Our vocal group Tuuletar got a great chance to work with one of the world’s leading a cappella production companies, Liquid 5th Productions in USA. We traveled to USA on January 2016 to record our debut album, that will be published by Finnish record label Bafe’s Factory in June 2016.

We started our trip on Friday afternoon the 15th of January. We four members of Tuuletar (Sini Koskelainen, Piia Säilynoja, Johanna Kyykoski, Venla Blom) stepped on a plane at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport and headed towards New York via Reykjavik. The flight took nearly 11 hours in total, but everything went really smoothly and finally we could see the lights of Manhattan below us. We arrived in John F. Kennedy Airport in the evening. After a long day of travel we stayed over night in a Crowne Plaza hotel near the airport and the next morning we would continue our trip towards Raleigh, North Carolina. Before this flight we got our first American breakfast with several pots of coffee at the hotel. Thanks for the jet lag and waking up around 6 am local time we had also time to test the yoga room – refreshing!

We arrived in Raleigh Airport on Saturday afternoon the 16th of January and Josh Chopak from Liquid 5th Productions (L5) was already there to pick us up. Josh Chopak was the first contact from L5 for us, we met him the previous summer in Graz (Austria) at the Vokal.total 2015 a cappella festival. Josh Chopak is responsible for the sales and marketing at the L5.

Weather was great that day, sunny and around 15 degrees of Celsius. We drove directly to Durham to check out our upcoming ”office”, L5 studio. At the studio we met Chris Juengel, the second owner and the chief editing engineer of L5. Chris introduced the studio facilities for us: control room with Quested monitors and a C24 mixing console, spacious main recording room and the small recording booths that became very familiar and cozy little nests for us during the week. All seemed great, people and facilities, and we were already excited to get our hands in work.

After studio tour Josh took us for a dinner and there we got to meet Carl Taylor, the second owner of L5 (CEO and the chief mixing engineer). We discussed about our schedule for the upcoming week, and decided to spend the next day, Sunday, at Carl’s home rehearsing and checking out the cue tracks before the studio.

Accommodation for us in North Carolina was arranged by Chris and Carl. Chris and his family hosted Piia and Venla in Burlington, and Johanna and Sini stayed with Carl and his family in Apex. Both families were really welcoming and took such a good care of us Finns during the whole week.

On Monday 18th of January was our first studio day. We had eights songs to record in 4 days and Wednesday was going to be a day off. The plan was to record all the parts of every song on Monday and Tuesday, so we could start playing around and record extra ideas and polish up solo parts on Thursday and Friday. Carl worked with us on Monday and Thursday, Chris on Tuesday and Friday.

So, on Monday we started recording with Carl songs that have more beats and ”hop” in them. Our work day started around 8:30 AM with warm up (crazy looking and sounding moves and humming and buzzing) while Carl set up the recording mics etc. ready. Because we do everything with our voices, body must be well awake, warm, elastic and grounded to be able to work for whole day with good technique.

First we recorded a whole take of one of the songs, all singers together. Three of us sang in the small and soundproof booths that were placed in a half circle so that we could see each other while singing through glass doors. One of us, usually the one with lead, sang in the big room outside the booths. The lead parts where recorded in the big room to gain more space to the sound.

The first whole take was used as a frame where we begun to add beats and new takes of backing vocals part by part. On Monday we worked on songs Kohma, Tuu Kerää, Ei leijuta and Odotan. After this first studio day we were absolutely thrilled about the professional and creative way of working of L5 team.

On Tuesday the 19th of January it was Chris’s turn and with him we worked on songs Alku, Loimu, Valkia and Soua. On these song we had more parts that required more organic sound, so we recorded many parts all of us singing at the same time (again in our own booths). This way we were able to reach equal phrasing and feeling to these parts. Everything went again really nicely – the only a bit stressful moment was, that Johanna got a bit sick and we were worried about her voice and her solo parts that were not yet recorded. Luckily Chris’s relative was a doctor and he examined Johanna and she got effective medicine against flu and fever.

Wednesday was our day off. On Thursday and Friday we worked mainly on solo parts and beats. We also recorded some extra bass lines and pads to create bigger and deeper sound to the songs. On Friday evening we were ready to leave the studio and write ”Tuuletar” and signatures on the wall before leaving.

After the studio week we had a pleasure to perform in two venues during our trip in USA. First we had a cozy, spontanious gig at the university campus of Elon University on Saturday the 23rd of January, that Josh and Chris from the Liquid 5th had arranged. It was amazing how within couple of hours around 50 people had eagerly accepted to join the event from the university. We performed a short set and got rambunctious response from the students! After our performance around 10 different a cappella groups performed and asked for our feedback, so we got to share our knowledge and enthusiasm for all the great singers. It was fun to experience an American a cappella evening for the first time! Such a joy and devotion!

From North Carolina we traveled to New York on Sunday the 24th of January. In New York we had a concert in the Scandinavia House at the Park Avenue on Thursday the 28th of January. Scandinavia House is the leading center for Nordic culture in America. Before the show we had a real ”super star moment”, when the photographer took us in the middle of the street, so that all the cars had to wait until we were done with the photo session. It felt unreal to stand there, and not even one car started to honk wanting to drive forward. Concert was a success, we enjoyed a lot performing at the Scandinavia House and felt such a warm atmosphere. Afterwards many people from the audience stayed to talk with us and we got also new fans.

On Saturday the 30th it was time to pack our luggage and travel back to Finland. Such a great experience in all ways! We couldn’t had had better team to record our debut album than Liquid 5th Productions. Thank you! <3

Piia & Sini