete.

Afternoon the next day.

Back in the factory. Now was the time to record.

As always, we only had one microphone. Håkon’s Aston Origin condenser mic. Last time we tried to record with only one mic, we ended up recording everything in one take, with no possibility to do any mixing of the individual instrument / vocals.

This time was easier. The song was simply easier to record in steps.

At first, we recorded Kathrine’s rhythm guitar.

Next was the vocals.

Last, but not least, Håkon’s guitar, the little embellishments. Two simple tones, nothing more, nothing fancy. To be fair, this was more to Håkon’s level of guitarplaying (insert wide grin and laughing face)

Done.

The song was complete. Written and recorded within 24 hours. We know that Dolly Parton wrote “Jolene” and “I will always love you” in one evening. Not that we can ever compare, but still, we’re quite satisfied with our own little achievement.

The next part was the mixing. This off course would take longer, being absolute amateurs that is. The factory brought the reverb. Exquisite reverb…and a hiss from the ventilator system.

Like “Come Back”, we faced the same problem with the ventilation noise. This problem would be almost solved in the year of the Lord, A.D 2025, when we added a de-noiser to the mix. (what took you so long, yeah, we know)

We later discovered that Ane Brun’s exellent cover of Alpaville’s “Big in Japan” gave us the confidence we needed to release it none the less. Her cover version has a fair amount of “hiss”, actually more than ours, but still, she had somewhere like 8 million views on youtube and a lot of praise for it. Of course, as an artist and musician she’s many lightyears ahead of us. She’s pro, we’re “amateurs night”

If you haven’t heard her amazing cover yet, you’re missing out, big time. Please stop reading, and listen to it here:

Good, right? Such an epic version of a legendary song. We know, we have a good taste in music.

Anyway, back to “Winter’s Here”

The mixing ran its course, and finally we could release NEGATIVIUM’s third song into the world and the universe. Naturally, we were super excited, our little project was slowly coming together, and the dream of playing live in Tokyo, inched closer, one song at a time.

Now, the tale of “Winter’s Here” was not over yet. We released the original version in 2020, and then, 2 years later, we re-recorded it at Havnelageret Studio, in a very different version that we will write about in later blog posts.

So, without further ado, here’s the much talked about song, both versions, one with a lot of hiss, or «the ventilation mix» if you like, and one with a lot less (2025 remastered mix)

Pick and choose your favourite. Hope you like it.

And for those of you that appreciate some good old ventilation hiss:

Until next time.

Stay tuned