Summer holiday is already (ancient?) history and I've returned to work, our kid returned to school, etc so it's getting back to everyday life, yeah. Recently I've been working with the Aeuk oldies compilation in small sessions - some bit silly (tongue in cheek apocalyptic and destructive stuff) lyrics have been born rather fast and vocal arrangements have been done on the fly. Very easily. Hard to say is it because of these ancient simple straightforward songs, or is it because it has been so fun to do it? Or perhaps it's combination of both, yeah.
Anyway, currently the situation is this; I have 8 songs with vocals recorded and pretty much in their final form. Still 5 songs left, crafting lyrics and recording vocals. The vibe is good and I personally like how the stuff is sounding like the compilation's title as it will be "Amiga death rock v1.1". The music has very much Amiga vibes, certain games back in the ancient Amiga days had "rock" approach. Well, take similar samples or just a nod better ones, brutalise the Amiga "rock" into extreme speed/thrash and mix it all with screamy black metal vocals with occasional death grunts and ... it's "death rock" ... v1.1 is reference to both Amiga's kickstart system (those who know, know) and also it might be a hint of volumes for this compilation thing. This might be just first package - I might do more of these, v.1.2 etc ... but not necessarily identical music style. Or then not, depends on inspiration and vibes, as always. But this compilation I'm working with now, is certainly coming out this autumn at some point - it is extreme, is is most definitely retro, and I'd say it is fun in a twisted way.
There is also one extra reason / explanation for term "death rock". Wanna know what it is? Well, back in the 1980s there was one case where I learned about new extreme metal bands via Amiga release. This case was one and only, there was nothing like it ever again. Sometimes in late 1988 or so I received a music disk which was titled simply "death rock" and it was ... a simple music disk, with simple menu to choose from few song samples. Whoever had done that musicdisk, had sampled / digitized (!) some 2-3 songclips by two bands: Napalm Death and Carcass. It was crazy back then, certainly first ever time I heard anything "sampled / digitized" like that - consider that it happened in freakin' 1988! Sampled clips of the two bands, it was few clips from both bands' debut albums. It was stunning experience, even that the sampled clips were (of course) lofi, but even still; it was good enough quality to recognize the tunes later as I received ND's "scum" in early 1989 or so. And it made it all even more special.
If I had to name just one grindcore band and nothing else, it would be Napalm Death, period. There are not enough words for how much especially early Napalm Death influenced and inspired me - hell, even my bigsister (RIP) started jokingly calling me as "scumbag" back in the late 1980s and you can guess where it came from (ND's "scum", of course). So, ... naming this compilation I'm working now as "death rock" feels approriate. One of the first ever tracked metal mods I did already in late 1989 was total ND "scum" worship.
If someone had said to me 30 years ago that yeah dude, you'll be reworking these little speed/thrash metalmods of yours 30 years from now on, modernising drum samples and recording full vocals for them and releasing them just for fun ... I would have laughed and commented probably like "are you crazy? get real, why on earth I would do anything like that? this is tracked metal music, it's listened with tracker software!" ...
... and yet, here we are, and I'm reworking this old stuff. And having fun while at it! :)
