Thank you guys for the great summer! We had a blast.

I also want to thank you all who sent me birthday greetings and presents on my birthday. I just wish you to know that the best gift is knowing that you are there.

I am working on the album promotion at the moment at home in Buenos Aires. Even though there is a lot of work to be done, it feels so nice to be in one place for a longer period!

Also it gives me a chance to get myself in good condition for the tours that are ahead of me. Actually I can’t wait for them to begin already!

But first comes first; the new album.

Next week is the time I have been waiting for many long months.

Finland will break the ice on the 1^st of September followed by Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the 3^rd. All the rest will wait until 6^th, but I know there are always some countries that will not make it in time. US will finally have the album available on the 14^th of September.

So next couple of weeks will be a lot of fun…

I hope you’ll love “What Lies Beneath” as much as I do

Thank you all for your support!!

See you soon on tour!

With love, Tarja

The idea of having many guitar players making solos for the different versions of the song, came to the picture a bit later in the production. Legendary guitar player Joe Satriani performed a guitar solo for the album version, Jason Hook, known from American metal band Five Finger Death Punch, for the single version and Argentinean guitarist Julian Barrett for the free download version..”              Taken from Press Release.        the blog team

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We are making progress every day. Now all the orchestral songs are mixed. We worked again with Slamm Andrews, at Remote Control Studios. Slamm mixed my last record and it was a pleasure this time to see my ”movie” songs come alive with his guidance!

Jim Dooley came to say hi and to listen to the final touches for the song “If You Believe” that he produced with me.

It feels just unbelievable that after being in the process so long, almost 2 years, the album is getting ready. I have truly won my fears, lack of confidence and belief that I was not going to make it alone. Is great to have succeeded in what I wanted. It feels good I can tell.

At this moment I am working with Tim Palmer in Austin, Texas.

First time I am in Texas! It’s lovely here though, the city of Austin is full of live music everywhere and it’s warm, as I like it.

Tim is great, a very nice man to work with and having the understanding of the artistic needs that I have. He has an extended musical career and has forged tons of hits and great music.

We already mixed three songs including a guest solo from the guitar player of an amazing heavy metal band from Los Angeles. Today we are working on another song with an outstanding vocal group from Europe.

The last mixes will take place during this week and next time I’ll write to you is when I’ll have the complete album finished!!!!!!

With love, Tarja

This trip is not a holiday trip though. I am working with Jim, Slamm and Bart at Remote Control Studios again. We are getting the orchestra arrangements ready and we are starting to discuss the mixing process with Slamm. He is going to be the one to mix all the orchestral tracks. Other mixing engineers will mix the rock/heavy tracks, but I’ll tell you more about that later

On these days, I hope to meet Mel Wesson as well who was working with the ambient music design on my first album.

The progress of the album is going smoothly but steadily ahead. I have realized during this last month that some of the songs that I thought were not the strongest ones during the writing process turned out to be really good songs now when everything has been recorded. I will definitely have some trouble in choosing the ones that are going to end in the actual album. I guess it’s a nice problem though.

The vocal recordings will continue pretty soon after this LA trip.

Now I would like to tell you something that has been on my mind for some time already. Usually I am not interested in giving my opinions and comments about things that are outside of music and my career, but this time the happenings around just touched me deeply.

There was just a while ago a terrible earthquake in Haiti, followed by other one in Japan and later on in Chile and more recently in Turkey.

It’s just so unbelievable to think all the suffering and trouble that people need to go through in their lives. I am truly speechless and sad. Except for Haiti, I have been in the other countries were I have met lovely people. Is difficult to think that some of them or their families might have been reached by the horrible situation. I am just having them in my thoughts. I send them all my humble and honest love and prayers.

This is the sad reminder for all of us to live our lives as best as we can every day, so that when it’s our time to go, we die alive.

You will never know what is waiting for you tomorrow, so today is the day to cherish.

With love, Tarja

It’s great to be able to realize that some of the songs are already ready, just missing my vocals…

I was using one microphone that I very much liked in my previous recordings, but when we started asking for it long time ago, we couldn’t find that microphone in Finland at all!

So yesterday we went through quite many microphones that we had here with us and it was very useful. There can be really big differences between microphones and from my experience, the ones that are usually used in vocal recordings, are not so good for my voice.

Most of the microphones cannot handle my high register, so I need to find one that has good high end, but that can also be warm enough to transmit the softer moments.

