INGRID (ENGLISH VERSION)

INTERVENTIONS AND GATHERING STORM

In March 2018, when we came back from our field work, we systematically started to write songs for our fifth album. I felt I was under the need, on the one hand to keep on with the same theme of my book, writing a similar album -that is to talk about how it feels to long for your old happy life-  and on the other hand to write something about beautiful childhood memories. The album was expected to be of a dark nature, as it would be a sibling to my book, however it would show that I once had pleasant memories.

As a band, we had long discussions about the theme of the album and thus we started writing: I would take the lyrical part upon myself and the whole band would focus on the melodies. The music was mainly inspired by the Spanish and Sicilian folklore, as for a whole month we had acquired and recorded these sounds. As far as the lyrics were concerned, of course, as I have also said before, even though our albums more or less follow a particular theme, it was impossible that we write songs that are all on the same page. So, we had even written songs, which had nothing to do with childhood memories. For my own part, I had given a melody to some Poems: mainly Shakespeare plays and sonnets or other Romantic-type Poems. I went back to my ol' rabbit hole!

After much pressure, Lydia decided that she would also write her own melodies. When she presented them to me, they sounded really exciting to my ears and I told her: "These remind me of those songs I used to listen to, when I was a kid!". Maybe we could use them, as our album had to do with childhood memories. However, Lydia finally refused to let us use those melodies in the songs and she seemed to be really disappointed. And I didn't even pay any attention to her, as long as this was her own decision. Had Lars told her anything bad once again?

It took us about three months to write all the songs. I played at the Celtic festival, while at the same time we did a huge festival in Norway with Orchidea's Tales. The festival took place in a concert venue, where we were telling tales and stories. What is more, we were also playing music and we had arranged some activities for children too. At some point, late at night, I was sitting down with Jesikka and we were discussing about the band and all those new ideas I had in mind. You know that with Deep Sea Creatures the band's changing direction towards folk and world music was obvious and we said goodbye to the atmospheric progressive rock music. Now, what I had in mind was to continue what we did in that album, but also take it on a higher level, by using more instruments. I wanted us to record with real traditional instruments and not only with a few synthesizers and only having hired two or three musicians. I wished to find a real orchestra, which would consist not of symphonic instruments, but of traditional ones, just like Loreena McKennitt did. Only that in our own case, this style of music would be combined with progressive rock as well as campfire music. Anyway, I was searching high and low but I eventually found my orchestra.

A few miles further than our studio in Rockfield, there was Bristol and there we found Bristol Traditional Ensemble Orchestra.  Whatsoever we would travel to Rockfield for the recordings, so Bristol was a comfortable choice for us to work there too. As it was expected, musicians themselves came from all over the world, so there was already a multicultural background. I had managed to compose music for all of these instruments and the reason was that, the fact that I had some orchestra conducting lessons at the music academy, back in the days, when I was a kid, played a major role in my composing skills. Only that I wasn't composing for a symphonic orchestra this time. But anyway I knew how to combine and coordinate one instument with another. Those musicians together sounded splendid and for years I had wished that I could get to create such a perfect musical atmosphere. The sound was huge and gave me a nostalgic aura. And there was a reason for that. I hope I won't be laughed at by readers, but the lyras, the oud and all these Eastern instruments blended with each other reminded me of Greek folk music. This was something that absolutely fitted to our album's theme, as it itself was related to childhood memories.