Category Archives: Posts in English

Vote for your favourite and we’ll finish it

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Anneli Rydahl

Vote for your favourite song from the unfinished album Petals and we’ll finish it!

Petals by Enchanted Duo

Rösta på den låt du vill ska bli klar / Vote for the song you want to see finished

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...
Posted in Musik, Posts in English, Tips | Tagged | Leave a comment

Petals wallpapers to download

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Anneli Rydahl

When I was working on the art works for the unfinished album Petals I also created a pattern which can be used as a desktop background. I have a few different colours and sizes.

Just click the one you like and save it and set it as your background (don’t strech it, just repeat it and the pattern will create a psychedelic background).

Posted in Anekdoter/ anecdotes, Posts in English, Tips | Tagged , | Leave a comment

www.neitcho.com is no more, but…

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Nikolaus von Knorring

For a long time home for me has been www.neitcho.com. I’ve decided to let this time come to an end now, since nowadays this blog carries all my musical adventures. The forum on the neitcho.com site at some point grew and became larger than the site itself. Therefore the forum will live on under the new URL www.spontandikter.se led by “authoramateur” Magnus.

Why neitcho? How did it start?

Neitcho - Foreignworld CDcoverA friend used to call me Nitcho, a name of a mafia movie character. To suite me better I added the letters “ei”, and that with a German pronunciation would be Night cho.

After a while I added my surname which gave: Neitcho von Knorring. As you can see on this site I use my real first name Nikolaus when authoring, but for the last two years I’ve been referring to my musical self as one half of Enchanted Duo.

Posted in Anekdoter/ anecdotes, Posts in English, Site information | Tagged , | 1 Comment

#1 – Pieces of Darkness Are Pieces of Gold

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Anneli Rydahl

Title: Pieces of Darkness Are Pieces of Gold
Lyrics: Lyrisk
Genre: Ambient pop/rock
Release: 8/1 2012
Buy: Coming soon…

Pieces of Darkness Are Pieces of Gold by Enchanted Duo

My songs usually belong to a sad category – not pressing, not tearful – just a thoughtful sadness. I suppose I like sad. “It’s happy for deep people.” (Sally Sparrow from Doctor Who, third season, the Blink episode). Don’t know about deep necessarily, but it’s happy for thoughtful people.
Sometimes (or quite often, actually) I envy people who can make happy music. The kind of music that makes you want to throw your cloth and shoes and dance through your flat stark naked. Anyway, I don’t make music like that.

It’s like sad music speaks to me. I just know how it’s going to be before I do it (pouting base, melancholic piano, weeping angel choirs – life doesn’t get better than that…) I know what it feels like. So, I guess I’ll never make happy music, unless it’s sad music pretending to be happy or happy music pretending to be sad which doesn’t really make it happy in the first place…

Then came “Pieces of Darkness” which nails it down completely. No thought or song has ever come out clearer, for me anyway. “Pieces of Darkness are Pieces of Gold” or as the Doctor Who team puts it “It’s happy for deep people”. But my “Pieces of Darkness” evolved long before I heard that phrase (I just couldn’t help smiling when I heard their version). It’s one of those songs I’ve played 150 times or more before facing the studio. And it’s one of those times it sort of grew and exceeded my expectations.

Pictures from Grövelsjön where we recorded the dripping water.

I took a brake from the song for a couple of years and it’s not until now that Nicko and I finally added his vocals, the electric guitar and some “real” drums. The “old” drums are quite fun if you care to examine them. In the background is the dripping from the ceiling in a Lapp cot from Dalarna (Grövelsjön to be exact, don’t have the coordinates though, downer if you expected that kind of exactness). On top of the dripping I’ve recorded a bracelet, finger cymbals, claves, a triangle and some vocal s and sh sounds. A whole new audience appeared – turns out my cats love the drums (I secretly suspect the s and sh sounds). They come running as soon as I play it. I also went to see a girlfriend and her cats seemed almost as interested. I must from now on keep in mind to satisfy my cat audience too – who would have thought it?

