I’ve been reviewing and mulling over the now-finished lyrics for the Sinisthra album and have taken turns in being satisfied, frustrated and fed up with it. Also mystified, puzzled and bemused by it, and sometimes proud of it too. The writing has spanned the last three or so years so I’m not entirely sure if it makes any sense at all or is there any coherence to it. Then again, I can always plead for poetic licence as my excuse. I thought it was ready a few months ago but now there’s an additional several hundred words in which I tried to tie things up a bit. The vocals are mostly recorded now so there’s not much room to make any improvements to the lyrics anymore. It would have been nice to notice a little earlier that I tend to start every single chorus with the word ”so”. I plead for pomposity and the need to have open syllables and a fair amount of vowels in choruses. All in all, it’s been a rewarding experience. There are some very very beautiful and touching vocal melodies in there and I’ve learned that I don’t need to feel down or experience everything first hand to write about melancholic things. Here’s a Wordle word cloud of the lyrics. For some obscure reason.
Now that I’m back in the exciting world of working daily and earning actual money I’m naturally a bit short on free time to write about whatever catches my fancy. Therefore the extensive What We Did In London On Our Vacation Last Week- post is still waiting to happen.

THIS WEEKS’ BOOKS OF CHOICE:
I’m still slowly ploughing through the Umberto Eco novel I mentioned earlier. It’s heavy reading, made lighter by the occasional bouts of whimsical nonsense. At the moment the main character is having a lenghty debate with a monk about whether the Earth orbits the Sun or is it the other way round. The story takes place in the 17^th century so the monk firmly believes that Earth is in the centre of everything and all the other heavenly bodies move around it and presents an argument after argument of why this is so, each one more entertaining and more conclusive and airtight than the previous one. I enjoy reading this book quite a lot and will probably still take a few weeks to finish it.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
Rèmole, red wine from Italy. You can’t go very wrong with Sangiovese grape in my opinion, as I’ve probably stated earlier here too. Unfortunately that’s about all I have to say about this wine. Nice, appropriate and from Tuscany. I haven’t had any bad wines lately so these reviews are becoming increasingly pointless. I’m just mostly keeping track on what I’ve tasted and what to buy again or avoid, and this falls into the category ”buy again” (and into a sub-category >”but only if you can’t think of anything better to buy, and you probably can”).

Jacob's Creek Grenache Shiraz, red wine from Australia. Easy to drink, pleasant on the mouth and subtly spicy. Nothing to complain here, this has all the qualities one expects a wine within this price range to possess. Uncomplicated and to-the-point, like it’s probably meant to be. I liked it but it still, haphazardly and at random, falls into the category ”don’t buy again” (and into a sub-category ”because you can probably think of dozens of other wines to buy that are as good but as easily forgettable as this”).

The sub-categories are entirely fictional by the way. But they still might contain sub-sub-categories of equal fictionality and varying parallel categories. The main categories of ”buy” and ”don’t buy” don’t exist either but are more probable than the sub-categories. The bottles are real, though. I will stop writing this now and go take a cold shower.

My extended vacation came to an abrupt and somewhat unexpected end today when I suddenly found myself returning to work on a shortish notice. This came after having whiled away the preceding six weeks sleeping as long as I liked in the mornings, and that’s been increasingly long lately, with an additional bonus of having spent most of last week in London with a time difference of two hours. So now I needed to adjust myself to getting up 4-6 hours earlier than I had been grown used to and knew this would be impossible. Here are some of the amazingly large assortment of topics that rally around in your head when you know you’ll never be able to fall asleep:

-The fact that you’ll never be able to sleep
-The importance of not dwelling too much on the aforementioned fact to avoid panic
-The fact that it’s too warm to fall asleep
-The fact that your neck is stiff and aching because of the drafty hotel room in London
-The fact that your neck continues to ache in every position you change into.
-Sex
-The fact that it’s too cold to fall asleep
-The fact that you’ve been lying there for two hours already
-Random Mötley Crue songs playing over and over in your head (mostly punchlines of choruses because you don’t know their songs that well), because you just read The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx.
-The sudden realization that you forgot to buy flaked oats and are now unable to have oatmeal for breakfast like you usually do when going to work but not while on leisure
-Sex
-The fact that you’re still not sleepy at all and it’s 2.15AM
-The fact that this could be a good time to try and finish that pending lyric that’s been bothering you
-The sudden reminder of how futile it has been on similar occasions in the past when you might have been able to complete a lyric but probably haven’t and in any case had forgotten all about it by the morning
-Sex
-”He’s the one they call Dr. Feeeelgoood, he’s the one (*can’t remember how it goes on*)”
-The predicament of whether of not you’d be able to make a living of translating books from English to Finnish
-The fact that you wouldn’t
-The unsureness of do you or do you not have it in you to be a translator
-The fact that you can’t decide between a Russel Hoban and an Iain Banks novel to try your hand at translating
-Sex
-The fact that if you empty your mind completely of all thoughts you’ll surely fall asleep in no time at all
-The effort of keeping your mind devoid of thoughts and the feeling of starting to fall asleep
-The sudden surge of the chorus of a Mötley Crue song ”Girls Girls Girls” in the loudspeakers of your mind
-The fact that if you fell asleep right now you could still catch three hours of sleep
-The pain in the neck and further half an hour of searching for a comfortable position to sleep in and failing.
-A sudden idea for a great new arrangement for a Sinisthra song that’s already been recorded.
-The fact that you will spend the whole night lying awake.

