A depressing phase in Mariusz Duda's life has released new creative energies - with Riverside and LUNATIC SOUL

3. July 2018

Lunatic Soul Riverside

Eine bedrückende Lebensphase hat bei Mariusz Duda neue kreative Energien freigesetzt – mit Riverside und LUNATIC SOUL

Mid-June. Getting an interview appointment with Mariusz Duda is currently extremely difficult. Since March, Riverside have been at Studio Serakos in Warsaw to work on their seventh album "Waste7and", the first without guitarist Piotr Grudziński, who died in early 2016. The band also has to prepare for three summer festivals. For eclipsed Duda nevertheless takes a lot of time, explains why the current Lunatic Soul album "Under The Fragmented Sky" stands for him "between life and death", and describes how Riverside have reinvented themselves with "Waste7and", which is expected to appear at the end of September.

eclipsed: Mariusz, you always carry your feelings outward with absolute honesty through your music. Your fans appreciate this courage to be vulnerable.

Mariusz Duda: There are two kinds of artists for me. Those who are inspired by other music and those who try to translate their feelings and experiences into sounds. I definitely belong in the latter category. My themes are not sci-fi, fantasy or political themes, but intimate feelings. It's supposed to go under the skin and to the heart. Sure, for me it's also a kind of therapy, and maybe even dealing with my music helps one or the other in similar situations. Maybe that's why there's so much music coming out of me lately.

eclipsed: Not even a year has passed between "Fractured" and "Under The Fragmented Sky".

Duda: When "Fractured" was finished, I already knew that something would follow, because I had initially put all purely instrumental ideas aside in favor of text-based pieces. At first I had only thought about an EP, but then the whole thing got an exciting momentum of its own.

eclipsed: It is fair to say that the year 2016 was traumatic for you, with three deaths of close friends and relatives and your divorce. How far along are you in processing the events?

Duda: Death has always fascinated me. Dream, death, darkness, mental illness, social withdrawal - these are the main themes I talk about in the music of Riverside and Lunatic Soul. In the Lunatic-Soul context I see "Under The Fragmented Sky" as an album between life and death. It's very intimate, nostalgic, very cinematic. But I'll give you a small hint: All previous Lunatic Soul albums were released in November or October, this one in May. Yeah, there's definitely a light at the end of the tunnel.

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