Behold, an album of all-new 8-bit music! An original soundtrack to a game that was lost to time! An epic tale of a heroine versus the ultimate evil, Draakula!
Verily, dear friends, yours truly has composed an album of 8-bit music for a “lost” horror-adventure game (in reality, it never existed) entitled Draakula. Who is Draakula, you ask? He is, of course, the villain of the piece, a Dutch count who lusts for blood and transforms not into a bat, but a dragon! (“Draak” is the Dutch word for “dragon”). Against him is a red-armored, purple-haired warrior, navigating the dangerous caves and cliffs of a mountain range littered with ghouls, goblins, and all things fearsome. Will she defeat the evil creatures, or be a victim of the dark, hollow caves?
The album includes a theme track (that would be played on the PRESS START screen), a boss battle theme, and six tracks between, one for each “level” of the game. The levels exist only in the mind, but I’m sure you can imagine what kind of subterranean tumult “Spooky Ghoul Chaos” would accompany. Or perhaps you could imagine the the open-air, high-up, snowy world of “Frigid Ridges”. And who couldn’t set their imagination alight with the creepy notes of “Caves of Spectral Luminance”?
For the music nerds out there, I composed this music using the strict compositional limitations of the Nintendo Entertainment System. All tracks are made with 3 instrument tracks only and a percussion track. And no chords here, either. Single notes, only! (I look forward to geeking out about this in a later, in-depth article about the creative process).
The album artwork was done by the brilliant Pixel artist Slynyrd! I just love it. Visit his website here, and see a time-lapse video of the artwork being created here!
Do yourself a favor (if you’re brave enough!) and head on over to the Bandcamp page. It is currently available in full, for streaming or purchase!
Here I am with another blog article! This time, I am going to wax long about two things I like, so you’ll have to deal with that. Been a while since I’ve written a blog article! I had the busiest-as-hell July, but I wanna get writing. This isn’t 2007 anymore. Nice blogs cost money now, and i’m shelling out the “hard”-earned cash for this, so I want to get my money’s worth. So I’m going to get my money’s worth by explaining why a Norwegian symphonic black metal band could and should compose music for the biggest space fantasy of all time.
So, I’ve been a primarily-listening-to-metal guy probably since about 2006. It was touch and go with punk and conscious rap there for a while, but eventually the guitars and growls won out. Maybe if there had been conscious rap about Vikings or troll sagas…who can say?! In my early years, and for much of the following, I stayed pretty close to Finnish metal, ignoring Swedish, Norwegian, and other Nordic bands. I’d heard Dimmu Borgir before, but honestly never caught onto them. I think this is mostly because I was introduced to their music through their music videos, which mostly feature them standing around, alone, in big empty spaces looking…scary? I understand metal budgets are cheap, but it doesn’t help the music to have the band members standing around like costumed amusement park haunted-house employees, fingers clenched as if holding an invisible pomegranate, grimacing into the ether.
Pure nightmare fuel!
Dimmu Borgir or Muppet?
Is he, like, laughing?
Earlier this year, my Spotify algorithm was like “please listen to something else other than these four bands and Johnny Mathis” and threw me Dimmu Borgir, and I said back “okay, fine, it has a skull on the album cover, whatever”. This time, Dimmu Borgir worked. And boy, did it work! “Gateways” was the one that got me hooked (which I always thought was a funny coincidence). In the ensuing weeks, I listened to their Abrahadbra album hella. (Don’t worry, Dimmu fans, I am slowly listening to their older, more pure black-metal stuff. Calm down).
In this immersion, I would often watch their live videos while working from home, that is, processing online orders for a bookstore (nothing reminds one of the written word more than screechy vocals and choir-laden, double-bass apocalypse!). In their career performing live, they’ve sometimes performed with a whole entire orchestra, and sometimes, the orchestra will play an orchestra-only version of their songs! I was enjoying these too, in a music-score kind of way, when it struck me. Dimmu Borgir could totally compose music for fucking Star Wars.
