Album release date decided.

New album comes out: 13 January 2015

The new album will be titled: "For The Duration Of Psychiatric Treatment" and it will pretty much sound...well...GREAT! Yeah as if my own opinion is a good testimonial lol.

Anyway the CDs are ordered from the printing factory, this time they will be in Digipacks!

Updates

New album is basically all done and mastered. It just needs some album art and I'm also saving some money to print a few physical copies. The album will probably be out in early 2015.
I may reveal some details as the (yet undecided) release date gets closer.
Working with labels seems impossible, so I'm just gonna give up on that unless a label contacts me with a decent offer.
Record labels will probably get extinct in the future anyway, everybody just downloads and/or streams their music anyway and nobody reads reviews or music news either lol.

Weird visuals for weird music

This time something unexpected and unorthodox. Thanks to SleepingBagStudios for making this video. If you lovely people would like to see a more colourful version of this video, let me know and I might be able to do something about it.

Fact of the day

The new album is probably going to be released on a real label. It was fun doing the first album all by myself, but it's really draining the energy out of me to do everything alone.

Might also not be released on a label. I guess I'm just too assertive or something. Either way I don't know how this is going down in the end.

Sleeping Bag Studios set the bar high for reviewers

This was just a review of such quality that I don't usually run into on the internet.
I have come across all kinds of reviews online, and while most of them are pretty decent, some people still surprise me with the unprofessionalism despite being a writer for a very popular big music website 
Anyway this was really nice so I wanted to mention it up here. 

Charming Timur – A Brief Moment Of Existence – Album Review

Ummm…ok…watch your volumes on this one…starting Charming Timur’s new album A Brief Moment Of Existence off as loudly as you were playing that last jam you heard from whatever band might just spike your heart rate through the roof – or make you wish you were wearing your brown pants!  So be careful with those speakers – there’s no easing into this album; Charming Timur is here to fill every inch between your walls with a sound onslaught!

No joke – from moment one, this one-man unit from Helsinki is throwing more at you than most bands can in their combined efforts.  As a guy that personally NEEDS a ton of sounds coming at me every once in a while – opening tracks “OCD,” “Falling Down,” and “Cut You Open” greatly satisfied this hole that is often wide-open in my never-ending list of indie-music to listen to.

As noted in our latest interview with a similar artist – Chris Romans of The Last Surrealist (Also a solo-act) – it can often be extremely difficult to get that word spread, or the message in the music out when presented in such an in-your-face style.  That being said – there’s certainly awaiting ears for this style of Nu-Metal…and I definitely found a ton of this album to be extremely interesting to listen to on a production-level.  The dynamics of the album are fantastic…a shift you can hear nearly mid-way through the third track “Cut You Open,” and then certainly into the following track “My Pain.”  Musically, it all becomes a little less frantic, which leads to the strength in clarity as Charming Timur highlights parts of the instrumentation through the excellent use of the loud/quiet combo.  “My Pain,” is often just as brilliant when everything cuts out & slows down, leaving just basic bass and drums, as it is when firing on all cylinders.

As a quick side-note for our readers & followers…if you dig on sounds we’ve brought you in the past from Fey, Sky As Skin, or even Closer – Charming Timur is DEFINITELY an act you want to check into…

According to what I can find online…aside from a “mysterious man” who “played some drums and rhythm guitar” on “All The Same” – everything you’ll hear on A Brief Moment Of Existence is created, produced and put together by Lauri Santeri Lohi.  Credit truly needs to be given here, in the songwriting department, even if it’s not the style of music you might normally dig on.  You can clearly hear just how much effort would have been necessary to not only come up with and create these enormous sounds – but to fit them all in as clearly as Lauri has here is a true achievement in indie production.  It’s rare to find an indie album that can match up equally in concept and production, but I believe we have one here.

“Broken Personality” is a complete monster!  LOVE it.  Such an excellent contrast of bright and beautiful guitars against the swaying vocals, and then against the ultimate burst of sound as it all comes together.  Lauri is beyond phenomenal in what he can put out for sound through the vocals.  If you need a lesson on how to get your screams across clearly, this would be an excellent place to start.

