UNSPEAKABLE TIDINGS

(note: Aarni mostly uses the Discordian calendar.)

15/ 05/ 3176	Nanoo nanoo, 1) Begging thy pardon for the shameful hiatus since the last newsletter issue! We've been busy with work on the forthcoming Split album, on Lovecraftian and also sundry deleterious extracurricular activities. Anyway, as thou mayst already know from our Facebook, Twitter etc. updates, the new song 'Land Beyond The Night' is available for streaming at Reverbnation and My$pace (the former features lyrics plus seems to have better sound quality despite a lower bitrate and anyhow thou shouldst refrain from using My$pace, which is notoriously merely a device for lining the pockets of that commercial oaf cum reactionary Murdoch). We made the song as an experiment in "mainstreamy" style and so should not be taken as any kind of indication of the other material on the Split album or indeed of "Aarni's future musical direction", if any...and yea, its lyrics contain references to those of various celebrated bands of merit. See how clever thou art and spot them all at thy peril! 2) About the only thing standing in the way of the Split album's release is our 'Goetia', which fortunately takes shape even as we speak. This disjointed and dissonant tune has perhaps something in common with 'Liber Umbrarum', as it too is in Latin and consists of a dialogue/pissing contest, this time between a hapless magickian and Goetic demons. Guess who wins? 3) After many a year, the release of the H.P.Lovecraft tribute album 'Yogsothery' is set to finally take place this month. More info at Voidhanger Records. The CD features inter alia a 20-page full-colour booklet of eldritch artwork & divers gibberings and will also be available from Aarni, once we receive our copies. We'll let thee know then. Still - thou art what thou buyest (what charming Yuletide sacrifices/gifts): A plethora of bewildering Aarni t-shirt designs and divers other merch available from the recently apparently improved Reverbnation store. A handful of autographed Rising Of Yog-Sothoth: Tribute to Thergothon double CD's still available from us for a measly 8 euros inside the EU; 10 euros for the rest of this excuse for a planet. Costs include shipping via Air Mail. As an added tr00 d00m feature the double album comes in an ultra rare standard CD jewel case. Shouldst thou feel the urge, Omnimantia EP, the Double Demo and the Aarni/Umbra Nihil split album can still be purchased via the Aarni webshite. As a bonus we can on demand even throw in one or more unreleased Aarni hit/miss songs. A better idea yet would probably be to get the newly remixed and/or mastered Bathos and Omnimantia with extra goodies from Bandcamp. If thou wilt, thou canst listen to them prior to paying the ludicruosly low price. BTW the Aarni songs on MySpace and Reverbnation have been updated to these recently remixed versions. Witness my hand, Magister Warjomaa IN: -The ghostwritten stories of Lovecraft -Strange and apparently pointless behaviour OUT: -wanderings in Yoth -extra baggage
71/ 03/ 3176	23, 1) The infernal lethargy-inducing heatwave which brought dreams yet denied sleep has thankfully finally passed, at least for the time being, and Aarni lives once more...we just finished the bass recordings for Land Beyond The Night and now the mixing psychosis & studio complex for the song can begin. Also our final track aka Goetia for the forthcoming split album has been taking shape rather nicely, so the release hopefully won't be too distant in the future. Because after all the future is where we all are going to spend the rest of our lives: so saith the Ed Wood of Doom. If 'Land...' can be described as an almost catchy & somewhat well-produced(!) tune, then Goetia for its part shall be more of an excercise in dissonance, quirkiness and general radio unfriendliness. In other words just how thou likest it. 2) Aarni wishes to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has recently graced us with visual artworks related to the band. These have ranged from the made-in-the-madhouse-toilet variety to the tr00ly masterful in a classical sense. Thank you! As usual, the energies derived from making/admiring these objets d'art all go to supporting ze kause. The candy-shoggoths have been dispatched; rejoice for the beginning is near! 3) Speaking of contributions, we would once again like to encourage entities reasonably skilled in more or less "exotic" instruments to contact us in order to be featured on the third Aarni album Lovecraftian. We would enjoy having a host of guest musicians on it. Now is thy chance to make it big in mu$ick! All thou needest is access to digital audio recording software or why not its analog counterparts, and the ability to send the audio file(s) containing thy immortal art to us. Inquire within! Thou art what thou buyest: A plethora of bewildering Aarni t-shirt designs and divers other merch available from the recently apparently improved Reverbnation Store. A handful of autographed 'Rising Of Yog-Sothoth: Tribute to Thergothon' double CD's available from us for a measly 8 € inside the EU; 10 € for the rest of this excuse for a planet. Costs include shipping via Air Mail. As an added tr00 d00m feature the double album comes in an ultra rare standard CD jewel case. Shouldst thou feel the urge, Omnimantia EP, the Double Demo and the Aarni/Umbra Nihil split album can still be purchased via this webshite. As a bonus we can on demand even throw in one or more unreleased Aarni hit/miss songs. A better idea yet would probably be to get the newly remixed and/or mastered 'Bathos' and 'Omnimantia' in several audio formats with extra goodies from Bandcamp. If thou wilt, thou canst listen to them prior to paying the ludicruosly low price. BTW the Aarni songs on MySpace and ReverbNation have been updated to these recently remixed versions. 23/23 Mahatma Warjomaa IN: -mixing in the dark -5HTP OUT: -caution -quality control
