All on RED

My grandfather miraculously escaped from the Hungarian revolution in 1956. He was a master of the art of living who I never heard complain about anything during his 96 long years. I have vivid memories of him and my grandmother sitting in the kitchen in Gothenburg, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes with a miniature roulette table in the middle of the table. Laughter, the smell of food frying, smoker’s cough and gambling are central parts of my young and many memories in that kitchen.
My grandfather’s advice for everything in life was always ”all on red”, with a big smile all over his face.
When I started producing records, distortion and noise were my camouflage. As I didn’t know any better, it became my sound. All on red got a new meaning, but for me, it was just as much about gambling and having fun. Like in that smoky kitchen, in the early years of life.

“All on RED” is a song where I peeked more than usual at my household gods The Walkmen and Ride. Truls Mörck (Graveyard, Stora Vilan), Anton Tuvesson (Fägring), Andy D. Park (Death Cab For Cutie, Deep Sea Diver), and my constant companion Klas-Henrik Hörngren (Ane Brun, Klabbes Bank) helped me a lot in finding the balance between the delicate and the almost primal; where all the VU meters on my old mixing console hit red and where everything feels shaky but still very much at home.

/Kristoffer Ragnstam (They Owe Us)