And then, suddenly, the alarm clock goes off at 5.15AM, you jerk awake to it so you must have slept for a bit anyway, you get up, would like to have some oatmeal but can’t, then you head off to work and don’t feel particularly tired for the whole day.

Here’s me, not enjoying my cigar at all. Presented here only because an entry without any pictures looks so dull.


THIS WEEKS’ BOOKS OF CHOICE:
”The Heroin Diaries” by Nikki Sixx. Found this from my favourite second hand bookstore in London for a very friendly price and read it through in a few days. Very captivating book, brutally and at times disgustingly honest and graphic. I’ve never liked Mötley Crue’s music and that’s not likely to change but I almost checked some of their videos from YouTube after reading this book. I read ”The Dirt” when it came out several years ago (The guitarist of my former band translated it to Finnish) and might leaf through it again sometime soon while I still have this diary fresh in my mind. There’s something quite fascinating in debauchery and self destruction of this level, especially since the people involved have survived to talk about it. There were some very sincere entries written by a person who is suffering from depression but not fully realising it.

My iconoclastic writings of yesterday were quickly avenged as God smote down upon me and made me break my Riedel red wine glass while washing it in the kitchen sink. I am humbled by this and have beaten at my chest in a most grievous way, and wept bitter tears.

Have not really. But mightily pissed off because of this have I been, all the same, for the price of a single Riedel glass is some 30 euros and now that I’m used to having my wine from a Riedel glass I’m not prepared to reconsider my options and am therefore forced to go out and buy a new one as soon as I’ve finished writing this blog entry.

To avoid further smiting and thunderbolts, I will not put here any of the pictures I’d like to that represent religiousness in a light-hearted way. Here’s a picture of the world’s smallest dog instead, trying to figure out the essence of a looming coke can and the potential danger it might represent to a tiny dog’s well-being and continued existence.


THIS WEEKS’ BOOKS OF CHOICE:
“The Island of the Day Before” by Umberto Eco. Unusually to me in Finnish rather than in English, although the text is so rich with meanings and allusions that I find myself reaching for the dictionary of foreign words as well as the encyclopedia way too often to describe this as an smooth reading experience. I’ve been meaning to read this all day, for several days now, but all kinds of things keep interrupting me and my days seem to be full of different activities (like mindlessly surfing the net and playing the Bookworm Adventures game) that prevent me from concentrating on this book. Maybe I need to get back to the routine of regular dayjob to be able to focus on a book. This looks to be a very promising book and since I will make my comeback to normal working life shortly I just might be able to finish this one sometime before next summer.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:

Belleruche is a red wine from France and the best one I’ve had for a while. The taste was very rich and conveniently full in the mouth. it’s advertised as a food friendly wine to enjoy with classic home cooking and it paired very well with steak with herb butter, potatoes and peppery sauce. The remnants of the bottle didn’t taste so good the next day, having clearly passed its’ peak but yes, the overall impression was that of an above average and pleasant wine that can be bought again. It’s a biodynamically grown wine and as an additional bonus the label looks very nice too, with braille on it so that blind people can check out what they got smashed out on, and also sporting a coat of arms with the motto ”fac et spera”, meaning ”do and hope”, which conjures up certain mental images of not-so-professional people randomly throwing some grapes in a tank, hoping for the best and leaving it to a chance whether the wine turns out good or not so good. This is probably an unintended impression on their part and not the kind of picture they want to give to the world.

Hermanos Lurton Verdejo is a white wine from Spain and the first decent Spanish white I’ve tasted that doesn’t include the Albarino grape. This was surprisingly good in fact, strongly reminiscent of the Sauvignon Blancs I’ve liked and the overall impression is above average, with a good looking package too. It’s a product of the Flying (and maybe Fabulous too but not very Furry) French Lurton Brothers who seem to have wineries everywhere around the world. I’ve tasted a few of their white wines before and they have been of the above average quality as well.

Villa Puccini is a red wine from Italy and has all the usual qualities of a slightly watered down taste with a hint of cherries (maybe some sort of berries too) that an Italian wine of this kind is expected to have. I like wines of this kind and I liked this wine too although I prefer a bit fuller taste and essence but there’s nothing to complain here. Got it as a gift and thought it was a good gift. Paired well with a steak and the next day with pasta. It tasted better on the next day and I was a bit disappointed there wasn’t more of it left.

Our wine rack is horribly empty at the moment and hopefully the trip to London starting tomorrow will rectify that situation.

