It must have been some rainy day,
probably we were drinking our home made alcohol under a bridge once
again. Not any other atmosphere, but
that sort of, can give birth to those
legendary thoughts: what would it be
like to play together in a group, with
only friends and own musical
inspiration. To row by the river of
feelings and colour the shore with
imagination. There we were, under
a bridge drinking for our future,
Esko and I.
Later on, we managed to persuade
some friends to join us. Some of them
had been playing their instruments
already before, some not. However,
we learned quickly and had our first
gig in May 2003 at "Relax" -student
fair in Turku. Our temporary name
was "Rotta", and line-up like
Vocals/drums: Esko Itälä
Vocals/keyboards: Jenna Suominen
Bass: Lauri Itälä
Guitars: Lauri Kiviranta
Guitars: Anssi Lautjärvi
Actually we played our only song,
"Nocturnal Bless", very well, but it
was the technics that let us down:
I wasn't able to turn on the distortion
to my guitar, so I played the whole
song clean. Also Jenna's microphone
was far too low and when we saw
a video of the show afterwards we
couldn't hear much of her.
Soon Lauri Kiviranta decided to leave
us. Esko grabbed his guitar and Lauri
Itälä was passed the drumsticks. We left "Nocturnal Bless" to rest for some
time, and begun composing new songs.
But we needed a new bassplayer and
a keyboardist. Esko knew a few cool guys
and asked Lassi Laine and Ville
Intovuori to join the band. The guys
agreed and so we had reached our
final line-up!
Until now we had had rehearsals at
our schools' (Puola- lanmäki and
Luostarinvuori high schools and
TSYK) band lairs but finally we got fed up with short playing times and
using equipment that is not our own.
Fortun- ately we had a chance to
do up one of Esko's cellar rooms and start to use it as
a rehearsal place.
The brand new home of yet nameless band inspired
us to invent a good name for us.
"Gladenfold" was an unanimous choice from among a huge number of
interesting ideas. It's tuneful and
artistical, but it still provides a brutal
chance to be growled in choir after midnight, when we're heading
home from the bridge.
In fact, Gladenfold is not just a band but a little group of very best friends also. And has
always been, not only since we started to play together. During these years our crew has been
changing a lot; we have had extremely bad luck especially with keyboardists for up to the spring
of 2007 we had been in search for our fourth pianist. Former ones, Jenna Suominen,
Ville Intovuori and Matias Kilpiö, have lost their interest or moved far away from Turku so
that travelling to re- hearsals would have proved too expensive and frus- trating. However,
now as we've found Paavali who's become a good friend with us and has awesome playing skills aswell,
we're starting to feel much more confident about the future.
From the times of "Rotta" (referring to our former name) our crew has, indeed, changed a lot, for
Esko and Lauri are the only ones who still remain in the group. Our old
line-up can be found under The Story -link.
Esko Itälä - gtr & vox
Jaakko Riihimäki - gtr
Paavali Pouttu - keys
Lassi Laine - bass
Lauri Itälä - drums
Here you can find some information of all our official recordings, this time including also the unnamed first
demo, which never saw daylight in public... trust me it's not worth it.
In the fall of 2004, we received an advertisement by e-mail about a new band contest called
"Hilselinko". It was organized by Finnish Metal Expo and had pretty sweet prizes, such as
gigs and fame and some studio time. Well, we surfed to Thomann's site and ordered a new sound
card and
a studio mic of a great kind! And so we started the recordings in our very own cellar...
Those were the days, oh yes.
Tracks:
1. Frozen Hall (8:10)
2. Myrskynseuraaja (7:30)
Both songs written by Esko Itälä.
Self-financed. Printed 4 copies. Artwork by Maija Joro.
As one can imagine, we weren't too satisfied with the first demo made wholly without
all the needed equipments and knowhow. The old cassette tapes still sounded MUCH better. So, for
not wanting us to end up laying in the metal store's glass cabinet of antiques, the Fate
sent us Christian
Pulkkinen, a studio producer and mighty keyboard wizard from Simulacrum
(www.simulacrum.fi).