Posted in Anekdoter/ anecdotes, Låtar, Posts in English | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Art works that doesn’t work

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Anneli Rydahl

Releasing a song isn’t only about composing the song, rehearsing and recording the song, arranging it, mixing it and… done? Nope, it doesn’t quite stop there. Back in the days it was all about creating and selling records (well, for some it still is… but we independent artists try to keep pace with development). As many of you have noticed the way we buy and appreciate music has altered radically with the web, mp3 players and the new generation of mobile phones with services like iTunes and Spotify.

When it comes to art works it’s no longer about developing it for that one record with 12 or 15 songs. Now you create the art works for each song. I have to admit I kind of like that. It means that you can match the feeling and the atmosphere of the song in your art works design. Lovely! But you have no idea how difficult!

There’s a new song coming up any day now from Enchanted Duo and why not take a look at the way to the right art works? (I wrote the song some years back and started on it then, but haven’t finished it until now. That’s why you see my name on some of the first art works…)

1. Cheap Bollywood with a cat?

What was I going for again? Cheap Bollywood with a cat? I swear it was not nearly as colourfull when I put it together in my mind. Then I was going for something a bit more spiritual, darker and with a touch of mother Mary.
This… well, disaster!

2. Flowers are pretty, but it’s not Mozart…

It’s beautiful of course, but what are you thinking? Ah, it must be some classical music! Mozart, Bach or Vivaldi? Sorry, no, not quite…

3. It is beautiful, but I kind of think of Celine Dion

I really like this piece of art works and in a way it really does reflect the spirit of the music for which it was made.
It’s just that it reminds me of the art works for Celine Dion’s “The Color Of My Love”. Cute, but I don’t like to be a copy cat…

4. Nature again… softy soft soft… aaand lame…

You know, I tried to spice it up with the transparent faces (which just makes it look even more B), but it just doesn’t gives the edge that I was looking for. I thought the sprakling ice drops would illustrate the pieces of gold, but frakly it’s just boring.

5. Funny, why not go for something funny instead?

I can’t help loving this one, even if it’s not the art works for this song. In any case it got some of my dry and twisted humor and I smile when I look at the butterfly toungs!
Maybe on the right track, but still a bit off! Let’s do one more!

6. And then, bingo! Dark, creative and it leaves you wondering

Had I known from the start I only had to draw a few lines I could have just done that…
The song is creatively arranged and with the darkness present in lyrics, music and melody. The art works reflects this in a neat and simple way. I love it!

Posted in Anekdoter/ anecdotes, Posts in English | Tagged , | Leave a comment

An era has come to an end – annelirydahl.com

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Anneli Rydahl

Dear friends and fans an era has come to an end. I’ve decided to close annelirydahl.com

I guess it was only a matter of time. I had to gather some courage. It’s like a room left untouched for a long time. The more time that passes, the more of a burden it becomes. I will still be the proud owner of the domain and it will redirect you to enchantedduo.com where everything happens nowadays.

I think I registered annelirydahl.com in 2003 when I was just a newbe at both computers and especially web page making. We were recording Waterlilies and the coloring of the album is reflected on the first web page designs as well. The first creations were put together in Dreamweaver or FrontPage and looking at the code now I’m just horrified! But I suppose that is a good thing… It ought to mean some improvement.

When we started out with the first web pages it was a lot of exploring and just pure fun. I remember sitting up all night just designing. Even if I would find time for that now it’s not as much fun. Web development has changed radically over the last few years and to build a decent page nowadays demands, well, more skill than I have.

When I was very young I remember my father using the saying that knowledge is like the moon. When you first touch a new subject it’s like a new moon. You only know a little and the back side appears just as small. The more you learn the more the back side grows as well… So no matter how much you know there always seems to be just as much that you don’t.

That is when you realize that tools like WordPress kind of simplifies matters and takes care of all that trying development leaving you with an easy tool to help publish your content.

