#Antony Hämäläinen

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Album Review: Our Last Eclipse by Ancient Settlers (Crusader Records)

Album Review: Our Last Eclipse by Ancient Settlers (Crusader Records)

International technical/melodic death metal outfit, Ancient Settlers, release their debut album, Our Last Eclipse, on 1st April, via Crusader Records. Ancient Settlers were founded in just 2020 by Carlos Chiesa-Estomba & Herman Riera (Ex- Haboryn), Rene González (Ex- Aesthesis), Emmy Reyes (Blackbeer, Ex- Gamalyel), and Antony Hämäläinen (Meridian Dawn, Ex- Nightrage & Armageddon), a group of…

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Week 7: A Yoik in Nature

“Music is a form of art and the arts move our minds from the ordered and sequential logic into the deeper, more cyclical world of imagery, values, metaphor, and symbolism.” (Beck et al. 2018)  With this quote in mind, I will try to answer where is music in nature and where is nature in music?

Music is found through out nature.  We know that since the dawn of humanity music has been around as even Neanderthals remains have been found with flutes!  In my research for this post I found an interesting statement from the journal Science “People who live close to nature perceive a wider range of sounds than those of us living in industrialized societies, who rely heavily on advances in sound technology” (Gray et al. 2001).  They back this claim by revealing to us how indigenous “non-industrialized” groups have incorporated sounds of nature into their cultures which the Western World have needed to develop advanced technologies for.  The first whale songs were recorded in the 1940s but Tlingit, Inuit, and other seafaring cultures have been able to hear them through the hulls of their boats for centuries (Gray et al. 2001).  Similarly, the Hutu, Tutsi and other groups from East Africa have incorporated the ultralow frequency rumbling of elephants into their songs and oral traditions (Gray et al. 2001).  Both the sounds mentioned have been made integral parts of those cultures identity through music as it evokes imagery of the landscape, and has deeper spiritual meaning unique to each cultural interpretation; also showing us that music is to be found anywhere in nature.  

I think my answer for where nature is in music is best exemplified by showing you some of my personal favourite pieces.  Antoni Vivaldi’s Four Seasons capture the values, atmosphere, action, and sounds of each season and play it back to us through the violin and the rest of the accompanying orchestra.  The Lark Ascending by Ralph V. Williams traces the songbirds flight from branch to branch, I imagine it to be early morning on a spring day in an orchard of cherry blossoms; again, communicated to us through the violin. Lastly, Cosmo Sheldrake’s “Wake Up Calls” album inspired by the feeling of being woken up by avian chorus and through the use of modern technology, incorporates the calls of many birds to create a sort of natural symphony.  Wake Up Calls reminds us that as natural woodlands decline and urbanization intensifies, we risk losing these wonderful morning alarms.  From the Baroque composer to the modern musician, music is used to translate sounds, emotion, values, and images into an artistic and spiritual dimension.

Continuing with the concept of creating imagery through music and incorporating indigenous knowledge, I want to briefly talk about the Sami people of Sapmi in Fennoscandia.  They have this amazing form of song called a ‘joik’.  The Sami have no written language, thus the exact origins and purpose of the joik are disputed among anthropologists.  This information was lost during an intense period of forced homogenization and integration into Scandinavian culture and suppression of indigenous heritage in the 19th and 20th centuries (Hämäläinen et al. 2018).  Equivalent to Canadian Residential schools.  Joiks are often sung acapella but can also incorporate drums.  They are often lyric-less, but this doesn’t take away from their meaning (Hämäläinen et al. 2018). Joiks are often sung about the landscape but rather than being about it, the joik IS the landscape (Hämäläinen et al. 2018).  This great video about the Sami which I recommend you watch, perfectly describes it as a being a portrait of the landscape, done through song.

A Disney yoik for the movie Frozen II.

Questions:

1.      If you’ve listened to any of the above artists, how do you interpret their music?

2.      If ‘illustrate’ is to describe something through images, what is the equivalent for sounds? I couldn’t find one so I’m curious to know if there is!

References:

Beck, L., Cable, T.T., & Knudson, D.M. (2018). Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage (First Edition). Sagamore-Venture Publishing LLC.

Gray, P.M., Krause, B., Atema, J., Payne, R., Krumhansl, C., & Baptista, L. (2001). The Music of Nature and the Nature of Music. Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 291(5501), 52–54.

Hämäläinen S, Musial F, Salamonsen A, Graff O, Olsen TA. Sami yoik, Sami history, Sami health: a narrative review. Int J Circumpolar Health. 2018 Dec;77(1):1454784.

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ANCIENT SETTLERS to Release New Album "Our Last Eclipse", Out April 1st

ANCIENT SETTLERS to Release New Album “Our Last Eclipse”, Out April 1st

International technical modern melodic death metal outfit ANCIENT SETTLERS were founded in 2020 by Carlos Chiesa-Estomba & Herman Riera (Ex- Haboryn), Rene González (Ex- Aesthesis), Emmy Reyes (Blackbeer, Ex- Gamalyel), and Antony Hämäläinen (Meridian Dawn, Ex- Nightrage & Armageddon), a group of musicians with more than fifteen-years of experience in the European and American metal…

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Album Review: Sense of Noise – Sense of Noise (Self Released)

They’ve absolutely delivered on their promises. Sense of Noise are the new face of melo-death and you’d be a fool to sleep on this one.

Sense of Noise are a brand new independent melodic death metal band who will release their self-titled debut album on November 5th, 2021. It features Björn “Speed” Strid (Soilwork) and Antony Hämäläinen (Meridian Dawn, Ancient Settlers, ex-Nightrage) on guest vocals. Drawing inspiration from the famous Gothenburg melodic death metal scene, Sense of Noise arrive with a bang on their debut album.…

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ARMAGEDDON Announce New Vocalist

ARMAGEDDON Announce New Vocalist

(photo by Keith Marlowe)

Christopher Amott ‘s new band ARMAGEDDON who recently released their new album ‘Captivity and Devourment’ through LISTENABLE records in January, have announced the departure of Matt Hallquist  who Antony Hämäläinenhas now replaced as a new permanent vocalist. In the early 1990s, Antony Hämäläinen started playing bass, drums, and singing for multiple bands based both in…