Every Saturday from 4 p.m. we listen to a few great moments of radio history and radio present together. It’s about bands that have visited us in the studio for exclusive recording sessions, whether it was last week or a couple of years ago – it’s really a fair amount of gems and today’s episode of FM4 Sessions we dedicate to The Kooks and Oehl.
The Kooks im FM4 Studio
A band that has been with us here at FM4 for a very long time visited us for a session in the summer of 2022. They are the British indie pop poster boys The Kooks, the charismatic sunshine poppers around singer Luke Pritchard. Unbelievable, but true: 16 years have passed since super hits like “Naive”.
“Inside In/Inside Out”, the accompanying debut album by the Kooks, still inspires young people today. It doesn’t matter who you ask, when you mention songs like “Naive” or “Seaside” – but of course also their newer stuff like “Cold Heart” – you always see beaming faces. When asked what this special magic about their songs is all about, frontman Luke Pritchard says in an FM4 interview: “The deep down message [of our music] has been frozen, it’s that coming of age thing. People discover music now that’s old and they hear it for the first time and think it’s fresh. Like ‚Naive‘ that keeps popping up for people and then they think it’s a new song.” You can read and watch all impressions of the summery FM4 session with The Kooks here.
OEHL brought a whole choir to their FM4 session
Now every Saturday from 4 p.m.: FM4 sessions
Every Saturday from 4 to 5 p.m. is time for the FM4 sessions. Austrian and international musicians have been playing exclusive sessions in the FM4 Studios for many years. Everything is possible, from intimate acoustic shows to the very grand opera in cooperation with the RSO Vienna in the large broadcasting hall. Saturday is now set to be the date for the best of the sessions we are currently recording, along with the finest cuts from the vast archive that FM4 has built up over the years.
Some bands are considering a special, extra large setup for their FM4 session. This is how OEHL did it, the Austrian pop poets, who have been drawing attention to themselves with tender song poems like “Über Nacht” since 2019 – not only us and you, but also prominent Oehl fans like Casper or Herbert Grönemeyer.
In the meantime, Oehl is actually the solo project of singer Ari Oehl, but when the band visited us at FM4 Sessionstudio two years ago, at the beginning of 2020, there were still two of them – or rather, fourteen. For their FM4 session, they not only brought their whole band with them, but also a small choir – the cuddle choir, to be precise. Here are all the impressions of the day with OEHL.
In addition to the nine extra singers from the Wiener Schmusechor, a few other very special instruments also played on this day – for example a harp or a bass flute, which gives the songs that very special warm-soft timbre – a very special highlight from our FM4 sessions!