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Orbiter Announce Fall Shows in Finland and Germany

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan

At some point between releasing 2020’s The Deluge and now, Helsinki psychedelic troupe Orbiter parted ways with guitarist Jere Remes — don’t worry, they’ve still got — Alexander Meaney — and it’s as a four-piece that they’ll embark on their first international showcases, playing at the Fuzz Jam Festival in Hamburg and Berlin’s Setalight Festival in successive nights in Germany this October. There are a few other Finnish dates on either side of that fest-centered weekender, but the important takeaway here is Orbiter are getting out and will likely look to do so more after this if all goes well.

I don’t know what their plans are as regards releasing their debut LP, but according to the info here, the record is done and has been since June. That makes me wonder if there isn’t a label involved, and the delay is up to aligning with pressing plants and promotional concerns, thereby pushing it to 2023. I don’t know that, mind you, but otherwise, why not just put it up on Bandcamp and have done with it? Anyway, don’t go quoting speculation, but whenever the album is announced, I’ll have an eye out for it.

From the PR wire in the meantime:

Orbiter (Photo by Pauli Boström)

Orbiter announce tour dates for autumn 2022

Finnish psychedelic doom metal band Orbiter are playing six live shows in autumn 2022. These include four club shows in Finland and two festival performances in Germany at Fuzz Jam Festival in Hamburg and Setalight Festival in Berlin. The German dates will be the band’s first live performances outside Finland.

The Helsinki-based quartet made an impact on the heavy music underground scene with their 2020 debut EP The Deluge, which received excellent reviews. Orbiter’s sound is a melting pot of doom-laden riffs, atmospheric psychedelia, and hypnotic vocals, and the band has garnered acclaim for their atmospheric live shows.

In May-June 2022, the band recorded their debut full length album with legendary producer Hiili Hiilesmaa (HIM, Apocalyptica), to be released in 2023. Many of the new songs have been performed at recent live shows and have received a thrilled response from the audience.

Autumn Tour 2022:
03.09. Kenneli D.I.Y., Tampere, Finland
30.09. Ravintola Torvi, Lahti, Finland
01.10. Ravintola Ottopoika, Kuopio, Finland
07.10. Fuzz Jam Festival, Hamburg, Germany
08.10. Setalight Festival, Berlin, Germany
26.11. Uus Hoi Sie, Lappeenranta, Finland

Orbiter:
Carolin Koss – Vocals
Alexander Meaney – Guitar
Tuomas Talka – Bass
Sami Heiniö – Drums

https://orbiterconnection.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/orbiterconnection
https://www.instagram.com/orbiterband
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5bbe_KbC3_w185AtQMmRZA
https://soundcloud.com/orbiterconnection
https://linktr.ee/orbiterband

Orbiter, The Deluge (2020)

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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Tuomas Talka of Orbiter

Posted in Questionnaire on June 22nd, 2022 by JJ Koczan

PROMOPHOTO_TUOMAS_TALKA

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Tuomas Talka of Orbiter

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I am a songwriter and bass guitarist in Helsinki-based doom metal band, Orbiter. The story of how I became a bass guitarist goes back to 2013. By then I have had just played electric guitar since I was 16 (from 2006 on), mostly for my own fun and sometimes some covers of known metal bands with a friend of mine who played drums.

Then I moved to Helsinki for university in 2009 and I met Alexander Meaney around 2010 for the first time. It was a slowly developing friendship and during the first university years I had not even any play-for-fun type of music projects going on, but we started to talk more and more about music and the bands that we like, and I started to go to gigs of his alternative rock band of that time called Saturnalia. I was even sort of a roadie on one gig. Then one winter day of early 2013 Alexander called me and asked if I know how to play bass guitar, as the former bass guitarist had decided to leave the band. I said that I haven’t really played the bass guitar but I can learn. I started practising the songs several hours a day for the first weeks, and three months later we recorded an EP. By that time I did not even have my own bass guitar, yet.

