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Recording studio

Studio Kvastis

A place to record

Kvastis is the name of the whole place: an eighteenth-century property by Kvastmakartrappan in Stockholm, with two small cottages that have both been used for recording. Simon Stålhamre has his studio in one, where he has recorded, produced and mixed music with a long line of artists. In the other, Barbarisms made their records and Baptiste W. Hamon recorded with Tom Skantze. Randiga Rut and The Dopes have recorded there too.

Simon’s cottage has a history that reaches far beyond Payment Records. Small Feet’s With Psychic Powers was recorded at his Studio Kvastis. Across Kvastis, published album credits show that parts of Dina Ögon’s debut, Daniel Ögren’s Fastingen-92 and Jenny Gabrielsson Mare’s Comb the Wicked were recorded there. Kvastis is both a physical place and a web of recordings running through several corners of Stockholm’s music scene.

The other cottage has taken on a different role. It is where Barbarisms recorded everything, usually with Tom Skantze at the controls, and where Baptiste W. Hamon recorded his Townes Van Zandt interpretations. Randiga Rut have also recorded there. The Dopes made the album Uh Oh in the cottage with Tom Skantze. The two cottages share a yard, but have partly separate recording histories.

Old Casiotones share the room with odd percussion instruments, synths, guitars, reel-to-reel machines and cassettes. The microphones vary in quality. There is plenty to try, and whatever happens to be at hand often helps decide how a song will sound.

Many of the Barbarisms recordings here are first takes; others come together on the second or third attempt. Audio is rarely edited. Mistakes stay in, along with the things that happen before everyone quite knows how a song should be played. Not everything works. But there is pleasure in playing together and catching something while it is still new.

The connection to Payment Records is found mainly in the second cottage. Barbarisms recorded their entire catalogue there, while Baptiste W. Hamon’s French interpretations of American country classics took shape there with Tom Skantze.

The Dopes recording Uh Oh in the Barbarisms cottage at Kvastis
The Dopes recording Uh Oh with Tom Skantze at Kvastis. Payment Records arkiv

Selected works

Sources and credits

Details of our collaboration are supplied by Payment Records.