Now, my history with Star Wars is long and conflicted and could cover 10,000 blog articles, but the short version is: I love the old movies to death, abhor the prequels, got excited for the Disney era, loved Force Awakens, and hated everything else except Solo. I don’t watch the cartoons and Mando was like whatever. Basically, I haven’t been happy with it for a long time. In my own life head-canon, I somehow get rich enough to wrangle Star Wars from the Disney claws and can finance my own fucking Star Wars movies (or at least get license to from them). With this plan in the back of my head, I am always on the look-out for Star Wars-y music that will serve as soundtracks to these hypothetical new films (that would probably take place far after Return of the Jedi, and for the record, would be good and would not be shit).
So, all right, enough talk and set up, this isn’t a recipe! Here is why I think Dimmu Borgir could compose some fuckin’ Star Wars music.
Exhibit A: “Eradication Instincts Defined (Orchestral Version)
Doesn’t this just sound like some sweet old Star Wars music? Right off the bat, it sounds like some dark-side user and their cadre of cronies are up to no good. Can’t you just see it in your mind? Some dark lord marching along with some troopers behind them? Or perhaps, this could be the theme of a new villainous organization. I might remove the choir, since Star Wars barely had that shit, but keep the instrumentation. I just love it.
Approaching 1:50, the song’s mood changes to some urgency. High tension between the stars! For this, I can see some officers on some good-guy ship discussing some plans to deal with a nasty blow to their war strategy (or something like that). Then we get to 3:10, and something bad has happened. Oh man! Someone is tumbling to their imminent death! Or a vital ship is going down! Round back to the opening melody and you got your evildoers bein’ jerks again. Fuck yeah.
Exhibit B: The beginning of “The Serpentine Offering”
The orchestral part of this song only goes for 45 seconds, but I mean, come on. You thought there was an evil theme in the last one, well listen to this. What classic, militaristic villain music. Does it sound like “Imperial March” in the beginning? Well, yes it does, but the lead melody is different, so fuck it. Just imagine another villain coming onto the screen to this music. Delightful.
So, yes, let’s get these two together. There are other orchestra-only songs they have, but “Eradication Instincts Defined” is really the best example of their Star Wars-y-ness. What do you think? (I don’t know if I allow comments on this blog, if not, just as rhetorical, see the question!)
Wouldn’t this be cool? Come check cinemas in 25 years when this happens! If all goes according to plan, I’ll be able to independently produce Star Wars movies (Big D can keep all the money), and Dimmu would still be kicking around. Hmm..now I’m going to be thinking about these future Star Wars movies all day… Thank you for reading and may the force be with your unhallowed soul!
As you read from the title, I got rejected today. Don’t worry, though. This is not a mopey-type blog post, nor one rife with complaining, nor anything to deal with love. I didn’t get rejected by a job or romantic pursuit. I got rejected by Century Media Records. Well, more specifically, my music did.
If you didn’t know, I’ve dabbed in the composition and making of metal music, namely the sub-genres of folk and industrial metal. Such dabbling over the past four years has led to three full-length albums of varying degrees of compositional and technical skill. (My first two albums were made entirely of computer sounds. Fuck yeah. \m/)
All musicians, artists, or just creative people trying to make content face roadblocks and loads of rejection. That is simply how it is. I’m no stranger to this, nor the bewilderment that comes along with people when I show them my works. One administrator of an online folk-metal forum took a look at my computer-midi band and said “I don’t know what to think… .” Let’s just say I made him speechless.
Despite this history of confusion and rejection, I was (and still am) feeling pretty good about my newest batch of industrial metal songs, the second half of what will be Fadenfreude’s second album. After recording them this last February, and liking what I was hearing, I decided that maybe, when the record is all done and whatever, I should totally mail it off to record companies and see if I could nab a record deal. I mean why not at least try it? You never know, right?
