Before I know it, January 2020 has almost ended and I promised myself and you that I would share some reflections for 2020. Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio, which wasn’t easy because Riverside are touring like crazy, but, against all odds, I managed to find some time for thinking through and recording some new ideas.

As you will remember, when I was 33, I started a music project. On a whim. Out of necessity. Lunatic Soul has done pretty well because I managed to create music which is different from what I do in Riverside.

Recently, I turned 44, so I think it’s high time for another music world.

One might ask, why do I need another solo project if I have Lunatic Soul? Well. And why did I need Lunatic Soul if I had Riverside? You might not know it but the artists who have not fulfilled their desires, dreams and ambitions are the most frustrated people out there. Some of them end up really badly – for instance, as journalists. So if one has a chance to fulfil one’s plans on multiple levels, then, as long as one’s wellbeing and climate changes allow, one should enjoy the possibilities. This time, however, I’m not going to play with any nicknames and I’ll simply sign my work with my own name and surname.

***

I am most of all a creator of complete entities, at least that’s how I feel. I make albums, recordings, I tell stories. I always begin with a title, a cover, a colour, and then I fill that framework with sounds composed alone or with the help of my friends. That’s how it works in Riverside, that’s how it works in Lunatic Soul. When I’m making music, I want the listener to feel as if they are watching a film at the cinema. Experiencing something that has a beginning, a twist, a climax, and an ending.

Well… in the case of “MD” it’s not going to be this way.

At least not yet.

First of all, I don’t want to rain on my own parade, and secondly, I would simply like to try something new.

I’ve decided that as “Mariusz Duda” I will release only singles, individual songs recorded with the help of my friends and colleagues. From time to time, in between R and LS. Of course, there will come a time when I will put them all together, add twice as many and release them on an album. But until then, I’ll be showing what’s possibly my greatest strength: being a songwriter. Therefore, the songs will be centered around vocals, acoustic guitars and piano, that is what I started from.

Riverside is a typical rock band which, no matter how much I keep denying it and making fun of it, will always be marked with the stamp of “progressive rock”. And so let’s have long tracks, elaborate guitar solos, concept albums and the like. Naturally, there will still be some experimenting, but.. some things simply cannot be changed. Lunatic Soul is my love for ambient, darkness, folk and electronics. It’s a strange style but let’s allow the strangeness to grow and develop. “Mariusz Duda” will, in turn, play songs. Those, that have always worked out best for him. Those that sound pretty and go under your skin. And so each of the music worlds will have its character, its law and order. Soon, there will be a website where I will put all my music endeavours to date in one place. It might help some of you, but mostly myself, wrap my head around how it’s all developed over the years.

***

And in mid March I will share with you the first song.

***

Finally, let me say a few things about the new plans for Riverside and Lunatic Soul. Thinking about the future solo “MD” songs has allowed me to look more objectively at what has been happening with Riverside and Lunatic Soul. Two separate worlds have come dangerously close together. “A Thousand Shards of Heaven” or “Untamed” could easily be Riverside songs. “Wasteland” is, in turn, really saturated with the essence of Lunatic Soul. And although it turned out fine, I know that I will have to keep both worlds furhter apart for the respective future releases.

That’s why the new Lunatic Soul is turning back towards the first two albums and it will be more folk than ever before, and Riverside will go back to playing the kind of music you know from the first four releases, but in a refreshed form forged in the last decade.

I have spoken.

***

It seemed to me some time ago that I have already experienced the best in life, but now I fee that everything is only about to begin. I’m really glad that in these difficult and troubled times I can still count on your trust and support. Thank you for being there. Thank you for letting me be who I want to be.

With warmest regards,
MD

***

photo by Nicole Shade

This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a picture taken in a forest. A picture of me, hooded, among trees. Because forests, just like lakes, are my natural habitat. Perhaps not everyone knows about it, but I come from a small town – Węgorzewo in the Masurian Lakeland, and that town is surrounded mainly by forests and lakes. That is where I grew up and spent a large (still the largest, in fact) part of my life. That is, until I packed my bags and moved to Warsaw.

And so the forest will be my inspiration for the next Lunatic colour. After blue and red, it’s time for green. It is my pleasure to announce that soon I will enter the studio to work on the seventh Lunatic Soul album. It will be very organic and folky this time, but, naturally, “in my way”. I’ve just finished the demo and at the end of the month I’m starting the recording sessions. (Somewhere between Riverside concerts). What will come out of it – we’ll see.

I remain lunatically yours and I promise to reveal more information soon.

Good news for everybody who would like to complete the LS discography on CD.