The story of Saturnalia did not last long as in early 2014 the band broke up for good. Even though I was in Saturnalia only a year, it was really good school of band life in general. I learned about how studio recording sessions in professional studio happen, we had almost 10 gigs, and I composed my very first song to be played live. That re-ignited the sparkle for songwriting, which I had been doing in my teens but just for the songs to be buried in the drawer… well to be honest the quality was mainly on a level that it was still better that way. Anyway, Saturnalia died and we had for a few months some fierce and fast experiments on thrash and other aggressive and fast metal subgenres without any additional singer, but soon the drummer also left as he had another band which was taking more and more of his time. Then I and Alexander started to gather a new band around us which then became Orbiter.

The naturally increased artistic responsibility as a co-founding member gave me courage to write more and more material, so now I am in a situation of a main songwriter in the band alongside with Alexander.

During the pandemic my interest in making electronic and synthesizer-driven music has also increased, and I was very pleased when a friend of mine took me to do the soundtrack for his horror short movie. I hope this is also something I get to do more in the future.

Summarizing all this above, my songwriter identity is maybe stronger than that of a player of any instrument in particular. I compose at home with electric guitar mostly, play bass guitar in my band and recently experiment with synthesizers. It’s all about the passion for creating sounds that you enjoy.

Describe your first musical memory.

I don’t think I can reliably distinguish my very first musical memories from false memories. We listened to a lot of children’s music in my childhood while we were going somewhere by my family’s car. And I guess I and my sister mostly, at least sort of, selected that music which was put on. but I do remember clearly one of my very first memories of me choosing the music that I really liked and listened on repeat and felt the first feelings of true fascination towards music.

My family is not particularly musical as nobody played any instrument or sang. We had a some kind of CD collection home, which consisted mostly of easy listening compilation albums and some schlager albums. My dad, though, clearly had some kind of rock phase during his youth as there were some CDs that got my attention when I was at the stage of migrating away from children’s music. I remember that he had some compilation albums of C.C.R., Scorpions, Michael Jackson’s HIStory, and Queen’s Greatest Hits II. I remember that especially the last one was on constant repeat for me for quite some time and it had the kind of magic in it that was my true first love towards rock music.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

As the ball has got rolling really well with Orbiter recently, despite the pandemic and the challenges it has brought, my best musical memory is also quite recent. In 2020 we had the privilege to play our first ever summer festival gig on the very same day that the larger public events were again allowed in Finland after the first covid lockdown. This was on 1st of August at Jokelan Närkästysjuhlat (what a tongue-twister for non-Finns!). There were lots of big local names and also Skraeckoedlaen from Sweden as one of the headliners. The weather was nice, which is not something to take for granted in Finland even in summer! The gig went very well, we had a really good audience already for our afternoon slot, and the general atmosphere was just super great. I got lots of casual compliments about the gig from strangers when walking through the festival area. The whole experience left a big thirst for more!

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

I can’t recall any firmly held beliefs being tested at all recently regarding music. I guess many people have had their phases of being quite absolute on the kind of music they SHOULD listen to and how music SHOULD sound like and how songs SHOULD be made. I had also had this phase during my teens, luckily for a short time.

When really thinking of a firmly held belief, that has had a huge effect on me as a person, the biggest thing coming to my mind is that avoiding conflicts in relationships at all costs would be healthy. This thought was something I most likely somehow adopted from my childhood. It was last time tested a few years ago when I finally started to understand the importance of giving a chance for conflicts to happen as part of human interaction, also and especially with the ones you love. All the uneasy, yet crucial conversations are not happening if one is afraid of disagreement. The realization of this took me some time but I am happy it dawned to me in the end.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

The best thing with the artistic progression in general, for Orbiter and for what I do outside of the band, is that I don’t really have any clear idea to which direction it is going. My songwriting and riff-writing process is not at all in control and is in that way chaotic that I just play the guitar without any ideas in my head and see if something comes up. If not, then I try it again the next day. Some people hear riff ideas in their head while they are taking a shower or so, but I am not that kind of a person. I just seem to create whatever flows through me so it’s always at least a bit of a mystery. The only somewhat controlled way is that if we are for example finalizing an album and we miss a song or two and start thinking of what kind of moods this album is still missing, then I try to push the songwriting to certain direction and see what comes out. Most of the time it is quite freely flowing, though.