Humble beginnings, yo
After looking up a couple labels of some bands I like, I stumbled upon Century Media Records’ website, and noticed that their USA office was in walking distance from my apartment/recording studio/film studio/place I pass out in. Can you fucking believe it? Not only was their office in the USA within walking distance, but their only office in this here western hemisphere! Right down the fucking street. So how could I NOT submit my demo? And hey, since they are so close, why not submit it in person?
The website instructs to mail the demos, but because I don’t like following instructions, and because I live like right there, I decided to just turn the thing over in person. After asking if they had any open positions and hearing they had none, I returned the next week with five copies of my 4-track demo. I don’t know why I made five copies. I guess I was just excited to share some music, so I thought “why not give it out to as many people there as possible?!” Free metal! Free metal for everyone!
Everyone in the audience is getting one!
So I waited two weeks before returning, which was today. Their website states they will contact anyone if they love said person’s music. They didn’t call me, so I decided to wait outside the locked door until some dude came in. I got that dude to get a hold of the two guys I’d given the metal to and it was with seemingly great reluctance that we had a little discussion about my demo.
The guy to my right told me that the recording was “just so rough” and that he couldn’t even hear if the music was good or not. He expressed to me to get the free audio-mixing program Audacity (I already have it). The guy to my left said that the fact the metal is in another language, like, having that whole language barrier, could be a problem. (I never listen to metal for the lyrics, but some people do. . .apparently?) He also told me that, next time when I submit, I shouldn’t just write on a blank disc with a Sharpie. (Cost efficient but no profesional).
With head held pretty much the same way as when I went in (level, not up nor down), I departed, and returned to my home/recording studio/messy room/messy recording studio and wrote this. Sure, I was rejected (like no duh), but in that short little talk, they did tell me some things, like “get better recording”, “get a better mixer”, and “print out your CDs”, which basically translates to “make more money, make more money,” and “make more money.” Which kinda sucks, but oh well. At least they didn’t say anything about the music sucking, but rather the quality of the recording.
Looking back, (well, not that I even have much to look back on. It has been like less than an hour,) I’m still happy with the result. Of course I was going to get rejected. It’s very-roughly-recorded metal. It’s in German. It’s not even a real band. I’ve never performed live. It’s just me diddling around in my room. Even the bands with high production value, and tons of gigs, and tons of fans get turned away.
But at least I tried, which is essentially the theme of this little piece, and which, I think is something you have to do when you’re a budding creative person. Record stuff in your room and then take it in to an international record label. Why not? Wait outside until someone walks out and then slip inside to be heard. This is how George Lazenby got to be James fucking Bond. Don’t endanger anyone, for sure, but if you won’t go to silly and ridiculous lengths for your own works, no one else will. At least that’s what I’ve heard from all the successful artists I admire today. Sure, I might make people shake their heads in confusion, but now I can say that I have submitted a demo to a record label, which is pretty damn cool.
The guy to my right told me that I should get Audacity and save up some money. Money is always a struggle, but audacity? If anything, I have too much!
-Casey of the (roughly-recorded) Fadenfreude
P.S. Now that Century Media won’t be putting out my record (like no duh), I’ll be doing it myself. So be prepared for the marketing blitz I’m going to bombard you all with when these 11 (or 12?) tracks are finished! It’s gonna be pretty great, I think. I might even throw a launch party. It might be BYOBW (Bring Your Own Box-Wine), though, just saying.
Fadenfreude is my industrial metal music project. Originally an experiment for 2012’s “February Album Writing Month” (a challenge to write fourteen original songs in twenty-eight days of February), Taking inspiration from European Industrial bands like Ruoska, Turmion Kätilöt, and Rammstein, Fadenfreude has grown into something more than a mere experiment.
