yesterday i was making a trip with a friend of mine to the rigi, a 1800 meter high mountain here in switzerland. the weather was great: the sun was shining, it was pretty warm, and the sight was very good. i really like the view of mountains, forests, water and mountains, and fortunately, this time, i had my camera with me, resulting in a lot of pictures. some good, some not so good, and some already deleted :-) this time, i also tried to create some panorama pictures. after lots of hours of trying to figure out how to do this using hugin and after learning a lot about creating panorama photographs (like, that one should not move the camera but simply rotate it) —though learning them a little too late—, i’m able to present some results, which still have some errors (some more and some less obvious). here they are:

during updating my music player, i had to think about which albums to put on it and which ones to delete. my previous playlist was really biased towards heavy and dark music, so i decided to lighten it a bit up. well, at least from the musical side. but nonetheless, i decided to add something more heavy, namely something from sentenced, which was my favorite band for a very long time. i was thinking hard about which album(s) to put on the player. maybe something oldskool from the north from here? it contains the beautiful song northern lights. or maybe the love and death ep, containing classics like love and death (go hand in hand once more) and the way i wanna go. then, there’s the down album, my favorite beauties from this one are bleed (to death), sun won’t shine (on me without your love) and the agressive i’ll throw the first rock. well, then there’s the frozen album, my first sentenced album after all, and in my opinion still the best one. it contains one of my all time favorite songs, dead leaves. besides that (and many other great songs), it contains the slow rainy ballad the rain comes falling down, grave sweet grave and the (almost) instrumental burn (the pain away). but then, there are also beautiful songs like fragile, dead moon rising and my slowing heart on the crimson album, in particular the latter being so expressive through its monotony. it’s a really sad song, only being topped by no one there, the last song on the cold white light. no one there is one of the saddest songs i know. (if you have never heard it, consider watching its video.) besides this song, the cold white light features some more songs i want to mention: namely cross my heart and hope to die (may my end come tonight), the self-ironic excuse me while i kill myself and the ballad guilt and regret. and, last but not least, there’s sentenced terminal album, fittingly entitled the funeral album, which ends the misery with the great, even though more aggressive and more hateful, songs may today become the day (as i plunge into the gray), ever-frost, vengeance is mine, drain me and end of the road. so, there’re a lot of albums to chose from. my final decision was to include exactly the songs mentioned here, instead of a whole album. i’m really looking forward to tomorrow, when i have plenty of time to listen to this great collection of misery. it’s really a tragedy that sentenced is no more. rest in peace.

while searching for bands making similar music to the israli progdeath band orphaned land, i recently stumbled across another isreali band named distorted. i would describe their style as very progressive melodic oriental death metal, featuring a female clean voice besides the usual (male) death voice.
when i first stumbled about their homepage and started reading their member profiles, i was stunned: many of them are inspired by and listen to music which i like a lot:

• guy, their bass player, lists for example orphaned land, opeth and porcupine tree as his influences, and his top album of all time is orphaned land’s mabool;
• benny, their guitar player, mentions nevermore as one of his musical influences, and also lists mabool as his top album of all time;
• miri, their (clean voice) singer, lists the gathering, nevermore and opeth in her musical influence list, and mentions nevermore’s ingenious dead heart in a dead world, opeth’s deliverence, the gathering’s mandolyion and nevermore’s dreaming neon black as her top albums of all time;
• raffy, their (death voice) singer and guitarist, names tool, nevermore and opeth as his influences and lists tool’s aenima, nevermore’s enemies of reality and opeth’s deliverance as his top albums of all time.

well, this is a > 100 % increase of people i know who like pretty much the same music than me :-)
after seeing this and listening to one of their tracks (redemption) from their debut album (memorial) which they put online, i decided that i have to order their album. and so i did. it took some time until it arrived, but then, listening to it at a whole, i was pretty much blown away. it is simply great! it combines the oriental influences form orphaned land with the progressive death metal from opeth, adding a female voice (i know some of you will be sceptical about the latter, but i’d say it fits well and i don’t want to miss it). for me, this is one of the best albums (or maybe even, the best?) i’ve heard this year.

here’s a list of concerts i’ve been at this year, for historical reasons. not taking in account some classic concerts.

