Remember 'ATQ' ?

In past I wrote lengthy about the "non metal tracked music" (see here) I created from mid1990s into early 2000s. Most active years were 1996-1997 when piles of these so called "non metal" experiments were born. First the artist name for these creations was Quetzalcoatl, then it was renamed using same letters into Aztec Toll Qua and in the end when I was making remix collections of the songs years later Aztec Toll Qua turned into abbreviation ATQ.

Well, I revisited one ATQ remix tune titled "Hover like a leaf". Originally to be precise this was titled "Hovering like a leaf". The title of the song came from the music itself directly, and the music was created around this main idea of UFO hovering in the dark woods during winter and it's snowing and the snowing turn into blizzard as two kids stumble across this UFO "hovering like a leaf" (like they used to describe the movement of claimed UFOs back in 1940s and 1950s especially) and the kids stumble across it because they hear this strange music coming from forest ... it comes from the spacecraft where grey aliens are playing the music (which is of course the music I tracked). Original song had some two minutes long (too long) intro part (this remix version has none of it, remix version begins directly from "meeting the UFO" section) which depicted the two kids happily playing in forest when it's not late yet, there's daylight well left. Then the music changes (intro section ends) as they hear the strange slow music emitting from the forest - and they start going toward the music, until ... they get there and witness aliens playing alien music. And while they are watching this one tune only, time passes with several hours (like in the old UFO tales/cases) and suddenly it's dark woods around them, and the spacecraft shoots off to the sky / space as the hypnotic song ends, seemingly lasting for hours.

I've even written into tracker file's comment section ages ago like this, direct screen shot captured from the tune via OpenMPT (if needed, click to see it bigger) :

So, ... fast forward almost 30 freakin' years forward and here we are. Suddenly it's possible to make that idea for music video into some kind of reality, with help of AI. Funnily it was easier to get the UFO / alien videoclips matching how I envisioned it back in the day, than getting AI doing fitting enough video clips of two kids adventuring in dark forest. It took few weeks to get fitting enough video clips crafted all in all. The end result is entertaining at least to myself, because it's pretty much the kind of vision I had tens of years ago for the video "if it was possible to make such a video". 

As a bonus, you can also see the tracker view of the song faintly rolling in the video.

Check out the video in <Youtube> or check it out embedded below.

Incantation cover

Back to Incantation ... in 2003 I made this Incantation coversong with Unbird, it was 3rd Incantation cover tune that I made and 1st one which sounded really enjoyable (instead of being extremely rough or detuned or sloppy otherwise) from start to finish. I was really happy with how this coversong turned out back then, the way it jumps straight to face and even the guitar solos came out rather nicely. It sounds rather thin kind of, but I didn't feel it was any problem then - and even these days some 22-23 years later I don't mind it. And as usual, while I was improving with the tracked metal music creations (read: music), Unbird was improving as vocalist and his vocals here in this track work pretty damn good, too.

So, here you go, check out the coversong in <Youtube> or check it out below - and enjoy, I still do! :)

Napalm Death cover

Next up is Napalm Death cover from 2002, with me handling the music as usual in my tracked metalscene releases and someone else, in this case Impious, handling the vocals. Considering that it's not easy task to in any way replicate (I don't mean exact replica, more about the mood) early Napalm Death atmospherically speaking, back in the day I was actually quite happy in how this short blaster tune from Scum's B-side turned out.

Without further babbling, you can check out the cover as usual in <Youtube> or by watching it below.

Incantation and Repulsion cover

 This time it's Incantation. The song is one of their most doomy songs, from their sophomore album "Mortal throne of nazarene". I covered the song back in 2004 with Unbird, who as usual handled the vocals while I handled the music. I remember I was very satisfied with how this cover turned out. Both how I got the song covered and at least as much impressed with Unbird performing his lowest / sickest growling ever. So very fitting for this nasty tune and for paying homage to Incantation. If you know your Incantation, you know what I mean.

