GEISHA PHANTASMAGORIA King Diamond BLAKK TOTEM 12" Vinyl LP Album

- Danish glam-metal oddity with King Diamond roots and proper shelf value

Album front cover of GEISHA - Phantasmagoria showing a glossy black-framed sleeve with yellow-green glow, the band name in white, and the purple Geisha logo above three theatrical faces. The central person has wild hair, painted mask-like features, bright green eyes and a raised hand with blue-tipped fingers, while smoky shadows and starburst highlights push the whole image into late-80s metal fantasy excess.

From above, the cover looks like a neon-lit metal fever dream pressed onto cardboard. The black border contains a yellow-green halo, the spaced-out "Phantasmagoria" title sits across the top, and the Geisha logo floats underneath like a badge from some lost glam-metal cult. Three faces stare out through smoke and stage-glare sparkle, with the painted central person doing most of the damage. Subtle? Not remotely. Useful for a collector page? Absolutely.

GEISHA mattered because "Phantasmagoria" catches a short-lived Danish metal band at the exact moment ambition outran the calendar. Not a world-conquering blockbuster, no stadium mythology required, but a sharp little cult marker in that late-80s Heavy Metal / Hard Rock / Glam borderland where eyeliner, riffs, and bad intentions shared the same dressing room. The sound has a bright metallic bite, drums that shove rather than stroll, and vocals that lean into theatre without falling into pantomime. "You Got What It Takes", "Shock Rock School", and "Gangland Sector 21" give the album its scrappy charm. Add the later King Diamond connection, and this LP earns its shelf space without begging for it.

"Phantasmagoria" (1987) Album Description:

Geisha's "Phantasmagoria" landed in 1987 as the only full-length statement from a Danish heavy metal band that burned brightly, briefly, and then scattered its players into more famous shadows. It is not a stadium monster, not a million-selling beast, and thank heavens for that. This is Danish Heavy Metal with hard rock muscle and glam-metal mascara: bright guitars, sharp choruses, street-corner swagger, and just enough theatrical poison to make the sleeve feel like a warning rather than decoration.

The real pull is not just the music, though the riffs bite cleanly enough. It is the strange little crossroads inside the record: Geisha before the King Diamond connection, Heavy Metal Worldwide before the collector microscope, and a sleeve that looks as if someone locked fantasy art, photo-session vanity, and late-night Copenhagen ambition in the same room. Open the hidden part and the thing starts behaving less like a forgotten LP and more like a paper trail with distortion pedals.

Denmark in 1987 was no sleepy metal backwater, whatever lazy import-bin wisdom might suggest. King Diamond had "Abigail" out that same year, Mercyful Fate still cast a long black shadow over Copenhagen, Pretty Maids were pushing a cleaner hard rock and power-metal shine with "Future World", and Artillery were dragging Danish aggression into thrash with "Terror Squad". Geisha sat somewhere messier: not as occult as King Diamond, not as polished as Pretty Maids, not as savage as Artillery. A useful place to be, if you ask me.

"You Got What It Takes" opens the record with that cocky late-80s push, the sort of track that walks in wearing too much confidence and somehow gets away with it. "Shock Rock School" is exactly the kind of title that makes sensible people roll their eyes, which is usually a good sign, and "Gangland Sector 21" stretches the band's theatrical side further into comic-book menace and metal-club smoke. The album does not hide its appetite. It wants hooks, drama, guitars with teeth, and vocals that lean over the balcony.

The sound has a bright attack rather than a deep thud. Pete Blakk's guitars slash and sparkle, very much in that period where lead work had to arrive with elbows out, while the bass keeps enough weight underneath to stop the whole thing floating away in hairspray fumes. Yenz Cheyenne brings a theatrical vocal edge without turning the record into pure pantomime, and Tony Niemistö's drumming gives the songs forward shove instead of polite timekeeping. Polite timekeeping has ruined enough records already.

Produced by Geisha and Peter Mark, the album has the useful feel of a band still close to its rehearsal-room instincts. Hookfarm Studio in Copenhagen did not sand the roughness out of it; the guitars keep their bite, the drums breathe a bit, and the vocals sit right where this kind of record needs them: up front, half-sneer, half-performance. The production is not luxurious. It is better than luxurious. It sounds like the budget had limits and the band tried to outrun them.

