As previously reported, SONATA ARCTICA are in the studio recording their next album. Keyboardist Henkka Klingenberg's latest studio diary entry is below:

"Hello again,

I'm now writing to you from the rainy Helsinki. The mixing at Finnvox has started and a couple of songs are playing in the background as I'm typing this in our rental apartment. Still there is not much more I can say about the music, generally I feel that trying to describe music with words is basically like having someone telling the radio news by playing a piano piece.....you can't win, and will definitely not know what's going on. Odd enough? Nevertheless, the stuff sounds really great. This is actually the first time we hear all the elements together, one of the drawbacks of using a zillion studios.

....and now to the 'what I did today' stuff. On the night between Thursday/Friday last week, my mate Make boarded the train in Kemi....4 hours later I joined him in what would naturally be a whisky-type-travel-disaster. There where no sleeping coaches available so through the night we just chatted and destroyed a bottle of scotch. Upon arrival in Helsinki in the morning we got the keys to the furnitured flat we've rented and so we headed on. First, off to Sonic Pump to pick up the files played by Mr. Engberg (acoustic guitars, harp etc...basically a collection of stringed instruments) and then back to the flat to wait a couple of hours for our friends at King Foo to arrive at their office, the plan was to hassle them and have some coffee....around this time however yours truly passed out, having stayed up all night.

Later in the evening, when I woke up, it turns out that KF was hosting a soundtrack-release party for the Finnish movie V2, checking that out was a must...and that naturally resulted in another headache. Saturday was spent chilling in the local bars with a couple of friends....which was nice of course. We ended the evening by testing our flat's sauna and it worked pretty damn good. Sunday was a real mellow day, not really doing much anything.

This week the mixing started, around noon on Monday. It took some time to open the files, check everything etc...that time was spent in mainly in the lounge (me and Make) as Mr. Karmila started to unfold the madness. Tuesday was pretty much the same, drinking coffee and occasionally dropping by the studio to check the status and make some suggestions etc.

Come Wednesday we had a later start at the studio, so we took the opportunity to meet up with our Finnish booking agent (Jouni/KingFoo), had a few laughs and sorted out some practical details about the upcoming (not yet announced) Finnish mini-tour before we continued the mixing. We had a bunch of friends over for sauna and beers in the evening and that resulted in a minor hangover that I'm now trying to cure with some grape-juice and work.

In an hour or so, we'll head out back to Finnvox and in the evening we're invited to the premiere of the V2 movie. Tomorrow Tony will join us and I can head back home....still got a couple of solos to play and maybe some other stuff will come up as well.

That's the end of this episode, in conclusion I don't think I write too much before the mastering, maybe a short check in when all the mixing is done. The mastering is now set around the end of February, at Cuttingroom / Stockholm, Sweden. This time around we're all gonna go there to enjoy the finishing touches of the album, I'm sure there will be some incidents to report to you as well.....at least the censored versions.

The Finnish spring tour will be announced shortly, keep checking the site. Until then I remain silent."

Henkka

To check out Klingenberg's previous diary entries go to this location.