Quicksand Dream - AELIN

GJ · Post by GJ » Fri Dec 17, 2010 12:32 am

Shadow Kingdom wrote:This recording sounds like it's brand new, not from '96

Did you re-record all the songs again? The Vocals rule.

Here's the story: Patrick recorded his stuff onto a four track porta studio during 1996-98, one track of bass and drum machine and three tracks of guitars. Guess you should hear this from him for the details as I wasn't really around during this period. He had a pretty hard struggle making it work that I can tell you.

About the vocals (thanks! btw), at first we just wanted to get the tracks down on tape so we considered recording the vocals live during mixdown.

But then our mate Henrik Flyman asked us why not record the vocals at his digital home studio (which was complete news to me then, Cubase, Sound Forge and stuff). So we transferred the four tracks from the tape into ones and noughts and (on various occasions during 1998-99) recorded the vocals on top, added a few droning keys, a fake hammond and mixed it. No guitars were added.

Actually we considered re-recording everything less than a year ago. Patrick did some tries but then his current band Mortalicum got signed to Metal On Metal and we scrapped that idea due to time and energy limits. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have been able to recreate the atmosphere of the original recording anyway. Guess that's all.

Zuul · Post by **Zuul** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 3:10 am

I influenced, the rest was up to him. I love the album, yes. It's a Beauty!

GJ · Post by GJ » Mon Dec 20, 2010 6:32 pm

Still, well done Mike!

omen of hate · Post by **omen of hate** » Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:49 pm

I've received my copy today, can't wait to check this tomorrow !!

GJ · Post by GJ » Thu Dec 30, 2010 2:22 pm

Cool Omen!

If you hate it, tell your friends. If you don't, go see the doctor!

omen of hate · Post by **omen of hate** » Sat Jan 01, 2011 2:19 pm

I've finally listen to it yesterday. I like it a lot ! Great atmosphere, great sound !! It sometimes make me thing of a heavier version of ASHBURY.

GJ · Post by GJ » Sat Jan 01, 2011 6:21 pm

Heavier than Ashbury?

Nah...

PB & GJ in GJ's apartment in Uppsala, Winter of 1997

Beauty is in the ears of the beholder. Cheers Omen!

ION BRITTON · Post by **ION BRITTON** » Sat Jan 01, 2011 8:56 pm

Whoa, lots of vinyls there!

GJ · Post by GJ » Sun Jan 02, 2011 1:55 am

Found the text below on Hellion Records. They sure know which strings to pull. I had to look up "opprobrius" in the dictionary. Haha, even I would like to hear this album.

Some good things take years to come to the light of day. This was the case with QUICKSAND DREAM and their lone album “Aelin: a story about destiny” being spawned in the late 80s, being worked on from 1996 to 1999 with a release as CDr limited to 30 copies in the year 2000. Ten further years had to pass by to see this masterpiece reissued on a proper CD and though I could read quite a few opprobrius reviews by so called music aficionados labelling this as out of time and underproduced retro music. Well, my congratulations, folks, you are absolutely correct. This is classic heavy progressive music ranging from rock to metal, with elements of folk thrown in for the good measure. The distortion of the guitars comes with a natural feel that might not bring the whole chainsaw feeling to any extreme but builds a powerful atmosphere. This concept album could be compared to the greatest early MANILLA ROAD or late 70s RUSH albums, stands in one row with such epic hardrock monoliths from the proto metal underground such as WINTERHAWK`s “Revival”, SORCERY`s “Sinister soldiers” and LEGEND`s “From the fjords” albums. You can expand the list of bands and records to compare this to without an end. If you can only live with shredding one chord riffs and screamy vocals, you are in the wrong place, with this record as with you whole life in general. This is music from the heart, creative, passionate and slightly insane. A great masterpiece

GJ · Post by GJ » Mon Jan 17, 2011 12:26 pm

Vinyl sheduled for February!

Read about it on High Roller Records.

Vladimir · Post by **Vladimir** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 12:59 am

Vinyl sheduled for February!
Right, so I could finally complete my much delayed review and pretend it was meant to be about the LP instead of the CD version...

GJ · Post by GJ » Wed Jan 19, 2011 2:46 am

The songs remain the same. Cheers!

(Is it allowed to almost cite "classic rock" bands here, DaN?)

Shadow Kingdom · Post by **Shadow Kingdom** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:31 am

GJ wrote:
Shadow Kingdom wrote:This recording sounds like it's brand new, not from '96

Did you re-record all the songs again? The Vocals rule.
Here's the story: Patrick recorded his stuff onto a four track porta studio during 1996-98, one track of bass and drum machine and three tracks of guitars. Guess you should hear this from him for the details as I wasn't really around during this period. He had a pretty hard struggle making it work that I can tell you.

About the vocals (thanks! btw), at first we just wanted to get the tracks down on tape so we considered recording the vocals live during mixdown. But then our mate Henrik Flyman asked us why not record the vocals at his digital home studio (which was complete news to me then, Cubase, Sound Forge and stuff). So we transferred the four tracks from the tape into ones and noughts and (on various occasions during 1998-99) recorded the vocals on top, added a few droning keys, a fake hammond and mixed it. No guitars were added.

Actually we considered re-recording everything less than a year ago. Patrick did some tries but then his current band Mortalicum got signed to Metal On Metal and we scrapped that idea due to time and energy limits. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have been able to recreate the atmosphere of the original recording anyway. Guess that's all.

So this recording was 100% complete around '99?

Or was there anything else done to it between '99 - present? Or did you just hand over the master from '99 as is to the labels?

Honestly it doesn't sound so cut and paste as you make it seem.

GJ · Post by GJ » Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:31 am

Wow, this is incredible. It's like if Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol and Pagan Altar had a threeway and concieved this. This is going to recieved constant spins this week.

Just saw this comment on the Shadow Kingdom forum. Can you be proud and humbled at the same time? Hope so.

Happy!

Happy!

GJ · Post by GJ » Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:41 am

Shadow Kingdom wrote:So this recording was 100% complete around '99?

Or was there anything else done to it between '99 - present? Or did you just hand over the master from '99 as is to the labels?

Honestly it doesn't sound so cut and paste as you make it seem.

Seems we posted simutaneously...

It's excactly the same master as the CDr from 2000. The recording was completed and mixed in 1999. Yeah guess it sounds pretty well balanced and together to me too. All credits goes to Patrick and Henrik Flyman for making it work out so well.