The personnel story is where collectors start leaning closer. Geisha were active from the early-to-mid 1980s into 1988, and a planned second album, "Conform or Transform", reportedly collapsed as Pete Blakk and Hal Patino left for King Diamond. That move matters because it gives "Phantasmagoria" a before-the-bigger-stage tension. The record becomes a snapshot of players just before the map changed. No grand prophecy needed; the evidence is right there in the grooves.

There does not seem to have been a major controversy around the release, and pretending otherwise would be cheap theatre. The common mistake is more boring but more useful: treating the LP as a King Diamond footnote and nothing else. That sells the band short. The later connections help, naturally, but "Phantasmagoria" works best when heard as its own Danish Heavy Metal oddball, with glam glare, hard rock drive, and enough wrong turns to keep it from becoming tidy.

The sleeve backs up the music's refusal to behave. Martin Silz's front cover artwork goes full neon fever dream, while Peter Kofod's logo and the Fingerprints Copenhagen design work give the package that busy, slightly awkward period look collectors either love or pretend not to love. The back cover is even better for evidence: green type, purple diamond photo frames, "Made in England", HMI LP 88, and credits running down the sides like someone had too much layout and not enough restraint. Lovely nuisance.

On a late night, this is the sort of LP that rewards being pulled from the shelf when the obvious classics feel too rehearsed. The Side A label, blue and loud with the Heavy Metal Worldwide globe, looks almost daft under a lamp, but it tells the collector what matters: format, side, speed, catalogue identity, and that small physical proof that this thing had a life before becoming a web page.

So no, "Phantasmagoria" is not the great lost Danish metal bible. That would be too neat, and this record is not neat. It is a short-lived band caught mid-stride, a 1987 sleeve full of ambition and questionable taste, a hard rock / glam-edged heavy metal record with links that grew more interesting after the fact. Sometimes that is exactly the kind of album worth keeping. The famous ones already have enough people shouting on their behalf.

References

Album Key Details: Genre, Label, Format & Release Info

Music Genre:

Heavy Metal / Hard Rock / Glam

Label & Catalognr:

Heavy Metal World Wide – Cat#: HMI LP 88

Media Format:

Record Format: 12" LP Vinyl Stereo Gramophone Record
Total Weight: 230g

Release Details:

Release Date: 1987

Release Country: Made in England

Collector’s Note: Geisha – "Phantasmagoria" (1987)

I don’t keep this one around because it’s rare in the “mortgage your house” sense — let’s not kid ourselves. I keep it because it ticks all the right collector boxes without shouting about it. Danish mid-80s metal, one proper album, and just enough glam creeping in to make the purists slightly uncomfortable. That alone already makes it more interesting than half the overhyped titles everyone keeps chasing.

Then there’s the real hook: Pete Blakk and Hal Patino before they stepped into the King Diamond orbit. That kind of connection always adds a layer of “before they were famous” charm, and I’ve learned those details age far better than hype stickers ever do. Add the Heavy Metal World Wide pressing, the slightly oddball artwork, and a label design that actually looks like it belongs to the era, and suddenly this stops being filler and starts becoming archive material. Not essential, maybe — but definitely not disposable either.

Production & Recording Information:

Producers:
  • Geisha – Producer

    The band kept its own fingerprints on the sound, which is usually where the good trouble starts.

    Geisha, the Danish heavy metal band active during the mid-1980s, brought its own hard-edged sense of theatre into the production of "Phantasmagoria". On this album their role was not just playing the songs, but steering the arrangements and attitude from inside the machine. The record keeps that slightly rough, ambitious club-stage energy, where the guitars, vocals, and rhythm section still feel close enough to kick over a beer glass.

  • Peter Mark – Producer

    Peter Mark sat at the production end of the desk, helping Geisha sound sharper than their short career might suggest.

    Peter Mark, credited here as producer, helped shape "Phantasmagoria" into something more focused than a rehearsal-room blast with a sleeve around it. His contribution sits in the balance: keeping the glam-metal shine, the heavy guitar push, and the dramatic vocals from tripping over each other. The result still has grit under the fingernails, but enough control to make the album feel like a proper late-80s metal statement.