Like…for real…I imagine the ‘clean-up’ duty of a recording session with Charming Timur has got to include sweeping up little chunks of Lauri’s lungs from the floor.  It’s literally like the very inside of him is making its way out to join you on each and every track!

In a clever combination thematically, tracks “Ego Machine” and “Center Of The Universe” work extremely well together as a set occurring in the second half of the album.  Again, I’m a huge fan of sound-collages and I love singers and vocalists that aren’t afraid to take chances on a heavy effect to style their sound overall, or simply on a single track.  Opposite to many of my peers, perhaps stemming from my own experience with vocals – I really believe it takes just as much courage to dirty-up or change your natural sound.  People talk about ‘relying’ on effects…I mean, c’mon…if you’re only experimenting with your ‘natural’ sound – you’re ‘relying’ on only one quality.  “Our Day Is Beautiful (The Obsession Song)” is another massive example of his ability to reach out, expand and create new sounds.  Experimentation like this…using the vocals as a virtual instrument in the music is an approach I’ll always appreciate – big thumbs up to Lauri here for these moves.  

As it closes on the final track “Nostalgia” – a slower version or similar feeling as “Broken Personality” – you can really get the closure you need and realize what a satisfying listen this was.  It’s fuckin MEATY – and cooked just right all the way through.  The album has pain…it has emotion…and whichever way these songs have come out, distorted, effect-laden, or straight-ahead – they reflect those feelings stored within Lauri that have been caged up and waiting to come raging out in full control.

But what makes the album and songs as great as they are – is that production aspect and how nailed tight it all is.  It’s through that precision that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that as chaotic and lashing as the music can be – through Charming Timur Lauri has found a way to channel that angst into something artistic on A Brief Moment Of Existence.

However brief – after listening…you can only hope that at the very least there’ll be more of them to come in the future.

• Jer @ SBS

Check out the album for yourself at: http://charmingtimur.bandcamp.com/

Find more excellent indie-artists both locally and from around the globe at http://www.sleepingbagstudios.ca

Music video reuploaded.

Yeah this is the third time lol.

Party hard while digging in the yard or something like that. Hopefully this time the video will stay up there.

Charming Timur new picture

It really fits well. I'm just that handsome.

I should just put my face on the album cover to make everything even more attentionwhoringly obnoxious.

Info on the new album

I have composed and recorded all the stuff for the new album. All I have to do is mixing and mastering and come up with album art and stuff like that. The songs don't even have titles yet or anything.

There's going to be both, softer and heavier stuff. Lots of weird stuff, even a song that is all just trippy post-punk and not at all metal. Also beware, the vocal style very common in aggrotech/ebm music has a strong foothold on this album! Yeah nobody saw that coming but the echoing and distorted whispers are coming with a vengeance. They're not the only style of vocals though, don't worry!

I don't know yet if I will release it myself or if I'll find a label, though it's more likely that I'll just release it myself. The problem with that is, that it's a lot of work, and although this is probably the only thing in my life that I'm actually motivated to do, I'm still a "very tired person". Depression is a bitch. Anyway the album will be out one way or another.

Sorry I don't have any preview material yet, I will post something once I have at least one song 100% ready!

Less Social Media

Yeah I created a masterplan to just appear in a lot of social media networks and then dissappear after getting a bit of attention, leaving people to reminice and wonder about that mysterious artist that they found and this will drive them crazy and remember my music sounding better than it actually does. What the fuck am I talking here lol...
Anyway yeah Soundcloud and Reverbnation are both more artist-to-artist oriented than artist-to-fan oriented, and I just don't have the passion for social media in general so in my case: Less is More. It was a nice experiment to do though, but in the long run, Blogger+Bandcamp combination seems to rule supreme. This still doesn't mean that other people should give up on this many social media options as I did. Everyone is different in terms of what works for them. Maybe someday I'll try Myspace!

Interview on OccultBlackMetalZine

Yeah someone might think it's weird to have something as nu metal oriented as Charming Timur to be reviewed and interviewed on OccultBlackMetalZine but the amount of black metal influence in my music undeniably makes it partially black metal.

