Live Giggin!

                                       

Live venues have been opening one by one here in Turku, Finland. First there were still some restrictions but even those last ones have now been removed. So every band has around here has been busy asking around for gig opportunities, and we have done our part. This month we have not one, but two live gigs, one we already had at Turku band Festival on March 19th and the other will be at Hard Rock House, Helsinki, on 31th March. Finally some action, finally out of town! We've been waiting for this!

As you may be aware, the work to get gigs starts months, sometimes a year ahead before the actual show date. In this case too. Turku Band Festival usually announces it's application process in October and the bands are chosen by the end of November. The festival was supposed to be held in January, like it always is, but because of the corona situation not being that good it got postponed. Luckily, the new date fit all our schedules. That is not self evident, since all of us have other music projects as well. 

Come March, it seemed like the situation would be better, at least when it came to vaccinations: more people covered. But the number of actual cases has been quite high, it's just that the disease itself isn't that serious or risky anymore for most people. Still, if you catch it, you stay home. So, the date of the festival was kept but two bands out of four actually cancelled due to illness. There was only us and Turku based Metal Band Rahko playing. Despite that there were people enough to fill the place, and even though the place itself was a bit remote. 

We played first, had a blast! The sound guy knew what he was doing. (and there was a sound guy!) We heard everything quite clearly to the stage and there were no complaint from the audience either. The set we had formed included a few new songs, so there was an element of surprise and excitement for us too. All went well and was over too soon! The only thing that went wrong was a pick that flew out of my fingers at the very last minute while playing Siouxsie on the Beach! Oh well, continued with hands only then...

Rahko was a full-on Metal band, a lot of influences from Black Metal (to my ears at least) with the female vocalist growling in Finnish. Incredible concept! It was all very well thought, energetic, aggressive music, sometimes adding beautiful clean vocal lines into the mix. The vocalist was very talented, in my opinion. I don't know how to really growl, I just sometimes use the false chords as a spice up to the vocals. But judging on how her clean vocals sounded right after growling and her speech after the gig, she knew her stuff! No sign of fatigue what so ever. Impressive! Alas, and unfortunately, they announced just at the end of the show, that this was her last one with them. Hopefully they'll all find the path that's right for them. It's just a bit sad to see a good thing end...

Anyway, Thank you Rahko, for allowing us to use your equipment and being there with us! We hope to see you around in the Turku live music scene! And Thank you Turku Band Festival for having us! We'd love to participate again!

So, next week we'll play at Roihuvuori, Helsinki, at a place called Hard Rock House. We asked about their Thursday Club slots maybe a year ago already, but then the restrictions kept many venues from opening. Even when these were at times lifted, all the venues just couldn't take the risk, having to arrange everything with the corona passes etc. So I had settled for nothing probably happening. but then they returned to us out of blue and suggested a slot 31th March. Yess! We asked around and got another band to join us: Grand Sorceress, a Turku based Fuzz Rock/Doom band. Since they had to cancel the festival this will be their debut gig! Makes me really happy to be able to help!

I hope you'll all just swarm Roihuvuori next Thursday! We'll have CD's for sale and we'll rock your socks off! And we have new material, so if you want to hear those new pieces, be there!

Love Flora/ Hateful Chains

 

                                    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:

https://onyxmusicreviews.com/2022/02/14/hateful-chains-yolento/

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

 Plunge into the year 2022

Ok, so the start of the year hasn't been that great, pandemic-wise. Cases have been on the rise so badly, that venues have closed and events have been cancelled. Same old, all over again. I don't know what to think anymore. It seems like a never ending cycle. Spring and summer comes and things get eased up again, venues open, people go to gigs like they used to. Come fall and winter, everything escalates into that miserable limbo where nothing happens and you just wait. Like winter wouldn't be like that already, without the pandemic!

This whole thing has had an effect on us as group. It feels like endless waiting. We are working to advance the music, the possibilities and chaces to play live, but it all seems to be happening in a slower pace. We have to work regular jobs, of course, like everyone else. That takes it's toll, now more than usual, because there are no opportunities to play to an audience and wind up and relax. Which is the salt of this occupation. It feels like we are not allowed to be musicians. And it's been like that for all of these years during the pandemic. Performing arts is the field that has been restricted by a heavier hand than most occupations, including bars and restaurants. Why that is, beats me. It must be the easiest way, and culture folk are expendable. They should get a real job anyway. 

Of course, I understand that measures have to be taken and everything must be done to keep the number of cases low in order not to strain the health system to much. The un-fairness of it just bugs me. But there's no other choice really, than to sit it through and hope for better. That's all we can do as a group, for that matter. Even though it seems like we're just floating in limbo and things don't seem to go forward, and we're just waiting for our turn forever, the reality is that we are doing something, all the time. Little advances, a rehearsal, a recording session, a new mix and mastering that needs to be listened to, a video shoot, an interview.  And not all of it has even reached social media yet, because not all of it at that stage yet. So we don't give up hope. We just work, prepare, then let it out, and see what it bcomes.

One of these things I have been pretty silent about recently is the Crimson Sun music video. We meant to shoot the final scenes before the end of the year, but there were curves on that road. The reason was basically the schedules of many different people, which are kind hard to put together. Must be familiar to anyone doing a group project. The scene involved a bath tub, which could be filmed around. Turns out it's not so easy to find. Hardly anyone has a bath tub in Finland anymore. But an acquaintance who lives a bit further happened to have one. And you could move it around! And the bathroom wall was a nice color too! So in order to go there to shoot we had to reschedule to the second weekend of January. 

