Finishing new stuff, starting new stuff

Me twisting and turning some drums.

So quite a gap between posts here, even to be me, but though I’ve been working with my music quite a bit I haven’t really finished anything, so not that much to report here. I‘m kind of one who is always striving, pushing forward and also constantly coming up with new stuff, which results in me starting new projects rather than finishing the ongoing ones (and by “projects” I nowadays mean solely recordings, or releases, in my own name - so no new “bands”). So I have quite a few things I’m working on in parallel and they are all pulling stylewise into a different directions of rock, perfect for my restless soul.

The first thing that will be out is an EP that will be called “The Club For Internal Admiration (A Slight Return)” - a bit of homage-pay to the legacy of my classic now retired band Burnitude, and its core will be in the vein of classic 1980’s hard rock/heavy metal. We’ve finished the recording and I’m about to start mixing it any day now, so if it goes according to plan its release shouldn’t be many months away.

Me and Andreas Mallander at Studio A6Sound.

Following that there will be a single, two songs taken from our, more or less, live recording at Studio A6Sound earlier in 2021. It will be called “The Lockdown Sessions” and will show a bit more heavier side of my music. We’ve also been rehearsing new songs for an upcoming full length album of this heavier direction and we will start recording that one in the first half of 2022. We're all feeling it's the right way to go and are all really excited about to be going there.

Patrik Idman banging the drums.

Additionally I have a whole bunch of various singles, EPs and maybe even albums in the works, some will feature guests that I’ll be working it into shape with and I'm just going to let it all flow in parallel as we move on.

Due to the situation in the world there’s still no live dates in sight, we’re not booking anything until it’s all clear. We still rehearse quite frequently though and I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up putting out some rehearsal videos of some sort in the next future.

Until then. Peace.

/ PM

Vocal recording in The Red Room at our
Beyond Dimensions Bunker where we rehearse
and record most of the stuff.

Something a bit different out

 

The next release in line, which is out by now, is the to be me a bit different two-song single called “Down Another Chapter”. It features the songs “Down” and “Closing Another Chapter” which are more classic rock; me stepping away from the traditional hard rock/heavy metal that I usually deliver. Arrangement- and production-wise the songs were supposed to be super clean and straightforward, thought I’d for once go for less is more, but since I’m more of a “more is more” kind of guy and after all the time I spent with the songs in the studio it was destined to fail and they ended up with quite a bit going on in them. Nevertheless I’m very content with the outcome.

The drums are performed by Ralph Rydén and the fretless bass by Andreas Mallander, and I handled the rest - the guitars, vocals, percussion, the producing, engineering, mixing and the artwork, the mastering was done through Abbey Road Red/CloudBounce. The music and lyrics are written by me and despite the songs leaning towards a melower spectrum the lyrics, where I’m ventilating reflections and thoughts of darker states and times in life, turned out pretty dark. First I felt that the lyrics turned out too open, naked, but realised that I probably felt that because of the arrangement and production and not really what the songs were about, that it wasn’t like usually covered in and dug down by massive overdrive guitar madness, the production was more naked than I am used to.

This is the first time that I feel that I’m really beginning to get the mixing a bit where I want it, hitting a bit more where I’m aiming; I believe I’m slowly starting to learn the art of mixing a little bit. I really enjoyed doing this a bit different thing and both performance- and mixing-wise stepping away from the hard rock/heavy metal world which floats through my veins and it was all fun and easy to record and mix. I had no expectations so there was no pressure at all, and now I’m talking about the worst kind of pressure: the one from yourself. There were no boundaries and no rules, not that I really have that with my ordinary hard rock/heavy metal stuff either but that sits so deep in my influence, it's in my DNA, so I’m unconsciously following some unwritten holy rules. This made me realise that this is one thing that normally makes the process of recording and mixing pretty hard and tough, but here I wrote a song and recorded it and it could go literally anywhere, and it’s allowed to do that, it made me feel totally free, liberating. 