1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the musical project?

Charming Timur is my solo project, focusing on experimenting with genres that I have a desire to combine. In this case, it is Nu Metal and Post-Black Metal along with a touch of Sludge and Post-Metal/Post-Rock. The project will probably expand into more genres as time goes on, and I don't want to limit this project musically by setting certain boundaries in terms of genre or lyrical theme. Charming Timur is about freedom of inspiration.

2.Recently you have released your first album, can you tell us a little bit more about your musical sound?

I was really going for a bipolar sound on the first album. I divided the album into two parts. I had some really angry and depressed tracks in the first part and then some tracks that were more focused on the atmosphere and melodies on the second part.

I usually don't like too much contrast on an album, but this time I decided to step out of my comfort zone. A lot of albums, especially in the Nu Metal / Alternative Metal categories, tend to have the ”ultimate angsty sad song” as the last track, which was something I definitely didn't want to do, so it became track number 4 (My Pain). I feel it's a refreshing thing to have the album end with something that leaves you feeling a bit more ”hopeful”.

3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects you explore with your music?

So far the lyrics have been about stuff going on in my head, usually about real life, mostly negative stuff on the first album, but there is no guarantee all my albums will be this negative. There's quite a lot of tracks with themes covering (my) mental problems and emerging pesonality disorders. Then on the other hand there's a song about just not giving up on things in life, despite what people think about it, (9. All The Same) to add some variation as well.

4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Charming Timur'?

The name ”Charming Timur” is something I came up with to break the tradition of having really artistic and ”deep” band names that have some spectacular meaning behind them. I also thought about the name ”Charming Bennett”, but then I wanted a non-american name to make it stand out a bit more. It literally comes from absolutely nothing of any real meaning.

5.On this album with the exception of an unknown guy playing some drums and tracks on song # 9, you recorded all of the album solo are you open to working with a full band in the future or do you chose to remain solo?

I have tried all kinds of band-projects and such in my time and they never really functioned as smoothly as when I do things by myself. I like to be in control a lot. Everything tends to work out really naturally when I just do things by myself. This does not mean that I couldn't have guest artists on my future material, and I'm actually curious on how that would turn out. I'm not a 100% against working with a band sometime in the future, but I think it's very unlikely. There could be some kind of a ”band arrangement” backing me up on some Charming Timur music video sometime in the distant future, I haven't thought about it yet.

6.Currently you are unsigned, are you looking for a label or have received any interest?

In today's world where almost nobody buys music anymore, a label seems kind of useless, unless they would be really big so I could really get some attention. Also a lot of labels only accept touring artists, and that makes things more difficult as well. If I would receive a really good offer from a label, I wouldn't refuse it. The problem is that it's an extremely rare thing to come by these days.

7.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of underground metal?

I'm still sort of waiting for more feedback, but so far it has been rather neutral. It has been more positive than negative though. At least it has been something new and refreshing for a lot of people.

8.Recently you have created a blogger, soundcloud and reverbnation for your musical project, do you feel these networks do a lot of help for newer bands and musicians?

I think it depends a lot on the bands and musicians themselves. Sometimes you can just explode in the social media and find yourself having a lot of attention, but then sometimes nothing happens and nobody notices. I think having some kind of social media is good so people can reach you though. Being absolutely out of reach, even though making you KVLT AS FVCK, might make you miss out on a lot. I think blogger has been my favourite social media platform so far.

9.Are you involved with any other musical projects besides this one or is this full time?

Yeah, I'm probably most well known for my solo Harsh Noise/Power Electronics project Whitewater Orgasm. That project has been really well received by a lot of people who are into that kind of stuff. I'm also the vocalist for the super slow Post-Black Doom project Laurasia Awaits Us. Charming Timur is currently the only project I'm actively writing new songs for though.

10.Where do you  see yourself heading into musically during the future?

I will probably go towards a bit brighter and adventurous sounds in the more distant future, and currently I have been writing songs that vary from violent and aggressive ones to kind of softer and more sensitive ones. There will definitely be Nu Metal and Post-Whatever in the future, but more styles might jump into the mix as well.

