UTG INTERVIEW: Amia Venera Landscape

We’re very pleased to bring you this exclusive interview with Italy’s very own Amia Venera Landscape!

Since the group’s crushing 2010 debut, The Long Procession, we’ve heard very little in the way of new material or information but they recently took to their Facebook to update fans on what they’ve been hard at work on over the past two years, and said fans can expect a healthy slew of new works in the coming months.

We recently spoke with vocalist Alessandro Brun about the band’s independence, their recent inspirations and what we can expect from them in the very near future, so read through and get caught up with one of the heaviest bands in the game, Amia Venera Landscape!

What inspirations have come into your lives since The Long Procession that are playing a key role in your new material?
I think that everyday life played a more important role in our music this time, carrying a profound sense of anguish and melancholy. If you look beyond all the bullshit we usually base our lives on, it’s not hard to see everything is getting worse. From worldwide financial and political dynamics, always pointed to a blind yearn for power and oppression, to our own living without a serious meaning, letting everything pass. Inspiration usually comes from that moment of awareness that shows the real state of things, that the more you get old, the more time runs faster and you can do nothing about it, but finding a real purpose to fill the void.

Talking about musical listenings, I have to admit there hasn’t been any particular change since The Long Procession; we’ve always been into different genres and we still are.

You said you guys have been writing roughly 80 songs in the past couple of years. How are you choosing what will be released and when?
We’re working on a series of releases which will contain all of these songs written so far. We took several directions in terms of composition, but there are some kind of guidelines that could draw the borders between each “album,” so I guess there’s a stylistic reason behind the choice of which ones will be released sooner or later. I mean, everything has been written in the same period, so there isn’t any kind of chronological-related choice about the order these releases will be out. By the way, the first one is scheduled to be out within the end of this Winter, the others will follow, depending on how much time the recordings and production sessions will take.

What can we expect with the winter release?
I can say it will undoubtedly sound different from what we’ve done so far. The next one contains probably our darker and somehow heavier songs. We introduced new instruments, most of the songs have a more simple structure now, but everything sounds more intense and visceral.

Do you plan to tour after this album comes out?
No, I don’t think so… maybe we’ll split the recording-related period and play some shows, but I guess it won’t happen just after the first release.

I can’t imagine that no labels have tried to work with you guys. Is there a reason you’ve stayed independent?
Some labels contacted us so far, but sincerely we’re not looking for one at the moment. We prefer to manage everything by ourselves, as we always did. We wanna write music and take care of everything related with absolute freedom. We’re aware that a good label with a huge distribution could let us reach more people, but this would involve undoubtedly several negative aspects. I see every label’s got his own identity circumscribed to a specific genre or target of people, and I find this a kind of limit, both artistic and aesthetic. Everything is sectorialized, has got to be identified to be appreciated. We simply don’t care to be a part of something, we just wanna do what we want in the way we prefer with our own timetables.

So you’ll obviously be releasing these forthcoming efforts independently as well?
Yeah, sure! This time we’re also recording them ourselves.

How would you describe an AVL live show?
Annoying; continuous strobe lights and loud noises…

According to your Facebook members section, you have 4 guitar players in the band? Is this all happening at once?
Well, during our past shows we always played with three guitars. On the latest ones I started to play guitar too in few songs, such as “Marasm,” which have a structure that permits to add other instruments. For the new songs we have a quite dynamic lineup. I mean, we’re not playing always the same instrument, so there are several combinations.

Why did you only just recently release the music video for “Empire”?
We had some problems, as always, considering it had been shot more than a year ago. Editing has been made by our guitarist Enrico during the same period we were writing new music, so it’s been hard sometimes to find the time for doing both things.

What is your ultimate goal as Amia Venera Landscape?
I think that our goal is to create the music that’s born within us, trying to record it to the best of our ability and to get as close as possible, both in studio and in concert, to a stable state of spiritual trance.


Written and conducted by: Brian LionFollow him on Twitter

Brian Leak
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