Recording Location:
  • Hookfarm Studio – Copenhagen

    Hookfarm Studio is where the album stopped being band ambition and became tape, vinyl, and collector bait.

    Hookfarm Studio, Copenhagen, was the recording location where Geisha put "Phantasmagoria" onto tape. For this album the studio captured that peculiar late-80s mix of muscle and polish: drums with room to breathe, guitars bright enough to cut, and vocals pushed forward like they had something to prove. It does not sound over-civilised, thankfully; it still has the useful scuff marks of a hungry metal band.

Album Cover Design & Artwork:
  • Peter Kofod – Geisha logo design

    Peter Kofod gave the band name the sort of visual bite a metal sleeve needs before the needle even lands.

    Peter Kofod, credited with the Geisha logo design, supplied one of those small sleeve details collectors tend to notice after everyone else has gone home. On "Phantasmagoria" the logo helps frame the album as metal rather than ordinary rock product, giving the cover a sharper identity on the shelf. Not decoration for decoration's sake, but the first little warning sign that this record wants to look dangerous.

  • Fingerprints, Copenhagen – Album cover design

    Fingerprints, Copenhagen handled the sleeve design, pulling the artwork and credits into one usable piece of vinyl theatre.

    Fingerprints, Copenhagen, credited for the album cover design, gave "Phantasmagoria" its finished sleeve shape rather than just dropping art onto cardboard and calling it a day. Their contribution sits in the layout, spacing, and visual organisation around the front and back cover material. The design has that period-specific metal confidence: dramatic, slightly excessive, and all the better for not behaving like a tasteful brochure.

  • Martin Silz – Album front cover artwork

    Martin Silz supplied the front cover artwork, giving the album its first punch before the record leaves the sleeve.

    Martin Silz, credited for the album front cover artwork, gave "Phantasmagoria" the visual bait that makes this LP worth photographing properly. His artwork leans into the dramatic side of Geisha's metal world, helping the sleeve stand apart from the more anonymous hard rock covers of the same period. The image does not whisper from the rack; it grabs the eye and then lets the music justify the trouble.

Photography:
  • Thomas Groendahl – Album cover photography

    Thomas Groendahl brought the camera work, the part of sleeve-making that quietly decides whether the myth holds up.

    Thomas Groendahl, a Danish photographer connected here with Geisha and also noted for work around Mercyful Fate album imagery, handled the album cover photography for "Phantasmagoria". His contribution gives the sleeve its human and visual texture, the bit that stops the package from feeling like pure fantasy artwork. On a collector page, that matters; photography often dates a record more honestly than the music does.

Scenery:
  • Peter "5th Member" Kofod – Scenery "Gangland Sector 21"

    Peter "5th Member" Kofod added scenery for "Gangland Sector 21", which sounds exactly as subtle as it should.

    Peter "5th Member" Kofod, credited for the scenery "Gangland Sector 21", added one of those odd little production details that makes a sleeve feel lived-in rather than assembled by committee. His contribution ties directly into the album's track world, giving "Phantasmagoria" an extra visual hook beyond the standard band-photo-and-logo routine. Small credit, yes, but small credits are where collectors usually start grinning.

Band Members / Musicians:

Band Line-up:
  • Yenz Cheyenne – Vocals
    Jens Arnsted, better known by his stage alias Yenz Cheyenne, left an undeniable mark on the Danish heavy metal scene. Cheyenne's powerful and versatile vocals, particularly showcased in Geisha's iconic track "Phantasmagoria," became synonymous with the band's sound. His influence extended beyond Geisha, where he performed from 1985 to 1988. Cheyenne's earlier work with the band BRATT (1979-1981) further solidified his legacy as a transformative force in Danish metal.
  • Pete Blakk – Guitars
  • Pete Blakk – Guitars

    Swedish guitarist with Geisha roots, King Diamond bite, and enough sharp-edged lead work to wake up the dead neighbours.

    Pete Blakk is the Swedish guitarist I always hear as the sharp edge in the late-80s King Diamond machinery. He first turns up for me in Geisha, where his guitars ran from 1983 to 1987 and helped give "Phantasmagoria" its metallic bite before the circus moved to bigger stages. From 1987 to 1990 he joined King Diamond, cutting into "Them", "Conspiracy" and "The Eye" with the sort of fast, nasty lead work that did not ask permission. After that came Blakk Totem, active through the 1992 demo years and the 1996 "The Secret Place" album, before he stepped away in 1997. Not a household name. Good. Those are usually the ones worth checking when the shelf starts whispering.