11.What are some bands or musical styles that have influenced your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?

There is definitely some influence in the Charming Timur sound from bands such as Korn, Limp Bizkit, Deafheaven, Alcest, Mouth Of The Architect, Eyehategod (the slower parts in a couple of tracks sound very similar to Eyehategod) and so on, but I never really think about it that much, I just listen afterwards and hear the similarities in the sound.

I usually find myself listening to Sludge, Stoner, Nu Metal or anything with echoing guitars such as Post-Rock or Shoegaze. I listen to a lot less Black Metal than people would assume. I also used to listen to a lot of Noise/Power Electronics and Martial Industrial, but I haven't been listening to that kind of stuff recently. It will probably come back at some point again. Listening to music works in cycles for me. One season something, next season something else.

12.What are some of your non musical interests?

I have always been fascinated about figuring out death and what comes after it. Also outerspace, aliens, transhumanism, timetravel and alternate realities have always been extremely interesting to me. When it comes to more ”down to earth” stuff, I'm interested in history, war and weapons in general. As freetime activities I enjoy watching TV and movies a lot.

13.Can you provide some links so people that are hearing of you for the first time can hear your music?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUmA07tcf-k Here is the official music video made in DIY spirit. I think it turned out quite nicely. It's a very symbolic track to describe my sound. Also my handsome facial features can be seen there to leave everyone daydreaming about me.

http://charmingtimur.bandcamp.com/ Bandcamp page for free download and the option to buy the CD.

14.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?

I hope to see more people just record songs and put them on the internet. Doing things yourself is going to be easier and easier in the future and you can just let your creativity flow. Don't overcomplicate! Also thanks for interviewing me and to everyone who read this interview too!

 

http://occultblackmetalzine.blogspot.fi/2014/06/charming-timur-interview.html

 

Check out the review itself as well:

http://occultblackmetalzine.blogspot.fi/2014/05/charming-tmura-brief-moment-of.html

 

 

 

 

More social media

Charming Timur has expanded it's online presence to Soundcloud and Reverbnation. I'm not the biggest social media enthusiast in the world, but I thought I'd try all this stuff out. Different people are on different sites and this will hopefully allow me to reach new people with my music.

SOUNDCLOUD

REVERBNATION

Also on a slightly unrelated note, new stuff is coming up nicely. The new album is going to have some really awesome songs. And I'm not usually very excited about anything I do myself so either I'm changing as a person or I'm really getting some (so far) exceptional stuff done.

Falling Down Music Video

Yeah so I made a very DIY-spirited music video for the song Falling Down from A Brief Moment Of Existence. I think it turned out quite well for being done pretty much alone. A lot of things are possible by just getting to it and doing them, it seems. Enjoy!

Quick Update

All the songs from the first album are now in youtube. Check it out if you want!

I have about 30 minutes of new material made, without vocals though, but yeah, soon we will have a new Charming Timur album again. This time even more radical and unsettling, with even more Nu Metal than before! Bad attitude and lots of cursing guaranteed.

Also if you people know other people that might enjoy this project, as always, let them know about it! Thanks all for supporting!

Physical copies

Buying my album leads to happiness. Yours and mine. So people please check it out: http://charmingtimur.bandcamp.com/
Just 5€ a copy (plus shipping!)

Look at this fucking DIY culture, bitch!

There are also 10 unique original promotional copies available, each in a slightly different jewelcase and with autographs. I know it's not the same as getting Tom Jones' autograph, but it might be valuable in the future.
In general, having someone write their name on something, just doesn't make any sense to me. That's the appeal in it. I might also doodle something weird onto the CD or the booklet if you're lucky. I am unstoppable.

Our Day Is Beautiful

For some reason, uploading to youtube is really laggy and just a chore in general, so all of my songs are not available there. I apologize for that.

For some reason this is definitely among my favourites from the album. It's a little out  of place on the overall grim album, and while this is probably the number one opinion-divider of the album, I think it has the best melodies from the whole album. I might maybe do a newer, better quality version of this sometime in the future. I hope I'm not the only one who appreciates this, despite all the softness in it.

