Into The Sunless Meridian - the CD and the 2 demos

Into The Sunless Meridian was the second solo-project I started. This one IS metal. And I play all the instruments on everything. It began because at the time I started it (1994) I wanted to do something totally independent of working with other musicians. I wanted it to be all my ideas and all my experimentations. ITSM was an experimenting ground for ideas that would be used in Night Conquers Day and Tearstained. The music is quite a mix of styles: black, death, thrash and speed metal were incorporated together into a jumbled sound of varied ideas.

The first demo "XXIX A.S." was released in 1994 and it has more of a black metal feeling than anything. It was recorded on a 4-track recorder and I layered all the instruments, but having only 4 tracks made it rather muddy and the heaviness of the drums gets lost in the recording. Nothing I could do about it back then. But I sold and spread the demo on the tapetrading circuit and it got good reviews and I sold quite a few of them. Some tracks are strange interludes inspired by the likes of Celtic Frost's "Danse Macabre". Others are dark compositions with a viscous black-death vibe and some atmospheres with keyboards here and there.

"XXIX A.S." 1994 demo#1

1.	Meditations In a Cold and Dimly Lit Room	2:26
2.	Of The Dark	4:42
3.	In a Haze of Drifting Obscurity	0:48
4.	Sleeping In Eternal Darkness	4:00
5.	Ezeerb Nrehtron	1:02
6.	The Luciferian Twilight	4:56
7.	Reversed Lust Summoning	0:32
8.	Celebration of Victory	5:01
9.	Lunar Slumber - Part I: Tantric Meditations In The Fleeting Night	5:50
10.	Lunar Slumber - Part II: Through The Looking Glass	4:42

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A year later I recorded the second demo "Sex Magick". Much more time was put into these songs and their compositions and again it explored experiments with vocal styles, music styles and song structures. There is also a cover of "Necrophiliac" by Slayer. The sound quality leaves something to be desired because again it's done on a 4-track recorder and the drums are low in the mix because of it. But there are some killer songs on this demo and it was well received in the underground. The cover picture was taken by me of Stacia "The Succubus" in Mt Hope Cemetery. I also drew and designed the logo and demo layouts.

"Sex Magick" 1995 demo#2

1.	And Be Done With Yesterday	4:45
2.	Unfurl Your Leaves	5:37
3.	Weightlessly Floating Down a Spiral Staircase in a Necromantical Astral Body	6:39
4.	Ritual Cunnilngus	6:03
5.	Necrosexual Meditation with a Pale Lust Goddess	8:35
6.	Sinking	6:04
7.	Grim Vendetta	2:43
8.	Necrophiliac (Slayer-cover)	4:01
9.	Soaring into the Appalachians Mountains and Up into the Galaxy	3:25
10.	Above and Beyond of What You Can Ever Comprehend	7:28

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So after the 2nd demo was done I started recording a CD in my new 8 track home studio. I recorded the drums in one session and then slowly added everything else over a years time. I then sent rough mix tapes to several labels to see if anyone was interested in paying for a mix and master and issuing it on CD. Near Dark Productions was interested and signed Into The Sunless Meridian for a CD. The self-titled CD "Into The Sunless Meridian" was released in 1998. Most everything on the CD is new. The songs were still all very different from each other. Some were more black/death, others were more speed/thrash. Varied vocals adorn the album and I also took a few strange interludes from the demo's and included them as filler songs on the CD. There is also a killer cover I did of Mercyful Fate's "A Corpse Without Soul". But by the time this CD was out I was fully focused on Night Conquers Day and was beginning to write the debut Tearstained CD. ITSM just took a back seat. I did have a plan for a second concept CD called "Neo-Barbarian" and I had some songs and lyrics written, but I never completed it and eventually most of the riffs were used in later Tearstained songs. So after this CD Into The Sunless Meridian ceased to exist. The CD booklet is graced by photos of phases of an annular eclipse we could see in Rochester in 1994. That is not the moon on the cover, but the moon covering the sun during this mid-day eclipse. Evil Eye photographed it as it occurred and each page of the CD booklet shows the moon covering the sun a bit more til you get to the "ring" picture. It's beautiful! And by the way - the drums were recorded at the same time as the debut Night Conquers Day debut CD sessions. Same drum set, same tinny sound. Ugh!!!

"Into The Sunless Meridian" 1998 CD

1.	Meditations in a Cold and Dimly Lit Room	2:47
2.	The Birth of Psychic Energies	5:30
3.	A Depraved Indifference to Human Life	11:12
4.	Headbanging Maniac	3:17
5.	Tantric Lunar Slumber	3:04
6.	When Emotional Nirvana Deluges You	4:37
7.	Strike Down Mythographer	6:54
8.	Grim Vendetta	2:40
9.	Mesmerising Serenades	6:13
10.	Under Closed Eyelids	6:06
11.	Solar Flare	1:47
12.	A Corpse Without Soul (Mercyful Fate-cover)	6:56
13.	Floating Weightless Down a Spiral Staircase	6:42

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Mikael, 1998, Into The Sunless Meridian CD picture