Markus
"It is hard to tell about yourself. It is very likely to tell something unrelated and leave off important things. But I will do my best to tell what is my part in Astral Sleep.
I was the first one to have an idea of a Doom Metal band. This idea was introduced to Rolle and later to Jaakko, who both agreed that the idea was good. I wrote most of the first songs, not all of them though.
Lyrics have always been my creations only. My lyrics follow the same themes as our music in general: There are lots of variations.
Music has been my greatest inspiration in life for many years. I have always played metal, but it has varied from Thrash-, Death-, Black-, Heavy- and Doom Metal to Grindcore. I've always played guitar, but in the past few years I have been also handled, bass, vocals and even drums.
Despite the fact, that my main band is performing (some sort of) Doom Metal, I think myself more as an Black Metallist. It is the style of music that gives me the strongest feelings, and that has the ideology that really ravishes my heart at some point.
Astral Sleep is one of the most important things in my life, even with all the other hobbies, friends, family and jobs that I have. I really believe in this, all the material of Astral Sleep has a part of my soul in it.
I hope that anyone who listens our music, could sense it in some way. That's all for now."

Jaakko
"As said before, I joined Astral Sleep soon after Markus and Rolle had found the band. I play electric bass and compose musical pieces for Astral Sleep. Astral Sleep is indeed very important band for me because of its strange and inspiring music and also because all members of the band are very good friends of mine. The greatest source of the band's power and it's best aspect is, in my opinion, the complete and unlimited freedom. The way we can create and develop our expression to new and unexplored territories.
I do also have other projects and bands. I play electric bass in Death/Black Metal band Sightless and I perform and rehearse with various other musical groups formed in Pirkanmaa's academy of music. Nowadays I listen to practically all kinds of music, but I really enjoy music that is atmospheric, skillfully played and unconventional. Yet it is Heavy Metal that shall have my soul in the end."

Rolle
"Long time ago my friend Markus asked me via internet, if I wanted to play doom metal. As you see, I gave him a positive answer. I really had not heard any doom metal bands, cause I like to listen melodic music like Opeth or Katatonia.
I do listen to all kinds of music (My other favourite acts are Black Label Society and Alice in Chains). I think these bands give you some kind of picture of the music I listen to.
I like to listen good musicians play, so I don't care what genre they are, as long as it sounds good. So I will say I give the band a touch my own music likings.
Mostly I like to play acoustic, cause its more complicated, and I like the sound of an acoustic guitar.
But enough of my music side. To give you a brief of myself: I work as a furniture salesman. It is a great job, because I like to work with people. Other interests besides music are drinking and drinking. I have been diagnosed with this rare immune defense decease. It's pretty shitty decease, but it does not matter as long I can drink and play.
I was born 8. of July in Tampere. I've been living in Tampere my whole life. I did saw Turku once."

Jiri
"To get started, I'll mention couple of other things bout myself: I'm 20 years old, I live in Mäntsälä but am about to move to Helsinki for my studies at Helsinki University (forest sciences).
But then let's talk about music.
One could possibly say that I've been into heavy rock or metal my whole life – I started listening to heavy music when I was 8 years old or something (the very first album I was carried away with was Saints'n'Sinners by Whitesnake).
These days I've become a listener of Doom- and Black-metal and all kind of mystic, melancholy music. I also listen to some Death- and Thrash-metal, but mostly - possibly cause of my character – some slower and more atmospheric music suites me better. Music has to raise feelings or help me to handle my own mood.
Drums came unto figure when I was 12 years old – it was mostly because of I didn't consider myself fast-fingered enough to start playing guitar or patient enough to learn notes. And I have no doubt made the right choice – drumming has become me the most important way to express my feelings, my thoughts, my philosophy and myself.
Before Astral sleep, I played drums in a melodic metal-band called Serethe – we made one demo, Stream, and gained kind of a fashion round our hoods. However, Serethe was split up during the year 2007 and has shown no signs of afterlife. R.I.P.
I finished my military service in January 2008 – having not been playing drums for almost a year – and felt like there was something missing. So I started tough practising – and also an eager search for a band. Not so long afterwards I spotted Markus's advertisement at Muusikoiden.net website. I read about "doom metal band with a twist" searching a drummer and downloaded the song "Landscapes". I felt I had found what I was looking for.
When it revealed to me that Astral sleep practised on Tampere, which is over 150 km away from my home county, Mäntsälä, I doubted a moment, but decided to take a risk.
For me Astral sleep has become an excellent way to develop my drumming – which leads into a conclusion it's also an excellent way to express myself – not least cause of its dark, melancholy sound, which, as I said before, suites my palette."

History:

2006-2007 The Making of "Unawakening"
After the release of S/T, we mostly studied the reviews that the demo had. Most reviewed it pretty average, but fortunately there were some who thought it was a masterpiece! However, some new material had been coming up for a while and in the spring of 2006, 5 new songs were ready. The band had very much of a consern, which of these tracks would end up to the next demo. After lot's of thoughts and crazy ideas, one stood stronger than the others: To record a full lenght album.

This would mean many times more pain, tears and mental sickness than recording a demo, since all the equipment were very poor and none of the members didn't have much experience in album recording. But it didn't matter. It had to be done, using mostly same methods as in the demo. This time, there were no limits on anything, time being the least of them.
But there was another problem: Who would play the drums? The solution was not too hard: Tommi Häyrynen, an old friend of Markus agreed to the task after hearing the material. The full band had couple of rehearsals in summer.

Anyhow, there still was problems, the greatest of them being the method of recording the drums. Since the first demo was recorded using one microphone for the whole drumkit, the same method would not work on an album that should sound as much studio produced as possible.

But in the autumn, band was in a hurry. There were no signs of drumtracks, so the album had to be done the Astral Sleep way. In 15.08.2006 Markus started recording the guitar tracks for the first album. A little later Jaakko's bass and Rolle's guitars were also recorded over a digitally created clumsy drumtracks.
The progress was slow, and the next step were executed in November 2006, when Markus moved to his first own apartment, which living room served as the recording space of the drums. Tommi, the friend of Markus came over one weekend to record the drums using an electronic drumkit owned by Rolf Pilve, who played the drums on the first demo "S/T". Once again Rolf was a great help, thanks!

Some additional solos and interludes were done during the spring of 2007, until Markus moved to another town, 150 kilometres away from Tampere. This fact did not slow down the sluggish process. The only thing left on the album were the vocals and the mixing, which required many kilometres travel for Jaakko (who took care over 60% of the mixing process) and some for Markus too.

The vocals were very hard piece for Markus, since his experience did not match the requirements of the epic album. In fact the vocals had already been recorded two or three times for the whole album, but one vocal recording session in the "new living room" defined the final vocal sound of the album.
Before the vocal recording session, Markus had decided to invest on real studio monitors instead of simple computer stereos. After these hardcore monitors had arrived, Markus and Jaakko took many serious multiple day sessions mixing the album. In 8.9.2007, the first album was finished. This is the story so far.

2004-2005
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