After efforts of Herculean proportions, involving weeks and weeks of ”no, I’m not available at that time”, three members of Sinisthra were able to miraculously make their timetables match and went on to record some more vocals for their album. Those three are known by their Native American names of He Who Sings Most Nicely, He Who Supervises The Recording Of The Afore Mentioned Singing, and He Who Makes Sure The Words Are Pronounced As Correctly As Possible While Singing. They are sometimes also referred to by their Native Finnish names of Tomi Joutsen, Markku Mäkinen and Erkki Virta, respectively. Occasionally respectfully, too. The plan was to put the finishing touches to vocal recordings, and the outcome was a whole new song that needs lyrics quickly, plus a new chorus to an existing song that also needs lyrics quickly. So, even though it didn’t go exactly as planned, it was quite a fruitful day nevertheless and very much in line with our previous experiences on similar occasions. The road to completing the album is a long and windy one, and we only take very small and cautious steps forward at each given time, but every tiny step takes us a little further anyway, sometimes even in the right direction.

To come up with the missing lyrics I’ve now emulated my time-tested traditional method of ignoring the whole subject as completely as possible. Actually it’s a stroke of luck that the lyric I was most dissatisfied with now needs major revamping. I might replace its’ most banal parts of lonesome wailing with detailed description of the stench of burning blood. Of course I need to get to the point where I casually start to unignore the whole subject first, and that might still take some time. Meanwhile I’ve been idly leafing through ”The First Book Of Adam And Eve” again, for inspiration. I lifted some things from it several years ago and embedded them in that pile of words that’s going to be the lyrics for the Sinisthra album.

This time I found nothing more I could use but was mildly amused by Adam’s tendency to regularly beat at his chest, probably to the point of being all bruised and sore, and falling on the ground on his face, all grievous and repentant, in between bouts of taking his own life, with Eve usually following close by, whether it was by drowning or by leaping off a mountain, or simply by beating at his chest hard enough. God needs to raise them from death on an almost daily basis and answer their requests with all kinds of prophecies and riddles before ceasing to commune with them at the end of a chapter, only to un-cease the communing business by the next one. Very uncharacteristic of Him I might say, in the light of His later sparseness of communication with just about anyone, including Jesus.

Unbelievably Messed-Up Bible Stories tells the Story Of Creation in ten minutes, in an smooth-on-the-eye animation and easy-on-the-ears dialogue. Part One is called ”In The Beginning” and Part Two is called ”Adam And Eve”. I watched it and found it good.

Helsingin Sanomat is the biggest newspaper in Finland. Browsing through its’ weekly supplement called NYT this morning I was mildly surprised to see The Puritan’s ”Lithium Gates” album get full points in the cd reviews section. I understand it’s been receiving favourable reviews elsewhere as well. I find this quite curious because the music on the cd is genuinely marginal and very extreme in deed, even after stripping off the usual adundance of adjectives of ”extremity” and ”heaviness” the record companies are so keen on attaching to most of their releases. This cd is so extreme that I can’t even listen to some of its’ most intense moments (namely the first half of the B-side of ”The Black Law”) and if someone as closely associated with The Puritan as I am is this disturbed by the end result then surely that’s a sign of the band successfully achieving some of the goals they’ve set out for themselves.

I’m well aware of the air of vagueness the band has maintained and will maintain regarding any details about their doings and identities. This is not because they wish to keep their identities hidden. That would be a bit ridiculous. This is because the identities of the musicians are very irrelevant to the actual music. Anyone who makes a little effort will find out who the musicians are, and after finding out will also find out that it doesn’t really matter who they are. What matters is the band as an entity and the music that entity creates. I have observed the activities of The Puritan from a vantage point since the beginning and will now share some of my observations.

”Lithium Gates” is released in a somewhat awkward moment since the band hasn’t played together for over two years now. Personally I found the idea of the whole cd a bit, shall we say not-so-hot, because the upcoming ”official” debut cd will include new (and better) versions of several of the songs now released. The way I see it, the listeners now automatically regard these earlier versions as the original and therefore definite ones (I know I would), no matter how improved and more to the point the versions released later on will be. But since the actual debut cd seems to take ages to complete (it’s been a ”work in progress” since 2006) I understand the record label is getting anxious to release something.

Thus ”Lithium Gates”, consisting of two now sold out vinyl albums released a few years ago. The self titled album was recorded hastily at the start of 2006, after the band had played together for some six months or so. This is the point where bands usually record a demo and this has a lot of the qualities usually associated with demos. It suffers from weak sound quality and shows the primitive conditions it was recorded in. During the next six months the band found its’ feet and laid the foundations to build upon. The drum tracks for the upcoming debut cd were recorded at the end of 2006 and other instruments have been slowly and painstakingly added to it from then on. The finished album is probably released sometime before the world ends, provided the world doesn’t end during the next few months.

On Spring 2007, the band cast aside the traditional method of ”first the band rehearses, then the band goes into the studio”. The drum tracks were recorded in one afternoon, on electronic drumkit, in a living room and without the drummer having heard the songs previously. This gave the project a flavour of spontaneity and openmindedness, also showing in the final product. The second half of ”Lithium Gates” is a lot stronger than the first half, stepping farther away from the conventional band sound and including some very chilling moments. This will also be the case with the upcoming cd. Or so I’m informed. I haven’t heard a single note of it so far but I have a strong feeling it will contain something previously unheard-of, if ”Lithium Gates” is any indication.