Return to noise

Went back to do some sound tweaking tonight, after taking about 3-4 days break from listening to any of the new material. What I did, was mainly some graphic equalizer finetuning for the guitars, and for the bassguitars. Also adjusted some drumsound details, too. I used one song for the initial sound tweaking and after I got the kind of overall soundscape I wanted, I went through all the songs and adjusted them accordingly. Then I listened to the songs and started smiling. Massive improvement on many levels with just one night's work.

Oh, and our cats are certainly a good test subject for how the material feels (by saying that, they don't have to listen to extremely high volumes either - yes, some common sense) ... it's hilarious how they get really crazy play / run-as-fast-as-you-can mood whenever I'm working with the new SF material. It's like they are having their very own cat pit going on, running literally on walls. Effective! ^_^

Logo improvement complete & blog design updated

Finished the logo improvement project and even that it was some 5-6 hours work, it was definitely worth it. I already used the improved logo for remaking this blog's logo (see the colorful logo up there?) as it was a good test for how working with the improved base logo now goes. Works good, sure, and I also did some quick logo experiments with the new front cover, as a real test - and yes, definitely worth the extra work.

I also updated this blogs outlook a bit for a change. It has been looking the same for years already so I think it was about time. As there was fitting background image in blogspot's template, it was easy & swift change. Compared to precise logo improvement thing especially.

Currently drawing

I started doing something I was thinking about doing already several years ago; improving the Scumfusion logo. With improving I don't mean "changing", but simply improving, working with tiny details. Pixelcrafting with drawing board.

I can admit that I was recently briefly thinking about "should I perhaps redesign the logo?" but I didn't think about that more than a day or so. I even did try some different designs but while some of them might have fitted the new album cover, it still didn't feel right. Combined with that, I thought how I've personally felt with my fave bands changing their logos in past (like Napalm Death, first example that comes to mind) ... I've never liked it when it happens, and it always raises questions like f.e. "don't they respect their roots anymore?"... It's kind of interesting matter to think; it's a simple logo, word or two drawn, right? That's it. Or then not. As a logo has been used for a long time, it's much more than just some words drawn. It's visual design, something that has sticked to mind, and especially something you identify the artist with.

What made me think about logo change at all, was primarily some technical details - nothing visually wrong with the logo itself. I was also thinking about how the Scumfusion logo came to exist; I asked a friend, graphic designer called Andrew Cramer to draw me a simple logo for SF. So he did. That happened during early 2006 or so. The logo was first time used in "under exoriant light" album, which was also the first album containing Timo. The logo has been in use ever since. It's funny to think nowadays that I never had a proper logo for SF prior to 2006. But that's how it was. I didn't care, I saw SF just a funny little online project I did and I didn't care about album artwork back then either (that's why none of the early SF releases has official cover artwork - there never was any!) ...

... so, now recently I thought that as I'm doing SF as one man band again (first time since 2002), would there be point to change the logo also because of that? Not just the technical issues I have had with the one and only official SF logo? I didn't have to think about that for long, either. Because it didnt't make any sense as a reason for changing logo. Why would I change a perfectly working logo which has served me well ever since it was created? There simply isn't any reason to change it. So what I started doing then? I started doing some heavy graphic work today with the logo. Not changing it, but "cleaning" it (for lack of better word) and then drawing over it, improving the borders of letters. It all begun with getting the logo as black on white background (original logo is slimy green on black background - check out "under exoriant light" front cover and you see why). I'm doing all this simply to get a logo, that's way more easily "usable" when layering it with front cover artwork and stuff. To be able to work with colors, too, notably more easily. To get the kind of impact I want - also to make the logo more clear, more "striking", kind of.

It's also nice work to do now, this artwork stuff - I've managed to keep out from the new SF material for a day or two now ... so, yeah. Might be able to work with the back cover artwork for the new album this weekend, too. But now, first ... the logo work. See the visual evidence below, work in progress.

Crafting cover artwork

Started working with the front cover art tonight. I went browsing my picture archive (pics taken by me) and didn't browse for a long time as I stumbled across an icy shot I took about two years ago. I remember when I took that picture, thinking right as I took it, that there's something special in this. I didn't think about cover artwork or anything, it was just a quick instant intuition that this will become something more than just a pic. And look what happened ... as I now came to that pic, I stuck looking at it and had an idea for compiling several pictures of mine. And that's where things started happening: I worked with layering the pictures, and painting over them for some 2-3 hours ...