Sign of things to come or not, but it was actually one of the very last tracked metal songs I did in tracked metalscene - this was around October 2004 based on quick research. It wasn't about "me thinking the scene is dying" but it was more about the real life stuff taking way more time; I started my university studies in January 2005 and I got to know about being selected for the studies around October/November 2024 from what I remember.

You can check out the cover in <Youtube> or right below. Enjoy!

EDIT: Oh! I also released Repulsion cover (dating back to 2002) recently. Check it out at <Youtube> or as usual, right below. And prepare for some over the top drums in this case! ^_^

D.R.I. cover

The next cover tune I turned into video using the real life band's ancient bootleg footage is D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles). In reality I wasn't so much impressed with D.R.I.'s crossover thrash metal in the late 1980s (even that it was pretty good, though) but I was more impressed with early D.R.I.'s manic, grindcore'ish extremity. But there is no denying that D.R.I. wouldn't had done lots of good'n'great stuff, like this song I covered back in 2004 with Barfington (he handled vocals while I handled music). This is a true attitude song which happens to be so very fitting in these crazy times in 2020s with certain leaders of certain countries. Just check out the lyrics (they roll graphically in the video) and you'll know what I mean.

Check out the video at <Youtube> or check it out below in embedded form.

Enjoy! Back in the day when we finished this covertune, I was really proud of this one. Simple but effective song, covered in faster tempo than original making it even more crazy sounding shit!

Celtic Frost cover

Background bytes: I've done big pile of tribute videos for bands, where I've used studio track of the song and then selected a fitting bootleg video for the project - then syncing and finetuning the bootleg / gig video of that selected tune so, that it runs smoothly (or in some cases smoothly enough) with the studio track. Sometimes it's been a lot of work, sometimes surprisingly easy. But I wouldn't had been doing all that, if it wasn't fun thing to do. I enjoy the result and I get kicks of it. In some cases I've got extra kicks when member of band I've done tribute for, have commented something in brief to the video, or just posted something like \m/ ... of course it feels awesome. Even more so as naturally I tend to do tributes for bands / music that I've liked a lot, in many cases for tens of years already, since 1980s or so.

Recently I got an idea for crafting bit different kind of tribute / fan art video. Different how?

Well, I've personally covered big bunch of bands / tunes back in the early 2000s especially, when "tracked metalscene" was at its' most active era (the most active era was let's say 2000-2004). Tracked metalscene didn't last as a real scene for more than roughly 10 years, depending where you count it's birth and death. But anyway, I was really active metal tracker in the scene with nick "Aeuk" (whadda surprise) and while I tracked lots of crappy stuff (I mean truly lofi and rough and cruel as hell sounding shit - not in a good way) I also personally "peaked" around let's say 2002-2004 with tracked metal mods. I also crafted big bunch of metal cover songs that I still like and am even a bit proud of in some ways. So, ... the idea was following:

1. Let's take a good tracked metal cover I've done as Aeuk
2. Let's seek ancient bootleg video of the band which I covered
3. Let's throw both coversong and bootleg video into video editor
4. Let's edit them so, that bootleg video is synced with coversong
5. Let's throw lyrics into the video edit to make it even more fun

The first cover tune that I thought for this was for the band I've followed since a kid in 1986 ... Celtic Frost. CF, especially with their magical lineup of Tom/Martin/Reed. I covered CF's "Visions of mortality" back in 2003 and another tracked metalscene guy nicknamed Nightrealm took care of vocals.

Without further babbling, here's the end result (and I've already got something more lined up). You can check out it at <Youtube> or directly below if you for some reason don't wanna go to Youtube.

Enjoy!

Tracked Metalscene: Refuse the grave

Today, 12th August, saw the release of literally tracked metalscene coming back from the dead. Like I mentioned earlier in June, the idea to revive tracked metalscene with a music disk came out of blue and there were pretty nice bunch of former tracked metalscene fellas who wanted to participate. Me included.

