Leading Motive

Follow me as we take a journey into the darker regions of our thoughts and our imagination. Think of nightmares; think of shapes you cannot see and yet you can... and you can't hide. Anywhere.

Don't whistle in the dark. At least switch on the lights. :) This song features Perhama a.k.a Sami Nurminen on drums (big thanks!) - check out his bands CONED SPHERE and ETO here on mikseri.net! Finishing this one off took a while, mostly because of me being overly pedantic with the background harmony vocals and the song's ending. I hope we nailed it down well, let us know what you think!

A piece composed by Kari Särkijärvi (guit) and me. This is the final revamped version (therefore also called "Vampires Revamped"). The song went through three versions: First a demo, then a version with improved drums (see the Demo version below), and finally the completed song with a sonically enhanced guitar track. Thanks also go to J. Pekka Mäkelä (www.yrttimaa.net) for the Rickenbacker bass samples.

Being shy is okay. It means you're a nice person. Being too shy ain't good. This song is about being too shy but not losing one's positive view on life. (10 September 2002) For a long time, "Too Old To Be Shy" was the most popular of my songs. It peaked at #449 in the Pop/Rock charts in week 05/2006 (thanks everybody!) and has been on the way back down ever since.

After releasing the demo (below on this page) finalizing of this version took over a year. I completely re-recorded the vocals, which was pretty straightforward, but re-mixing the whole thing was a bit long and tedious. But most importantly, I'm much happier with this version than with the demo, and am happy to have done it. In a way this song meant much to me since it had brought me back to my songwriting/composing hobby in summer 2005. Time to move on to new songs now! :)

This song was very long in the making and goes all the way back to November 1998 when I composed it in a hotel room while on a business trip. From that time, only the harmonies, most of the lyrics, and the bass line remained (courtesy of Cakewalk's WinJammer). The rest has been redone over the years, but only today I was finally happy with the results. Enjoy! The song peaked at #385 in the Pop charts in week 39/2006.

Will you ever realize it's over? When confrontation is all that's left, it means time has come... to go (01 November 2001). The vocal effects got quite some acclaim, so I address my thanks to Sinus for his filter effect plugin "MultiLens" (available at www.sinusweb.de).

The basis of this song was composed in 1998 when I had just moved to Finland. It wasn't before December 2001 however that I finished working on it (arrangement, recording). This is the edited short version, the original's length is 6:04 (see below).

This was my first fully-digital recording and makes extensive use of vocoder effects and 80ies-style gated drums. (Phil Collins, anyone?) For the collectors of trivia out there, this is the opening song for a short story I never completed. And going against all rules of show business, this song (composed in 1997, recorded in 1999 and finished in December 2001) precedes the release of the story. Plans are to release the completed story as a Visual Novel in spring 2007.

An older, improvised jazzy instrumental piece, originally from 1997, redone in December 2001. Nice, laid-back feeling and very different from my other songs.

This song is published here for the first time since it was made in December 2001. It is the original long version of "Who Am I?" (see above). In the end, many proposed to cut the ending off. Here is the full song, you decide which one you like more! :)

Nostalgy time! This piece introduces us to my pre-digital era when I still recorded on a 4-track tape recorder (no computers except for MIDI). "Many Words" is from my 1997 demo tape "Words Are Nothing". Enjoy!

More nostalgy! "Words Of Nothing" was the 1st track on my 1997 demo tape "Words Are Nothing". Let me know if you want to hear more of my old tracks. :)

"Should I Leave?" was released for the first time on August 7th 2005. Moving, renovation hassles and work assignments abroad had kept me from composing for nearly two years. So this song was the beginning of a new and hopefully long creative phase. A new mix of this song (mainly new vocals) is already completed, see above.

The previous version of "Vampires", see above for the final version. This version already contains re-recorded vocals and modified drum parts. The Rickenbacker bass samples were kindly provided by J. Pekka Mäkelä (www.yrttimaa.net).