Behind the Scenes Look at Norwegian Arms Live Video

On the cusp of Philadelphia’s alt-folk trio, Norwegian Arms’ all ages show at PhilaMOCA on March 8th, the band is set the release a series of three new live-session videos via a collaboration project between Seven Knots Productions and Brighton Sound Studios.

Norwegian Arms is the alt-folk powerhouse of Brendan Mulvihill, Andy Molholt and Eric Slick. Their most recent album release, Wolf Like A Stray Dog was inspired by Mulvihill’s time in Russia. The album marks a sonic shift in both the live set and recorded music–a rich and melodically bold take on Norwegian Arms’ former iterations.

Tim Harris, Director and chief of Seven Knots Productions, recently invited us to a behind-the-scenes look at their live session video at Brighton Sound Studio in North Wales, PA.

“I’ve always been interested in filming bands, whether it be through a music video or live. I realized that it’s something that can be done and I knew Doug had opened a studio so I shot him a message,” says Harris.

Brighton Sound Studios is a one-man studio located just outside of the city in North Wales. The studio is owned and operated by recording artist and producer, Doug Raus. Raus works with a variety of artists in the Philadelphia and surrounding Philadelphia suburbs including local indie rock ensemble, Son Step.

“I love working with live music. It’s exciting. It’s fast. It’s the way music should be. A four minute song shouldn’t take four days to record–and obviously, there are cases where that might be necessary but it’s just a lot of fun when you can set up some microphones and three hours later you feel like you have a finished product,” says Raus.

The studio is located around the corner from the North Wales train station on the Lansdale/Doylestown route–just above a winery in a small warehouse building. They packed the band and about 5-6 video team members into the live room just around noon.

“With the way the multi-track recording has developed over the years, some people decide that every instrument needs to be recorded separately and I find that the reason people do that–more so than purely for quality–is because they don’t have the arrangement totally worked out or they haven’t learned how to really put a song together.

So if they decide to do multi-track recording, whether it’s a conscious decision or not, they’ll decide to track everything separately so that they can work everything out in the studio. But, what I find really exciting about live tracking is that usually, with these types of groups,  it’s just kind of like recording a rehearsal. You get to witness the process of music really being put together and torn apart and really making decisions,” says Raus.

“It’s a great outlet for musicians, to show their sound live. To show how they perform. It’s a different setting than a stage. And I feel like the Philly area is a great place for artists to stay. What I hope that we can help facilitate is to make the Philly area a place where people want to stay and grow,” says Harris.

Seven Knots plans to release the first video of the series on March 3rd at 9:00p.m. Norwegian Arms fans can look forward to two album favorites and a third new song in the series. Videos will be released on a weekly basis on the Seven Knots YouTube Page.