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Hi Henri,
This interview is a retrospective discussion with one of the pioneers of the DS genre or Hernri Sovali (instrumentalist, sound engineer, composer producer and a member of Moonsorrow and Finntroll, he has been working in the game industry as musician since 2004.
I must say that I run into your music exploring the network with the intent of expanding my DS music culture. The Lunar Wombs are one of the groups that not only hit me but also gave me the feeling of the group that puts a solid stylistic brick in the genre.
Thank you! When we (as Lunar Womb was first a collaboration between three people) started the project in 1994 we were mostly inspired by bands such as Tangerine Dream and Burzum. When the other people left the project after the first demo I wanted to bring more of my other influences to the project, namely the folk- and middle- age- elements combined with the ritualistic and meditative approach of the first demo.
There weren´t many bands of the genre at the time in the “Dungeon Synth”- scene albeit from Mortiis and the sporadic Norwegian offshoots (Wongraven, Neptune Towers, etc) , but I was heavily into projects such as Endvra, Puissance, Elend and Pazuzu which were a huge source of inspiration to me among classical, medieval and folk music in general. I guess that all molded Lunar Womb´s sound what it was to become before going much more folky and melodic in the last demo.
Ok then,
the Lunar Womb project was born in 1995 but only in 2015 it has been resurrected and remastered, in your bandcamp there is written that resembling it gave you the impression that it was dated , but I had the impression that did not but that is only good music ...
It took me longer than I expected to finish “The Sleeping Green” and when I finally had got the last mixes ready in 2001 or so, I already felt the project sounding a bit too “outdated”, and our cassette label which was supposed to release it was already laid to rest a couple of years before. I was also quite busy with both Moonsorrow and Finntroll and decided to leave the album unreleased “until I think otherwise”.
Fast- forwarding to 2015, I accidentally stumbled across the original recordings again and thought that underneath the bad sound is still beating a strong vision which should be dug out. And that I should give the album it´s last rites, remaster it for good and let it rest eternally. After all, I had put very much effort and soul to it and I felt it still contained the same spirit that was burning (and still is) inside me years ago.
As we had now things like Bandcamp, Youtube and many others and I knew I wasn´t going to need any publisher anymore, I spent several full days decluttering the sound, restoring lost dynamics and fixing horrible engineering mistakes I had foolishly done fifteen years ago until I knew I couldn´t make it any better.
What has convinced you to remasterize "The Sleeping Green" and above all you can talk about your great musical passion that you have ? Can be considered a great relief even at a psychological level?
<a href="http://worldoftrollhorn.bandcamp.com/album/the-sleeping-green">The Sleeping Green by Lunar Womb</a>
First of all I thought the album should be finally released to the public due to the abovementioned things in the previous answer, but as I had greatly improved in my technical skills during the years I thought I could also take it as a “technical challenge”. My passion for music that awakens feelings and paints pictures unseen is very deep, and as I had conjured everything from my mind back then I also hoped to evoke such visions within the listener´s mind.
I wanted the music to take me somewhere I felt I belonged, and I wanted to show people where that place was. In that sense, it was also a relief to finally show the possible listeners the map there. If the listener finds the same imageries, landscapes and long lost ages that I did, I feel I have succeeded on my humble task.
Does your job at Rovio Entertainment (if you still work with that company) have a lot of influence on your musician's creativity or is it the reverse?
It´s a double- edged sword, really. I have been working as a composer in the games industry since 2004 but I have always had some spare time to waste at work than after joining the Angry Birds, which is much more demanding job. I have worked there since 2013, and while I have become much more professional composer and music producer during the time, it also has sometimes negatively effected my workflow for what it comes to more “spiritual” compositional outbursts on my spare time due to exhaustion. (which also could be explained that during this time I have also started a small freelance mixing service and got two more kids, hah!)
While doing music at Rovio, I find it very important to still make music which contains something else than just notes in certain order, which is sometimes consuming, as we´re speaking of creative work being done on constant schedules. However, I feel like working in such professional atmosphere feeds my creativity at the same time and pushes me to try different new things and techniques which I wouldn´t even dream of 4-5 years ago. And while I do that, I try to make sure there´s never a moment I couldn´t put a lot of my own touch to everything- for example, on the last soundtrack I made, I included influences from Burzum and Danzig to the package, haha!
