25/07/2025
Single cover for Ihtiriekko, the second single by
The song draws from an old Finnish folk belief about the restless spirits of children who were buried without a blessing, without baptism, or in the wrong place, often deep in the forest. These spirits, known as "ihtiriekko", are said to haunt passersby. In some tales, they are also called "liekkiö", and described as appearing in the form of flickering flames.
There was also a faint, indirect influence from a historical tragedy that happened not far from where I grew up, a desperate act in which a mother ended her newborn’s life and tried to conceal it in fire. While the cover and song are not directly based on that event, the story I had long known quietly deepened my interest in the subject.
For the cover art, I wanted to evoke an eerie twilight atmosphere that lies somewhere between dawn or dusk and flickering firelight. The color palette reflects these fiery tones to mirror the haunting narrative behind the song. By this point, I had also decided that each release would have its own distinctive color scheme.
I created the raw visual elements, both the face and the surrounding forest, using Bing Image Creator. I needed the forest generated as well because I was looking for a spruce woodland that would naturally frame and echo the contours of the face. I then refined and processed the images in Photoshop: adding texture layers, balancing tones, arranging the composition, and customizing the band logo and typography to suit this single’s unique identity.