Exclusive Interview: Incriya talk writing and recording “Nothingness”!
Sometimes when you hear something for the first time it just grabs you and for us “Nothingness” by Incriya is one of those records. Astounding with the Progressive Technical and Experimental sounds of a new age of Metal, its a record that as debut has maturity beyond its years thanks to the experience of the musicians who have created it. So for the second time in a week we spoke to Joonas all about the project, this time having a look underneath the bonnet at some of the inner workings…
How did your previous experiences writing and recording music help to smooth the path for “Nothingness“? “Quite a bit actually. We’ve had many projects in the past and have written a ton of songs in which we’ve had to handle everything by ourselves; the writing itself, recording, mixing and production, and that has really worked in our favour considering the production process of “Nothingness””
How does the writing process of a new track start? Melody, riff or rhythm first? How does it evolve from there before you consider it the finished article? “That widely depends on a song in question. The typical initial stage is to get some idea about the form, like what is the whole formal development in the song. We don’t tend to think in terms of verses, choruses etc. but rather in a large scale events and movements. After the structural idea is set, it is typically followed by either a rhythmical idea or groove that supports the idea of the song’s structure or by an idea of the harmonic language. This is the stage that gives the song its character. After this usually follows the melodies and the more detailed material and the song typically starts to write itself! Spelled out this way, the writing process might sound somewhat calculated and predetermined, but actually the writing itself is very intuitive!”
You’ve got elements of DJent, Progressive and Experimental Metal within the sound of “Nothingness“, how did you go about finding the balance of those elements and what were your inspirations for the sound? “We are actually still looking for a nice balance between these elements! In all its simplicity, it was just a case of trying things out. I don’t know if we really had any actual direct inspirations. I think it was more like combining sounds and styles from various styles of music in a way that we ourselves would have wanted to hear a metal band sound like”
In our review we’ve mentioned the almost theatrical epic aspect to your sound that echoes Muse, Stoneside or Deftones. Was creating atmosphere always part of the original vision for the sound of the band or did that come naturally as you played together? “That actually was a part of the original vision! We liked the contrast between the harsh, punchy and rhythmic nature of the metal band instruments and the huge and soft atmospheres playing together”
For us gear nerds out there, can you tell us what you’re using gear wise (pedals, strings, drums etc) to get your sound? “For the most part, the guitars are recorded with Strandberg Boden Standard guitar and Quad Cortex by Neural DSP. There are also some lead guitar melodies and doubling guitars that use the Archetype: Abasi plugin by Neural DSP. So Strandberg and Neural DSP pretty much handled this production! Strings were some basic Ernie Ball 10-46, that I like and always have a bunch lying around.
Very early on, we decided that we wouldn’t get a bass player in the band, but would use synth basses instead, since we always had a vision of a quite electronic sound for the band and would use a lot of synth basses anyway. Quite frankly, a live bass player would most definitely be really bored playing the few actual bass guitar parts in the songs! So for the bass, we used different kinds of synth plugins, like Spire and Vacuum, and Eurobass as a reinforcement in the heaviest parts”
What difference would it make to you as a band if you could land an endorsement from a gear manufacturer? “That’d be great, since we’re always on a budget but love to hoard all kinds of gear and plugins!”
“Nothingness” by Incriya is out now and available over at bandcamp.
