See Into The Dark
Riverside leader Mariusz Duda has returned to his childhood home in Poland to find inspiration for the new Lunatic Soul album. He tells Prog why Through Shaded Woods follows a lighter, brighter path than its predecessors and why he’s approaching the end of Lunatic Soul’s life cycle.
Words: Dave Everley Images: Tomasz Pulsakowski
All journeys must come to an end, and Mariusz Duda is approaching the conclusion of his own with Lunatic Soul. “I believe that this is the penultimate album,” says Duda of the project he launched in 2008 and has steered in parallel with his higher-profile job as frontman and driving force behind Polish heavyweights Riverside ever since. “It should be eight albums only. I’m not sure if I’ll return to Lunatic Soul after that.”
“This” is Through Shaded Woods, Lunatic Soul’s seventh album and the latest left turn on a path defined by left turns. Lunatic Soul were conceived as the introspective, inverse reflection of Riverside’s grandstanding modern prog, only to abruptly mutate midway through the last decade into a vehicle for their founder’s lifelong love of electronic music.
Through Shaded Woods is another metamorphosis, one that’s even more startling than the last. Its six evocative tracks make few concessions to modernity, preferring instead to draw inspiration from folk music, nature and Scandinavian and Slavic folklore. It feels centuries old and timeless simultaneously. “I wanted to create dancein-the-forest songs,” he says, only half joking.