Circle and more

Congratulations with the new album Circle, it is really one of the best, or maybe the best so far!

What was your inspiration for this album? And is there a reason that it sounds darker then the previous albums?
We got little bit bored of the same way of doing albums. We wanted to have change. Of course with a long career you have to keep yourself hungry to try new things and challenge yourself. We needed to get more inspiration especially for the recording process, try out different things and come up with something not so normal. Maybe The Beginning Of Times was too sterile for us? It sounds maybe too soft comparing what does it sounds live.. With Circle we needed to get new directions for the recording process and the lyrical concept. Try out different things and come up with something not so normal for us. Now we used 7th person as a producer. And that’s been a while when we did like this last time, I think it was back in 2001 at Am Universum when we last time used producer (Simon Efemey). Even thought we had a producer with Circle we still had pretty big impact on the songs and how they turn out. And we did not try to musically-wise try to change everything. The songs were made at the same way they’ve always done. Musically-wise we did not try to change everything. The songs were made at the same way we’ve always been doing. Someone brings the demo to the rehearsals and so on. We did have some sort of a feeling to make this album harder and darker than The Beginning Of Times, but I think it was more like an general intuition. Now when I listen it when its mixed and mastered its definitely heavier than previous, the keyboards are more in the background, lots of heavy guitars and ultra low bass. There is a variation all over in the music, performing and production. Overall we wanted something different, maybe more experimental. Less vocal mass and choirs. I wanted to have more real pianos and real hammonds so I recorded them with authentic instruments, even some church-organs in big church. We were looking for more aggressive sound thus everybody thought the sound in previous album The Beginning of Times could have been more edgier.
Every album has its own theme. How do you come to a theme and how does it grow into an album?
So we thought now it was a time to make album with a producer outside the band. Also we discussed with each other that we could try something more modern now and our lyricist Pekka Kainulainen came with an concept which happen in the present time (or somewhere in the modern times). We read it through and actually it sounded much more interesting starting point than just another concept about an old story or classic Kalevala character once again.