Sounds> Evernight over Europe pt.1

The second gig on the tour is about to start and things look peachy. Yesterday's opening in Berlin, albeit slow, was a good kick off. Me, Jussi and Tommi were enjoying the magnificient day in a groovy art cafe garden and were almost late to the roll-in, but we got everything set up and even sold merchandise to about one in four people in the audience. Keeping up that ratio would mean we'd break even after about 4 gigs. And the band was in full swing - Battlelore is a textbook example of a live band. The records are good, but too often lack the balls and spine that a solid live performance gives you. Especially on the drums, Henkka is a bloody brilliant show drummer even if he did drop a stick during the set last night.

BTW - here is the entire Battlelore tour as a nifty custom Google Map.

The combination of late nights and a crammed bus means I am getting sleep deprived already not being much of a sleeper to begin with. I don't know how to nap during the day either. I should've downloaded that napping program I was told about -- Ville, what the heck was it? But maybe it's better this way, learning to sleep in rougher conditions. I've been wrapped in soft cotton for the last couple of years and having to prioritize creature comforts is a welcome change.

Sounds> File under 'post-black metal'

I've been reunited with a long lost friend. I managed to find Belial's 1995 album '3' on eBay Italy and immediately placed an order for this rare gem that I had owned earlier but had lost along the way somewhere.

This is a remarkable album. It's pretty hard to get info on now, but when it was released in 1995 - same year I picked up a copy from a small store in Stockholm - it was hated by the fans, berated by the few reviews I saw and when I played it to my friends, they ridiculed it - especially the song 'Nautilus', which was my immediate favorite. And as far as I can tell, Witchhunt Records has folded since. Bad omens.

And I love '3'. Belial had previously produced some pretty stable, immature black metal with some keyboards mixed in at some point - quite trivial really. And then they put out this contraption. It's hard to place, running in doom, hardcore, hard rock, sludge and maybe even prog; bass-driven melodies, prominent cymbals in drums, clear vocals (but mumbled or non-sensible lyrics) and even a cover song by Kauko Röyhkä. The production sounds organic - meaning you can hear all the errors, small slips in timing and an unintentional (I think) piece of intro speech. I don't know what they did in the mixing room, but this is good raw sound. The guitar isn't in the front, it's the combination of bass and drums where the treble has been brought out so that you have cymbals everywhere and the bass drum 'slaps' when kicked.

I don't know, but I'm thinking a psychedelic substance or two may have had something to do with this record seeing, if not the light of day, at least a pale Northern dusk. Bill Hicks was right, again.

Here's the track listing. And here's one on eBay right now - from Czech Republic.

Log> Slowed down

It's not worth doing anything until you're in a hurry.

Following my motto, I've been putting off important stuff to do back home until the last minute. Excellent. I don't like being in a hurry, but there is something electrifying about 'having to do' things. But it has been very good to just slow down. Not do anything.

The Battlelore tour starts in a week. I still need one jab, a few flights booked - and may create a website for an idea I had for keeping tabs on my travel.

I've been reading up quite a bit on the places I'll be going to (except for the ones I'll be going to first, for some reason), and just when I ran out of recommendations and leads from friends to check out, I met an old acquaintance in a Helsinki kebab shop, who had just spent 2 years in Singapore working and traveling the better part of SE Asia - cue Michele.

Just now I got to the last post of his actual trip: arrival by train to Lappeenranta, a small town close to Russia. I'm writing this in Lappeenranta at my dad's place, and this is where I grew up. And fittingly, the first paragraph of his post echoes an old premonition: all travel is meaningless if one has no place to return to.

And what would that place be for me? London was a home for some years, but I can't imagine it to extend a warm welcome after a year or two away. Helsinki I've never actually lived in but it feels welcoming, and there are a lot of ties there. Any of these smaller Finnish cities are a slow stranglehold, even Lappeenranta, although the ties here are very strong - that, partially, makes the thought of returning here that bit repulsive. Yet somehow even returning to Helsinki feels like a concession. I may still need to find a place to return to, though that will not happen in the next week.

At the same time I've unpacked practically everything I brought with me here, at my dad's mansion. Alone the books I've gathered somewhere else and shipped back here now fill four meters of shelf space. Damn them books. I know I'll need to get rid of some of them, eventually, when it'll be clear I'll die before I can finish them all. Til then, not worth doing anything until I'm in a hurry.

Stupidity> Lost in a lost tomb

I just watched a recent documentary by the name of The Lost Tomb of Jesus, produced by James Cameron. The initial PR around the documentary was sensation-seeking and it has succeeded in provoking criticism from both religious and secular authorities.

The documentary looked expensive but employed cheap drama and repetition and was scripted for the illiterate and innumerate. They had certainly done their research on their target audience.

Further, the reasoning was constantly flawed. Conclusions were jumped into through simple induction without bothering to deduct based on evidence at hand. Everything is sketchy, all clues are thin, the symbols shared by puzzle pieces random and lacking in pattern. The team tried to employ modern forensic technology to add to the evidence, but do so too selectively to allow for sufficient deduction.

For example, the DNA evidence does not suggest the people in the bone boxes vaguely marked 'Jesus' and 'Mariane' (especially the latter containing numerous assumptions) were married as the documentary claims - it merely tells us they weren't related. And while they were at it, why not check the DNA samples against the tomb marked 'Miriam', to make sure she really was the mother of the person whose remains bear the inscription 'Jesus'. Oh, and while we're at it, could we deduct the DNA pattern of the father, too? So that we could clone God, you know, have a bit more of that good old omnipotence around?

On a bit more serious note, the second DNA source especially if a match were to be found would finally rebuke the fable of virginal birth.

Non-withstanding the numerous historical flaws in the whole Jesus-myth, it would be interesting if we could take this further: refuting virginal birth, showing him to be a mere human (if he did indeed exist as all even as a historical person) and agreeing that he did indeed have offspring, who have now of course multiplied - and after about 100 generations, have quite few direct descendants of Jesus. Would they be Holy? Would the church refuse to recognize them, despite genetic evidence? Anything to beat more nails on the coffin of organized religion is welcome, even dramatized, high-budget documentaries.

Sounds> Hesari & Seis by laineenkasperi

The party at Hesari was most excellent, and only because of all the old friends and even lost connections who showed up. Thanks, y'all. Felt really special.

While I'm at it, I'll need to give props to Kassu's new album that he gave me a copy of. Seis, by laineenkasperi, paints more personal landscapes than the Kaucas records, and contains good stories told to some innovative beats. And I really liked hearing Davo on Kassu's material, always dug his style, and I was happy to find out that they're working on a full album together. And I had to post this, just look at that - the inscription on the inside of the album I got fits the photo almost too well ('hyvää maailmaa' is like 'have a good world'). Love it. Check it out at ähkyrecords.

Ps. Oh, and, Numbers Entertainment has the best name / logo concept ever. There's just so much good stuff going on up here.