Scandi-Merica #7 - Skiing

 

Jarpr and Brúnn are enjoying a beautiful snowy day skiing on the mountains, when they approach a questionable sign.

The punchline for this strip is very specific, and pretty much only classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans will get the joke, but that's okay. It's been a huge inspiration to me in many ways, between their unique comedy with many references to art history and layered jokes that get funnier with each viewing, the using of the dark of shit movies to create light, and their independence and staying true to their (he)arts, not settling for attempts at network intrusions back in the 80's/90's and eventually going fully independent via Rifftrax. This joke comes from the short Snow Thrills, and is the only place where I've ever heard Skiing pronounced as "shi-ing", which they riff on, and that bizarre quote felt perfect to reference in a Scandi-Merica strip with the winter and ski theme.

I really love how the coloring and the contrast between colors came out with this strip, I'm enjoying the combination of my comic art with fauvist color usage.

All art, writing, penciling, inking, and coloring created by me.

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New single, Nu Metal on the 222

 New single, Nu Metal on the 222!

It's 2/22! Perfect timing for a song that just so happens to be 2:22 (though Newgrounds and Youtube rounded it to 2:23). While being a solo bass song, this song has a pretty percussive quality to it. I've learned more about mixing distortion, and it's a short but sweet jumpdafukup banger with plenty of palm muting and bends. I've been a big fan of the nu metal revival that's been happening this decade (though nu metal never left in the amazing and overlooked Russian metal scene, like Psiheya, 5diez, Falsegiver, and The Korea), as it's such a unique and experimental style. Fieldy from Korn has always been a huge inspiration to me as a bassist, and other bands like Powerman 5000, Limp Bizkit, The Mad Capsule Markets, and Guano Apes I love as well.

If I remember correctly, I played this on my 4-string

Recorded in Audacity and mixed in Ocenaudio

Listen on Youtube or Newgrounds

Scandi-Merica #6 - Cow

 

Ætta is giving some fresh water to her and her husband Gulr's pet cow Auðumbla,  but an ignorant passerby from the town outside doesn't understand and throws an insult. 

First comic strip of the new year! This was my first time drawing a cow, and I'm really happy with how it turned out! I like the combination of detail and simplicity, and fits in well with the human characters. You may notice some blotchy spots on their Stave house, I tried to add some more color digitally because for some reason the printer wasn't wanting to scan the color of the wood properly. I started work on this sometime around Govatsa Dwadashi last year, a Hindu holiday that marks the start of Diwali and honors the beautiful animal that is the cow. The cow is a sacred animal in many cultures, including Scandinavia. Ætta and Gulr's cow in the strip is named after the primordial cow that licks the salt to reveal the giant Búri that would be the grandfather of Oðinn, which can be read in a story from The Prose Edda.

Just like cows and others, we are all animals and all should have the same freedoms. Animals are innocent and the way people treat other animals is often a clue to how they treat other people. I practice Ahimsa, do no harm to yourself, other people, or other animals. There's a reason in almost all ancient cultures animals are respected and associated with different divinities. One of the main inspirations for me creating this strip was my anger I was feeling at the judgements that often get thrown towards those who refuse to eat the flesh of an animal, which is especially prevelent in American society.

All art, writing, penciling, inking, and coloring created by me.

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New single, Phasing, out now!

 

Last month I released my first distortion heavy metal song, the grunge Space Valkyrie, but it wasn't the first grunge song I recorded! Earlier last year I got an MXR Phase 90 pedal, phaser pedals are something I had wanted to play around with for a while, being used in such classics like Van Halen's Fair Warning album and Incubus' Morning View album (one of my all time favorite albums btw). After recording a few jams with it, this song and this single's B-side Sailing Across the Orknies were the first songs to form from my experiments. I gave the song the appropriate title of Phasing, not only for the obvious reason, but it resonated with all the bends in the song and mood of each riff section. The B-side Sailing Across the Orknies is in my signature harmonic rock style, but with the addition of the phase pedal. The string bends give it that grunge edge, though with a classic metal gallop to evoke the sailing and exploring then unknown seas.

When thinking of a cover, the idea of a viking longship in different phases of being built came to me. The phaser pedal can give a bit of a watery sound, and that sound element came into my playing as well, with it evoking the imagery of sailing across the sea in a longship.

Listen now on Youtube or Newgrounds!

Favorite Albums of 2024: Proof You Don't Need the Music Industry to be Successful 2

 2024 was an incredible year, especially for music. Not only did I release my music for the first time, first single in February, first EP in June, and a second EP in October, but so many fellow independent artists released incredible music in a wide variety of sound. I'll list my top 5 albums of the year with short descriptions of each and a link to my favorite song, and then the rest of what I loved!