07/ 03/ 3176	Deary deary, 1) We recently remastered 'Bathos' from the original 2004 ev session mixdowns discovered in the Doominvalley Studio vaults. So now we have the luxury of the alleged debut masterpiece sounding as originally intended, removing excessive bottom end and midrange as well as featuring a much nicer overall harmonic balance, stereo expansion and more sensible compression settings. In non-technical terms, this version should sound clearer, fuller, more natural and generally more pleasing than the original 2004 ev CD release with its unfortunately dodgy "loudness war casualty" mastering. Thou canst get it from Bandcamp as individual tracks or better yet as a complete digital album download (including the original artwork, CD booklet etc. as hi-res JPG files) in various audio formats: 320k MP3, FLAC, hi/low VBR MP3, hi/low AAC, Ogg Vorbis or ALAC. The total price has been set according to a "pay what thou wilt" scheme, starting at a measly 5 euros - but thou canst pay even more if thou thinkest it thy Will...BTW the entire sum thou payest goes to us, so thou wilt be supporting ze Aarni kause 100 percent. 2) The above goes also for Omnimantia EP, which has been both remixed and remastered: an enhanced version of the already pretty good-sounding release from 2008 ev, meaning the songs should now sound cleaner and more pleasing to the listener's nervous system. The Skepticism cover track 'Untitled' has perhaps seen the most radical makeover (hopefully for the better) with brand new drums & cleaner overall mix. In fact every track on the album has been more or less drastically improved upon, with the sole exception of 'Lovecraft Knew', which proved impossible to remix due to...er, technical reasons. To make a short story long, we semi-accidentally opened a wormhole in the Doominvalley Studio complex sub-basement and the worm came out and ate the tapes, clay tablets and whatnot containing the original 'Lovecraft Knew' sessions. As a result we could only remaster and not remix that track. It might be just as well, why improve upon perfection? Besides some JPG goodness, the album download may also contain bonus tracks, who knows? Of course thou wilt after downloading...and yea, thou canst preview the songs gratis before making any monetary sacrifices to discover whether thou thinkest we talk through our hats or not about all these improvements. This new version of Omnimantia can also be ordered from us as a CDR (with the custom doodles etc.) like before. 3) 'Tohcoth' shall be extensively "rectified" as well at a later date (after the release of 'Lovecraftian'), including rerecordings and so on, in effect producing a complete 'redux' version of the album. So if thou dost not have 'Tohcoth' yet, do thyself a favour and make sure thou payest not for a copy in the meanwhile... 4) After the perverse diversion of messing with our older material, Aarni returns to work on the forthcoming Split album, first with guitar part recordings for the new song 'Land Beyond The Night'. Finally the usual maddening plugs: A handful of autographed Rising Of Yog-Sothoth: Tribute to Thergothon double CD's available from us for a measly 8 € inside the Europa Fort; 10 € for the rest of this pitiful planet. Costs include shipping via Air Mail. As an added tr00 d00m feature the double album comes in a standard CD jewel case. Shouldst thou feel the strange urge, Omnimantia EP, the Double Demo and the Aarni/Umbra Nihil split album can still be purchased via the Aarni webshite. As a bonus we can on demand even throw in one or more unreleased Aarni hit/miss songs. Aarni T-shirts and other merchandise can be aquired from our webstore. Keep your bodymind greased, Magister Warjomaa IN: -downtuning the flute -reading an assload of books -Metalocalypse OUT: -shitty new movies
