Leafing through the morning paper today I noticed an article on a recently released study. An international team of scientists have seen it necessary to join forces, presumably risking life, limb and legal security, in order to prove that no syndrome known as “absinthism” ever existed and it was all just an overhyped case of good old plain alcoholism. Which it probably was but what’s the point in picking everything carefully apart and examining and explaining it to pieces? Why the need to tear down and scientifically disprove anything that falls into a category of assorted myths and folklore?

I like myths. I know myths seldom bear closer inspection without permanently shedding some of their fairy dust but myths aren’t supposed to. Myths exist for the purpose of momentarily filling the one who sees or hears them with a sense of awe and wonder you don’t normally get from normal everyday happenings. Myths shouldn’t be refuted but supported and added to, and then passed on to new viewers and listeners. As far as The Greatest Myths Ever go, absinthism isn’t exactly there in the all-time top 10 but I like the idea of an open-minded and determined absinth guzzler, waiting to experience things beyond his usual perception, much better than the idea of an ordinary 19^th century alcoholic seeking to get wasted as cheaply as possible.

Besides, no matter what you think of the hypothetical “secondary effects” of absinthe, the “peculiarly clear-headed type of drunkenness” mentioned here is quite easily achieved if you remember not to mix your drinks. It’s surprisingly hard not to have an accidental bottle of beer or cider in between shots of absinthe but every time I’ve managed it the results have been rewarding with drastically reduced amount of the usual wobbling and mumbling with an irritatingly unco-operative tongue you get after intoxicating yourself with beer. That’s not to say I haven’t had bad absinthe. I’ve had lots of bad absinthe, most of the absinthe I’ve tasted has been bad absinthe but there have been occasions when “bad” haven’t been the most fitting term to describe what just went down the throat and while going, sang like a siren.

So: down with myths going down!

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
Zenato Pinot Grigio from Italy. At last a reasonably priced white wine that’s not entirely unlovely. I’m definitely going to buy another bottle of this. It was light and crispy the way I like white wine to be with none of the pungent aromas and flavours I usually find from bottles of white. Very nice indeed, with or without food.
Tunel Black Absinthe. This is the latest absinthe I purchased and looks to be the last for the time being. It is a ridiculously bad absinthe that tastes like sweet cough medicine and the only reason I bought it was because it’s, well, black and black things are often nice and hold a certain appeal to me. Not in this case, though. It scores a grand total of 3 out of 100 points in the Absinth Buyer’s Guide and that’s quite an achievement. This bottle will last for years at the back of my drink cupboard along with numerous other bottles of horrible tasting absinth with nice looking labels.

I can’t think of anything witty to write now but I don’t mind just yet. For it could be so that I couldn’t think of anything to write at all and it isn’t, so I still might write something unwitty, or half-witty or whatever they call writings with increasingly decreased amount of added wit. Halved wit for halfwits, I’d call it if calling things thusly wasn’t uncalled for.

The reasons for being unable to write anything witty are
a) it’s Monday, and Mondays are not famous for sparking divine inspiration,and
b) I already forgot what the other (probably halfway witty) reason was. It could have had something to do with strict limitations I’ve imposed upon myself and particularly upon my modestly excessive showering habits (of which I’ve excessively talked about earlier) after having received the bill for my recent usage of warm water. When the outrageously unfair total amount I’m expected to cough up for my wee attempts at personal hygiene dawned on me, I theatrically fainted and fell on the floor like a wingless brick would fall from the sky. But to no avail. The bill remains the same and woe is my name.

Therefore, no relaxing in the shower, no Thinking About Things in the shower and no wittiness, not in the shower nor anywhere else either. Only serious pondering upon the subject of Re-recording Previously Released Material And The Perils Thereof. I’ve been listening to the new, self titled Aeon Spoke album, released on a bigger label than their previous cd “Above The Buried Cry” and containing three new songs plus seven re-recorded ones lifted from the debut. Some of those songs originally touched me in that special place where only very good music can reach out to touch, and now, listening to new versions of them all I feel is disappointment. They’re still beautiful and emotional, but compared to original versions also somehow watered down, as if lacking of soul and spirit and the magic that made them special to me in the first place.