 Denis Pauna

 Rust in Peace Type O Negative Style

Denis Pauna is a Croatian guitarist, bassist, and vocalist that's been creating some of my favorite metal in various kinds of this decade. While also making his own originals under the name Planleft, he's most known for his covers of classic songs and albums in different styles. Though calling them covers is almost a disservice, as if it wasn't for the lyrics, listening to this you'd never be able to tell that Rust in Peace was originally a Megadeth album. He makes this album completely his own, and even exceeding beyond the Type O Negative style he wrote it in. Not being a fan of Type O Negative personally, I was amazed to hear this as not Type O Negative style, but completely Denis's own unique sound bringing doom metal, grunge, and thrash under a goth atmosphere with some of the most beautiful vocal melodies, harmonies, and even synths that remind me of 80's Rush. His version of the underrated Lucretia on the Megadeth album, is pure beauty with him harmonizing his vocals in a way I haven't heard anywhere else outside of Kevin Moore of Chroma Key/OSI. Such a beautiful album and his music continues to be a huge inspiration to me and learning how to do my own covers in different styles that transcend the idea of a cover.

Favorite song: Lucretia (funnily enough my favorite on the Megadeth album as well)

Listen to the full album here on Youtube

 

 Elyse G. Rogers

 Feel the Love

A new artist this year for me, Elyse G. Rogers is a vocalist whose been active since back in the 90's with Eurodance group MAXX. She started creating solo music in the 2010's and learning about different frequencies and the different healing powers/qualities they have. I've long known of and sometimes listened to binaural beats tuned to different frequencies, but her music is the first time I've been aware of full songs in those frequencies. I can feel and hear the differences of other frequencies, and after learning started experimenting with alternate tunings/frequencies myself (Most of my music so far has been played on a 5 string bass tuned to 444 or 432.) I first expected something more pop, but was happy to hear the wide variety of classic electronic music on this album. Her vocals are beautiful, and the music sometimes reminds me of deadmau5 or Ozric Tentacles melodies and other times out of a classic Ultramarine album. It's such an easy full album to listen to and feel so much lighter. It's so joyous, and some of my favorite electronic music of the decade so far.

Favorite track: Shine Your Light (639 HZ)

 

 Vargskelethor

Blasted Residuals

 

I've already talked about Vargskelethor and a bit of this EP in a post last year, but to continue from there, this EP is total thrash fun and proudly displays everything I love about it and Vargskelethor Joel keeps honing and expanding his sound. Technical Difficulties has my favorite melodies of his so far, reminding me of classic Anvil, Vomit in the Ball Pit is a doom-thrash stomp, but my favorite and favorite thrash song of the decade so far is the masterpiece Wrestling Stone Cold. It's like a Ludichrist/Scatterbrain song but with gargantuan crushing riffs and even goofier. When there's no record label attached, thrash metal still kicks ass.

Favorite track: Wrestling Stone Cold

 

 Ursula's Cartridges

Molten Glass Soup 5000

 

 One of my favorite, if not favorite, electronic artists of the past decade and onward is Finnish musician Ursula's Cartridges. Releasing his first album back in 2014, as the years go by Ursula's Cartridges has shifted his sound from the ambient vaporwave space to an explosion of sounds from just about every style of electronic music throughout it's history. Like Roy Lichtenstein's paintings that display an art history book's worth of styles but done in his own, Ursula's Cartridges does similar with electronic music. No matter if it's vaporwave, breakbeat, trip hop, retro video game music, funk, drum and bass, big beat, techno, ambient, or anything in-between, it's all part of his distinct sound. Molten Glass Soup 5000 goes through so many different sections in the same song, with a catchy hook to begin and then a bridge or ending breakdown of a different kind. The nu jazz bridge in Four Days Old Gas Station Sushi gets so many repeats from me, and the sped up 16-bit era video game dance of Circus Came to Sapporo into an intense display of big beats is another favorite. This whole EP is amazing, maybe my overall most listened to of the year. Despite being released on April Fools Day, it's anything but!

 

 Favorite track: Four Days Old Gas Station Sushi (Free download on his Bandcamp, but there's also a link to a cassette copy of both this and his Ice Queen's Prom album on the main EP page, which I highly recommend)

 

Evaleigh

 Lift

 Creating my favorite metal album from last year, and of the whole decade so far in Crush, vocalist/guitarist Evaleigh returns with a compilation of some new songs, as well as done for other independent creative's projects, podcasts, etc. Despite being a compilation of music of all different kinds/styles as well as intent, Lift still sounds like an album and has an amazing flow from song to song. A lot of the songs are short due to them being themes, but the switching of track to track never feels abrupt. Though I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish some weren't longer, especially the chiptune metal of Angel War Rondo. While still kicking ass at only 38 seconds, I'd love to hear more. His vocals and guitar harmonies are always beautiful, be it In Flames-esque melodic death metal, chiptune metal, power metal, or any of the other styles thrown in the mix. The chill downtempo electronic towards the end were a nice surprise, Well man and Overcast are two of my favorites on the whole compilation.

