Deadmarch: The Project Hate MCMXCIX – Initiation of blasphemy
About the recording
Deadmarch was the seed to what eventually became TPH, and this album was never meant to be released until Holland‘s Vic Records thought it would be a shame not to get it out to the masses some 10 years after it was recorded. The memories from this recording are many, and they are of mixed emotions. The first thing that comes to mind is the hell we went thru while recording it. After putting down all the guitars we were about to start fixing some minor playing mistakes, just to notice that Tomas Skogsberg‘s new equipment in Sunlight Studios couldn’t punch in and out on the tracks without leaving a small silent space just before and after the actual punch in. 2 days of recording guitars, all in vain. We got a new tape recorder and re-did all the guitars, but this time we only put down 3 instead of the original 4. All because we were so fed up with the situation and K didn’t have the strength to re-do all 4 guitars after the massive work that already had been done once.
Some other anecdotes: vocalist Mikael sounded like shit in the studio and when Jörgen Sandström came down for some backing vocals, Mikael had enough. He simply couldn’t do vocals after Jörgen had been there dominating, understandably. Mikael later recorded his vocals by himself on his own 8-track portable studio and then went to Stockholm where Skogsberg added them to the material. Bassist Kenneth couldn’t play the material for shit and after 4 hours of struggling thru one song, K had enough, took the bass and recorded the rest of the bass lines in an hour. All fantastic memories.
Unsatisfied with the lackluster performances from some of the members, K killed the band and started The Project Hate MCMXCIX. This album contains a lot of parts that later ended up being used for TPH in other songs.
Years later, we planned to have Jörgen do all of the vocals for this piece, and Skogsberg said it would be no problem since he still had the tapes and all. The day before the recording Tomas calls K up and says he can’t find the tapes. Re-doing the vocals never happened and the album is now released pretty much as it was recorded. There are definite flaws on this one as far as production values goes, but in its entirety it’s still a very important recording since it led to the birth of TPH.
About the title
We can’t really remember where the “Initiation of Blasphemy” part came from, but a good guess is that some random Hater suggested it. K always liked to bring in the Haters to some degree, to make them feel involved.
About the cover
When finding out that this album would see a release, Marko Saarelainen once again opened up Photoshop and created yet another fantastic piece of art.
