the fourteenth video is next in line by nevermore. it’s a song about drug abuse, about someone addicted, longing for a hot shot. the lyrics can be found here.

this is power/doom metal. you can try it if you dare.

i like it because… the slow, dark beginning, the strange imagery, especially the white masks in the video, creating a somehow surreal world (especially the 15 seconds starting at 2:53 in the video).
another nevermore song, touching me even more than this one, and which unfortunately has no video, is dreaming neon black. a sad story, of someone who lost his love to a sect, and cannot forget her after the vanished a long time ago, still dreaming of her. of her drowning, while crying for him.

the thirteenth video is schrei nach liebe by die ärzte. it’s a song against nazis. the lyrics can be found here.

first, i wanted to chose another track, namely friedenspanzer; unfortunately, the video i found for that one had a very bad quality. the quality of this one is not perfect, but i think much better.

this is punk rock. you can listen to it.

i like it because… it’s a song against dumb nazi thugs, with good lyrics and a good melody. and a funny video.

the twelvth video is gaia by tiamat. the lyrics can be found here.

this is very slow and nice gothic doom metal. you can give it a try.

i like it because… well, another song where it’s hard to say why i like it. because it’s beautiful. an inspiration for dreams, maybe?

the eleventh video is no one there by sentenced. a very, very sad song, and a very, very sad video. the lyrics can be found here.

this is gothic metal. you can try it.

i like it because… of the emotions it fills me with. not only the song itself, but in particular the combination with the video. getting old, being alone, losing your loved one, waiting for death. so incredibly sad, full of desperation. one of the songs making me cry almost every time i listen to it.
(unfortunately, the song was somehow edited for this video, which sounds a bit strange at one or two moments, at least if you know the original version very well…)

r.i.p., miika.

as you might or might not have noticed, my project blackness moved to a new address and now requires to log on before showing anything. (the rss feed is still available without logging on, though.) the main reason for this is the german jugendmedienschutz-staatsvertrag; i do not want to risk any problems due to people interpreting things the wrong way. a new revision of that thing cased a lot of protest and shutdown of blogs; see for example here and here.
it is still not exactly clear what kind of implications this new revision will have. i still decided to move blackness, since i don’t want to endanger it in any way. in case you still want to see it, ask me for an account.

this weekend, i payed yellowknife a second visit. this time, during winter, with snow, ice, and freezing temperatures. and more aurora viewings.

here’s a first impression i got on the first day. it was taken at 14:20, and you can see that the sun was already pretty near to the horizon. the sunset is around 15:30, and goes down to 15:00 during winter’s shortest days. sunrise was around 9:30 the time i was there; it goes up to 10:00 during the shortest days.

i was staying in the narwal bed and breakfast, a small bed and breakfast located near the great slave lake, meaning i could just walk on the frozen lake and hopefully see some nice auroras during nighttime. here’s a nighttime impression, without an aurora but with clouds:

during the days, i often walked around and on the frame lake. lots of memories came up. it was often cloudy with breaks. here are some nice impressions:

finally, on the second and third night, the sky was mostly clear. and both nights featured auroras! the second night had a not very bright one, at least while i was outside, but the third and last night had some really great ones. here are a few impressions:

finally, here’s a video i recorded, consisting of 484 frames, each shot having an exposure time of one second. the movie is played back with six frames per second, i.e. you get a time lapse:

(this is a html5 video tag, so hopefully it works. otherwise, you can directly try the mpeg 4 variant and the ogg theora variant.)

the tenth video is hysteria by muse. the lyrics can be found here.

this is alternative, progressive rock. i guess you can listen to it.

i like it because… i guess this one is another earworm which just crawled into my ear and stayed there. i remember a day, or maybe a couple of days, in 2008, maybe while writing my thesis, when i would listen to hysteria and stockholm syndrome nonstop for hours. they’re both powerful songs, keeping me active, awake, making me want to jump up and dance.

the ninth video is the bright ambassadors of morning by pure reason revolution, a band which is prone to change their style every album. i encountered them while playing before blackfield. the lyrics can be found here.

this track qualifies as progressive rock. and you can listen to it.

edit: another non-embeddable one. here‘s the youtube link. and here’s a live version:

i like it because… it makes me dream. of a fantasy world, birds twittering, with me floating through a colorful forest. think of a colorful, cheerish equivalent to the dark world depicted in moonspell’s luna video.
pure reason revolution are one of the bands which i fell in love with when i saw them. unfortunately, i couldn’t buy an album when i first saw them, all the other proggers at the concert already bought up all other copies they brought with them on that tour. i haven’t seen anything like that before.

the eighth video is harvest by opeth. the lyrics can be found here.

this is accoustic. you can listen to it.

edit: another video which cannot be embedded. here‘s the video on youtube. since i didn’t found any other version which can be included here, you have to go there…

i like it because… it’s just beautiful. a wounderful accoustic piece, with an opethesque, dark story. the video, showing studio footage from recording blackwater park, in sepia tones, fall-like.

the seventh video is infra galaxia by the swiss experimental metal band samael, from one of their best albums, the experimental eternal. the lyrics can be found here.

this is very soft experimental/industrial black metal. you can give it a try, in particular when you liked radiant star.

i like it because… the first samael track i ever listened to was also contained on the dark winter nights sampler. it was a song which didn’t really fit on that sampler, but was somewhat interesting. so i seeked for more, and eventually found some other songs. some of them i didn’t like at all, and others i found pretty interesting. then, for a long time, i ignored samael, until a couple of years ago, when someone showed me their newest album at that time, solar soul. eventually i bought some other records, including eternal, which contains this song as well as radiant star. these two songs are very strange. samael combine their very dark, black metal roots with electronic music, creating a very experimental mix. where i just like the music of radiant star, i especially like the combination of the video and the music in this one. this strange object, floating in space, dissolving into a cloud of particles. reminding me of a demo. it almost feels as if the music was written for this animation. or was it the other way around? i can’t tell.