... and now I have let's say 95% ready "base" front cover art. Gotta look into some details still, if I could add some more visual messages. Even that it already has several hidden more or less, and of course connected with the lyrics and themes, too. It's at the same time following the same visual overall style than "Lost constellations" front cover, but it's also different. Bit like if you were looking towards the "Lost constellations" from another dimension, through a crack in time and space ... or something like that. I really like the way it looks.

To be continued.

Lyrics? Done!

Well look at this ... I wrote the last six scifi chapters today, and not just that - but I did vocal arrangements for all the rest songs where it was still to be done. Quite many, probably about 50% of the songs. I made a list of the 22 songs with song titles, and the initial reaction what I had looking at that list of songs and songtitles (and knowing the lyrics in them) ... like I said to a friend tonight; "now this s**t goes deep, really deep ... space and beyond, and it's pure imagination used, nothing else" ... hah! But that's how it feels, oh yeah.

It's especially good that I even got all the rough vocal arrangements planned - it will make recording the vocals so much easier. Now I might take few days break from the material itself, let it steam a bit without hearing it daily - and perhaps I'll look into cover artwork next. Before vocal experiments. Well, there's of course also the space soundcapes matter, gotta think about that, too.

... then "some" lyrics indeed.

Talk about creativity in written form; wrote lyrics for seven songs today! Not just that but I also did rough vocal arrangements for six lyrics and I now have 8 songs which have title and lyrics reserved. I was testing how the lyrics fit, and they seem to fit like a fire to the surface of our sun.

And I really like the tales. They vary from abstract gigantic scale cosmic stories into almost physical description of ... let's say combination of organic & technological creatures of kind. Tales of events happening in fictional planets. Crossreferences to past music projects occasionally surface. Two songs are interconnected (and I don't mean the opening & closing song with this) both musically and telling a certain (yet not necessarily same) tale from two points of view. And so on ... and so on.

If my calculations are correct, I have lyrics for 16 songs so only 6 more tales shall be written. Considering what I got done today, it might mean writing for just 1-2 days more. Then it's just vocal arrangements work, which I've already started, too, so this album is progressing awesomely.

Some lyrics more

Wrote lyrics for two songs really fast tonight. Other set is slightly longer. One crossreference to ancient material can be spotted, too. And some all new scifi vocabulgary was created during the process. Expect the unexpected in the form of some x-elements.

The work continues ... but not tonight anymore. It could continue during the dreamworld ...

From lyrics into dreams

Gotta tell briefly about how yesterday's lyrics influenced the dreams I saw last night. Very realistic feeling one dream especially; a dream where I had skill of travelling anywhere through time. I didn't have any visible time machine or technical device for time travelling, but I simply did it by power of thought. I started going around in time from this current time in my life, so the only "device" I had with me, was my current mobile phone (Microsoft Lumia 950 XL if you really needed to know).

I'll describe one time travel case from that dream here: I appeared in a school class of my own, from closer to 30 years ago (late 1980s). The people in the class first couldn't see me, but I could move around in the classroom and observe what was going on. One student was about to start a presentation and I went to front of class as well, looking how it goes. Student stated that the subject of presentation is music, and heavy metal music - the most extreme form of it especially. I was amused about the subject and thought like "well this is something I must hear!" ... nothing really special there, but after some beginning lines one pal from back of the class raised his hand and teacher gave that student permission to talk. It was a guy that used to be a friend of mine back then. He stated excitedly something like "we have a visitor here who should be giving this presentation instead!" and pointed at me. Suddenly everyone saw me. He continued by shouting "how do I know? because this guy has been listening to his dose of metal music well over 30 years by now, even the extreme metal stuff, not just heavy metal!" ... Instead of students looking at me, everyone started shouting, laughing and questioning about what on earth is being claimed, there was no extreme metal 30 years ago, are you crazy! (yeah, count back 30 years from late 1980s). Hah!

So the situation calmed down somehow and the original presentation was continuing. I took my current mobile phone and tried taking some pictures thinking about "what if the pictures stay in the phone as I travel somewhere else in time and even to current time?" ... somehow (surprise) I couldn't seem to get any pictures. Phone was working normally otherwise, but camera wouldn't take pictures. I was making some noise while messing around with the phone, and at that point students started looking at me again - asking who is this guy and hey what is that thing you are playing with!? I was explaining it's nothing, just some junk and I'm leaving soon ... which I did, too. Just vanished and went elsewhere. Etc.