Not to leave this answer to a boring ending I can of course start guessing what is the artistic progression of Orbiter. I know what the upcoming debut album is going to be like, and many old Orbiter fans might be a tiny bit surprised of it. But going beyond that, I feel that contrast of various light and heavy dynamics is going to play even larger role in the music. Orbiter is going to be very doomy but most likely quite far from stoner, in the sense of what stoner rock and stoner metal mean to me. Our music might also migrate to direction where it is very difficult to say if it is metal or rock or something else. What I can also sense is that the visual part of our presence and especially live shows is going even more to a direction of some kind of a holistic experience in addition to musical experience. This starts to be already quite a hazy vision in my head that I can’t fully verbalize, but something to this direction for sure.

When thinking of music I make outside of Orbiter, I need to see how I feel after the horror movie soundtrack once the movie gets its premiering night. I will be experimenting with synthesizers for sure in the future but time will show if it goes more to soundtrack direction after this one or to some dark electronic/ambient or something like that. The persisting issue is that I am such a popular music multi-enthusiast with my interests and there are only the few hours for each day to use, having a day job and all other things in life, as well.

How do you define success?

This question sounds like from some project planning meeting, defining the targets of the project that I sometimes face at work. Well, if I take this project aspect then, and let’s stay in music, as would make sense.

I can’t talk with everyone’s mouth in the band but we have had some discussions about goals for Orbiter and based on that I dare to say something. These are mainly something that I’d guess most bands have, so touring greatly abroad in the most important festivals of our scene, and touring abroad playing club gigs with some great bands. These would be definitely a dream come true. Oh! And then we have this one very tongue in cheek goal that we have set. As we intentionally play also with the sex appeal in our visual side, which to me is obvious and one of the core elements in rock music in general, we have set this target of being ”the sexiest doom metal band in the world”. So I guess that if some day some music media refers to Orbiter with these words, we have succeeded! :D

When defining success for me personally in music, I don’t have that specific or concrete thoughts on it. I think I have succeeded in music when it gives me rewarding feelings and meaningfulness to life. Being able to keep this throughout my life would be great and definitely a clear sign of success. I don’t dare to wish for more, as time will show then what shapes these hopefully rewarding and meaningful moments will take.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Even though, the war in Ukraine has been going on already since 2014, I really wish that nobody would have had to see the start of it, not to talk about the latest, shamelessly unjustified full-scale war and genocide commanded by Putin. Wars are always horrible but witnessing such monstrosities in Europe still these days, relatively near, makes it understandably extra overwhelming to deal with. All I can wish, is that this bloodshed ends as soon as possible. At the same time the brighter future for Europe and the whole world needs the collapse of Russia as we know it, the Russia which hasn’t dealt with their totalitarian past. Without that, It will always end up totalitarian and imperialistic, time after time, after some turmoil periods between dictatorships. This cycle needs to end.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I will keep this on a personal level and leave Orbiter out of it. So now that I have passed the threshold of thinking do I dare to publish some of my electronic/synthesizer music because of the upcoming movie and its soundtrack, I’d really take some elements of that further. During the last years I have got really fond of industrial electronic music taking the sound to extremes but still having strong songs. The best example and one of my favorite artists in this is Author & Punisher who is absolutely brilliant. Also modern darkwave has been something I enjoy listening to lately, especially Gost. It would be really interesting to take some influences from both darker corners of synthwave and some rhythms made of plain industrial noise and adding some of my own twist there. Let’s see how this idea develops, but for sure I cannot see any tracks to be published any time soon!