Favorite track: Either Power or Overcast

 

Other albums from this year I loved:

 Ursula's Cartridges - An Invitation to the Ice Queen's Prom

 Denis Pauna - Ride the Lightning Death Metal Style
Buckethead - Sea of the Subconscious

Havok - New Eyes

Otu - Nub From Hell 

Gene on Earth - The Velvet Edge 

Xploding Plastix - Thus EP

deadmau5 - Some EP
Buckethead - Architect of the Inner Garden
Buckethead - Sea Serpent
Buckethead - Polaris
Buckethead - Angels Awaken a Slumbering Alchemist
Buckethead - Quieting the Thoughts That Don't Serve

Almost all of these albums have been independently released, and proof that a new independent creative renaissance is here. Here's to another creatively prosperous 2025! New music and comics coming soon!

Check out my EP's from 2024, Flags & Arrowways and Tail Thyme, from any of the links Here

Scandi-Merica #5 - Merry Christmas!

 

Merry Christmas and Merry Jöl (ancient Norse holiday where many modern Christmas traditions are believed to originate from, and not to be confused with the Winter Solstice) from Scandi-Merica! A wonderful time of year with (ideally) a snow covered landscape to feel joy in the peaceful winter atmosphere and enjoy holiday feasts and fun with friends and family. Couples Brúnn and Jarpr; Gulr and Ætta are enjoying a toast of Glögg (Non-alcoholic of course) and the ancient Jöl tradition of feeding the ravens.

I've been working on this single page Christmas card-style comic for a while now, and this is maybe my favorite coloring that I've done yet! I did some more experimenting, to the point where I felt like posting two pictures. The first one is what I originally visualized, with Gulr and Ætta both having the same shade of green for their sweaters and the symmetrical flipping of green/red for the two couples. However, the coloring process on paper looks a little different from the final scanned in version, as the forest green kind of blends in with the black inks, I thought it might look a bit confusing on whose arm is whose for Gulr and Ætta. So I colored her sweater in as a lighter green, which I think looks really nice too, and even still works symmetrically considering Brúnn has a lighter red/pink as part of her sweater.

I was still curious to how the forest greens would look together, knowing my past experiences with the green and black inked lines becoming more distinct in the scans. So on a separate print, I colored in just Ætta with the forest green so I could see how it looks after scanning both in. Took a little bit of touching up after pasting in the completed one, but I think the colors look good and the lines clear enough to differentiate each characters arms in the toast. I also added some white touches to Brúnn. However, I love how both look and was having a hard time picking between the two, so I decided to post both. I also experimented with using different colors for the raven outside my usual choice of grey, adding in some more texture and purple accents. However on paper I wasn't sure if I'd rather have just the grey, so I did that on the same other print with Ætta. After scanning in though, I loved how he came out, so I stuck with that.

Which one is your favorite? Do you like both Gulr and Ætta wearing forest green, or do you prefer the lighter green and like how it compliments the lighter red/pink that Brúnn has? Also, what's been your favorite of this year's Scandi-Merica strips?

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New song and new artwork! - Space Valkyrie (Himinvalkyr)

 

Excited to release my first straight up distortion heavy metal song! I've been listening to metal my whole life, and I've always wanted to compose and record metal music of my own. I realized the bass is such a beautiful instrument on it's own and that I didn't have to wait on others to record my own music, and I've developed my own unique harmonic bass sound but I still was craving some heavy stuff. I've been experimenting with recording distortion right for a while now, and I've started to get an idea of how to record and mix it. I've now got an amazing solo bass grunge song played on a 4-string bass with an MXR Fullbore Metal distortion pedal and a slight alternate drop-D tuning. It's slow and sludgy, and Viking Grunge feels like an appropriate description, enjoy! 

 Listen to the song now on Youtube and Newgrounds.

 One of my favorite bands and main inspirations has always been Soundgarden, whose influence can definitely be heard. Some of my other main inspirations when it comes to my grunge sound are Fu Manchu, early Queens of the Stone Age, The Sword, Ningen Isu, Om, and Load-era Metallica.

Himinvalkyr, used for a single cover for my solo bass grunge song Space Valkyrie. While I drew this with the song and title in mind, I love this as its own separate artwork as well. I started it after recording the song, but most of it came to me after looking at the beautiful artwork that adorns eighteenth century Icelandic manuscripts of the Prose Edda. I feel it's a combination of my own style with a touch of that old Icelandic artwork, and I've always loved drawing the constellations.

It depicts a Valkyrie (warrior women associated with the gods Oðinn and Freya and the place of Vallhalla) throwing the North circumpolar constellations Cassiopeia, Draco, and Cepheus into the heavens. This relates to how many different cultures have stories of different gods/goddesses/figures putting different things into the sky to form stars/constellations. Unfortunately there's not a whole lot of information on Norse star lore, but I've always had a love of the stars and constellations.