Does music in the video game world have something special that can not be transmitted in the same way in DS ?
Absolutely not, if you ask me. There´s a lot video game music hugely resemblant to DS genre, and in fact I´ve been saying for years that some day I´ll write a lenghty essay on the topic pointing out parallels between the two musical forms, haha! To tear it down a bit, both genres are heavily drawing from the ambient genre, are basically existing to evoke feelings and tend to be repetitive and hypnotic on their roots- not so far away from early electronic and ambient music. And New Age too, if you prefer, which is just basically a (poor) spiritual attempt on both.
On the other hand, if we´re taking game music´s most known examples- be it either hanszimmeresque corny movie soundtrack style (CoD, I´m looking at you) or the classic 8/16- bit stuff, I can understand why comparisons to the feelings the DS genre may evoke within the listeners which game music cannot are rather justified. There is a lot of game music which can transmit the same sort of emotions a DS album can at it´s best, and I´d strongly suggest you to check out soundtracks from such classic games as “Myst”, “Diablo II”, “The Dig” and “Fallout II” to get a glimpse of game music in more DS/ dark ambient style, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons which combines the same elements Lunar Womb´s “Sleeping Green” is full of- only ten times better!
To be honest, I think it´s a shame that the mainstream game music in the 2010´s doesn´t necessarily bring forth such a strong atmosphere it used to do 10-15 years ago due to hollywoodizing/ “playing it safe”- reasons, but if you wander to the more indie side of things, there´s a lot of good things happening on the musical side which you could enjoy. Then again, isn´t this the case with everything, heh?
I do not really like video games and/or various fantasy stories etc. But...
Do you believe that the video games audience has a different, (I would say more superficial, approach) to the music ? or there are sensitive ears between game players that listen with passion the music that accompanies the game itself?
I pity the fool who cannot surrender to the immersive grasp of fantasy world- after all, that´s what the whole DS genre is all about! ;) What our societies have forgotten during the constant growth in both technology and efficiency is the art of storytelling and spirituality. Our roots are torn apart and replaced with fast food, homogenic cultures, reality TV and Cosmopolitan. Fantasy literature, movies and games are all part of the same revival as is the DS- genre: not only pure entertainment per se, but a clear indicator that the western society- no matter how well it works otherwise- has forgotten it´s own roots.
For some, it starts from Game of Thrones and for some the glimpse is revealed by a role- playing game while someone wants to understand Deathspell Omega´s lyrics better. But this all is a clear indicator that our world is lacking the depth it once had, and every day more and more people are starting to realize this. Our job as musicians is to take part of that call and strengthen the signal when it´s needed.
When you think about the music used in these forms of art, I believe it´s very much dependant on the game genre, though. It´s really hard to believe someone fully embracing any spirituality or superficiality in Mick Gordon´s (par excellent, mind you) Doom 2016 soundtrack, but am most certain that the more (medieval) fantasy- based the game is, the more it draws in certain types of people who are also much more sensitive to the music than, say, people who are more into Counter- Strike.
What do you think about the current development of the DS scene? Is there any group you like in a particular way?
My knowledge of this lately- resurrected scene is rather minimal at the moment, though I am extremely pleased on the revival of these soundscapes. It seems that the Americans are mostly to be thanked for this, as I haven´t really been exposed on any European people doing this particular style lately...and with lately I mean the last 15 years, haha! For what it comes to any particular groups, Druadan Forest (though having been around since the 90´s), has made an awesome new DS- album which I had the opportunity to master at my studio just recently. It should be out on Werewolf Records soon, and I highly recommend to check it out when it´s released!
The biggest challenge in the whole DS- genre revival in my opinion comes from the fact that as these soundscapes were originally a product of the 90´s, it´s very hard to get the same hardware and sound over 20 years later. Nowadays you can get almost any instrument sampled digitally, but the more common late 80’s/ early 90’s hardware synths from Roland, Korg and Ensoniq are completely deglected as there is no demand for their cheap digital sounds which were popular back then. They aren´t too good to be “retro” but not too good to be useful either for most of the people, thus they are not available in various sample formats for now. But maybe times change in the future?