You can find the full V/A compilation from <youtube> under my youtube channel and I'll embed it below as well. Some truly amazing tunes in the compilation and hey I am not talking about my (Aeuk) tunes. Also nicely varying representation of different metal genres, from heavy and power metal into death and black metal, some grind and punk, and even some symphonic metal can be found, and like this wasn't enough ... also some experimental edge here and there. I think it's impressive compilation considering it's closer to 20 years since last music disks were released in the so-called tracked metalscene.

Enjoy!

Brand new Aeuk tunes after 17-18 years (!)

Few weeks ago the idea was born in Discord's "tracked metalscene graveyard" group (group containing  about 20 former tracked metalscene members from distant past). The idea was simply resurrecting tracked metalscene via music - which was always the main thing in the whole tracked metalscene. Many fellas were right away into the idea, and yes sure I was interested as well. 

I tracked a death/grind tune just some day or two afterwards, around 12th June or so - totally oldschool way of doing it. There was 17-18 years long break from tracking metal, but it all came smoothly like there never was any break. How fast it happened tells it all, exactly as I used to "work" back in the tracked metalscene days: It was matter of one day, music was 100% completed one evening, and lyrics written the same eve, vocals recorded the next day. And I submitted the piece to the forthcoming metalscene compilation release. There is no strict deadline, but supposedly it will be released late Summer 2025.

Well, there is that one tune I did, but ... I got idea for making another tune: While the first tune I did was oldschool tracked metalmod, meaning it was all tracked with ancient samples (bit newer drum samples though) and vocals recorded in DAW ... the idea was to make the 2nd contribution / tune the way I nowadays do my music projects, DAW way. So it's not "Aeuk" as in tracked form, just drums are programmed ones (with good quality, too) but guitars, bass and vocals are all recorded, not tracked. The song turned out really good, methinks. And just like with the first one, I got the idea yesterday, crafted drums, recorded guitars and bass yesterday ... wrote lyrics yesterday evening - then finetuned and arranged lyrics today, and recorded several layers of vocals and mixed them in. Few mastering / mixing takes and done! Submitted that song today, too.

I will put my contributions online sometimes in the Autumn as the compilation gets released - and I will put release information here about the compilation as well. It's gonna be entertaining package, I think. 

In any case, my summer holidays starts soon and so ... have a nice summer out there!

Afraid to shoot str... Iron Maiden?

I went to see Iron Maiden in Helsinki on 16th June 2025. Them Irons recently started their "run for your lives" european tour. It was my 2nd time seeing the band, even that I've been listening to them since I was about 10-11 years old, ever since "powerslave" came out ... which means yes, quite a long time. Pretty much 40+ years. But that's all side story to what I'm going to write here.

First the positive matters. Extremely positive, actually: The band is in top shape, and Bruce's vocals are downright amazing - and nothing else is worse. I don't have anything "bad" to comment about their new drummer guy Simon either. The man does his job and does it good, might even give some new energy / edge to the band in a way - I'm saying this of course with all the respect to Nicko, but serious health issues do affect to how people can do their jobs / tasks / hobbies, you know. Nicko did a truly amazing career with IM and left huge boots to be filled. Simon is filling them in his own style pretty nicely if you ask me. And it's actually interesting that Simon's kit is very minimal and that you can actually see the guy at his work bashing them drums. 

The whole show, it was pure gold really. And hey, I'm not an Iron Maiden fanatic - for me their last gem of an album overall was "somewhere in time" and everything since that has been "some selected tune or few awesome, rest of the album neutral to me" league or something in that vein. Still, it's a band with amazing and respectable career, no doubt about that. And yeah, the whole show was - like stated - pure gold. The band played like a dream, they had amazing sound, no sound problems whatsoever, the band was on fire, Bruce sang like he'd never had any health problems. Just freakin' impressive. And on top of all that - the visuals of the show were truly magnificent, too. Massive digital backdrop with videos / animations which gave extra bonus effect to the tunes (for example "rime of the ancient mariner" ... just WOW!) ... Eddie adventuring on stage, of course, too - all in all, I'd say it was 10+ show. Nothing to complain.

Let's throw few pictures here before continuing ...

