By Kyle Swenson
Guitar Player, January 1999
Swedish popsters the Cardigans dumped an earful of sugar on the world with their 1997 smash hit, "Lovefool." Based on the song''s sparse guitars and bubble-gum chorus, you probably wouldn''t think of the band as raving experimentalists. But the Cardigan''s fourth album, Gran Turismo [Mercury], is a revelation of strange and rather unexpected guitar sounds. For example, you might think you''re hearing a guitar synth, a harpischord, or a pedal synth, a harpischord, or a pedal steel, but you''re not. All of the album''s sounds are production tricks conjured by guitarist Peter Svensson and producer Tore Johansson.
What's more, not one guitar track on Turismo was recorded using an amp. The guitars were either recorded direct or processed through Line 6's Amp Farm plug-in for Digidesign's Pro Tools. (For a full product review on Amp Farm, see "Virtual Vintage" in the Nov. '98 GP.) And although Amp Farm can de