And yes, I do believe these songs differ quite a bit from what I’ve been doing so far, in more than one way, but still the fact and the bottom line is that it’s all music to me, I just write what comes out and record it, to me it’s all Rock'n'Roll. My next release which I’m working on as we speak, will be in the traditional vein of my hard rock/heavy metal heritage, though this time maybe not as progressive as the earlier stuff, but my future releases will be taking different turns and directions, it will evolve.

“Down Another Chapter” is out now and you'll find it digitally at all the 21st century music providers, here follows some with direct links:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/08BMZCtpTRj6S1VZA8qpBf?si=O-EYkLc8RhW2VDFD6Mn_lg

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/se/album/down-another-chapter-single/1556125490

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Closing-Another-Chapter/dp/B08XT8LYLY

Tidal: https://store.tidal.com/se/album/175523372

Napster: https://gb.napster.com/artist/pm-saari/album/down-another-chapter

Enjoy.
/ PM

Inagone music finally properly out

As Ingone music has been put out at various occasions, in various forms, it’s not until now that there is a proper, official Inagone release out. I’ve been thinking about it for years now but never really had the opportunity or the time to dig into it and finish it. I’ve always thought that the recordings that we did between 2007-2012 were too good not to be released properly, that they didn’t get the attention and treatment they deserved. But now was the perfect timing for me to dive into it and finish the editing, compiling and mix the songs for a first release. I decided to go with the first songs I ever wrote for Inagone, aslo being the first songs that we recorded, “Where It Begins” and “Look and You’ll Find” and I also added the stripped down song called “Unclose” featuring only vocals and acoustic guitars and yeah, they are out now as a three-song single called “Where It Begins”. 

It was recorded 13 years ago by me and I mixed it now in October 2020, all music and lyrics are written by me, I produced it and perform all the guitars and also some backing vocals, Per Linzander performs all the lead vocals and some backing vocals, Andreas Mallander the bass (on this recording actually fretted bass) and Vesa Kallio the drums - So the Inagone line-up, the only one there ever was. It was truly exciting to mix what we recorded 12-13 years ago and come to realisation that what we did was even better than I remembered it to be and I really really love our performances on these songs, we had such great chemistry and balance going on and I think it really shines through in this recording. “Where It Begins” is out now and you’ll find it at all the digital music providers. Enjoy!

Aside from that I’m right now working in the studio mixing my next PM Saari release, which will be a bit different two-song single, and slate to be out in the beginning of 2021. I'm also preparing to start recording bass and guitars for the release after that. Due to the total absence of live dates we’ve also taken the opportunity to have some fun down in the Bunker (out rehearsal studio that is, also called the “Red Room”), jamming through some interesting covers, some of them pretty tricky to nail (at least for me), some more or less impossible (at least for me). Mainly for the fun, but also to challenge ourselves and we’ll see, we might just run through some of them in front of a video camera later on and throw them out just for the hell of it. We’re not that comfortable in front of a camera, I mean we belong live on stage, but we’ll see if we can pull ourselves together.

Anyway, it feels great to be moving through all the obstacles at an acceptable pace forward, just hoping it will last. Taking a deep breath and a hopeful step over to 2021.

Have a good one.

Peace.

/ PM

New single, “Between”, out now

So, long time coming, and many turns later, I finally have new music out, my first release in four years, since my debut solo album “The Opening” that was released at the end of 2016. It’s a two-song single called “Between” that was originally meant to be a “mini-between-release” between my first album “The Opening” and its followup full length album “The Awakening”, hence the title (mainly, of course among other references) but “The Awakening” has been postponed, pushed into the future and other releases will be finished and put out before it. However "Between" will still be a release between releases so.

Artwork and design by PM Saari.

