‘Click Interview’ with Kloob & Onasander: ‘We Are Facing A Religious World, But With The Strangest Forms’
The album “Mundus Patet” released on Winter-Light resulted from the collaborative efforts between Dani Kloob (Spain) and Maurizio Landini (Italy). The opus is a conceptual work based upon an ancient and obscure tradition of the Ancient Romans. Three times a year they opened an infernal door to bring the spirits together with the world of the living. This theme has been transposed into a poignant and overwhelming work with a strong visual appeal. “Mundus Patet” is an overwhelming Dark-Ambient production with a Ritual touch on top. I highly recommend this work and I can only encourage both artists to renew this experience.
(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)
Q: I’m wondering to know how you guys got in touch with each other and finally release a collaborative album entitled “Mundus Patet”?
Maurizio: I contacted Dani because I love his dark sound and I wanted to start a collaboration with him, then I thought about which theme we could put in music with our sound.
Dani: Well, during these last years I have been getting a lot of Facebook friend requests. I don’t remember right know if it was Maurizio or me who did it. Anyway, we got in touch through Facebook. I regularly checked out his posts regarding his releases and I found them particularly interesting. Maurizio also ‘liked’ my posts about my releases and video footages I use to upload punctually.
Q: I can imagine you of course know the work/releases of each other so what caught your attention in your respective musical creation and -approach?
Maurizio: Dani’s Dark-Ambient is uncompromising. That’s what I like about it.
Dani: From my side I have to say that Onasander´s music strongly conveys the key elements of Dark-Ambient musical vibes: dense and solid atmospheres, organic soundscapes, special drones and dark ambiences. In addition, the way how pieces evolve from the beginning to the end: one of the most relevant conditions for this genre from my point of view. These two main aspects really got me from the first time I listened to their tracks.
Q: How did the writing and production of “Mundus Patet” happened? What has been the input of each other and what makes you’re both complementary?
Maurizio: We simply exchanged some layers to work on. Everything was very natural: the result was in perfect harmony.
Dani: About writing and production, since the beginning we got deeply involved in the concept itself. Both we were pretty motivated with the collaboration arisen, what made ideas and forms emerge quite fast. Maurizio established a decent way to work: an interesting and creative files swapping. This gave us the chance to expand possibilities, so that, apart from the fact that each of us created our own sounds, Maurizio´s ones were edited by me and mine by Maurizio.
Regarding album´s idea, at first the plan was to create 4 tracks, keeping in mind the structure of an EP. Approximately 6 weeks after getting in touch, we managed to finish those 4 tracks and we dropped some lines for Mark to listen to them. After having some conversations about it, the conclusion was to include other 4 serious tracks.
Q: Can you give us more details about the sound/noise sources and equipment that has been used to compose this work? Do you’ve specific references and criteria when composing music?
Maurizio: I use many long samples and field recordings. Ableton Live DAW is my main ‘music instrument’. I don’t have specific references or criteria when I compose my music: usually, I start from a sample.
Dani: One of the main sounds sources of the album was the TETR4 and Virus TI Snow synths. Once the primary stems were rendered, files exchange was performed. We afterwards started to build up the tracks, being sound editing in Logic X and Ableton Live a key part of the whole process.
With regards to criteria when composing music, I always try to get into an inspiring tone since the track basis. Reaching at that point, ideas used to flow regularly and I seek the right atmosphere for each specific creation. Authenticity, dark moods, exciting soundscapes and lot of sound editing is what I bear in mind.
And, currently, specific references to me would be all the amazing new stuff regarding synths, reverb pedals and sound libraries. Any of these things help me a lot to compose music, I mean in terms of sound potential we can achieve, not in getting all that gear.
Q: “Mundus Patet” is a real interesting theme and still the concept of the album. What fascinates you in this theme and how did you put it into music?
Maurizio: The base of Onasander is the esoteric and military tradition of Ancient Romans; I was really interested about Mundus Patet theme so I thought that our sound could be perfect to put it into music.
Dani: I consider mythology as one the most important things in human culture. In particular, what appeals to me in this theme is the fact that spirits ‘could communicate’ with the living. Eventually, this represents one of the most profound humans longings.
I tried to reflect this subject being aware that all regarding spirit world involves risk, dangers and hidden stuff. This led me to explore more specific sound libraries, handle with new effect chains and provide my own approach to Maurizio´s sound sources.
Q: The theme of “Mundus Patet” brings us back to mythology and superstition. Do you see possible links with the world of today and especially the Western civilization?
Maurizio: That’s a difficult question. Someone said that in the third millennium we’d expect to find a world totally secularized. Instead, we are facing a religious world, but with the strangest forms.
Dani: Somehow, depending on the country´s culture, a lot of people roots are linked, especially, to superstition. Within Western civilization, perhaps Latin regions are more likely to be apprehensive. It´s quite interesting to see some of the traditions are still alive today for instance in Spain: pilgrimage, image worship and lucky charms.
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