I am going to be recording my vocals in two different studios; in Petrax where I am singing most of the “rock” tracks and in El Pie Studios in Buenos Aires where the more organic, movie kind of songs will be recorded.
Today we had another guest with us. Marzi Nyman came to add his guitar effects for some of my songs.

I know Marzi already from my Xmas concerts. He has been playing on my last couple of tours in Finland and I have always loved his way of using the pedals and effects.

He creates unbelievable moods as Doug does with bass.

Some of the songs on this album require special atmospheres and its better to do them organic ways rather than using samples.

Thank you Marzi for your thoughtful work.

Another nice thing happened today. I received the first orchestra arrangement from Jim and I have to say again that he is SO talented. He just blows me away every time with his work.

The orchestra will sound massive and beautiful, just as I wished it would sound. Just wait to hear!

I started recording vocals for the first song “LL”. It was the easiest choice to start with. The song will be absolutely and definitely the heaviest track on my album and written by Alex, Johnny and me.

I think everything went fine with the song and it was fun to record it. Very easy, took me just few takes to get it right
I’m heading towards new challenges tomorrow.

With love, Tarja

I am having at the moment lots of make up and running around for several clothes changes. We are doing the photos for “What Lies Beneath” album cover and artwork.

Is very nice to rest my ears for a couple of days, though it has been a lot of fan to be in the studio. I will show you some images of the photo shooting, but later on.

We are very busy today still and it will keep us even busier tomorrow  Now I am leaving some words from Mike and some photos that he took in the last days.

Hi everybody!  Uncle Mike here again, Tarja asked me to write a few words summing up my impressions of her session. So here we go…

I was born in Buffalo New York, so I’m not really a big fan of cold weather or snow, but I must say Hollola Finland is a very beautiful and relaxing. It proved to be a great place to live and work while recording Tarja’s CD.

There is just a great positive vibe here.  Its kind of an old school environment great huge drum room, including a very comfortable and well equipped control room. I was really impressed with Petrax studios it reminded me of the larger studios that used to exist during the 70’s , 80’s and 90’s

Unfortunately my drums arrived one day late due to poor weather conditions, but after that delay… everything fell into place and the reminder of the session went as smooth as glass.  This session was also a nice way to test out my new custom kit made exclusively by Drum Craft.  I must say the kit performed beautifully and I think we really captured some good sounds!

The engineer Jetro is a very talented, patient, hard working guy.  I would also like too personally thank Tiina & Petri  the owners of Petrax Studios for there kindness hospitality.   They are two of the sweetest people I have ever met and they really made us all feel so welcome and comfortable.  We have been spoiled by Tinna’s excellent home cooked meals day & night.

Naturally when the vibes are good and your feeling comfortable then you are free to make good music. I’m going to miss this place and these people its simply a lovely place to work.  What more could any musician as for!

I have been touring with Tarja now for approximately two years and during that time, I often wondered if I would get a chance to record on her new CD. So as you can imagine I am very happy and very proud to be a part of “What Lies beneath”

I turned 50 last month and I think playing on this session is one of the best birthday gifts I have ever received!

Woops Sorry…. I have digressed… back to the music.  All the songs are very well written and arranged.  Tarjas vocal melody lines are beautiful and I think she is singing better than ever.   There is going to be a lot of emotions on this CD.

Tarja also has a very good understanding of how all the instruments must work together in the studio.  This is a very important skill, especially when you’re trying to convey your musical and creative ideas too other musicians.  I was very impressed that Tarja was able to understand my approach to drumming. She really has a great ear for picking out the cool drum parts.  It was fun to play all kinds of grooves and fills and let her pick what she liked.  Tarja always seemed to pick the groove or fill idea, which worked best for the track and was also cool from a drumming perspective.

Initially my approach to this session was to act in a supportive role.  I came prepared to accompany the music and Tarja’s voice. However, I was surprised that this CD seems to be much heavier and experimental with regard to the drumming on the previous release “My Winter Storm”.  In some songs I was given free reign to cut loose and really play what I wanted within the boundaries of good taste of course!

It was also very cool to play live in the studio and record some of the songs together with Alex on guitar. I think its gives the tacks more of a live feel with raw emotional power.  It’s been a long time since I have worked like this.  So it seems on this session Tarja & Marcelo have managed to combine the best of the old and the new with regard to recording techniques and live playing.