• 07.02.2007: therion, grave digger and sabaton were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (symphonic orchestral metal, and some more thrashy/whatever metal);
• 21.02.2007: amplifier and cloudride were playing at abart in zürich (progressive art rock);
• 24.02.2007: blackfield and pure reason revolution were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock, art rock);
• 04.03.2007: …and you will know us by the trail of dead and forget cassettes were playing at the rote fabrik in zürich (alternative rock);
• 29.03.2007: morgana lefay, sacred steel, serenity and bitterness were playing at rock city in uster (various kinds of metal: death, prog, power, true, …);
• 09.04.2007: moonsorrow, swallow the sun and some band whose name i forgot played at the z-7 in pratteln (pagan metal, doom metal, death metal);
• 10.04.2007: circle ii circle, savage circus, tomorrow’s eve and tempesta were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (metal);
• 13.04.2007: moonspell, napalm death, behemoth, gojira and dew scented were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (death and black metal, metalcore);
• 16.05.2007: spock’s beard was playing at the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock);
• 27.05.2007: trivium, annihilator and some band which was playing before the official opening time were playing at the rohstofflager in zürich (thrash metal);
• 29.05.2007: arena was playing at the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock);
• 31.05.2007: anathema and moondawn were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (atmospheric rock with metal influences);
• 01.06.2007: machine head, type o negative, cataract and zatokrev were playing at the volkshaus in zürich (thrash metal, doom metal, metalcore and death metal);
• 27.06.2007: dream theater and megadeth were playing at the volkshaus in zürich (progressive metal, thrash metal).

if i’ll find the motivation (and if anyone cares), i might write a few words about some of these.

sometimes i wonder why mathematics is working so smooth as it is. for me, this is one of the most intriguing things around, next to the questions on why do we live and on whats the question to the answer 42… based on a small set of axioms, nobody knowing whether they are free of contradiction, an enormous building of constructions and proofs has been built. so huge, that no one can learn about all of it in one lifetime. and inside this building, between lots of dirty corners with ugly computations and hard work, there sit so many beautiful small and big results, sometimes showing surprising connections to completely different parts of mathematics. this connectivity is what surprises me most. every time again. that’s what i like about mathematics, and that’s what’s keeping me doing math. and makes me even more curious about the question on why it is working so smooth.

here’s a list of concerts i plan to attend during the last four months of this year. if i put a link to a bands’ homepage, this means i’m going to that concert to see this band (and as a side effect, also the non-linked ones).

• 13.09.2007: threshold, communic, machine men and serenity are playing in the z-7 in pratteln (progressive metal);
• 22.09.2007: fjoergyn, wolfchant, nastrandir und nuclear winter are playing in the dynamo in zurich (symphonic black/pagan/viking/death metal);
• 27.10.2007: moonsorrow, korpiklaani, excelsis and battlelore are playing at the viking/pagan festival in the stadthalle dietikon (folk/pagan metal);
• 31.10.2007: dream theater and symphony x are playing in the eulachhallen in winterthur (progressive metal);
• 09.11.2007: apocalyptica (with special guest not announced yet) is playing in the volkshaus in zürich (violin metal);
• 12.11.2007: porcupine tree and anathema are playing in the volkshaus in zürich (prog, atmospheric rock with metal influences);
• 16.11.2007: orchester accento musicale zürich is playing in the st. peter in zürich (classic);
• 17.11.2007: boob is playing in the helsinki klub in zürich (alternative/punk rock);
• 18.11.2007: amorphis, swallow the sun and insomnium are playing in the z-7 in pratteln (prog metal, doom metal);
• 27.11.2007: fish is playing in the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock);
• 29.11.2007: halloween, gamma ray and axxis are playing in the stadthalle dietikon (power metal); (skipping that one because of lack of time)
• 05.12.2007: die ärzte are playing in the hallenstadion in oerlikon/zürich (fun punk);
• 14.12.2007: ensiferum, turisas and insania are playing in the z-7 in pratteln (viking metal).

unfortunately, i will miss finntroll playing in the z-7 on 05.12.2007…

in 2003, the finnish humppa metal band finntroll released an accoustic album called visor om slutet (songs about the end). unfortunately (for me), it took me four years to find out about it. it features a variety of folk songs: some rythmic, intense and melodic themes, some sound scapes which, when i close my eyes and let my thoughts go, paint beautiful pictures inside my head. it feels like roaming through ancient finnish forests, as in a fairy tale… so beautiful… meeting tweeting birds, trees swaying in the wind, trolls, chanting shamans… so many different instruments… if you have never listened to this, you definitely should. in my opinion, it’s worth every minute of time spend hearing it (even if you don’t like metal).

obviously, it works.