50/ 02/ 3176	Dear unconventional conventionalist, 1) Currently we busy ourselves with making material for the split CD with Persistence in Mourning. Aarni's half of the record will likely consist of five tracks, of which three have already been recorded and mixed, and the fourth one Land Beyond The Night has just been written, partially laid down & awaiting vocal recordings by genius Albert Frankenstein later this week. As thou mayest have surmised the lyrics are in English. We think thou shalt enjoy this tune, if thou enjoyest these kind of tunes. File it under "occult and catchy". Also the fifth track already takes an amorphous shape in our collective misshapen head and has been tentatively named Goetia. We probably have no option but to use the Latin tongue on it. Obviously file this one under "occult" too. Not so sure about the "catchy" though... PiM's half of the Split likely also features five tracks of pleasant unpleasantness bringing the total length of the album somewhere over 50 minutes. Enough, or too much? Might seem too little actually - let's see if this can be rectified somehow. Release sometime this Summer if the stars be right. The album artwork has come along very nicely indeed courtesy of the inhuman supermodel/tortured (a bit by us) artist Alessandro Falca of Conte di San Pietro. Naturally we have the unspeakable suspicion he uses live models... 2) Judging from inmate feedback (thanks, the shoggoths are on their way!) the quality of the clothes and their printings in the Aarni webstore seems to be quite satisfactory. So go get your rags! It's already beginning to be t-shirt weather also outside the forbidding facility "they" locked thee in so many Earth years ago. Why not look the part? 3) Some other Aarni-related ventures going on as well, trouble is we are currently oath-bound not to discuss them. Look out for later confessions, leaks and hindsights. Finally the usual plugs: A handful of autographed Rising Of Yog-Sothoth: Tribute to Thergothon double CD's available from us for a measly 8 € inside the Europa Fort; 10 € for the rest of this pitiful planet. Costs include shipping via Air Mail. As an added tr00 d00m feature the double album comes in a standard CD jewel case. Shouldst thou feel the strange urge, Omnimantia EP, the Double Demo and the Aarni/Umbra Nihil split album can still be purchased via this webshite. As a bonus we can on demand even throw in one or more unreleased Aarni hit songs. Previous full legths 'Bathos' (remastered) and 'Tohcoth' available as digital albums from Bandcamp in several audio formats and as plain old CDs from Firebox and Epidemie Records and their distributors. Also, individual Aarni hits and misses can be cheaply aquired from our Store. Thine till Yuggoth regains planet status, Magister Warjomaa IN: -New Sam & Max season -Dan Simmons -Comus OUT: -flares
09/ 02/ 3176	Dear strange customer, First off a commercial announcement: the Aarni (web)store has been opened. Currently thou canst get the following kinds of charming artefacts there: 1) Aarni T-shirts of various designs. Featuring e.g. album covers, the band "photo", snippets of witty lyrics, visual elements from album artwork, logos and so forth. Some shirts have designs on the back too. Those are the more expensive ones which are proper on formal occasions at the asylum. Clothing brands include American Apparel, Gildan, Hanes, Bella and I forgot the rest. Thou mayest also find girlie longsleeves as well as a couple of caps and tote bags. What better way to flaunt thy good looks or Innsmouth taint and devil-may-care attitude than featuring dandy Aarni apparel on thy person? Yes, that was a rhetorical question. Now's your chance to get interactive! We would consider it an act of kindness if you cultists would give us feedback email about the merchandise so we can add further designs and shirt types/colours plus alter/delete the existing ones should you so request. Anyway, more designs probably coming up sooner or later. In order to test the quality of the merchandise we ourselves recently ordered a random sample of one black 'Pentagraarni' shirt: fabric quality seems satisfactory, the print resolution looks fine while the colours (at least the grey) are a little bit darker than apparent from the images in the store. Well, it is a black shirt after all. To make matters interesting & perplexing, those set photos of the shirts in the store have been taken from various non-euclidean angles and distances (with the designs merely pasted onto the shirt image) making it sometimes a bit unclear how the actual physical item will appear. But the American company behind the store assures us it has the strictest quality control... 2) Aarni MP3s. Currently the store holds 34 full Aarni tracks as 320 kbps MP3s, each costing around 0.60 USD. Cheap at twice the price! Featured are all the songs which matter to thee plus many, many more...including the remastered 'Bathos' tracks. This is about the only place thou canst get them as legal downloads. 3) Ringtones. Well, the option was there...at this point they merely consist of the first 30 seconds of the pertinent tracks. Should you so request we could take the trouble to edit the ringtones to feature a more appropriate section of the song in question. Anyway...this time we will actually get a cut from the merchandise sales, so go ahead and order taking advantage of the weak USD and help us blast our way into megabuck$ while thou dost impress the shit out of thy peers with uncanny Aarni accoutrements. In other news, the work on our third LP 'Lovecraftian' continues as usual. Currently Aarni also labours with Persistence In Mourning to release a split album, more of which later. And finally the plugs: 4) A few autographed Rising Of Yog-Sothoth: Tribute to Thergothon 2CD's available from us for a measly 8 € inside the EU; 10 € for the rest of this noisome planet. Costs include shipping via Air Mail. As an added tr00 d00m feature, the double album comes in a standard CD jewel case. 5) Shouldst thou feel the urge, Omnimantia EP, the Double Demo and the Aarni/Umbra Nihil split album can still be purchased via this webshite. As a bonus we can on demand even throw in one or several unreleased Aarni hit songs. Previous full lengths Bathos (remastered) and Tohcoth available as mp3 albums from The Ground and as plain old CDs from Firebox and Epidemie Records and their distributors. In an emergency visualise bright white light, Magister Warjomaa IN: -kazoo -Crowley -Gurdjieff OUT: -Nu Age