Talk about lyrics affecting dreamworlds. :) ... and I wasn't even writing about time yesterday, I was thinking about how these tales don't seem to have so much to do with time than my doom metal project M4D's last release clearly had. But these SF tales (some of them) deal with space travel so combining two things ... you get dreams of time travelling. Funny.

Lyrics continued

Pretty productive writing session this evening; wrote six new tales. Currently I got lyrics for seven songs already. Yeah!

Out of these seven songs, two set of lyrics are much longer than the rest (4 times longer). It is connected with the lyrical idea I got especially for opening and closing songs just today. Really nice idea that not just opens and closes the album as in written format, as a wider space tale, but it's also connected to the songs musically speaking - or the two songs' tales are interconnected - and also some connections to some other space tales I've created years earlier. Lots of connections, yes.

It feels like I'm going to write more lyrics and possibly all the rest lyrics before I'm looking into what kind of space soundscapes I'll be creating & using for the package.

Lyrics started

Have thought about starting to write lyrics recently but have been otherwise occupied. Until tonight. Wrote lyrics for some of the short songs really fast. Not much to say other than that it came naturally and fast, just like the music. It's a good start and the work continues from here.

Composing and first recording stage completed

I recorded guitars and bass for the closing song today, and it came out cool. The way it turned out, it also confirmed that this closing song idea that came yesterday shall be how it goes, yeah. The closing song is a song # 22 so there will be 22 songs overall. It's a number that feels good. And once again intuition got a nice real life confirmation as I loaded all the 22 rough mixes into music player and checked for the first time what kind of overall length would it be ... 29 minutes 26 seconds. Just as I visioned right from the start, that I wouldn't want to make the album longer than 30 minutes.

Well, to be honest, this isn't the final length yet as of course I'll have to do the space soundscapes and in some songs' cases they will make the songs bit longer. Though on the other hand I think the space elements won't be long ones, not long intros necessarily ... something that broadens the material, but won't make it much longer. There are some songs that might get shorter (depending how I'll shape them endings) so keeping it under 30 minutes is realistic. As usual, we'll see how it goes.

I listened all the songs from start to finish as one package tonight, not once but twice ... I know all the cliche sayings about how artist's newest album is always "the tightest", "the most brutal one" or whatever. Sometimes there's reason to say things like that, sometimes not. Well, I can honestly say, that this next Scumfusion album might well be "the most grindy" (or just plain crazy) album SF has ever done, so far, and I'm not exaggerating. There are hardly any slower songs; in a way I'd say there is one such song, but while it might be bit slower from start to finish, it has the most twisted end riffage section. Crazy is again the word that would fit well, or then ... twisted. And it's also interesting to state that I composed about 90% of the songs in all new way - it's because of the surprise element all the songs have. I'll explain it later, perhaps only after the album is released ... because I don't want to spoil the surprise. It's certainly something that you haven't heard much (if ever!) in grindcore and it also goes well in with the space theme ... in a twisted way. Of course. ;)

So, ... next up is lyrics. I'll start writing them someday soon, as inspiration comes. I do have already some ideas that came from the album title - so writing might start sooner than even I myself think. I also have some ideas how I might record the vocals, but I will have to do some vocal recording experiments, that's for sure.

Few more and probably a final blast soon

More material has been crafted during this weekend, just as I felt would happen. Not just that but things seem to follow my intuition pretty much 100 % exactly. First of all, one new song was composed and recorded yesterday. Another one for the one minute series, yeah. That happened late friday evening. Other new song got composed and recorded today, saturday - but unlike most of these creations, this new song was born around midday, out of the blue. Got idea for a real all out grinder and went for it right away and it was smooth job from start to finish. It's probably the shortest song ouf of these new songs, about 30 seconds long piece.

Well, what about following the intuition then? Earlier I mentioned that I got an idea for longer piece as song number 22. If it would be longer piece, then that song number 22 would also be the last song done for this package. I did have an idea, but the idea went further, it evolved into something that kind of fits rest of the material in a twisted way and I went on with that ... and I have a base for a longer song - well, a long song compared to most of the tracks anyway since it's going to be about 2min 30sec if I make it happen in the form I'm planning it. The base is prepared, the song is composed but since it's soon midnight, I'm going to record it tomorrow, during sunday.