Recently, when discussing what we want to include on the next Sinisthra album, we wondered if it might be a good idea to re-record one or two songs that originally appeared on our first album. We’re expecting a wider and more powerful distribution for our next one so why not bring forth a few songs from the one that’s getting increasingly hard to acquire these days? Probably won’t be a good idea though and I’m rather certain we will not do it. Even if the song is played perfectly note-by-note to the original, the path still has all kinds of holes to stumble into when trying to recreate something emotional and fragile. We’ve experienced this in the past, “Innocence..in a sense” from the first album is our third studio version of the song and we still didn’t get it right. Now we have plenty of new songs we feel will turn out pretty good, but we’ve already made several demos of some of them during the past few years and it will be hard to surpass the demo versions and make the final versions stand taller. I’m very much looking forward to it though, even if we fail to live up to expectations aroused by earlier recordings.

Of course this doesn’t concern the casual listener as much as the people who’ve created the actual music and lived with its’ turns and phases. I’m sure I’d like the new Aeon Spoke much better if I had never heard “Above The Buried Cry” and appreciated it so greatly. But I did, and I don’t. And that’s a shame.

THIS WEEKS’ SOURCE OF FRUSTRATION:
Ordering new parts to my electronic drum kit in a whim from USA. Enduring the usual hassles and frustrations with the customs only to find out I hadn’t bothered to properly check out whether my Roland TD-6 module really supports four tomtoms and three crash symbals or not. Turns out it doesn’t and come to think of it, doesn’t need to, either. It’s just, now that I have the pads and whatnot it would be nice to be able to put them all to use because, as everyone knows, the bigger the drums, the better the drummer.

THIS WEEKS’ SOURCE OF DELIGHT:
Finding from YouTube an old Marillion live TV performance I had never seen before and didn’t even know existed. And it’s “Cinderella Search” of all songs, one of my all-time favourites and a solid choice to put on after coming home alone from the bar at 4 AM back in the days when such things still used to happen to me. Blushed a bit at Fish’s dodgy costume, moves and make-up but enjoyed the music immensely.

THIS WEEKS’ BOOK OF CHOICE:
“Bible Stories For Adults” by James Morrow. Slightly blasphemous short stories and slightly forgettable as well. To me, Morrow’s ideas seem much better than their execution and I was disappointed with his novel “Only Begotten Daughter” but I still went out and bought this book. Won’t be buying any more of his novels in a hurry. Of the slightly blasphemous short story collections I’ve read recently Mark Twain’s “Letters From The Earth” was a much more enjoyable experience.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
Santa Ana Reserve Malbec Shiraz. This a lovely red wine from Argentina. Looks like I’ve found something that I’ve been looking for. Everything from Argentina and with malbec grapes has been great and this is the best one I’ve tasted so far.
Zenato Ripassa Valpolicella Superiore was nice too but at almost 20 euros a bottle it has to be nice now doesn’t it? Overpriced I’d say because “nice” was the strongest term I could think of.

One of the things I really really like to do is soak myself in a bathtub for outrageously prolonged periods of time. During this a-soaking, I carefully monitor and adjust the water temperature, alternately adding cold or hot water from the tap to attain and then maintain the ideal bathing conditions and to ensure that the maximum amount of relaxation and laid-backness is achieved. Bath foam and randomly floating rubber ducks are an pleasant extra but not necessary. This professionally manufactured bathing experience, once underway, could then take hours to carry out if I have no immediate pending obligations to fulfill. And while bathing, I like to Really Think Things Through.

Usually this means receiving and sorting out a bundle of rampant lyrical and compositional ideas. Full blown musical arrangements rage on in the auditorium of my head, smashing hit singles or progressive epics with quirks and twists to them I’ll never be able to properly explain to the other guys in the band since I have no grasp on how to handle any kind of melodic instrument whatsoever. Occasionally some of these ideas filter through to Sinisthra arrangements but mostly they just linger awhile in my head and then are gone like a lot of my other ideas too.

Although frustrating at times, as a whole this doesn’t bother me that much. The most enjoyable part is getting the ideas, anyway, not executing them. But the minor setback here is that I have no bathtub, haven’t had for the past 15 years. So either all my ideas are at least 15 years old or I don’t actually have any ideas. Or I have devised a cheap substitute for bathing with ideas and rubberducks.

What I’ve come up with is this: I take extensive showers. The average length of these daily sessions is some 30 minutes. Rubberducks are useless in this environment, as well as bubble foam, but the constant rain of cosily warm water on my head is guaranteed to trigger all kinds of thoughts to inspect closer and mull over. I came up with this text while taking a shower. Countless troublesome lines for lyrics have found their shape while taking a shower. The Gordian Knot-like question of whether to put on a Marillion or Genesis cd after the shower has been sorted out while taking a shower. There is no underestimating the problem-solving power of taking a shower.

