5 Dec 2009

The 3rd album studio diary Part II: 3.12. - 31.12.

3.12.

Today I've been going through the first of the two uncompleted songs. Chorus of this 1st one has haunted me for almost a year now, so it's a good sign and I should probably use it! Rehearsals with only a single guitar, however, everything went very fine. The doom and a strange epic-50's song from the end of the forthcoming album sounded very good.

My new beloved guitar was recently adjusted in to perfection, thanks Lottonen! Schecter is extremely light to play and Seymour Duncan pick-ups pick up(!) playing very precisely. Good for metal!

6.12.

Baking bread (literally) at my home, it became out good, I used both oat and wheat. At the same time, I hopped in studio, where I'm laying demo synths for a song, which is pretty heavy, but also influenced by 90's artists from Sweden, like Dr. Alban. Pretty scary, isn't it?;) Beautiful moon tonight.



9.12.

Teemal was busy with his other responsibilities, so we pulled rehearsals without the ancient bass master. Day before today, I decided to prepare again demo backing tape for the new song, alias Dr. Alban, for the rehearsals. The structure of this faster riff-ladden druid metal piece was completed much faster than I thought it could done usually, so I gave it a go. Sounded very nice, we took few refreshments in honour of that, skool.;)



11.12.

The last lyrics are pouring out! This song will be the longest one on the album and it will break totally new ground for us. I'm very excited.:)

12.12.

Rehearsals w/ bass and drums. All went fine, except that I later managed to hurt my back (while sleeping, how can you do that? I can).

17.12.

Yesterday I wrote a (probably) verse part for the last song, no lyrics yet but a humming melody! Later in the evening, watching probably the best movie in the world, 'The Wicker Man' (original 1973 version by Robin Hardy). The DVD included interesting interviews with the director, Christopher Lee etc. And of course, Britt Ekland rules. Should buy the soundtrack someday, great music of Paul Giovanni plus the oldest song in the world...



30.12.

Today we will have he last band rehearsals of this decade!

Earlier, on the afternoon, while travelling to home by train, I wrote the remaining verses and finalised the chorus for the last, still incomplete song. The verse lyrics are very odd and the chorus is the most sorrowful in he history of our band. It could be that I have to make 2 versions of this song. The other one will be very long and the other one will be short.

In the rehearsals, we browsed through lots of new songs, it seems that the forthcoming album won't represent very standard gothic metal.;)

Happy and Mysterious New Year and a New Decade!!

9 Nov 2009

The 3rd album studio diary Part I: 31.10. - 24.11.2009


Hi, this is the first part of the diary, where I write about UNSHINE's forthcoming third album.

These are my personal sightings and notes written at our studio in the ancient and misty backwoods (can you hear the banjos?:)) somewhere in southern Finland, but who knows, maybe somebody else from our band will write at some point (hopefully yes, because it would be too boring to read only my writings)? To your delight (or not), I might also put some other material (pics etc.) on the line.

Hope you do enjoy this diary!!

Harri / UNSHINE

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

31.10.2009. Before our gig in Billnäs (probably our last this year), I decided to make some adjustments to a very slooooow song with which I've been working with for a couple of days now in my home studio. Originally, the song was meant to sound a bit like Jimmy Page & Co, but when we tried it on rehearsals, it was kinda ok, but I thought that it won't fit the overall structure of the album in this form...

And, for heaven's sake, we don't have a REEEAAALLL doom song so far, I noticed to my horror. Well, this will fix the situation sure!

Although the lyrical concept of the song is clear to, me, I've managed to write only half of the verses so far. It's also very disturbing that the first verse was actually born very painlessly (already in 2007, before the release of our previous album). So, there's some brain work to do now.

Guitar parts, which I managed to make today, sounded very gloomy and rich, good then!



1.11. Great gig yesterday at Billnäs. Girls and guys of the two other bands (Soulgrind & Foxy Flammable), the organisers and the crowd were very nice and friendly and the atmosphere of the whole evening (including beautiful moonlight) was very timeless, very very halloween-ish, or kekri-sh, as we'd say and refer to our old and traditional, sadly quite forgotten, harvest time festival!



Timeless moonshine over Billnäs & unshine.



Starshine on mirror!



We are obviously about to see Teemal's moonshine very soon!




Stibe delivered our brand new video "My King" to MySpace and YouYube. Toni Salminen (director) and Stibe have made great work with the whole thing. I really really like this final version and yep, it is actually our first decent video!

4.11. Again I'm stuck with the "environmental doom song". Guitars on the choruses and in the end are good, but verses have oddly started to suck (within my mind).



