A shuffle without toms
I had been watching footage of Steve Jordan teaching a masterclass in Europe.
He kept playing a shuffle, staying with essentially the same pattern until it became almost hypnotic. To my ears, his playing was industrial, mechanical and emotionally perfect at the same time.
I started practising shuffles myself.
At some point I discovered that I could move the rhythm I would normally play on the ride cymbal over to the bass drum. The bass drum took over that part; the ride itself played only quarter notes.
It created a low, continuous rumble, almost like a train that just kept going.
When Petter and I recorded the session that became Glesbygdens kollaps, I started playing my version of that Jordan-inspired shuffle.
It's quite difficult to maintain. It's easy to slip out of it, and I didn't want to interrupt the pattern with anything unnecessary.
So there are no drum fills at all.
Just snare, bass drum and ride cymbal.
The snare sometimes played something that might have resembled a clave, if you're being generous.
I'd also removed all the toms from the drum kit. I wanted fewer possibilities. The idea was to concentrate on doing this one thing as well as I possibly could, without distractions.
For some reason, I also found it too difficult to keep the hi-hat going with my left foot. That's strange, because I'm normally rather good at that.
But not with this particular rhythm.
Petter was sitting in a small room off to the side, with his Korg Modwave and saxophone.
He began playing something that sounded like a mixture of Irish and Swedish folk melodies.
The bass drum had a sound that reminded me of a bodhrán, the Irish frame drum.
It sounded melancholic, the way the countryside sometimes can be.
But beautiful.