The drums were still recorded in our very own, dear cellar at Itäharju. Everything else we
took to Christian's little apartment in Ylioppilaskylä. We had to get used to the fact that
he was a busy man but whenever he had time for us he did his job very well - which has also
been agreed in many reviews. We're not putting any links here but some can be found
thru Google for sure.
Some copies are still left, so if there really still is someone without it (!), or even thinks so,
hurry up now and send us e-mail to
gladenfold@gladenfold.cjb.net
at once!
Tracks:
1. Frozen Halls (6:51) Download mp3
2. Embraced by the Accursed (5:45)
Lyrics
3. FEBI (=Forgiveness Extracted from the Blood of the Innocent) (5:54)
All songs written by Esko Itälä.
Self-financed. Printed 220 copies. Artwork by Maija Joro. Mixed and mastered by Christian Pulkkinen.
(www.chrism-universe.com)
One rainy day last autumn 2005 two strangers met in the corridors of Turku Con- servatory.
Another one per- forming his civilian service, another one studying music technology they ended up
to the café for a nice cup of tea. Yet they didn't know each other very well, so after handling
the usual
"It's a bit rainy weather, isn't it?" -subject Tommi made Anssi a very fair offer of
a week in studio.
After a few days' pre-production session in the beginning of June 2006 we entered the studio in
the middle of July. Everything essential, plus a bit more, was videotaped.
We speak mostly finnish, except when quoting Arnold Schwarzenegger. Please leave comments to
the guestbook (rather than Arnold's e-mail box or the white walls of the NoiseCamp Studios).
Tracks 1, 3 and 5 written by Esko Itälä and 2 and 4 by Anssi Lautjärvi.
Self-financed. Printed 500 copies. Artwork by Anders Öström.
Produced at NoiseCamp Studios and mastered at You Call This A -studio by Tommi Hartikainen.
1. Erämaan Kutsu
2. Elixir of Life
3. Sameuden Sydän
4. Chaos Within
5. Soturi ja Korppi
Artwork by Anders
Öström.
At the first days of spring 2008, we began working on three entirely new songs which were to
be crafted with new gear and equipment in our home studio environment located on the sunny beaches of Littoinen
megatropolis. The new tracks were Elixir of Life, Erämaan kutsu and
Korppi ja soturi which were to be accompanied by two tracks recorded in 2007 which were only released on the internet.
The five tracks are formed under the title of 'Time of Departure', the third official release of the band. This release
introduces the new line-up with new guitarist Jaakko Riihimäki while containing one track recorded with the original
guitarist Anssi Lautjärvi, Sameuden sydän respectively.
The primal edition of this release will be 200 copies.
These songs were recorded in the beginning of 2008 at Paavali's home studio.
May of 2003 - RELAX-FAIR, TURKU (pre-Gladenfold line-up)
04.06.2005 - S-OSIS, TURKU
05.02.2006 - DOWNTOWN, TURKU
18.02.2006 - DOWNTOWN, TURKU
07.04.2006 - HAARIKKA, TURKU
24.05.2006 - PELIMIES, TURKU
Christmas 2006 minitour with Dethera and Sinister Creation
15.12.2006 - TVO, TURKU
16.12.2006 - CORNER'S PUB, KRISTIINANKAUPUNKI
17.12.2006 - HOTELLI PUUSTELLI, ALAVUS
18.12.2006 - VASTAVIRTA, TAMPERE
02.06.2007 - TVO, TURKU
20.10.2007 - TVO, TURKU
26.01.2008 - KLUBI, TURKU
22.02.2008 - S-OSIS, TURKU
16.08.2008 - S-OSIS, TURKU
31.01.2009 - S-OSIS, TURKU
26.04.2009 - KLUBI, TURKU
08.08.2009 - TAIVASROCK, TAIVASSALO
28.08.2009 - S-OSIS, TURKU