Stadium was packed literally (50K ppl estimate)

The visuals (digital backdrop) were effective

The band is in top shape, no doubt about that

Well, I didn't take that many pictures (8 pics overall only) mainly because I was so concentrated following the show. What I did do, was shooting just some videos of band performing. Just some selected tunes, like "killers", "iron maiden" and "powerslave". I edited a video of those clips and uploaded it to Youtube as I usually do when I go to some gig / shoot some live video stuff. My video clip was online some 2-3 hours until ... BANG! I got a copyright strike from the band's music company. Not the usual copyright notification (which comes from pretty much all music stuff you upload to youtube if video contains music made by others) which is just artist/company telling that this is copyrighted material, but that it's ok for artist/company that you have this video here - you can't monetize the video and all the potential income goes of course to band/company. That's all perfectly fine to me and totally cool. Of course. I have that happening all the time with the tribute video clips and/or live music clips I upload to youtube.

But in Iron Maiden's case it was serious copyright strike, not just notification: The IM video went down instantly and I was ordered to delete it from youtube, and I got threatened with legal actions if I don't delete the video. Of course I deleted the video. But it wasn't just that; it also meant that I got official warning at Youtube for this IM copyright strike, and it lasts 90 days - if I get another copyright strike & warning like this one, my youtube channel would disappear instantly for good. And you can bet that's not what I want, with music being a passionate hobby to me. I would lose all my own music projects' videos, all the live videos I've shot, all the tribute videos I've done, etc.

Quite paradoxical case all in all; like said, that Iron Maiden show was downright fantastic in all possible ways. People / fans want to capture something of it, to remember it by - people want to share etc. I can say this episode gave me quite a bad aftertaste of the otherwise amazing event. On top of this copyright incident, just some hour or two after I deleted that June 16th 2025 Iron Maiden video (and I also deleted my May 29th 2018 Iron Maiden gig video, just in case) Iron Maiden fanclub mails me that in case you want to buy tour shirts and stuff, come to our shop. Awww yea, sure, no thanks after the way you treat your fans who just wanna capture legendary band in action. Well, actually I did buy band shirt after the show after short consideration, cost me 50 euros (50 euros for T-shirt, ouch! That's certainly the most expensive band T-shirt I've ever bought) ... I think that price is like the real number of the beast. Wonder why it wasn't straight 66 euros ... 

Afterthoughts: Yes, anyone can guess the most obvious reasons with this copyright strike thing and IM company hunting fans who shot videos in IM show (I can see constantly new liveclips appearing to youtube, then disappearing within 24 hours) ... most probably it all boils down to money as usual. Or then it's that they don't want people see phone videos shot at IM gigs but "people going to shows to see the shows with their own eyes" (which is all worth it, yes) ... but it's back to the money thing again. I personally can watch tens and tens of bootleg clips and then go to concert - it takes nothing away from me. I don't believe it would be like ... some IM fan watches these bootleg videos and then decides that "oh well, I've seen it all now, I won't go there". Show me even one Iron Maiden fan who would act like this. You won't find any. If you are a fan of some band, you will go to their shows, period. And you will want to watch lots of bootlegs of band(s) you are fan of. Period. 

The world really keeps turning. Rewind some 20+ years ... in the early 2000s, remember Metallica and Napster, Metallica's so called war against mp3s, etc? I have to say that I seriously respect Metallica for the way they've chosen to deal with these things these days. You know; people can shoot videos as much as they want at their shows and upload them to youtube, nothing gets removed, no one gets hunted & threatened, and the band themselves is releasing awesome live video moments from their shows on a daily basis. I went to see Metallica for 1st ever time in 2024 (even that I've followed them too ever since their debut album) and yes I shot some live clips, and yes I uploaded them to youtube - and they are still there with no threats from the band to remove them or else .... and yeah, this is the way to go. If you had asked me 20+ years ago, I wouldn't have believed there would still be day in the future where I can say I respect Metallica in so many ways - and I don't just mean musically (who would had believed there's nothing but the end in sight after StAnger?) but especially in how they deal with these things, they no longer hunt their fans and they accept the world has changed. These days everyone walks with videocam in their pockets (well, practically a personal computer in their pockets) and people want to save audiovisual memoirs and share them. That's how it is. You shouldn't be punished for that. You are making personal memoir of (sometimes even a special) event, other people can enjoy your audiovisual memoirs too if you choose to put them online - and it's also free marketing for the artists themselves. Punishment for marketing the band, spreading the word through audiovisual memoirs ... such a shame, really.

