Yölento - Night Flight
Last week, on Valentine's Day, our first cover release came out on Bandcamp and all the other platforms. It's received a nice bit of attention, seeing as we did it of a Finnish song and in Finnish language as well. Onyx Music Reviews kindly wrote a praising piece about it, which you can read here:
We've been working on this song for quite some time, so it was really nice to see the outcome and the fruit it hopefully will bear.
Yölento- project started out as a collaboration of just the two of us, Kimmo and me, but in the course of time we decided to make it a Hateful Chains release, partly because of the possible attention it might gather on the Finnish music scene, partly just for the fun of it, just to give out some ear candy while you wait for the next album and it's main single releases. We've been thinking out and processing ideas for other covers as well, so you'll probably hear about them at some point.
The original song is written and composed by Juice Leskinen, one of the most important songwriters and especially lyricists in Finnish pop-music history. It was the title song on Juice Leskinen Grand Slam's album 1986 album Yölento. There were other songs that were hits, played on the radio and engraved in the minds of Finnish people for decades to come, but the title song wasn't such a piece, maybe because of it's length? I appreciate Juice's lyrics and talent in making catchy songs, but of course this album or his music in general doesn't represent the Goth aesthetic or mindset in any way. He's more a representative of the general Finnish style of pop-music.
But there was something about this song. Something in it reminded me of eightie's Post Punk or New Wave. It might have been something as so seemingly insignificant as the snare drum sound, which immediately took me to the soundscapes of The Cure's slower and more melancholy songs. It might have been the repeating and, in the end, quite simple melodies, building up a song structure often found in afore mentioned band's songs too. It might have been the synth sounds, which were of course very eighties. Perhaps it was the combination of it all that just echoed the influences of the key music to my beloved genre. What ever it was, it spoke to me at a very deep level, and most of all due to the lyrics.
Yölento, or Night Flight, describes an aviator, or the poet himself as I have interpreted. He is out there, flying over the night skies, in the turmoils of the world. He doesn't know which way is up, he's lost himself in the atmosphere of a whiches mount. Will there ever be a painless night? Will the work continue? Will we still be marching to peace and war, like soldiers? He ponders, and in the end, he just wants to rest in the lap of his lover. The word "rest" is repeated in the refrain in every verse, which to me emphasizes it's weight and meaning. It's one of the most beautiful thoughts I can imagine, that in your partners arms you rest and are relieved from all your woes, for a moment.
So in the end, the reason we wanted to make this cover, was because it was a personal favourite. What better reason? So, we set out as a duo recording a favourite song, but further in the process we decided that it should be a HC release after all, and all players should be included. That meant all the instruments would be recorded by their players. And that's what we did: Drums were recorded in the drummer's cellar, literally, the bass and it's solo-part in our eight-floor-studio, as well as Guitars and my Vocals. Additional vocals were recorded by Kimmo and Ikke (the bass player), to give the choir parts a little more depth. We also knew musicians from the clasical music field in Turku, so we were able to record timpani with the kind assistance of our friend Olli Lehti, a percussionist. In my opinion, that gave the song a little extra something.
For the cover image I chose to modify a picture of Otto Lilienthal, who was the father of both aviation and gliding. The Wright brothers based their work on his findings, at least that's what I found out reading about him. He tried out his inventions himself and sadly died as result of these experiments. So, I chose his character to represent the aviator, the poet or dreamer of this song.
Our record label, Danse Macabre Records kindly released this song for us, and now that it's out there, I hope it will be the ear candy we sought to make it, while recording and processing of album number two still continues. So, thank you Danse Macabre!
Just before the release we also received news that Adrienne LaVey, the Youtuber who goes by the name Ligea Resurrected, had uploaded her review of our first album on our channel. It was marvelous, very analythic and a very praising review. I was quite beside myself, in a good way! I really enjoyed hearing someone describing our music from a listeners point of view, really getting it and also interpretting some things in way I hadn't even thought about.
I'm very thankful for her doing this. It's not easy to get heard or seen even in the marginal scene of Goth music, so the work these influencers do is invaluable to all the small bands out there. So, thank you Adrienne! And thank you also Adele Sinnamon, of Onyx Music reviews, for giving a song in Finnish language such attention!
Yours, Flora
