The ice swimming season has started.  The cold embrace of the sea CAN be fun, especially if you combine that with a great sauna. OK There’s no  ice yet, the water temperature is about 6 degrees Celsius, but that’s good&close enough. Actually this has been one of the warmest Novembers in last 100 year or so, and we’ve even gotten some glimpses of the “Big Yellow Thing” (we’ve usually forgotten the word “Sun” by this time). I’m sure all this coziness wreaks havoc on the Finnish suicide statistics … the days of us being silver medalists just right behind the Japanese are long gone.

I finished mixing the Jazz guitarist Timo Kämäräinen’s album. Timo is a super nice dude and was much fun to work with. I managed to chop away at least half of his solos and the guy just kept smiling. Thru tears. I’m not sure if they (his record company) are gonna pay me … in other than lead.  Anyways, if you want to check some of the stuff out, there’s 2 tunes on Timo’s new website: http://timokamarainen.ning.com/   The tunes sound quite nice, but that’s only because I wasn’t give enough time to mess all the sounds up. I hope Catskills guys don’t read this and get some ideas about Pepe & deadlines...

Tomorrow I’m starting the vocal mix of the 16^th and hopefully final tune on the Pepe album. When that is ready, I’m gonna take a short break, study some weird music and techniques and go thru all the material with fresh ears, hopefully adding some extra excitement and dynamics to the music.

To stay in a proper explorer mood I’ve begun reading the entire literary works of Jules Verne and all the original Moomin comics … the latter NOT to be confused with any new Moomin crap: the vintage stuff is hippy, weird and trippy.

J.S.

I’m finally back from my holiday and material collecting voyages to various lands and locations, this time excluding the darkest heart of Africa. Among the best goldmines were the flea markets of Berlin, Mechanical Music Museum of Varkaus (http://www.mekaanisenmusiikinmuseo.fi/index_en.html), the Yellow House (http://www.keltainentalo.fi/?sivu=aamiaismajoitus in Finnish only, sorry!), a beautiful B&B where I spent most of the time hiding my notes and writings from the jaws of the Kinuski the house dog, and last but not least, uncle Martti's collection of curiosities. Martti is not only a flea market pack rat, but he is also a gentleman of many connections: among other ppl he also knows many men of streets who often bring him the best treasures, discarded by those fools of lesser knowledge. Martti has several warehouses full of …. “stuff”. There’s no better word to describe the contents.

Check out "Album IV Sessions" for some photos.

I’ve also attended a few great gigs, the most memorable ones being Tero Saarinen dance company’s “Triple Bill” that included the jaw-dropping multimedia spectacle “Hunt”, and Husky’s gig at the opening club of “Love and Anarchy” Films Festival. New Husky tunes, first performed in both as very fragile and stripped down, unplugged versions (and in a magical living rooms setting, and wearing animal masks!!!) and then as anthemic band versions. Simply awesome work … check out some nice pics at Husky’s myspace: http://www.myspace.com/huskyrescue

Umm what else … yeah I’ve been editing some big choir works and also symphony orchestra takes (and no they’re NOT from some commercial library) for Pepe, but as I’m still waiting for some key vocals, I took a mix job: for the last two weeks or so I’ve been working on guitarist Timo Kämäräinen album. However, that’s not gonna delay the Pepe work much as the mastering of Timo’s record is at the end of this month, and that’s a pretty solid deadline.

And in the meanwhile Paul has (once again) been supa productive, crafting small tunes, atmospheres and sound collages that will go between the tunes on the album. So far there are about 20 mini-songs and even more is under way.

J.S.

All 15 backing track are now ready and I just finished a rough vocal mix of tune about steam powered iron giants used for public transport in a Victorian virtual reality heaven, featuring instruments ranging from a tiny musical box to a huge Baroque-style pipe organ (check the session photos).

Paul is already on a holiday and tomorrow I'm off to Berlin for two weeks. In addition to hunting material from various flea markets and vintage shops and overdosing on books & espresso there's stuff like the biggest ever Bauhaus exhibition ...something one just can't afford to miss!!!

J.S.

Preferably off-site!!! You might have tons of important files (like hundreds of vocals and instrument takes), and one day your hard drive won't start, makes a not-funny-at-all funny sound, or is missing (along with a lot of other stuff too). 

Yeah we got number two, the funny sound (followed by the drive not starting anymore). And no, there is not backups of all the material. Luckily it seems our computor guru friend got the hard drive working again and the recordings are saved, but I'm pretty sure I aged at least dozen years in less than dozen seconds. From now on I WILL backup data more often.

OK about the upcoming album: 8 tunes are now almost ready, they still need a fed details to be worked on and some general polishing. In addition to that there's rough mixes of 5 backing tracks and I'm currently working on the last two.

I also finished the second part of the article about our new playroom Sanctrum Sanctorum:

http://www.beatmag.net/issue21/warm_up/technical.php

J.S.

P.S. The new Prodigy single "Take Me To The Hospital" is that "Salami Fever"-sampling tune from their new album. Pass on the sausage!

Lyrics written for 13 songs, 2 more to go, wheew! The backgroud research has led me to question various things ... like before the Flood, what animals Noah did NOT bring into his ark, and were he and his family REALLY vegetarians ... "these dinos are starting to get on my nerves, hmm I wonder what they would taste with some beans and butter?" Who's to tell?

J.S.