Album cover art by Elina Kasesalu.
It took me a long while to start writing this post, because so many things have been happening and the more I postpone, the more things will happen. So I better just start writing it right now and see how it goes. So for starters, let me just scream from the bottom of my lungs ...
FUCK YEAAAAAAH! IT IS DONE!!
"What is done?" you might ask if you don't use social media and live a peaceful life. Well, the fucking album is done! The one we've been working for the past year with Liisi and Don Tamman with our new hot-as-fuck supergroup Kaibald! It just got released exactly one month ago. So get the album while it is hot from bandcamp.
Anyways, I don't even know where to start as a lot of work and effort went into it :D. My last post regarding Kaibald was one week before we went to the studio. After that we have recorded the album, went to radio and TV and have given quite a few concerts already.
Perhaps the best way to get started is introducing our kick-ass lineup we put together for the studio recordings and live performances. In other words, the "new Kaibald". Let's start with our newest members.
Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Liisi-Mai Krigul, who during the days runs with the Estonian National Orchestra (ERSO), but during the nights gives rock performances with Kaibald playing the keyboard, the violin and singing back vocals. Although she is the youngest member of the crew, she has possibly the most high-level versatile experience out of us all. Few collectives have members from the national orchestra working in their ranks.
Photographer Maria Kooskora
Let's continue with Peeter Alver, our guitar god, the cool guy next door who won't charm you not only with his smile, but also mesmerizing guitar solos. Anything he plays on the guitar is great. I literally like everything he does on the instrument. I'm gonna make a prediction that he will be recognized as the "best" guitar player in this land in the next ten to fifteen years. He has the touch, he has the tone, and he has the hunger to be the best. The best explosive mix of qualities we need in our crew.
Photographer Siim Orasmaa
On the bass, I am pleased to introduce you to Kristjan Kõrgmaa, the smooth-as-silk and rock-solid anchorman who keeps everything in the band together. He is the sweetspot where harmony meets the rhythm. Although these days he is not singing as often as he used to, he is also a well-rounded and experienced vocalist with 10+ years from WAF music school. I think our crew is really lucky to have him joined our cause.
Photographers Siim Orasmaa and Maria Kooskora
In my previous posts, I've already introduced you our fearless front-woman and lead singer Liisi Tamman. She is literally the force of nature in action; she won't stop; she won't give up; she will go all the way; she will stay up as long as necessary to bring you the best songs and lyrics. Her dream is to travel the roads and make Kaibald known and heard in every corner of this land. She basically does everything from songwriting to booking gigs and is the central force of the band.
Photographer Maria Kooskora
Next, meet Donat Tamman, our architect on the drums, who makes sure there is thunder, there is flow and there is groove in place to rock our boat through the waves. If Liisi is the central force behind the band, then Don is the central force behind Liisi. Besides drumming, he also helps out with songwriting, marketing and makes sure the clockwork is running smoothly.
Photographer Siim Orasmaa
And then of course there is me, Timo, the cutest and the most funny one in the flock. Well ... perhaps not that funny, but definitely the cutest. In any case, I helped a lot with the songwriting and filled in all the missing roles when we did not have the full line-up yet. On the album, I played the guitar, the trumpet and also the keys, but during live performances I only work with the guitar these days. Perhaps I will pick up the trumpet at one point after I've gathered the courage to do it. I actually played it at our album presentation concert, but I think this instrument requires some more practice and dedication to make it sound good for live performances .
Photographers Siim Orasmaa and Maria Kooskora
So there you have it, our entire lineup. Now that this is out of the way, let's talk a little about the music, because this is really where it gets interesting.
The entire theme of the album and in a way really what the band is about is just one thing, a concept, a principle that the music should sound like a movie soundtrack. Yes, a movie, and not a TV series btw :D.
Now this won't really tie it down too much, because there are many movie genres out there. You can have beautiful piano music from Ghibli movies up to heavy metal in some B-category action movie. But I've heard my friends describe Kaiblad as something that would fit a James Bond movie or perhaps something done by Tarantino. I admit I fucking love these comments as I really love Tarantino movies.