Around 8 p.m. I suddenly saw the first snow this autumn falling down from the sky. At the same moment, I felt that I had found the one and only solution to the verses. The dark autumn evening and the song melted in to each other. Also, the end part of the song has now this very odd and light part on it, but I guess it could not be more perfect there. It's there, I'm happy!



8.11. Today I was watching Anthony Bourdain (the best travelling eater) on TV and sitting on my sofa trying to develop the lyrics to the doom song. I finally managed to write a decent verse! We'll try this nature doom song now on thursday's rehearsals. If writing in English is sometimes this difficult, I can not imagine what it would be like to write lyrics in Finnish, all my respect to those artists...

11.11. The basic structure and lyrics for the song (that meant to be the last song on the forthcoming album) done now! Hard to describe what it's going to sound like, definitely something really new for us. It seems that we have to try this song too in the next rehearsals at Helsinki. Just sad that the band people are now quite heavily under influenza, so we had to cancel tomorrow's rehearsals and try again on monday. We also decided not to do a proposed gig in Riihimäki on December, as we really have to concentrate on the album rehearsals.

16.11. Since the last time, I've done quite a lot of creational work for the last song on the forthcoming album. We had the (instrumental) rehearsals today, which were FULL work. Teemal had organised a doom metal evening (DOOOMSTOCK) on saturday and the boys were still partially recovering from that experience.;)

We went through the environmental doom song plus the supposedly-the-last-song, which, to my surprise, had actually a very tricky part on it. Even I (as the composer) could not open one certain rhytm part before the verse of the song. In the end, we somehow figured it out, but nobody was sure how. On the way home, through rainy Helsinki, I suddenly realised that the part was on 7/4-rhytm. Well, problem solved.

19.11. Rehearsals went pretty well, although 7/4 seems to represent a higher level of arithmetics for us.;)

21.11. A visit to the dear relatives at Southern Ostrobothnia (Pohojammaa). On there, I suddenly found out that Swallow the Sun & Amorphis will have a gig at Rytmikorjaamo in Seinäjoki tonight, cool! So, visit to there had to be done. Plus we played there last time with Amorphis (those guys were really nice fellas)! Good gigs from the both bands (well, what else can you expext from them?).



StS on stage in Seinäjoki, November 2009.

24.11. I had to take my new Schecter to Lottonen Guitars repairs, as I have not previously done any finer adjustments to it. See you soon.



Schecter Classic C-1.

8 Nov 2009

Pt. 8: Tampere



Laa-la-la-la-la-la(goes very high)-la-la-la-laa...



Veeery emotional (and dirty) people On Tampere backstage.



UNSHINE on ferry between Estonia & Suomi, our beloved homeland.



These people are alive, even though it does not look like that.

Pt. 7: Pärnu



Annika & Klasu in vappu-feelings.



Susanna behind the merchandise table!



An estonian, very thin type cow breed.



Outside the concert place.

27 May 2009

Pt. 6: Klaipeda


Bus driver = superman. 5800 km. There's nothing more to add. Superman.


Fridge from hell.


Klaipeda is a beautiful, relatively large city on the shore of Baltic Sea.


When we came to the venue, construction workers and electricians were finalising the interior, dust was settling down and later in the evening UNSHINE played as the first band ever there!



Madness & insanity!!!

21 May 2009

Pt. 5: Warsaw


The stage of Progresja was the biggest on tour.


Yo man!


The beast and the beauty.


The beauty and the basist.


Progresja also had the largest backstage we've ever seen.


17 people in a same bus for 8 days = inhumanity.

Pt. 4: Prague


In Prague temperature was pretty high but we soon found out that we are not going to suffer from dehydration.


Czech sausages rule!


Our name is still written smaller than Jethro Tull's...


On the road, sleep wherever there is a possibility to do so!


Soundcheck at Bunkr, a great club for playing, tube-like walls must be at least from medieval times, atmospheric & mystic!

11 May 2009

Pt. 3: Berlin



Approaching Berlin (at this time, temperature in the back of the bus reached mythical numbers, +45C).



Berlin - schnitzel heaven.


Jartsa at the gate of Knaack (Berlin - döner kebap heaven).


Building musical towers at Knaack.


The running order (Berlin - female-fronted music heaven).

Pt. 2: Frankfurt (Oder)


Girls on the road!


Boys on the road!


The backstage at Gewölbe was so good that it has grown almost mythical in our memories. Meat soup had so much meat that there was hardly space for 1 potato and 1/2 carrot.


On the way to Berlin: Stibe and Teemal are waiting for the german truck driver breakfast.