         
|
|||
|
|||
 ATMOSPHEREHere we present you one new, but very promising band. Nàttsòl is Norwegian troop and they have just released their debut “Stemning” for Lupus Lounge filled with very good Black Metal with strong bonds to majestic nature and nineties’ scene. Their guitar player / founder Erlend Antonsen explained to us the philosophy of this misterious unit.
Greetings, Nàttsòl! How are you doing? Hi. We’re doing great. Excited about the upcoming release which is coming closer and closer now. Let us start from the beginning as Nàttsòl is still fairly new band… tell us something about the formation and te early years of the band. Well it started in 2006 when I wrote the songs. I wrote the songs pretty quickly and when I had them ready I felt that I needed a full band with very good musicians in order to make the album as good as possible. I searched for quite some time for the right members and in about two years I had the full lineup ready for recording. Apart from “Stemning”, I am not aware of any of your other releases. Is there any demo recordings and will they see the light of day? “Stemning” is our first release. We never did any demos apart for some temporary recordings of the songs which I gave to the members so they could hear the basics of the songs. These recordings are of no interest to anyone. They are just instrumental versions of the songs. Nàttsòl is very misterious group – no live gigs, no pictures (although the names of members are known)… why is this decision taken, can you see Nàttsòl performing live in the future? Well all the members in the band live quite far away from each other and we couldn’t get together in time for a band picture for this release. I think its best if the music could speak for itself on this album. We have no plans for any live show in the future. Since we live so far from each other it would be very hard to do the rehearsing necessary in order to do a good live show. Your debut is unleashed by Lupus Lounge, very good label for the beginning! How did you get in contact with them, are you satisfied so far? How many albums will you release with them? A friend recommended us to them and they liked the material so they offered us a deal. Its getting further and further between good labels nowadays and we feel very lucky to be on Lupus Lounge. We are very happy with their work so far. I’m not sure how many albums we will release in the end but we are working on our second album and it seems that we wont run out of new music to write anytime soon. „Stemning“ is about to be released in couple of days, so are you guys fairly satisfied with it? You have been honing your craft for long, that’s for sure. Yes we are fairly satisifed with it. Its not an perfect album for sure but I think its as good as we could have made it at the time. Hopefully we will do even better on the next one. I need to ask you since the recording took you so long – did you go into the studio on your own to prepare the album? Was it expensive, as "Stemning“ features very good sound quality! We recorded most of the stuff in our own home studios except Venomenon’s vocals which was done in Morten Veland’s studio. The album was mixed and mastered by Markus Skroch from Kalthallen Studio. He did an amazing job and he is largely responsible for the sound we got. Since we did most of the recording in our own studios we could spend as much time as we needed and it wasnt very expensive to tell the truth. „Stemning“ explores nature inspired BM with Norse roots, I want to ask you how do you compose your stuff as it is fairly rich in arrangements? And in your opinion – what one needs to capture the magic of nature into the music and to elevate it to art? I can’t really explain exactly how I compose. I usually just start with a riff I jam out on the guitar and build the song from that. I actually compose all the Nattsol material on acoustic guitar first before I record with an electric guitar. What you need to do in order to have any hope of capturing nature in music is to spend a lot of time in nature. Its as simple as that I think. I dont think we can ever truly capture nature with music but we try to represent it at least. Your label compares you to Ulver, are you happy with those comparisons? Do you see further branching of Nàttsòl into some other realms in the future? We are of course inspired by the early albums of Ulver and especially the sound they had at the time. Our next album will be a departure from the path Ulver took but we will always use nature as our inspiration. Would you label Nàttsòl as “Black Metal”, do you think that style can exist outside of Satanism? While we’re at it, explain to us further the lyrical concept of “Stemning”… There are so many different opinions on what exactly black metal is. Maybe we could be called traditional black metal? I don’t know and I don’t really care about what genre we belong to. We just write the music we feel comfortable with. The lyrics are basically descriptions of natural scenery and particularly the song titles describes the atmospheres and moods we try to create. Can you shortly introduce to us members of Nàttsòl? Do you guys have some side projects? The core members are me, Nattsjel (guitars) and Venomenon (vocals). We used session musicians for the rest of the instruments on “Stemning”. Nattsjel is still going strong with his Vidsyn project and Venomenon is about to release something with his Sectum Sempra band. Myself I have Quadrivium which is a project is use to channel any other musical impulses that might not be suitable for Nattsol. Since nature plays so big role in your music, I would like to know do you live in countryside or some big urban city? Do you often wander the woods in search for inspiration? I grew up in rural Norway so I have spent a lot of time in nature. Now I live in, at least by Norwegian standards, a city because of my work situation. Luckily its not far to drive if I want to wander in the woods or something. Unfortunately I dont have as much time to do that as I used to. Work takes up a lot of time I’m afraid. That would be all for your first presentation to Serbia, I wish you all the best. Your last words... Take a journey in the forest one day, far from any human sights or sounds. It’s the most human and spiritual you will ever be. Answers by Erlend Antonsen |
PUBLISHED ISSUESMETAL SOUND # |
||
