Out of the Shadows

My holiday has finally begun! Nine and a half months of excessive studying is now over and I am enjoying the fruits of it. I got a scholarship (well, kind of, more accurately it was a Swedish novel given to me and another first grader for "showing interest" in particular for the subject) and my average didn't go down much - last year it was 8.95 in total, now I'm at 8.94. My average for theoretical subjects did however fall from 9.07 to 8.93. The last sixth offered me a few pleasant surprises exam-wise and thus I can't really be unsatisfied though, and I know that most students have had an even bigger decrease in their numbers this year than I have, like much bigger. My live performance still didn't take place as the event where we all thought I would perform turned out to be one for some junior high school students only, making it a little stupid to perform if none of my class mates or peers were watching. Instead we're now looking to perform in the fall, when I may have to search for a new bassist. Hopefully I can persuade the others to play a third song since I'm frankly annoyed of practicing Cyan Lie and Permafrost all over, especially since it's been for nothing so far. I think that (Unholy) Months for Affection for instance would be quite easily manageable.

To keep up with positive news, I am typing this post to you on my new computer, a Toshiba laptop with Windows 7, 4 GB of memory and over 600 GB of hard drive capacity. The screen is luxory compared to the old one and so far everything is running fairly smooth. It took me almost 5 days to get all my important stuff copied from the old PC since I did it all with the help of my MP3 player and two memory cards I had laying around, containing 2 and 4 GB of space. Needless to say, my old PC refused to work all that efficiently as well. :P Lastly, I bought a professional set of drum mics that cost me 170 Euros on my visit to Savonlinna last Wednesday. The unfortunate thing is that there are 7 mics of which I can only use 2 at a time due to my M-Audio MobilePre sound card only having 2 inputs for the needed wire. I also invested 45 Euros on a mic stand for nothing, as it doesn't seem to fit with any of the microphone holders that came with the drumpack. If the Pro Tools M-Powered software that I intend to order later today works though, it's not such a big deal. You see, originally I planned to buy the full version of Pro Tools which costs around 550 Euros, but after doing some research on what would be the optimal choice considering my hardware, M-Powered seems like the perfect choice, costing only 300 Euros. I might need the mic stand in the future, anyway. It's one of those things that you never really have too much around. (Oh, and in case you're wondering... Yes, the drum mics have MAGNIFICENT sound quality.)

My new project is still missing a female singer, but I have finished the first instrumental for it entitled Clutch and might start recording it this summer if I have spare time and resources at some point. I've already started recording the teaser EP (which so far has the working title Perfidy of Judgment containing topical as well as ironic meaning) and as always, there are a few new ideas I got going on even if most of them don't seem all that satisfactory. The one that does hold quite a bit of potential is a song with the working title CITS. It'll be a quite piano-driven track with KoRn and Nostromo influences. Sounds like a contradiction, doesn't it? Heh. It has so much potential that I'm thinking of having it as track #17 on the album, right before the closer. We'll see where it goes... Things have started picking up again with Theban Cycle too, but there's still no reason to expect a new song to be done and finished any time soon.

Besides listening to KoRn and Nostromo, a new familiarity, I found Demon Hunter and Five Finger Death Punch back just a few days ago. Dope Stars Inc. put out a new album just recently which I have listened to, though it doesn't seem to be quite as good as Gigahearts. At the moment I'm listening to some old P.O.D., and am planning to check something new and soft later on, to contrast with the recent times of more and more heavy stuff. Recommendations are welcome.

Today I intend to go swimming and watch some football later (Finland - Sweden part 2... :P). I've already started work by washing some carpets and I might record some more bass before the evening comes. I also want to read - Soren Kierkegaard has been waiting too long for my presence. =) I'll try to make a post again next week. Tack och vi ses då. ;)