I have to say and I can't emphasize this enough; I was truly surprised and it felt genuinely sad to get a serious copyright strike from a legendary band like Iron Maiden at youtube. At first I couldn't believe it. And yeah, it did take a lot of joy of the experience away, too. It gave foul taste for the thing. Being accused and threatened; like I would be making money from selected live clips shot at their show? What a joke! I've never made a penny out ot youtube and it's not my intention either, as it's simply always been about passion for music. The IM show was awesome, and I don't see anything bad in fans sharing their videos and pics from the concerts. 

Personally I most often shoot few video clips at gigs I go to - and I always do it in a way that would be as little annoying to other people as possible. Also the fact is that it doesn't stop me myself from enjoying the show, really - as I've been doing that stuff (photography hobbyist since early to mid 1980s) with cameras long time. Meaning that I don't have to watch my phone when I'm filming, but I can pretty much follow the band and film at the same time, rather comfortably, without looking the phone screen. Sometimes if I've been at gig of band whose fan I'm big time, I might capture their whole gig - like for example I've captured two times Godflesh's full gig (and I've watched my own bootlegs several times afterwards just to experience it again). Same with for example Incantion. I might have wanted to capture much more Iron Maiden few days ago - but I also respected the band's wish to "keep the phones in your pockets" and so I just chose few tunes to be captured. (and still I ended up being punished, yay) ...

Why do I bother shooting live clips then? Back when I was a kid / teenager living in far north Finland in the middle of nowhere, I could hardly ever get into any music events as everything was so freakin' far away. You can bet it felt frustrating. So ... as soon as I found the world of bootlegs, VHS / video bootlegs of gigs late 1980s and watching bootlegs of gigs I wanted to go (but couldn't) ... the bootlegs gave me a lot. The vibe of seeing early death metal bands on VHS, even that the quality was most often truly horrible and audio such that you could hardly recognize tunes ... still, it meant a lot. I can't emphasize how magical it was in some cases, really. Some bands didn't even come to Finland back in those days, and the more extreme metal bands - the more rare it was (for example Suffocation bootleg clips from 1990/91 were like treasure back in those days). So, if I can give even a bit of the same vibes to some other people who for some reason can't get to see the bands - it feels good. And personally I still enjoy a lot watching other people's bootleg videos shot at different bands' gigs. I don't think I'm an exception. If music is a passion for you, that's how it goes. Music is everywhere with you.

<sarcasm> I hope I won't be threatened by Iron Maiden's company for putting few pictures here into this blog post from Iron Maiden show 16th June 2025 in Helsinki, Finland. As sharing few live video clips from an amazing show from fan's perspective is such an offence to them. Up the irons ... gets whole new meaning here. </sarcasm>

'Selected explosive works' is spreading them bitcrushin' noises

The compilation is released, just checked some (selected) streaming medias like Youtube Music for example (and Spotify) and yeah, it's there. If you want noise, you've got it.

I also put the compilation into Bandcamp, so you can check it out <there> as well. Enjoy! 😎

front coverart

back coverart (cd jewel case)

Here's also a little screen capture of tracklist with song lengths:

Another video with tracker view + Release date

Just released yet another tracker view video for one song from "selected explosive works". Just check out <this> to see it in youtube or watch it below. Is it noisy enough? Bitcrusher effect is certainly evident, too. :)

Oh, and the release date will be May 2nd 2025 ... 02052025 ... that's a code of noise for ya. You can find "selected explosive works" ear exploding compilation from streaming media systems from that date forwards.