Lunatic Soul “Impressions”, which has been unavailable for a long time, will be reissued on CD in April 2019 at a competitive price. The album is already available on preorder.

PREORDER

Hello after the break.

Firstly, let me say “thank you” to all of you who put the sixth Lunatic Soul album, “Under the Fragmented Sky”, on your private “best of 2018” lists. It is a truly great feeling to know that I can reach some of you through this project, not only through Riverside.

As you have probably noticed, the way music is presented or “packaged” is almost as important to me as the music itself, and so I experiment with trilogies, diptychs, four-five-six words in the title, a 7 instead of “L”. And that’s where my idea for a complete cycle of eight Lunatic Soul albums comes from too, the cycle I called “The Circle of Life and Death”, which has been properly illustrated thanks to Jarek Kubicki. I published the diagram some time ago without much explanation, so let me give you a little lecture on it today :)

There are six albums in the main circle: “Lunatic Soul I”, “Lunatic Soul II”, an empty slot, “Fractured”, another empty slot, and “Walking on a Flashlight Beam”. There are also two complementary albums, “Impressions” and “Under the Fragmented Sky”. The empty slots are obviously releases number 7 and 8, which are still to come in a not too distant future.

You will have noticed the two arrows there, the top one pointing to the right, the bottom one pointing to the left, which give you instructions on the order in which to listen to the albums, that is clockwise :)

The diagram is divided in two. On the right, there is a a dark half-circle (with LS1, LS2, Impressions and the future 7th album). On the left, the half-circle is brighter (it comprises “Fractured”, studio album number 8 and “WotFB”). The right, darker side, symbolises death. The left one, brighter – life. The albums from the right side are filled with organic, oriental, more folk sounds while those from the left are more electronic. “Under the Fragmented Sky” combines both worlds in a way, which is why it is placed at the bottom of the diagram.

The story is really simple. The main character, having descended into the underworld, tries to escape from that place to be born again, and when he gets another chance at life, he heads towards the darkness again. We live, we die, we are reborn and we depart again (“How many times we live, how many times we die”). It’s a never ending cycle of life and death. There are a few key fragments and turning points in some of the lyrics, “The Final Truth”, “Gravestone Hill”, “Sky Drawn in Crayon”… but I’ll tell you more about them some other time.

For those of you who would like to better understand the music division into the oriental and the electronic, I have prepared two playlists, called “Beyond” and “Within” respectively. Please bear in mind that these are not “the best of”, that they are more like communicating vessels, different points of view of the character who resides on both sides. I have chosen the tracks to tell one story “on the side of life”, and another “on the side of death”. There are a few exceptions, for instance “Wanderings” – even though it comes from “LS2”, it is more fitting musically in the world on the left. I left out “Summerland” because, lyrically, it’s a view from outside, not from the perspective of the character, or I didn’t choose “Walking on a Flashlight Beam”, which is lyrically already on the side of death, and should probably be right there with “Out on a Limb”, but didn’t fit with the dynamics of the playlist. But the essence of the message has been preserved :)

Here are the links to the playlists:
Beyond – https://spoti.fi/2RPZ05c
Within – https://spoti.fi/2CK1cAR

And finally, let me say a few words about the future releases. Yes, there will be another album on the side of life and one on the side of death. When? I definitely won’t make you wait too long. As for the content, the “life album” will be a continuation of “Fractured”, it will talk about the chaos of life filled with sounds illustrating that chaos (something has to push our hero into alienation and make him escape into the “container called myself” on “WotFB”, right?). Since it will be my most daring music story, I will leave it for the end. I’d like to fill the right side of the diagram before that and I have a feeling the upcoming Lunatic Soul album will be a continuation of the first Lunatic Soul releases. At the moment, I have in mind a very oriental, folk album, without any electronics. An album about another rebirth and return from the darkness.

With the seventh album I will definitely return to the symbol on the cover. And the colour – I’m thinking about coming back to nature…

Making music is my passion, but it’s also a lot of fun. My fondness of illustrative music comes from inspirations of my childhood, when I created worlds out of nothing. I remember collecting notebooks filled with my own comic books, putting them together into “seasons”, trying to organise them… and how it was all in stark contrast to the mess on my desktop :) Creating music allows me to organise my inner chaos, and that’s why I’m writing all those stories and combining them into “larger entities”. I hope that you will forgive me for this apparent “excess of form over substance”. It doesn’t stem from the need to create overly elaborate work but from the need to create order from chaos, which are indispensable to my mind (“within”) and soul (“beyond”).

Thank you for being there and stopping by from time to time. More lunatic news will follow soon!

M