Secret Rites evoked

So what is Secret Rites then? To some extent the concept dates back to 2013. That summer I worked on a project which I labelled Sub-Basement at the time, after the Pentagram album. I pre-produced one tune using Victor Griffin's drop-B tuning. It was a fast paced song, a pretty cool one. And a Vitus ifluenced song which was more rushed. Ultimately it remained unfinished due to practical circumstances, and Blight eventually taking all my focus. 

The idea has come back to me from time to time. The main concept is to play sinister doom metal with influences from black metal, death metal and soundtracks. Here are some main influences: 

- Black Sabbath (self titled track, Electric Funeral, Sabotage album) 

- Bedemon and Death Row era Pentagram 

- Joe Hasselvander (the two Pentagram albums he played guitars on and The Hounds of...) 

- Saint Vitus (debut and Walking Dead EP in particular) 

- Blood Farmers!!! 

- Electric Wizard 1995 - 2010

- Hellhammer and Celtic Frost

- Dream Death and early Penance

- Cathedral (In memoriam, Forest, Soul Sacrifice) 

- Newer doom acts such as Famyne (vocals especially), Serpent Venom, Rote Mare and Solemn Ceremony

- Norwegian black metal 1990 - 95 (Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone, Thorns) 

- Death metal 1989 - 91 (Death, Morbid Angel, Entombed, Soulside Journey/Goatlord) 

- John Carpenter

In march I reinstalled my sound card and started experimented with recording demos at home during quarantine. The first one I did was a doom rock tune inspired by Force (Al Morris III's old band). On this demo I used a bucket as a kick drum and a cake tray as a snare drum. Since I didn't have cymbals, I used a tambourine. The demo turned out surprisingly cool. I was supposed to add vocals and upload it to Soundcloud, but I couldn't come up with a lyric.

After that I recorded two test demos for Elder Ruins using click track and a drum machine. I've never been good at tracking myself to click. I guess I don't have the patience to get it tight enough. I also suspect there is some lag between my sound card and the recording program. Anyway, the bucket and cake tray demo actually turned out more complete than anything I've done with a click track. I also like the concept of recording drums while humming the song and then adding instruments on top of that, like Fenriz did with many of his projects and Varg did with Burzum. A friend of mine also did this with his great Sadhak project. While the drumming of Fenriz and Sadhak is very good, the drums in early Burzum is kind of shaky, yet there is a certain charm to it. And he did get better with each recording session. 

With that in mind I set myself the goal of recording a demo on my own using the drum kit in the rehearsal room once it opened again. I bought my own SM57 mic with money I saved up during the quarantine. At first I wanted to do preprod the new SH tune and played it on drums a few times. I realised however that the song will be straightforward to pass on to the other members without a demo in advance. Then I wanted to record an Elusive Dreams demo with me and Torbjørn as a duo and me performing the drums. I recorded drums for two tracks, but as I added guitars and bass I realised these demos were not tight enough to be released. Still, the drum practice was very useful. Most of the patterns I used were also usable in Secret Rites. 

Sub-basement was resurrected as Secret Rites after a "productive" day at work. The place where I've had my summer job these past years have recently banned any use of music at work. Thus, one often gets lost in thoughts. Sometimes for the worse, but this day I started to hum this John Carpenter style melody. I soon started to think where a song based on this melody would go. I took short breaks to the bathroom to hum ideas into my phone and before I knew it I had an outline for the entire song. 

After working a bit on it at home and at rehearsals, I set up my gear at the rehearsal place the entire last week of my holiday. I recorded a take of drums and actually managed to get through the whole thing without major fuckups on the first take. It's shaky and the BPM is not consistent, but it works. I spent the next days adding guitars, leads, some noises (fake tape hiss and a creaking chair), before adding vocals. I needed to experiment a bit with different layers and effects. I actually found that sitting down and using a setting with delay and slight distortion gave the best vocal results, and I think my performance on this demo track is better or at least cooler than on the SH album so far. With both the guitars and the vocals I went for a more sinister and "crazy" vibe, which was a lot of fun. The track turned out almost 13 minutes long. At the moment I am figuring out the bass which I will record at home right into the sound card. 

One problem I faced is that the recording program I use only allow 8 tracks, so practically speaking I am working with a digital 8 track recorder. Since I rarely tracked vocals before I never faced this problem. While it feels a bit old school to work with an 8 track philosophy, punching overdubs  into channels for leadguitars etc made the whole thing a bit chaotic. So when I continue making this demo, I'll probably buy a licence for a different program. 

I recorded one demo track that is almost complete for now, and one "jam" that I'm going to add some extra stuff to. So far very happy with this and it feels like this is a one man project that is actually doable. The vibe in the song became what I wanted. Going further I am reworking an old SH idea from 2010 and I am working on a new Blood Farmers influenced tune these days. I also want to use the drop-B tune from 2013, but that song will be more difficult to play on drums, so I will need to get better or use a session drummer for that one. It will not be on this release. 

I aim to release a rough version of the first demo track and the jam on bandcamp once the recordings are complete. And when the whole demo is done I'll want to get it properly mixed and mastered for a release on CD and/or tape. Not sure if I'll outsource this part or I will try to learn how to do basic mixing and mastering myself. Maybe mix myself and pay for mastering when the whole thing is done. 

Belief or disbelief rests with you! 