Regarding the music genre, I've heard people describe it as blues all the way, spaghetti western, desert blues, desert rock etc. By my own judgment, our music is 60% psychedelic rock, 40% blues and 100% of Kaibald sand mixed with our romantic souls graving for need to play music.
That said, psychedelic rock was really popular in the 1970s, which we definitely draw inspiration from and the bands we like draw inspiration from and which was the era which shaped the music we have today. Shut up! I know! This can be said right about every decade, but the goddamn 70s were special. Of course, it is also hard to deny the very strong blues influences flowing throughout the music. Hell, the opening track on the album is a blues song. But of course, many prefixes and suffixes could be attributed to Kaibald's music, depending on the track and the person making the assessment.
Okay, let's travel back in time to February 2026, when we went to Peeter Salmela's awesome spaceship in Tallinn.
Peeter Salmela aka "the Captain" behind his space ship console
It took us one and a half weeks to record all the stems for all the tracks on the album, except for some backing vocals that we recorded later at my place and sent in afterward. Each day, we got three to four songs in the can. Pretty impressive, right?
So what was the process you ask? Well, I'm gonna tell you right away
Day 1 - we arrived at the studio, I think Liisi and Don were there before everybody else and did some set up on the drums already. The drums were set up in the first room next to the entrance. One thing Peeter Salmela's studio is known for is the superior drum sound recordings. I don't know if this is an official statement, but word on the street is that there is no better place for recording drums in Estonia.
Liisi did get a special spot next to the spaceship console right next to the captain. And as a bonus she could peek Don through the window.
Kristjan got a dedicated room for him and his Precision bass.
While others were setting up the gear, me and Pets were probably smoking outside and waiting our turn. In fact, we two are the most unhealthy musicians in the band, followed closely by Liisi-Mai.
I used a Twin Reverb amp throughout the entire album, which you can see below in the image.
Peeter had a Marshall amp, I don't remember which model. Kristjan used a Trinity Trip Top amp. I've never heard of it before, but it sounded great!
I only brought three guitars, Kristjan brought one, but Pets had at least four guitars. Also the captain had one in the studio. I think we used a total of nine different guitars on the album, but could have been more. I really hope I have them all photographed here.
The full assortment of guitars used on the album.
So when we got gear set up, we started recording pretty much straight away. I don't remember what the first song was, but I think we got it in the can + another half of a song maybe.
After we had recorded several takes, we usually gathered in the control room to listen to what we had done. If we were satisfied we the material, we usually spent a little bit of time to make some edits or choose specific takes for parts of the song.
Days 2 to 5 we just recorded about three to four songs a day using the same process.
Days 6 - 8 is a all a haze right now. One day was dedicated fully to recording the hammond and rhodes. Another day for the trumpet, violin and some back vocals. And perhaps one day was dedicated to anything missing.
So yeah, pretty crazy stuff! It took a few months to actually send in all the missing back vocals and finish the mixing. But we made it!
Before the album presentation concert, Liisi and Don organized us some media coverage, we gave interviews on the radio and also performed on the TV.
Kaibald touring Estonian Radio shows.
Below you can see one of our songs "On the road." Yeah! We did not even bother to plug in the cords, because the music came from the backing track. My theory regarding this is that people who would notice this, would find out anyways e.g there are no mics for the drums, but are for everything else. So why even bother faking it. And the people who don't notice won't care about that stuff anyways.
Wow! This was a long post, but I am happy I did not postpone writing it any further. Right now we are enjoying the fruits of our labor and just giving performances here and there. I do actually grave for new material and hope we'll also have time to work on some new material soon.
Many people supported us on our way here. First, thanks to everybody supporting our Hooandja campaign. Thanks to Raul Ukareda for performing as a guest artist on the album. Thank you Siim Orasmaa and Maria Kooskora for being our photographers in various gigs. Thanks Kert and Stella for singing back vocals during our album presentation convert. Thanks to Siim Neerut for being our live sound engineer. Thanks to Peeter Salmela for recording, mixing and mastering our entire album and sharing lots of wisdom and knowledge in the process.
Until next time!!!