  • Hal Patino – Bass
    May also have been Joel Starander.
  • Hal Patino – Bass

    American bassist with Las Vegas roots, Danish metal mileage, and a low-end growl that does not politely stay in the background.

    Hal Patino is the American bassist I hear as the heavy pulse under some of King Diamond's sharpest late-80s theatre. Born Hasse Patino in Las Vegas, he passed through Geisha in 1987, giving "Phantasmagoria" that extra bit of muscle before the bigger coffin opened. With King Diamond he worked from 1988 to 1990, then returned from 2000 to 2014, appearing across records from "Them", "Conspiracy" and "The Eye" to the later Abigail revival years. He also played with Force of Evil from 2002 to 2006, later turning up with Nordic Beast from 2013 onward and Ammunition from 2013 to 2015. Not flashy wallpaper. He is the floorboards shaking.

  • Tony Niemistö – Drums
    Tony Niemistö (Drums) used aliases like 'Tony "Pippi" Niemistö', "Tony Reno" to play with various bands in Sweden and Denmark, before he joined "Geisha". After the split of Geisha in 1988, he joined (together with Jens Arnsted) the bands Yenz and =Y=.

Complete Track-listing:

The detailed tracklist of this record "GEISHA Phantasmagoria" is:

Tracklisting Side One:
  1. You Got What It Takes
  2. Shock Rock School
  3. Gangland Sector 21
Tracklisting Side Two:
  1. Alive & Scratching
  2. Claws Of Sin
  3. The Underworld
  4. S & M Youth

These photos show my copy of Geisha's "Phantasmagoria" without trying to make it look cleaner than it is. The front sleeve has that late-80s metal look where the artwork wants to be mysterious, dangerous, and probably louder than the neighbours preferred. The back cover gives the useful bits: titles, credits, layout, and the kind of printing that collectors squint at because apparently that is what we do for fun now. The Side One label is where the archive value sharpens up, with the Heavy Metal World Wide name and HMI LP 88 catalog number sitting there like a small paper fingerprint. The better clues are deeper in the gallery, where labels and pressing details usually stop being polite.

Album Front Cover Photo
GEISHA - Phantasmagoria front cover photo showing a black-bordered vinyl sleeve with yellow PHANTASMAGORIA lettering at the top, GEISHA in white beneath it, and a purple Geisha logo over a green-yellow glow. A painted central face with green eyes, black hair, mask-like markings, and raised blue-tipped fingers dominates the foreground, with two darker faces left and right, smoky effects, starburst highlights, and edge scuffs.

Seen flat on the desk, this front sleeve does not ease into the room. It lunges. The black border frames everything like a cheap stage curtain that has survived too many damp record fairs, with small scuffs and dull pressure marks catching the light along the edges. The title PHANTASMAGORIA is spaced across the top in yellow capitals, slightly too proud of itself, while the white GEISHA name sits beneath it with the purple band logo wedged in like a piece of metallic graffiti. Subtlety clearly took the night off.

The central painted face grabs the whole sleeve by the throat: green eyes, black hair, open mouth, mask-like markings, and a raised hand with blue-tipped fingers holding that blown-out starburst glare. That flash mark is almost annoying, but also very much part of the charm; glossy sleeves from this period loved turning light into little explosions. Around it, the smoke drifts across the lower half, partly hiding a darker head at the bottom left and softening the two background faces. The right side has that heavy make-up stare, the left side lurks in green shadow, and the whole thing feels calculated to look dangerous from three record bins away.

Handling it mentally, the cover feels like late-80s metal excess printed on shiny stock: bright green-yellow glow, theatrical skin tones, black hair everywhere, and tiny surface specks that remind me this is an actual sleeve, not a clean digital fantasy. The lower border shows the kind of rubbing that comes from years of sliding in and out of plastic sleeves, probably while someone muttered about condition grading as if civilisation depended on it. The artwork works because it is ridiculous with commitment. Not tasteful. Good. Tasteful sleeves rarely make a collector stop flipping.

