sunnuntai 22. kesäkuuta 2014

Enter the 36th Chamber of Mausoleum!


"There is only 35 chambers. There is no 36th. ? I know that, but ... I want to create a new chamber."

This is quote from classic old-school kung-fu film 36th Chamber of Shaolin. It has certain wisdom in it..
I always feel, once creating a new music, that I try to create my own 36th chamber, and add something unique to allready existing complex of musical discographies! It has taken us long time to create debut album of Mausoleum Gate. And now we are almost finished. I finally managed to mangle out 3rd and final mix revision of the album. Time for party eh?
Not so.. next we have to finnish the artwork and send the thing for mastering. Well Anyways, I'm happy that most of my part is done , it has almost driven me crazy!

Few words about mastering the album... We wanted to have outside mastering for the album, since I have personally recorded and mixed the whole thing, and to be honest , at this point I'm not sure what I'm doing anymore.. so It's time for second opinion! For me mastering is about second opinion on sound. And of course also double check with probably far more advanced listening conditions than we have in our underground lab. What I like about the album soundwise, that it sounds just like our band sounds! I think we have managed to bring out the small details, and even the imperfections in our performance. But all these small details and imperfections are very important part of the musical energy.

And we want to represent it raw , honest , honouring the underground ways.

I had a break on listening the album, before I finnished the mix. and Now it's time to have quick look on what have we done..

First side of the album starts of with Magic of the Gypsy Queen, which is fast heavy metal rocker.. Iron Maidenish opening riff, and then goes on more furious riffing.. Even MiniMoog appears background giving magical atmosphere to track. And for my money, Count delievers really nice solo on this one. Funny thing to notice from start of the album is that our band has this own weird style of playing things (timing , phrasing etc.) which gives it a bit weird feeling sometimes. After Gypsy Queen we enter realm of Demon Droid. This is sinister track of mid tempo heavy metal.

For me the albums propably highlight comes third. the album version of Lost Beyond the Sun show's everything that the current line up stands for. The song starts with simple and hard hitting guitar riff, and then acoustic guitar hit's in and exchanges passages with electric guitars. VP's vocals are shining here, with more down to earth singing and eventually turning in the three part harmonics. For me the band hasn't played as unit any better than here. Personal highlight is the drumming of Oscar Razanez here.. He really delievers the atmosphere this song needs with his obscure approach to rythm and fills. Another interesting feature is the long jam-out session, where we are demonstrating our approach to improvisation. Rythm section delievers something I would call a chance for solo guitarists to lay out different feelings.. And of course real Mellotron on traditional heavy metal setting is epic as hell!

B-Side of the album starts with Oscar's obscure Drum intro, which might be something of a mixture of Conan Barbarian soundtrack and 60's avantgarde music... Then we launch in the hard NWOBHM rocker Mercenaries of Steel, which is the Heavy Metal song of the album.. The main riff on the song reminds me of classic 8-bit games music and the hardrockin guitar solo is highlight for me! After the obscure transition of drums, bass and hammond organ jam, we present the probably darkest and most "metallish" song on the album , There must be demons. Kasperi's solo guitar is cool here, and VP delievers again great and very different vocals!

B-Side closes with the longest track on the album Mausoleum Gate. The track basically has everything you can expect from traditional heavy metal epic.
I'm feeling really pompous while listening to this haha! And of course the orchestrations here are done old-school style, with Mellotron, acoustic guitar, hammond organ and vocal overdubs with tons of reverb, giving this out there feeling. And Oscar again delievers crazed groove. Also Expect tons of lead guitar work on middle section...


To sum the record up, I think it fuses quite a lot influences together, and hopefully the audience will enjoy what they hear. And hopefully this album takes more than few listens , since I think there are quite a lot hidden details here... For me one of the great things is that, the tracks presented on the album has matured since we started working on the album project. We added allkinds of tiny details to them, that weren't there before.

And to open up few possibilities regarding album, list of seven albums that I personally listened heavily for influence and inspiration while working on this album:

1.Yes - Close to the Edge
2.Led Zeppelin - The Song remains the Same
3.Miles Davis - Miles Smiles
4.Neil Young - Zuma
5.Mahler - Symphony No.9 (various recorded versions)
6.Radiohead- Ok Computer
7.Rainbow - Rising

Now it's up to listener to decide, wheter to like or not.. We have done all we can with our abilities right now, and we shall move further and countinue the madness of MAUSOLEUM GATE!

The Full Lenght should be out on Cruz Del Sur Music, October/November this year. While waiting for this, you can still check out our earlier offerings!

SEMI 001 - Mausoleum Gate - OBsessed by Metal 7"
SEMI 002 - Mausoleum Gate - Gateways for the Wicked Demo re-issue Tape  
SEMI 003 - Mausoleum Gate - Heavy Metal Tradicionalista T-shirt  (random sizes available)
SEMI 004 - Mausoleum Gate - Obsessed by Metal and Gateways for the Wicked Sessions CD (Only Wholsale starting from 10 copies of more)

Available from various distributions or directly from Semistimiinuksella@gmail.com   

-Wicked

torstai 23. tammikuuta 2014

Some serious mixing and fixing

UUH... Finally time to give update from Mausoleum Gate camp! The debut album of the group is almost complete! Just finnished the second complete revision of the mix , and now we are in the middle of heavy listening session! We are playing the recording for the trusted persons, and possible parties involving the release of the album. The idea that we have extended listenings at this point, is that we want to have some input on sound poltics and stuff, just in case there are some unadressed problems etc. And othervise because we have listened the stuff too much, just some comments how it comes out!

What took us so long, even though most of the stuff were recorded few months ago? Cannot really say, but things sometimes need time! And of course there were tons of other stuff to do as well! And for me the tricky thing was also to get the keyboard parts right, choose the right vocal takes, best solos etc. We had this idea, that we want to have record that sounds like it is band playing live, although we don't have facilities good enough to do it live. The basic idea was to record and use long takes and leave some obscurities on tracks, as long as they are not too bothering. Like you have some tiny time differences and stuff when you play live. I think the result sounds quite "played" and lively, although I really have to dig into the mastering of the record.. Revision 2 we are currently checking out was done by me, but Not sure if I do it myself, or if we have budget, somebody else does it?!? We'll see...

Now some stuff about the album and the music itself. There are 6 tracks, totalling 40 minutes of music! For some this might sound low running time, but for me the rule of the thumb is that once the record fits in one 12" vinyl, the lenght is just right.. and this one sits in quite nicely! Then the music itself! Well like you might expect with Mausoleum Gate, TRADITIONAL AND OBSCURE HEAVY METAL! But in a way I thing we went bit further to the Obscure Direction than before. I think all the involved parties took more risks in playing vise than before... Especially I think Rythm section plays more freely than before, which is maybe heard also with more natural drum sounds than before. Talking about sounds, the guitar sound for my money is really great.. All you need is single channel tube amplifier and then you have to nail it with playing (Laney GH50L and Marshall JMP 2203 was used)! And by the way, we only used three keyboard instruments on the album : Mellotron , MiniMoog Model D and Hammond C3 organ! Talking about old-school...

When the stuff will be out then? Hopefully if everything goes well during the spring! And if everything goes accoding to plan both cd and 12" vinyl, but things rarely go hahahah!

- Wicked