Hey there, Linnalapset! Been a while since I have posted on here, but do not worry, Linnalapsi is not forgotten! Quite the contrary, actually, as work on the third album continues slowly as I focus on other projects. But this is no place to talk about those, and let’s not talking about the nine-,eight-,ten- (?)-track Linnalapsi III just album yet. It’s time to take a look back on “Menneisyyden Laulut” (second Linnalapsi album, to be referenced here as ‘ML’), which I released one year ago today.
It’s weird to think that it has been a year since I released ML, especially since it seem like it took a billion freakin’ years to come out. While the initial splash wasn’t as big as I anticipated (y’know, not getting me the top spot at Wacken and all…), I slowly began to see ML pop on random blogs and metal tracker websites from all over the world. For the first time ever, Linnalapsi was somewhere on the web where I didn’t personally put it, which is pretty damn cool (and nice for a change).
Some statistics. . .
If you know me personally, you’ll know that I am stats freak (just ask my friends about my custom-made Xbox FIFA stats that one summer…). Now and then throughout the last year, I was monitoring Linnalapsi’s “growth” throughout the web. While it didn’t grow into a massive tree or anything, here is what I found:
-In the year after the release of ML, Linnalapsi’s official website received a 280% increase in hits than the previous year, the most of which came from Germany. Besides the USA, Russia, Finland, and UK were the most frequent visitors. That’s pretty cool!
-Linnalapsi and ML have popped up on numerous metal bloggy things and forums from all over the world (even though they all say I’m from Finland, lol). According to my bandcamp site and just one other site that gives downloads numbers, ML has been downloaded 77 times. That averages out to someone downloading the album every five or so days. That’s not too hot, but remember, this is just the data from TWO of the sites. Odin only knows how many more times ML has been downloaded from all those other file-sharing sites!
-On Youtube, the ML videos have amassed a little under 2,000 views. That is nothing compared to other bands’ 9,000 or even big bands’ 40,000 (a month) views, but hey, I’ll take it.
Compared to the first album’s numbers, that is pretty impressive (there were months when this site got zero hits). With numbers like that, we can guess that about 1,000 new people learned about Linnalapsi last year. Hell, even if it’s 500 new people, that’s still 500 new people who didn’t know about you or your music a year ago. And as one of my friends said it, ‘Dude, someone is Estonia could have you on there iPod.” He was right.” SOMEONE IN ESTONIA *COULD* HAVE ME ON THEIR IPOD, and that’s a pretty encouraging thought.
Marching Ahead to Album III
Despite one nice, decent review and a couple other statements of “good work, dude”, ML was not received with much love by, well, anyone. That’s all right, though. I can see ML’s faults now: some of the song structures are repetitive, the drumwork (which I had no clue about) can be a bit boring, the synthy sounds are not desirable, and my growling (and just regular) vocals are no good. I might have known some of this before, but either wasn’t mature enough of a composer, or didn’t take Linnalapsi seriously enough to make it absolutely great. That’s all right, though, ML is the best album I could have made at that time, just as the first album, “Laulu Linnalapsien” was the best I could do at that time.
But now is now, and with each month, or riff, or song, you learn to get better at things. I feel like there is an immense quality gap between the first and second album, and I feel the same will happen again for album III. I always hear composers and musicians saying “our new album is going to be the best we’ve ever done”, and while I’ve never really believed it, I can now understand where it is coming from. Just as I was assuring you my second album would be better than the first, I can guarantee without a doubt in my mind that the upcoming Linnalapsi album will be the best one so far! Most of the songs’ demo-versions are done (or close to being done), and they’re CATCHY AS HELL. Whether it’s the evil poundings of a piano, the sinister plucking of a banjo, the roar of mischievous horns, an epic call for battle, or that tear-jerkin’ melancholic solo, Linnalapsi III will be sure to get the blood of any folk-metal fan riling. I guess what I am trying to say is that these new songs have gotten MY blood riling, and I’m excited to share them with all of you (y’know, in a billion years when they’re done).
Thanks for listening,
Oh, and if you haven’t downloaded ML yet, you can do so here!
Casey Poma 