In times of Pandemic

Avé! 

A lot of things happen during a year. These last 365+ days - A LOT - has been going on. Here is an update on the status of my projects and a new "profile" for this blog.

Strange Horizon: 

SH got going again late last summer. After a so-so gig on a private event in early august, we got into regular rehearsals for most of the autumn and started to prepare an album recording in early 2020. We had 7 of 8 songs in rehearsal and the final one - an instrumental - was supposed to be rehearsed this spring. In december/january we focused on the five oldest tracks and went to a studio in late january. We got all five tracks done with some cool overdubs and extra effects. Having listening to early mixes of these tracks I'm pretty happy with how they came out. Some vocal parts I feel might have to be re-done, as well as some minor guitar stuff (some pick scratching aka FJOM). 

The plan forward was to focus on the two newest tracks as well as learning the intstrumental. We were supposed to play these three tracks at a small gig on april 23rd and then head right into the studio to record them. A simple plan, right? Me and the bass player recorded a pre-prod for the instrumental with a drum machine which turned out pretty nice. We got through it a few times at rehearsal, but the drummer didn't seem to be really into it. I think it could have grown with time though. The weeks after the studio we once again ran into a period of several cancelled rehearsals and practical difficulties. Then of course, the corona pandemic happened. Within a few days the rehearsal room was closed. I managed to bring most of my equipment home and thus a new era started. 

We quickly decided to shelve the instrumental for a future release, given that we barely got to play it as a band before things closed.. I also realised that it might make the album too long for one LP, which could be a problem. Me and the bass player have been working on a smaller Planet Caravan esque piece which we might include instead to hopefully create some dynamics and variation. We shall see. 

As it stands, we have had access to a temporary rehearsal room since mid june but have not had a proper rehearsal yet. Might get into it soon, might not. I hope of course to be able to finish this release, but I feel that I am tired of these tunes and kind of worn out on the whole band. It should have been so much simpler to just be effective and get shit done and I feel that these delays are out of my control. Of course, Covid-19 cannot be blamed on any of us. But there was a decline in band activity before covid-19 and even after we were allowed to start up again very little has happened. 

There was some talk about re-releasing the demo on CD and include some studio mixes as well as contacting possible labels. But as long as we're not rehearsing I have no motivation to do any "voluntary" work regarding SH. Again, the future is open ended. I don't know. I'd like to finish what we begun, but if it falls apart it is not the end of the world. As long as my voice and hands work, I'll be doing something, you'll see.  

Elder Ruins: 

"Hvis du skal få noe gjort så må du gjørra det sjæl" is a saying in Norwegian. It means "if you want to get something done, you have to do it yourself" and there is truth to that. So while SH has declined, my side projects have made some nice progress during this time. I started Elder Ruins last summer and have picked up on it every now and then. As it stands I have 3 mini LPs planned. I write for these whenever I feel inspired to do so. During the semi-lockdown I tried out some ideas recording with my sound card and computer. One of these was a piece with only synth. Since I actually played "live" to a programmed beat and copy-pasted different layers, it turned out a bit untight, but I liked the general feel of it. A nice experiment to do. 

I also recorded a drum machine preprod of just the ending part of a song featuring guitars, bass, synth and harmony vocals, which I put up on soundcloud. Although it was messy playing wise, the atmosphere turned out quite nice. Several people gave very positive feedback on this one. Some even liked it more than SH while others were put off by the playing. Still, a nice experience and a confirmation that this project has some potential. 

As it stands, I will keep working on it for as long time as it takes. And then I want to actually pay for proper studio recordings when I feel ready for it. I want someone to help me track the instruments and get the mixing/mastering right. 

Elusive Dreams: 

This project has been mentioned here before. Elusive Dreams is a more US doom and hard rock influenced project which I have shared with a former bandmate from Blight. We have been talking on and off about this project over the years. It never ended, but it has not materialised either. 

As SH activity in febuary declined the idea of starting another band came to be. I made some plans and the more I thought about it, the more I felt like basing a new band on Elusive Dreams. I wrote some new, slightly simpler, doomy rock tunes. One acoustic one, even. This was my main focus during the first weeks of lockdown, and then I returned to Elder Ruins as a focus project in late april/may. In late may/early june I got some renewed faith in SH, so I refreshed some future ideas and wrote a new pretty cool tune. 

In july I felt like trying out more Elusive Dreams. Since I now had access to a rehearsal room again I tried to record drums for a few songs, which I added guitars and bass to. The initial aim was to record as much as I could and then get Torbjørn to add lead guitars. Then getting someone to mix and master the songs and release them. However, the recordings did not turn out as tight as I hoped. I still think about finishing them as something to show to potential bandmembers in the future, but at the moment I do not aim to release these versions. Torbjørn is quite busy with Blight and another project at the moment, so the project is back on hold. But we'll stay in touch. Might pick it up again sooner rather than later! 

So what are these Secret Rites then? 

Like I said I aim to do Elder Ruins as a one man project. But since I want that project to be really good, I feel that I need more experince as a multi instrumentalist, as well as with recording myself playing. Thus, a new project based on both old and new ideas have surfaced. More about this in the next post. 

As it stands, this blog is dedicated to all my projects, but the focal point going forward here will be Secret Rites. This has changed before and will change again, but let's just see. More about Secret Rites soon....