There is a down side to ardent showering, naturally. Part of growing up is realising that all good things come with a pricetag and the pricetags of really great things are never of the “discounted”-variety. In the building where I live warm water costs 10 euros per cubic metre ( that’s 1000 litres), the bill is presented twice a year and it’s always hundreds of euros. I’m expecting one of those bills to arrive next week and, come to think of it, I don’t really want to think about it at all. I think I’ll go take a shower now and think of utterly other things.

THIS WEEKS’ SOURCE OF FRUSTRATION:
None deserving a mention so far. The Silence Of The Record Labels has partially broken, with a perfectly reasonable explanation (of the label manager becoming a father prematurely) behind the lack of correspondence as opposed to various conspiracy theories I feverishly imagined up (“they don’t answer my mail for one reason only: they all want to hurt me and make me feel bad because doing that would magnificently help their cause of releasing other peoples’ records!”) during my sleepless nights of sobbing on my pillow and grieving for the recording-contractlessness of Sinisthra. There’s still the issue of money to resolve before anything goes any further. We tell them how much we need and they tell us how much they pay and the gap between those two sums is a long and winding road on a as-yet-unbuilt bridge over troubled water that needs to be constructed first for the negotiators to stroll upon then and maybe meet somewhere halfway. Or maybe not.

THIS WEEKS’ SOURCE OF DELIGHT:
Partaking in a pleasant process of having some quality time with my brothers’ family. Also, while doing so, half-accidentally stumbling upon a chance to experience some live music. Sad Circus a lovely band from our hometown Lohja and I hereby advise everyone to check out their music at http://www.myspace.com/sadcircus. The song “After The Earthquakes” is particularly impressive. Also also, reading an interview on a recent Miasma magazine of The Puritan where nothing much is revealed and therefore finding it good.

THIS WEEKS’ BOOK OF CHOICE:
is the same as last weeks’ book of choice with the possibility of becoming next weeks’ book of choice as well. So many pages and not many moments reserved for turning those pages. But it’s all very good and entertaining and at the moment they are discovering a Martian spaceship, those lucky characters from Richard Morgans’ “Broken Angels”.

THIS WEEKS ALBUM OF CHOICE:
“The Second Wave” by Khoma. Released a few years ago, their second album presents the loveliness of Khoma to a far wider audience after the limited pressing of “Tsunami”, their first one, on a Finnish indie label. This was released by Roadrunner but sadly it seems the band is now dropped from Roadrunners’ catalogue. Their homepage is also down but there’s a brief message on http://www.myspace.com/khoma saying they’re still operational at least. “Tsunami” was a collective favourite in Sinisthra camp back in the days when we were still called Nevergreen and I’d say it also influenced our music to a certain extent. “The Second Wave” takes a logical step forward with expanded soundscapes and improved song-writing. The band is sometimes compared to the likes of Radiohead and Muse but mostly they have a sound of their own, with imaginative drumming and very heart-felt sounding vocals. The darkness and melancholy of this album doesn’t exactly make it best suited for sunny springtime listening though. Still, this band deserves to be much bigger than they currently are and this album deserved much more recognition than it got.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
The Tower Shiraz , a very unremarkable red wine from South Africa. Tasted on a sunny day in a barbecue I found nothing in it to throw somersaults to. Of course, most of the wines are unremarkable just as most of all other things too. That makes the remarkable ones stand out, and the reason I’m writing this is to find and then remember the really good ones later on too. So far, the list is very short: several reasonably priced red wines (Valpolicella Superiore Zenato and La Chamiza Malbec spring to mind) and from the white ones everything I’ve tasted made from Albariño grapes and very few others. I spent recently a week in southern Spain and among many other pleasant experiences was introduced to wines from Rias Baixas area. Sadly they are very hard to acquire in Finland, but, on examining Albariño I found Vinho Verde which is easily and not-very-expensively available in Finland too, and as a result I’ve had a most wonderful time lately with Gazela. Now there’s a wine for all occasions and in an this weeks’ ideal world I’d spend my days loafing around my estates in, say, Spain, sipping chilled vinho verde with an accidental glass of sangria thrown in, and doing nothing much for a while. That’s how my week in Spain mostly went (with the exception of the estate being someone else’s and not mine) and that’s how I’m prepared to spend some other weeks there as well, as soon as possible.