The computer and sample- based production of the 2010´s has surely brought us a lot of opportunities to use same sort of sounds digitally, but if they were used the exact same way that they were done in the 90´s, the sound would also be dull, outdated and quite poor. It is certainly pure art to balance the old and the new together in a way that is still respectful to the genre, yet with the worst technical flaws defeated.
And we also need to consider the fact that these original soundscapes weren´t necessarily the best of the best at the time- usually they were cheap digital synths with very synthetic- sounding imitations of real instruments and I´m certain the artists would had used more realistic- sounding and generally better- quality sounds if they had the opportunity to do it. Had the scene evolved and continued, who knows how the original concept of e.g. Mortiis would had sounded with today´s technology!
If the Lunar Womb project was continued as you think it would have evolved?
I believe it would had become something very Wardruna- like, yet not as warlike and ritualistic. Immersive soundscapes combined with traditional instruments, samples of nature and a ton of choirs. But definitely more into the dreamy and spiritual side of the bone, though. Lunar Womb was (is?) always about a lonely and long journey instead of a horde of barbarians chanting war hymns....Not that there´s anything wrong with that either, hah!
Are you satisfied with the re-issue of Lunar Womb “Planets / The Astral Grief” by the Hollow Myths label?
I wasn´t planning to release the re- issue at all and it took quite a many persuading emails from them to finally get my acceptance on the matter. I was willing to do it in the end because I heard there were so many people asking for it in CD form and I wanted to give them the chance to get the music on CD instead of a random Youtube- link which they didn´t want. We have agreed that the initial amount will be 100 pieces and no more shall be printed ever again.
Are you also into techno music?
Among many other music styles- absolutely yes, and if counting ambient out of the context, my particular favourite subgenre is Goa Trance (and some Psytrance). It has the same element in common than in many other music genres I enjoy, which is meditative and hypnotic, slowly evolving minimalism. On top of that it´s also very atmospheric for what it comes to the production and has usually very widely utilized stereo image which drowns you to the soundscapes, resembling a lot of genres from ambient to even black metal.
The artwork from Rudolf Koivuof of“The Sleeping Green ” is great … Are there other artists and illustrators whom you particularly like their work?
This couldn´t be an interview about 90´s Dungeon Synth without mentioning Theodor Kittelsen and John Bauer, haha! Especially Bauer´s work on Trolls has been a huge influence for me throughout the times. But for Finnish painters more than just Rudolf Koivu, I need definitely to mention Akseli Gallen- Kallela and Hugo Simberg as well. Especially Gallen- Kallela´s works have been heavily utilized in the Finnish metal scene since the 90´s in various demos, magazines and flyers. For what it comes to (painted) art in general, I have obviously always tended to be more drawn into the national- romantic era and find many particularly inspiring pieces from there despite of the identity of the artist.
Recently some musicians are rediscovering the sounds of the old synths of the 90s, of course technologies allow all this, according to you in this genre of music, how important is the atmosphere and the sound, compared to the musical ideas that are actually written?
As mentioned earlier, the technological possibilities of recreating the exact sound of a particular era has been around for some time already, and it may be a tempting idea for a young composer to pick up a sound and start mimicking. But with great power comes indeed a great responsibility, and without first understanding the form of art we are trying to create it is impossible to create nothing a but a bland shadow of it.
When you are creating something completely new or perhaps combining two things together (isn´t the early DS basically just “medieval ambient”, if you think about it?) for the first time, there are basically no rules. But if you´re trying to stay true to an original musical artform, be it anything from classical music to death metal, you need to first have an understanding of the basic characteristics of the genre. A skilled musician can arrange and produce any song into another style with stunning (and sometimes very amusing) results, but without first understanding what he is doing it´s impossible to convince anyone, leaving but a sour taste in mouth afterwards.
Be it any musical genre, both musical and production values are very important, and usually the more “strictly defined” the genre´s characteristical sound is, the more pinned down those values are.
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