It is inspired by a dream I saw quite a long time ago, which is also why it's so different from the rest of the album, which is based on real life experiences.

A Brief Moment Of Existence: Insights behind the album

Yeah so this is pretty self explanatory. I thought I'd write about why the album became so bipolar and so incoherent. And why that might actually be a good thing!

In all honesty, in the beginning, I just didn't know what I wanted to do exactly. And I still don't. I think it's actually better not to ever know everything in life. I wanted to make some angsty nu metal, I also wanted to make something more upbeat and uplifting. I didn't want the album to leave the listener into the state of "Everything sucks...Life is meaningless..." yet I still wanted to get some of my negativity and aggression out. I originally had just these darker songs in the style of the first half of the album, but then I realized that I don't want to be that guy who is just constantly negative about everything. So I got down to writing some stuff that is not all that super angsty and dark, but wouldn't be awkwardly happy in comparison either. There is still a very noticeable gap between for example My Pain and Our Day Is Beautiful, but somehow I feel like neither of them are out of place on the album. Or maybe they are completely out of place and shouldn't be put together, but I don't give a fuck. I just didn't care about pleasing a certain group of listeners over another, so I (sort of) divided the album into two halfs with the interlude in the middle. It's kind of like two EPs crashed into each other at high speed so that they sort of "overlapped" (I hope that's the right word for that). Although my next album might not be as divided as this one, I don't regret my decision to keep this album as a very incoherent and confusing mess.

I really enjoy doing "post-rock-ish" tremolo picking and echoing guitars AND catchy nu metal rhytm guitars, so that's also something I wanted to combine and felt that there is not enough music like that out there so that's how the basic idea for the guitars on this album came to be. Some people might find it a very strange combination, but that's not my problem. I also enjoyed doing all kinds of different vocal styles, which is the explanation why so many tracks differ from each other. I will try to get all of these different styles go more hand in hand in the future. There is always room for improvement.

I also did pretty much everything myself, so that might explain some things, such as why has no-one seen Charming Timur rocking out at the Ozzfest or Woodstock. I even mixed and mastered the whole thing myself and recorded it at my home, so yeah the quality is not the best in the history of music, but I think it turned out really good considering everything I just said in this paragraph. I think I might actually have my next material mastered by professionals, OR I MIGHT NOT, it depends on how I feel about it when the time comes. I know some people are always against lo-fi sounds and other people love that style of production, and maybe I will be doing both. Whatever I will do in the future, it will have something in common with ABMOE, and also have something new and different too.

No facebook

Facebook is just a very unpleasant platform to do anything with and it all looks very chaotic and stupid so I just gave that up from the start. Maybe in the future I will come up with something to replace that if necessary.

And here is the latest addition to youtube just because this would have been an extremely short post without it.  One of the first tracks recorded for the album actually.

Ego Machine:

Charming Timur

I didn't feel like creating an official website in the most common sense of the word so I just made a blog.

So yeah this is what people have been waiting for: The first actually musical solo project of L.S. Lohi. I'm also involved in Laurasia Awaits Us and TwelveOfConfusion(look out for that one, it's on it's way!) and most of all for my harsh noise and power electronics works under the name Whitewater Orgasm.


 I thought I'd start this up by quoting myself from bandcamp instead of writing differently on every platform:
Charming Timur is a one man musical planecrash not limiting to any genres in particular, but mostly revolving around Modern Metal, Nu Metal and various genres with the word "Post-" in front. Located in Helsinki. 

I made this first album all by myself, CDs printed at http://www.cdclick-europe.com/ , but other than that and a guest artist on track 9, it's all me. Mixing and mastering and just everything. I might save the mastering and such for professionals in the future though...

Buy the physical album or download the album for free:
Charming Timur on Bandcamp

A Brief Moment Of Existence is an audio experiment combining elements from nu metal, modern metal, post-rock/metal, and probably something else too. A rather bipolar mental journey through all kinds of fucked up things going in my mind. Past, present and the future colliding into a confusing mess where things just don't add up.

And here is me doing a : | face with my hair fighting gravity. You might be seeing a lot of that in the future.