That being said I warmly welcome the annelirydahl.com visitors to enchantedduo.com hoping you will find it worthwhile. And for sentimental reasons I’ve added some screenshots from the various costumes of annelirydahl.com over the years.

Link to my old guestbook

Posted in Anekdoter/ anecdotes, Posts in English, Site information | Tagged | 1 Comment

Sound pollution in the jungle

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Nikolaus von Knorring

Nicko with sample machineI’m going through some field recordings of nature sounds that I recorded on our trip to Borneo. On a lot of the clips I’ve discovered unwanted background noise.

In the middle of the jungle, if you are trying to capture the sound of the nature, or if you’re just seaching for the silence, most certainly your experience will in some portion be interfered by a distant motor boat or a remote power station.

In moments like this you suddenly realize that there aren’t many places in the world that are left unaffected by sounds created by mankind.

Posted in Anekdoter/ anecdotes, Posts in English, Video | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Music on vacation

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Anneli Rydahl

We’re just back from Malaysia, Borneo, with lots of ideas, an enormous amount of pictures, video material and audio samples. Well, no kidding, it’s going to take some time going through it all. Borneo will be the theme for the next song which will be a little delayed because of it all.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a few fun clips with you all. The first one, which is music related, is Nicko going wild drumming on a water bottle. A little inspired from the kids in Malaysia I think, who found many uses for water bottles in their games.

The second video is Nicko filming a baby gecko on my palm when the baby gecko decides to take a jump. I guess I don’t need to say that the camera man isn’t too fond of geckos…

Posted in Anekdoter/ anecdotes, Posts in English, Video | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

To Rachel Greene and all the other Rachel Greens out there!

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Anneli Rydahl

There is a song that I once wrote without realizing just how unique the title actually was. First I had intended to write a book about her (“Sköna Gröna Rakel” in Swedish, “Rachel Green” in English). But why write a book when you can express it all in just a few lines?

Of course there was (well, is) more to the story than those lines, but there’s no need to tell it now. I recall writing about Rachel Green in earlier lyrics without really hitting it off. Back then she personified a dear friend.


When I and Nicko went to India in 2005 it was this very song that Sunny Viswanath and our friends over there fell in love with. And so it came about that this very song was rearranged and record anew. Nicko and I even performed with “Rachel Green” in a TV Show for Asia Net.

A few years ago I emailed with a mother of a 3 year old daughter named Rachel Green.

Rachel is 3 1/2 so she still has a wonderful, open mind, full of fantasies & dreams.  Funny, we call her No Fear, among other things.  She’ll do anything.

She wrote that at first they hesitated about the name because of the Friends show, but in the end decided to pick that name anyway figuring her generation might not think much about it.

I often tell others to not forget to look back and remember what they’ve accomplished. Do I take my own advise? Well, now and then… Anyway, this morning I received an email saying:

My name is Rachel Greene. I was born in 1992 and am currently 18 years old. When I stumbled upon your song “Rachel Green”, I was amazed! You have managed to capture everything that is important to me in your song. My life word is Believe, and I always follow my dreams, no matter what. I even made it a point to tell others to follow their dreams and not care what other people say!

That being said, I was wondering if you happened to have the instrumental only track for your wonderful song “Rachel Green.” I will be graduating in a few weeks and would love to be able to have it performed at my graduation ceremony. Thank you so much for your time! Keep up the good work!!!
~Rachel Greene

So when going through my old CD’s in search for a karaoke version of “Rachel Green” I came across some old cute versions which are the antecendents to the final Indian version. So here’s to Rachel Greene and all the other Rachel Greens out there!

Rachel Green by Enchanted Duo

You’ll find the lyrics at lyrisk.amdstudio.se

Posted in Anekdoter/ anecdotes, Låtar, Posts in English | Tagged , | 2 Comments

How to do the space whistle sound

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Nikolaus von Knorring

This is an instructional video of how to do the space whistle sound that you can hear in our latest song “Wake Up!”.

Posted in Posts in English, Video | Tagged , | 3 Comments