Unfortunately I have no pictures of the scene or the filming. But there will be nudity. And a heavy chain! Which our drummer found somewhere and which definitely will be used a prop at some point. I hung some white sheets and curtains all over the place to make it look more mystical, or whatever, and put candles everywhere. Hopefully that does the trick. And the rose petals we sprinkled in the bath water. I'm trusting it will look awesome!

After that there's just the editing and some animation on top of that...

Meanwhile we'll be continuing rehearsals and recording, in order to complete album number two.

May your year 2022 be filled with hope and may it be a better than the previous one!

Flora

                                    

               Crimson Sun 

It's been a month already since the release of our first single of the coming second album. It feels like an eternity, just because of the sheer amount of work and things that have been happening, and because social media has the tendency of warping your sense of time. If you don't post for a few days the thing you did post just gets sucked into the void and it's just like it never existed. Unless the thing goes viral or something, which I think hasn't really happened for us yet. 

Still, the single has been well received and there has been some plays on net radios and interest from magazines. In fact, I just finished answering questions to an interview. One of the things that came up, is the subject of Crimson Sun, and the symbolism in it. I realize I didn't really open it up in the media release, let alone here, because I still wanted to keep a thin veil of mystery to it. But, I figured now would be as good a time as any. It's also perhaps time to start opening up about the general themes and the background of the second album. It's going to be a full series, many posts, so I hope you'll enjoy the ride. I think I will.

One of the reasons we decided to go with Crimson Sun and release it first was because it's themes fell quite neatly as a continuance of the last songs on our first album, thematically, but perhaps musically as well. The theme in Good People was the hypocrisy of human kind, the self-anointing of all of us who think we're good people. 

In Siouxsie on the Beach the theme was the end of the world as we know it, like it had already happened, and how we did nothing about it. To be perfectly clear, it's about climate change and destruction of nature, in which we, the good people, contribute to the most and are not doing enough about. In this I am pretty judgmental, and fully aware of that, but I do count myself into the lot, being a first world inhabitant myself. However, the point of view in both of these songs is lamentation, not that much pointing of fingers, and maybe a somewhat cynical approach. The same approach is present in Crimson Sun. 

In the verses are presented all hopes that we have for the future, all wars being ended, all pain and suffering ending, all that. It's also something many religions and cults promise will happen in the next world, or after death. Towards the end of the verse the question is raised: Why is it not so? Or the attempt to convince oneself: It must be so. And in the chorus the idea of Good People is again present in different words: We hope for a bright future, but keep blaming others for our mistakes, we bathe in the blood of scape goats, but the sun is setting already. Then of course the question comes to mind, who is this "We" the song is describing? Because surely not all people think this way?

The lyrics of Crimson Sun originate in a lengthy exchange I had with my aquaintance, a Jehovah's Wittness. This was a few years ago, before Hateful Chains was formed, at a time when I was in the process of growing out of my Christian faith and organised religion altogether. I lived alone in a new apartment as I was recently divorced, and the doorbell rang. It was them, Jehovah's wittnesses, whom I had always turned away with some excuse, or just taken their leaflets and wished them a happy day, the leaflet ending up in the bin. But now I had nothing to do and felt like I could take the challenge of debating a person from a different sect of faith than me, and enjoy the exchange. 

It turned out to be not very enjoyable, because the Jehovah's Wittnesses have a strict program for their interaction with the people they're trying to recruit and turn into followers. The person who contacted me at first never came alone, she always had another woman with her, and they basically wanted to go through a "program" of explaining their beliefs and persuading me to join. I was looking for a reason to end these programmed "bible studies" and finally it came in the form of a belief I just couldn't accept.

 Among the many wacky and distorted (at that point, in my view, distorted, because I could not yet see the oddities of my christian faith) beliefs, one was just too unjust for my taste: That communion, was not for everybody in the congregation, but only for a select group that counted themselves as one of the chosen. It was something that was against everything I had been taught about the core beliefs of Christianity and made me very angry. So, I stopped the meetings and stopped communication with these people altogether. 

After this episode I had the need to find out, what kind of belief system it actually was, that made people hold on to such strange views and go to such lengths as even refusing blood transfusions and shunning their family members. What better source of that information than the people that used to believe, but have walked away? And to say that Youtube and all of internet was full of them would be an understatement. It seems I hit a time when loads of people had decided to share the story of their "awakening" on the web at the same time. It was a gold mine, not only of information, but also inspiration.

At this time, many lyrics of the forth coming second album came into existence. Some were born out of the process of my own journey, some from the frustration and outright fury, when I found out about the serious injustices and beliefs and systems that hurt people, present in the cults I was looking into. Most of these are about the Jehovah's Wittnesses. Sometimes a song is an end product of a lengthy thought process, and seems to just pop out of nowhere, but when looking back, you understand it was there all along, brewing inside your head. And Crimson Sun is a song like that.

I cooked it up when playing just something on a piano and waiting for my vocal student to come to class. Chorus came first, just had to write it down. And then I made a verse. Chords and melodies at the same time, all just happening so smoothly. The best part, (in my opinion) in which I put my thoughts on the Witnesses in, was the middle eight, where I describe them as carrion birds, picking the bones of the dead. Who else believes that after Armageddon, they will be the ones that survive and will build a new world, be the kings of the corpse mountains? Quite literally, really. But, of course we all wish that things were better, and that the world would some day be a blessing to all of us, not just a select few. So, the last verse is just that, a tiny hope, not much more, that it would be possible. Most of the time it's just too hard to really believe in it.

So, this was the first writing, disclosing the stories and background behind the songs we are currently recording. I'll be writing much more on the subject and the matters of faith from the perspective of one who has walked away, as it has really been a source of inspiration on songwriting and a force of change in my life.

Love, Flora