I’d say it’s pretty much in the “The Opening”-vein, melodic and progressive hard rock/classic heavy metal (?) and consists of the heavier “Between Seasons” and the faster “Burning Air”, both songs written and arranged by me. It’s produced and mixed by me, recorded and mixed at my Beyond Dimensions Studio and mastered at Abbey Road Red/CloudBounce. The mixing and mastering is somewhat experimental and it's most likely to be followed by a remix/remastering in a not too distant future. All guitars, vocals and percussion are performed by me and the fretless bass by Andreas “Drake” Mallander and the drums by Patrik Idman, so my current power-trio live band. When it comes to my performance on this one I can assure you that I’ve really outdone and pushed myself when it comes to vocals and guitar, and yeah, you'll even find some bongo drums and maracas performed by me in the middle section of "Between Seasons"(!). I put a lot of effort in the arrangements and production as well, so a lot of hard work to get things where I wanted them, and as I see it I didn’t have a choice, the songs demanded it.

You’ll find Between digitally at your digital music provider of choice, a handful of them directly linked here below, and there was originally plans to release it on vinyl, but due to the situation in the world now and the absence of live gigs, that plan is somewhat off, depending where thing's are heading.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2gh9STq6BTXF6wyzOZUZuB?si=NfCUwLlbRIyBsKla0Hh3eg

Napster: https://gb.napster.com/artist/pm-saari/album/between

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/se/album/between-single/1537428397

Tidal: https://store.tidal.com/se/album/160405709

Amazon Music: https://www.amazon.com/Between-PM-Saari/dp/B08LXXHX6R/ref=sr_1_23?dchild=1&keywords=PM+Saari&qid=1605248778&s=dmusic&search-type=ss&sr=1-23

Feel free to share the links and spread it to support me. Thank you.

Enjoy.

/ PM

Through the dictations of the world

So here we are, thought I would post this some months ago but as we all know things have been happening turning the world a bit around and upside down lately. (Even though I must admit that it feels a bit like I'm using this as an excuse for my absence here.) The collaboration plans we had getting out playing live in the end of 2019 backfired so there were no live dates at all and then Da Rona hit when we were supposed to get out the next round. So plans had to change and we went into total recording and rehearsal mode instead.

So I’ve been rehearsing with Mr Mallander and Mr Idman, the PM Saari Band that is, and it’s been real great getting down to the bunker as often as our tight-scheduled life allows and letting the creativity flow out in its purest form, at the same time uniting, tightening us as a band and having a great time. We’ve put in quite a bunch of new tunes into the live set, even though they’re not released yet, and we can’t wait to get back live on stage with it all (whenever that will be). We’ve also been jamming a bit with various covers lately, so we’ll see what might come out of that.

I can also, finally, confirm that the recording of the vocals (and everything else since many, many months back) of the first upcoming release, a two-song EP that will be called “Between”, is finally finished and it’s now off to be mixed. It will be released after summer and I can assure you that it sounds killer even pre mix - two Saari-style heavy metal/hard rock songs with strong melodies woven together with progressive elements and exciting arrangements. The second release, which also is a two-song EP, is almost done recording wise and its release will follow just months after the first. We’ve also, as times are as they are, started the recording of yet another EP that will be released before the next full length album, “The Awakening”. So there are three EP’s on the way, and note that they will not feature any songs that will be on “The Awakening”.

My vocal troubles, or rather throat problems, have kept troubling somewhat, and also held things back a bit the past year. The good thing is that this has forced me to start really digging in and working with my voice and vocals. Also realising now that it was pretty unfortunate that the vocals on the two songs on “Between”, the first release out, was for me the most difficult, hardest and most demanding that I’ve ever written, but I pushed myself way beyond what I thought was possible and there they are. I’ve also never ever before worked as deep and intensively (fanatically?) with the production and arrangements as have done on these two songs on “Between”, so I'm really excited to get it mixed and out.

So despite it all I’ve been working with music, quite a lot, and hopefully I'll get up the pace getting music out to you more frequently very soon as well, both recorded releases and live shows.

Rock.
/ PM