This is the first time "Sarcofagus: Live in Studio 1979" has been released. The Finnish radio played some songs from the original recording, which led to our record deal and the first single. This tape was made in Pan Studio, Helsinki Finland, during one day recording session in May 1979. Guitar, bass&drums were recorded in one go onto a 8 track recorder, then the vocals, and some of the solos.

WHY WASN’T THIS ALBUM RELEASED IN 1979?

Well, as I have ADHD nothing is ever enough for me :) First I convinced the record company that we need to go back to Studio to re-record the Single tracks “Go To Hell / All Those Lies”. Before the Single was out I talked us back into studio to record “Cycle Of Life” with new songs. So, this first studio recording was forgotten.

With the time limitations we had this can be seen as a "live" recording. These tracks clearly show the origins of Sarcofagus: heavy rock, blues, progressive rock and even some jazz. Like in our 1st single we had Sandy in drums instead of Ari-Pekka Roitto who played on “Cycle Of Life”. It was sad that Sandy had to leave the band for personal reasons. When I compare these earlier versions of “Back To Black” and “Here I am” to the newer versions on “Cycle Of Life”  these earlier ones are much better: the band is much tighter and has more feel in the play. I think this whole album has a really nice honest “no gimmicks” live feel to it. To me this also has better overall “sound” than “Cycle Of Life”.

My favourites are the 3 songs that have never been re-recorded after this: “Lies”, “When I’m Gone”, “Thoughts of a Sculpture” (nothing to do with the track on the album Motorbirds!) I have been listening to this album quite a lot and it has opened again a closed chapter in the Sarcofagus history that we all had forgotten.

Also, what makes the timing right for releasing this “Missing Sarcofagus” album is that we are now working again with our 1st singer, Hannu Leiden. With Hannu we have re-recorded “Go To Hell” and “Astral Flyer”. There’s even been talk that we might do again the whole “Cycle Of Life” album as we all feel that the songs suffered from the tight studio times and the 70’s technology.

Since this is 1st time release we did not include any extras to it. We wanted to make the cover as it could have been in 1979 and our good friend and work colleague Matt Petch did exactly that! As can been seen from the pictures the band was still searching for the style we had later on.

This “Live In Studio 1979” 1st Sarcofagus album and the “Motorbirds” DVD now nicely complete the Sarcofagus history by telling the whole story to anyone who is interested in it :)

The metamorphosis is quite drastic from this tape to to the "Motorbirds" album -in just 3 year’s time.

I went through the photo archives to find pictures from the -70’s and they are here as a Photo Gallery. Most of these pictures have never been on Internet before (or anywhere else, for that matter!)

So, Enjoy! (Kimmo Kuusniemi, May 2008, UK)