Looking back on the past days, I really feel that I had a chance to express myself and to show my own personal drumming style.  It’s really nice to work with people that enjoy what you can bring to their music. For me, this is what music is about.  It’s about exchanging musical ideas and creating interesting moods and feelings.  The feelings generated depend mainly on who is playing.  With musicians like Alex Scholpp and Doug Wimbish, I can tell you the rhythm guitar and bass tracks on the CD are rock solid. The grooves are tight yet; they still retain the organic performance style of each musician.

It was a pleasure and an honor to play double drums with Will Calhoun on the epic song “Crimson Deep” This was Marcelo’s idea and again it’s in keeping with mixing new technology with old proven ideas.

I have played along with other drummers in live situations, but never in the recording studio, so I was a bit curious and excited to see how it was going to work out.

Will and I found that after mapping out our parts, we synchronized together in real time and it really adds a nice flavor to the over all track. There is a very strong primal groove running through the entire song and although Will and I have different playing styles and influences, I think we both complemented each other and the music.

This session just flew by.  It was also great to be back with everyone again Tarja, Marcelo, Alex, Max, Doug and Christian.  This was a session that I shall never forget; it was truly a great experience.

I’m looking forward to getting out on the road and playing this music live for you people.

Cheers, Mike

With love, Tarja

I guess from now on, he is going to sleep very well

Mike is going to chill out now and have some fun with us. Perhaps enjoining some red wine as well.

The song nailed yesterday by my two drummers is called “Crimson Deep”. Wow! It just sounds exactly like I was expecting it to sound.

I love challenges and since those times are long gone when somebody really was working like that in a daily basis, I thought why not to give it a try. And it worked!

Two excellent drummers with different styles, but professional understanding of the way the other one plays, so there were no problems to cut this song and an amazing, bombastic wall of sound was created.

It was just all about the arrangement that had to be fixed and discussed before they jumped behind their sets.

Will also recorded last night a song that I wrote few months ago. It still misses some lines of lyrics, but it’s almost done. The song has very nice mood and I am sure when the arrangement from Jim Dooley will be ready, the song will be just wonderful.

It has been very nice to work with Will, since he is absolutely open for different ideas and he is very creative.

We overdubbed some nice stuff for the songs with his bag of tricks that will give a different flavour to the music.

I am very happy to work with all these incredibly talented people. It has been amazing learning process for me once again.

Yesterday, Christian came to the studio too. He has been listening what we’ve done so far, so that he can work on his keyboard arrangements. He will record few things during these days here and the rest of the songs, he will finish on his own studio in Hamburg.

And Alex is constantly working on the heavy riffs.

Everything looks pretty fine and we are in schedule still.

With love, Tarja

The house is getting packed now, since it’s crowded with Americans!!!

Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun arrived here yesterday night. The lovely lady from the farm went to pick them up from Helsinki airport.

As you might wonder correctly, Will is here to record drums for some of my songs

I am very happy to have him on board. He is going to give different colour for some songs with his drumming, for sure.

Mike was recording three more songs and his work is almost done.

Only one more song to go that demands some experimentation as I wish that Mike and Will would play together.

Mike is going to stay longer in Finland though, since he will shoot his own video with my friends from Same-Eyes. He kills two birds with one stone

Ok. I need to keep on working now. Will be a long, but interesting day.

With love, Tarja

Max came to the studio to work with us some songs and it was nice to have him around.

It’s always great when somebody else comes in and helps us to refresh ourselves. That way we don’t get bored.

It was so funny when I met him in the morning. After I gave him a hug, I told him “oh my God, Max you are even taller with the shoes on”. But he was NOT wearing any shoes! In a minute I realized that he was like “WHAT? Maybe I can come down from the mattress.” Well, Max knows me well already… I haven’t just seen him in a long time…

We are working very hard to get the songs in a shape where everybody feels good and comfortable. Mike did again amazing job today. He recorded few more songs and we are well in schedule.

Among those songs was “In For A Kill” that I have performed last year a couple of times with an orchestra. Now it turned to be really cool with the drums and the reference guitars from Alex. Is already very promising.

It was a surprise for everybody in the studio the cover song recorded today. We managed to refresh a great song from the 80’s. Is a bit sad that songs like this one nobody writes any more.

According to Mike; he played today the longest drum fill he had recorded in nearly 100 albums!!

We had fun with his performances and sometimes it felt that he did more than what he expected himself to do! So it made him very happy.

It was a tough day for all of us, but very rewarding.

With love, Tarja