Now I have been listening and listening to recording, and my reaction was all new- Martin and I started listening in a car on our way to his mother´s summer house, not far from the studio. And my head started banging and I started shouting and yelling and dancing there in the car-I have never felt that way from listening to my own music. But somehow, I always knew that one day, I would be able to really dance to my music. Finally! When we came back home, I sent a copy to the guardian angel and record company Per Gessle. Nervous… would I have to write even more songs? Now he has listened too, and he was also happy with the results! Luckily….!! The funny part is that the two songs he likes least are my own favourites :o)

Still, he felt he missed one song from the demo recordings. It is a Greek song that I have heard in the flamenco lessons, and I have made my own lyrics. He asked us to record this song. I am happy about it because the song is very interesting but it means that the album is NOT quite finished yet. I could not get an appointment in the studio until the end of August or so. But finally it WILL be finished and I am already longing for when we will start playing the songs live!

While I am awaiting for it all to be finished, I am going for a vacation! First we will visit my father on his 60:th birthday just above Gothenburg, and then, to Martin´s relatives in Piteå, in the very north of Sweden.

Here I just want to share some photos with you from last summer!

A day off from the touring last summer, Martin and I discovering the surroundings of Halmstad! There was a place in the middle of nowhere where they made really great italian ice cream!! I was raised eating a lot of ice cream because my father he is a real snowman who loves it himself :o)

This is what it looked like, before the Per Gessle concert in Halmstad, when Lisa made our hair and makeup. I was enjoying the company of all the kids of the band: Frida, Billy, Hugo, Ella, Agnes and Ingrid wearing her dad´s hat! Lisa would give them some lipgloss and a curl each in their hair. But I think Hugo passed on that one :o)

Martin took a picture of the “By your side” video when it was shown on the big screen as a part of the warm up videos before the show! I have very Biiiiig wrinkles :o)

Here you can see my big sister Charlotta and I, and on the right her friend, after the show in Gothenburg. I showed them to the tour bus when no one was around, I wanted to show them all the facilities. I have never seen such a luxurious thing: massage chair in the bus, dvd movies to watch in a leather couch, fridge full of beverages, and lots of beds! Look at the beautiful sunflowers that Ilya from Russia brought… It felt so unreal, like a fairy tale… It was a great night thanks to the audience and the good weather!

Take a look at the fantastic flowers… Don´t they make you happy! Flowers are so alive, they bring life to a

whole apartment!

Now I won´t have so much to write about the record for a while but I will keep you updated as soon as something happens!

Love, Helena

Christoffer´s children have finished this semester and their mother Ylva celebrated it with strawberry cake! And she came and gave me a piece too…!!!! The first strawberry cake for the summer :o) Jessica Nettelbladt who makes a documentary about female musicians of which I am one, was here that day and together with her, the cake tasted even better!

Two days later, we met up at a cottage 1 hour away from the studio towards the sea, and I left Christoffer alone in the studio. He needed to rest so the timing was good. Here in this cottage, we made the last meeting all five of us who are in the documentary. We had a great time, talking about our dreams and what had happened since last time, and we had salmon from the grill! Yummie :o) The other girls slept over in the cottage, while I went back to the studio to keep working.  Here you can see how cosy it was:

It is Nina Persson, Lotta Wenglén, Cecilia Nordlund and arranger Gudrun Hauksdottir plus me in the movie. It will be edited this fall and then I hope you will soon be able to see the result! The cottage belongs to Magnus Svenningsson, bassplayer of the Cardigans, and his girlfriend and it was very beautiful!

And here you see the filmteam:

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The documentary has been a lot of fun to be part in, and I am sure I have made new friends for life! Both with Jessica, and the other musicians!!

My first soloalbum “Dynamo” contained only one guitar, it was a slide guitar on “Air-Hostess” But the other day Christoffer couldn´t help himself any longer. It started with one guitar, but ended with….

!!!!! Invasion!!!

You see there are two songs that really beg for it, and that has to be obeyed :o) And on these two songs, there will be almost nothing else than guitars and vocals. It´s all or nothing!  One of them is a ballad for our planet and the other one is dreamy and sleepy , it feels like a lullaby. I am looking forward to the live performances when the album is released, where Martinique and drummer Rasmus (who is originally a guitarist) can sit in front with me like as if it was by the fireplace…. mmmmmm…!!!

Here you see me enjoying the results in the headphones… Next week a children´s choir from Fränninge, the village next door, will join in on one of these two songs! That will be exciting because they have so beautiful voices :o)

I am still on a break from the studio, until monday…. Can´t wait to go there again!

Then we will finish the whole album including mixing. And Christoffer has his deadline on midsummer, it is the 20th of June. It feels like we´re gonna make it, as long as he stays well, and is not too tired from all his other work. But it is good for him when I am there because he is free to do it his own way and rest when he needs it. We have 5 backgrounds with vocals recorded that just need to be finished with additional sounds, and polishing the programmed drums. We can finish 1-2 songs a day. And then we will record 2-4 more backgrounds and vocals to work with. So I think we will make the deadline!

Before Monday Martinique and I will go to London for fun and inspiration- I have never been there and I think it will be amazing :o)))

I want to show you the children of “Vitnos” (”Whitenose”)! They live in Christoffer´s house. Their names are Mirran, Lillnos and Findus- have you seen anything cuter?

I would like to have a cat or two but I live in an apartment just by a big street and on the 3rd floor with no grass outside, so I think we must wait. But when I lived in the countryside we had a lot of cats, I think they are great animals. You can´t tell them what to do and they really know how to enjoy life, sleeping in the sunlight and doing what they want! I have never had a dog so I am a little afraid of them, once I was hunted by a big black one and one other time I was bitten in the thigh. But I think that dog was just playing but still she made me scared. Maybe it is because I am not used to dogs. I have heard that if I smile and my teeth show, a dog might think I am angry. So now I can´t really smile in a normal way to a dog and it makes me a bit tense of course and I know they sense that very quickly! But Martinique has had both dogs and cats (once they had 8 cats at a time :o). I think he would be great with a dog. He thinks Rhodesian Ridgeback is a very beautiful kind. Maybe one day! Have a great week end and I´ll see you soon!

Now I want to show you what the studio looks like! It is an old stable that Christoffer and his wife, architecht Ylva Lundquist, have turned into a studio. The house on the picture is where the family lives, and on the left side you see the barn (the studio). With a symbol of good luck on the door!

The studio has buttons and machines that you can only dream of, but still the machines would be nothing without Chtistoffer! This record is mainly done by computer so this is what it looks like when it comes to life. I remember the first time I came to the studio and saw Christoffer , he looked like a brownie with his beard and running around in the snow with his clogs :o)

This violet button is my favourite lamp, diode, in the studio! Nice isn´t it ;o ) Here you can also see the drum-room.

This is my view from the listening-sofa!!