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

The most essential function of art is that it exists and is available for people. Art is one of the core elements of culture, which is one of the few distinguishing factors between humans and other animals. If we ever encounter another species or form of life which has culture and ability to communicate with us, our art is definitely one of the very first things, if not the first, to be introduced to them. Art holds absolute value as it provides meaningfulness to people and its importance cannot, or at least shouldn’t, be valued by money. In my opinion, art reflects us as individuals and as society, telling the story of who we are, where we come from, and where are we going to. Art is also in interaction with our ways of thinking and seeing the world so it has a very complex and large importance.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I was first about to say to this that I am looking for seeing this short film on big screen that I was working with but that is, of course, a musical thing as I worked on the soundtrack. There are lots of musical things that I am looking forward to but I guess the biggest non-musical thing would definitely be my upcoming summer vacation. Seeing some friends I haven’t had time to see in a while, going to a summer cottage and just chilling in general after the hectic spring and early summer. I try to maintain my good practise, that I do not plan the vacation too much. I try to leave half of it empty to keep it interesting, yet actually relaxing. There is a busy fall ahead, so charging the batteries at this point is absolutely needed.

[photo by Johannes Latva]

https://www.facebook.com/orbiterconnection
https://www.instagram.com/orbiterband/
https://orbiterconnection.bandcamp.com/

Orbiter, “Bone to Earth”

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Orbiter to Release Debut EP The Deluge Next Week

Posted in Whathaveyou on January 22nd, 2020 by JJ Koczan

Following up on their announcement last November of the single Bone to Earth, Finnish heavy five-piece Orbiter have now put out word that their debut EP, a four-tracker titled The Deluge, will be out on Jan. 29. Rest assured, I have no frickin’ idea what day it is as I write this, but when I take the millisecond to glance downward at the calendar, it says that’s next week, so there you go. Quick turnaround.

“Bone to Earth” will lead off the EP, and its rolling groove is welcome to be sure. Orbiter‘s take is in a place between heavy rock and doom, and Carolin Koss‘ vocals highlight an edge of psychedelia in the guitar, but that only makes the overall outing richer in sound. The Deluge‘s scope might be familiar to experienced heads, but that does nothing to make it less enjoyable, particularly in the righteously atmospheric eight-minute closer “In Echoes.” Admittedly, I’m still digging into the release, but that’s an immediate standout.

One to keep an eye on. Maybe mark your calendar. Set a reminder. Do the thing. Get involved. Make your way. Blah blah blah. Whatever, it’s right on. You like music, right?

Dig:

orbiter (photo by Pauli Bostrom)

Finnish doom metal band Orbiter to release debut EP “The Deluge” on January 29, 2020

The Finnish doom metal band Orbiter will release their debut EP The Deluge on Wednesday, 29 January. The four-song EP is a blend of heavy riffing, atmospheric psychedelia, and soaring vocals. The central theme of the record is human nature and its contradictions: over and over again people’s aspirations towards wisdom are in danger of being drowned under the waves of their own greed. The EP has been mastered by Brad Boatright (Audiosiege), one of the most renowned mastering engineers in the industry worldwide.

Orbiter released a pre-single Bone to Earth in late November. In addition to the Finnish media, the song also received international attention in Germany, Spain, France, and America.

Founded at the turn of the year 2014-2015, the band has been influenced by the genre’s founder Black Sabbath, 90s stoner bands like Kyuss, and 21st century doom bands. Additional influences have been drawn from psychedelic and progressive rock.

Orbiter’s new vocalist Carolin Koss joined the band last April. She’s an artist, filmmaker, and singer originally from Germany, and now residing in Finland. This is Orbiter’s first record with Koss. The band has previously released three singles, most recently Anthropocene in early 2019.

Upcoming gigs (in Finland)
6.2. Lepakkomies, Helsinki
10.4. Ravintola Cactus, Helsinki

Orbiter: The Deluge
1. Bone to Earth
2. Astral Racer
3. Orchids
4. In Echoes

Orbiter
Carolin Koss – Vocals
Alexander Meaney – Guitar
Jere Remes – Guitar
Tuomas Talka – Bass
Sami Heiniö – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/orbiterconnection
https://www.instagram.com/orbiterband/
https://orbiterconnection.bandcamp.com/

Orbiter, “Bone to Earth”

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