41/ 01/ 3176	Darling cultist, Long time no shit. So: 1) We have finally completed arranging, recording and premixing the instrumental 'Celephaïs', which features nylon-string acoustic guitars, a grand piano, the flute as well as various synths and samples as usual. It may be the most serene tune Aarni has done to date and is intended as a soothing intermission amidst all the pnakomadness on the new album Lovecraftian. We also think that it functions pretty well as a soundtrack to its pertinent HPL short story, as do the other tracks on the album.Next Aarni will concentrate on the pnakotic non-radio friendly song 'Azathoth', which starts out something like a reprise of our huge hit 'Reaching Azathoth' but quickly (d)evolves into something different yet remotely similar. For the song I very carefully randomly detuned my "stunt axe" aka the cheapest 7-string guitar I could find in the nethermost Doominvalley vaults, so that every string sounds charmingly discordant and microtonal compared to its neighbour. Naturally I play quite a lot of open chords (with distortion) on this Erich Zannian guitar while overusing the whammy bar. In this fashion we recorded two rhythm guitar tracks for the song, which manage to mostly coincide with the tune's tempo but not very much with each other. Furthermore the song features a virtuoso kazoo performance by an Italian artiste, just one of the many ~~talented~~ guest musicians appearing on Lovecraftian... I just calculated that the album likely clocks somewhere over 60 minutes and possibly features nine tracks, many of which for some reason are just three to four minutes long, perhaps to minimize the sanity-draining effect on the listener or merely to avoid boredom. Luckily there are also songs of more decent length and sanity loss, ranging from five to 20 minutes. This is after all supposed to be doom metal of some description. Actually "metal elements" seem not omnipresent as a number of tracks lean mostly toward the soundtracky and ambient, but at least thou canst hear guitar on every song if that's any consolation. This we have done in order to lick the arses of people who like Lovecraft but do not like "metal". Can such a combination exist? Discuss. Anyway...to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln: people who like this sort of thing will probably find this the sort of thing they like. 2) This year of Our Lady 3176 should see a number of releases featuring Aarni: Lovecraftian is currently slated for Autumn, while a certain Cthulhoid feature album ought to come out much sooner. Also a split release is possibly in the works. More of these once we get clearer dream transmissions. Rant: 3) Some readers may have noticed Aarni's recent tendency to use the second person singular pronoun of the English language in communications. A quaint archaism in order to come across as posh, or something more nefarious like an indication of a demented decision to start making "beauty-and-the-beast" chart metal? Neither, we can assure thee! It's just because our Sirian overlords told us to do so and also because it seems exceeding strange to us that alone(?) amongst Western and Eastern languages, English should have dropped such an important personal pronoun and its verb endings from common usage. While we know the historical excuses for this travesty, it seems unbecoming of a so-called civilised modern tongue to be unable to make distinctions between the singular and the plural. English grammar and syntax have been dumbed down enough from its roots without this additional silliness. To avoid confusion we think one ought only say "you" when addressing more than one individual and not as a sort of impolite (implying distance between the speakers) politeness. Now dost thou see why Aarni has embraced this practice? ;) Moving on to the usual commercial items: 4) A few autographed Rising Of Yog-Sothoth: Tribute to Thergothon 2CD's available from us for a measly 8 € inside the EU; 10 € for the rest of this noisome planet. Costs include shipping via Air Mail. As an added tr00 d00m feature, the double album comes in a standard CD jewel case. 5) Shouldst thou feel the urge, Omnimantia EP, the Double Demo and the Aarni/Umbra Nihil split album can still be purchased via this webshite. As a bonus we can on demand even throw in one or several unreleased Aarni hit songs. Previous full lengths Bathos (remastered) and Tohcoth available as mp3 albums from The Ground and as plain old CDs from Firebox and Epidemie Records and their distributors. Non necat gutta, Magister Warjomaa IN: -good music -Jung -good games OUT: -remakes
News Items from some previous years