Album Back Cover Photo
GEISHA - Phantasmagoria back cover photo showing an off-white vinyl sleeve with green text, purple diamond photo frames, four tilted band photos, and the GEISHA logo in the centre. Side A tracks appear at the top, Side B tracks upside down at the bottom. The sleeve includes Made in England text, HMI LP 88, production credits, FM Revolver branding, edge wear, and a yellow code sticker.

Turned over on the desk, this back cover immediately feels more like a working record sleeve than a piece of gallery nonsense. The background is that tired off-white card stock that never stays innocent for long, with faint handling marks, light corner grime, and a few dull rubs along the outer edges. Top left says Made in England, top right gives HMI LP 88, and the layout refuses to behave in a straight line. Good. A back cover should give you something to squint at while the first side warms up.

The whole design is built around four purple diamond frames, each holding a tilted band photo, as if someone had a ruler, a mood board, and perhaps too much confidence. Side A’s titles sit at the top in green script: You Got What It Takes, Shock Rock School, and Gangland Sector 21. Side B is printed upside down near the bottom, which is either a clever sleeve trick or one of those ideas that sounded brilliant after midnight. Annoying? Slightly. Memorable? Absolutely. The central GEISHA name and logo pull the mess together before it flies off the cardboard.

The yellow price or code sticker on the right photo is the sort of small scar collectors secretly enjoy, even while pretending to be annoyed by it. It interrupts the artwork, yes, but it also proves this sleeve had a shop life before becoming archive material. The green vertical credits along both sides mention Hookfarm Studio, Peter Mark, Peter Kofod, Fingerprints Copenhagen, Martin Silz, and Thomas Groendahl, with the FM Revolver branding sitting at the bottom like a proper period stamp. This is not pristine design. It is better than that: handled, busy, awkward, and full of useful evidence.

Close up of Side One record’s label
Close-up of GEISHA - Phantasmagoria Side A record label on black vinyl, showing a bright blue Heavy Metal Worldwide label with a green-and-white globe logo, white planet and moon graphics, centre spindle hole, A SIDE, 33 1/3 RPM, STEREO, HMI LP 88, HMI LP 88-A, 1987 copyright text, and Side A tracks listed below the album title.

This Side A label is where the record stops pretending to be merely colourful and starts giving up the useful evidence. Laid flat under the camera, the blue label nearly burns into the black vinyl around it, with the Heavy Metal Worldwide globe parked at the top like somebody thought heavy metal needed its own space agency. The spindle hole sits slightly below the globe, ringed by the usual little handling marks and paper stress. Around the outer vinyl, the grooves catch the light in thin curved bands, with faint hairlines visible near the upper left. Nothing catastrophic. Just the normal life of a record that has been handled, played, sleeved, unsleeved, and probably judged by people with opinions far too strong for polite society.

The left side gives the practical business: A SIDE, 33 1/3 RPM, and STEREO, printed in that purple-grey ink that looks readable in person and slightly sulky in photographs. On the right, HMI LP 88 and HMI LP 88-A confirm the catalogue identity, followed by the 1987 Original Sound Recordings credit. The centre text lists PHANTASMAGORIA and the first three tracks: You Got What It Takes, Shock Rock School, and Gangland Sector 21. The print is not exactly shouting. More muttering through nightclub smoke.

The white moons and star flecks are the part that make this label more fun than it strictly needs to be. A plain label would have done the job, but apparently that was too sensible, so we get planets, orbital decoration, and a legal rim text curling around the edge like a warning from the record-company bunker. Some glare washes across the lower text and centre area, which annoys the archivist in me, but the label still gives the important collector clues: side, speed, stereo format, catalogue number, label identity, and the A-side running order. Useful, a little daft, and very much of its period. That is usually the sweet spot.

All images on this site are photographed directly from the original vinyl LP covers and record labels in my collection. Earlier blank sleeves were not archived due to past storage limits, and Side Two labels are often omitted when they contain no collector-relevant details. Photo quality varies because the images were taken over several decades with different cameras. You may use these images for personal or non-commercial purposes if you include a link to this site; commercial use requires my permission. Text on covers and labels has been transcribed using a free online OCR service.