To make things more funny (or should I say furry) I had an assistant during the friday's recording process; one of our two cats. Ha! It was sure different recording that song's guitars with a kitten licking the guitar, rubbing her face to the guitar's neck and so on. You know cats (if you don't, well then you don't) ... want evidence? Check out the picture below! ^_^

Ahead

Yesterday evening I was otherwise occupied but tonight 'twas time to let out some serious steam once again. And so I did. Another new song was born and it's bit over 1 minute long. If not counting the first song I did, the rest of the pack are notably shorter songs, so far anyway. One idea recently came to me though; what if both the opening and closing songs were longer? Not necessarily otherwise similar though. Well, we'll see what happens.

... and then there were one

Didn't remember to write about this yesterday evening so I'll do it now: Another new song got composed & recorded yesterday evening so yes, the flow still continues. Though I'm sensing that the flow is reaching the end in coming days, I can feel it.

Checking the calendar made me realize that it might well be that during the next weekend I'll compose the last new songs for this package - as next weekend it's 4 weeks since I started crafting this new material. Four weeks feels fitting. And funnily it's also about the very same amount of time how it's been during past few SF albums - even timing goes along the same lines; starting around the end of the year, finishing during the first month of the next year. Well, composing & recording (music) stage, that is. Of course there are lots of other things to do after this stage; writing lyrics, recording vocals, planning and creating the space soundscapes for the album ... creating artwork. Album title isn't 100 % decided, but let's say it's 90 % there already. Mainly minor tweaking.

Currently the amount of new songs is 18. I haven't checked the exact length, and it's also noteworthy that the song lengths may well change with space soundscapes mixed in ... but I think it's around 23 minutes now. That also is a sign that the end of composing stage is getting closer.

Newbie and a funny lil' human error

Composed and recorded a new song tonight. Melodic opening which gives a contrast to furious storm that follows. About one minute long song.

While I was preparing the recording of this forementioned new song, I accidentally made a little mistake. Somehow I managed to save the new song base (which at that point had nothing yet) over the last new song I recorded late sunday evening. Yeah! I instantly knew what I had done, but it didn't make me angry, hardly even a bit. Instead it made me smile ... why? Well, instead of searching the guitar and bass files from hd (they would had been there and still are) and recompiling the whole song from scratch - I decided that I'll just record it all again and it's probably only better after that. So I did. And yeah, it turned out even better. Now some sections, especially the end section is really menacing ... a good mistake, but I won't be repeating it anymore though. :)

Counting beats (or then not even trying)

You could say this was a productive day. That could be even an understatament. :)

I composed and recorded three (!) new songs today, and I didn't even start composing until around 5 pm. I was in the process of recording guitars for second creation, when a nasty grind riff came to me and I composed third song on the fly. What makes me tick, is all these three songs are either furious or plain "crazy" - and I'm not just talking about the tempo. Blasting? Oh yeah. Speed? Oh yeah. But there are some borderline hilarious riffs at some points and the extra edge I'm still doing gives the songs bonus effect that's hard to describe with words.

Song lengths in today's session vary from bit over 30 seconds to bit over 1 minute long.

Warp speeds

Time for another report. To put it shortly; got two new songs composed & recorded since last update. I just finished recording the second one out of these two - you can get the idea what kind of material it is based on approximate song length: 45 seconds. The other new song is around 1min 30sec depending on how the ending on it goes in the final version.

I also got an interesting idea about the space soundscapes for this album - but I have to look more into it would it be worth making. I also came up with the potential album title during past week - or should I say that the potential album title came up with me ... since I was on the way to work, early in the morning train, borderline sleepin' and it suddenly came to me from the dreamworld.

Next up ...

New song just got completed. Following the very same formula, and that doesn't mean it's getting slower but if possible even more blasty and grindy. I felt like I was constantly smiling when I was recording this song and now that I'm listening to the rough bounce mix, I'm smiling even more. Good sign? Nope. It's a great sign! ^_^

I'm getting the feeling that I'm approaching the kind of grind style and mayhem I was dreaming about years ago already.

(all men play on) 10

Finished next newbie tonight. Surprisingly demanding one when it comes to guitars, but it turned out very nicely anyway. And yeah, it's another very, very long song ... about 40 seconds or so. ^_^

Tonight was bit hectic, I might have done another new song otherwise - but there's no hurry so ... until next time. Which, I bet, will be very soon with the current creative mood.