Below is a sketch of the first Lunatic Soul album in the project. If you haven’t read the introduction (which gives a brief explanation of why the project itself exists), you can read it here. Feel free to comment!

Lunatic Soul I 

• Released: Oct. 16, 2008 
• Colour: Black  
• My ranking: 3

Lunatic Soul I is an album jammed to overflowing with ideas, which is not surprising since they had been accumulating for years. Mariusz Duda had been collaborating with musician and friend Maciej Szelenbaum since before he joined Riverside and they had recorded a lot of material together. Some of these songs, as well as other pieces written after Riverside was established, had not been suitable for the band (in fact, there are several tracks on the Reality Dream albums that perhaps would not have been there had Lunatic Soul existed earlier). There were songs that Duda loved and was very eager to release, and a separate project was the only way he was going to be able to do it. 

The story arc of the project involves, at least on the surface, ideas of death and rebirth: when LS I begins, the unnamed protagonist (“The Hero”) has already died and has entered a liminal state, waiting to be reborn. It should be noted that the story is not really about reincarnation, but examines a much bigger question: How do our choices in life impact what we leave behind us when we die? Our protagonist must make a decision before he can move on: if he keeps his own memories, he is lost to the world and will leave nothing behind: “…[B]y all else you must be forgotten,” he is told, in the song “The Final Truth”. However, if he gives up his identity and all his memories, then he will be remembered. The album ends with a cliffhanger: what decision did he make?

Musically, LS I is lush and adventurous, with a vaguely folk-oriental feel and a variety of styles, probably a result of having so much material to choose from. Exotic and unusual instruments abound: kalimba, quzheng, e-bow, flutes, small percussion. We hear instrumental trance fusion, delicate ballads, powerhouse prog…Duda pulled out all the stops with the help of Szelenbaum, who may be the most important collaborator he has ever had. Besides him, the album features appearances from Maciej Meller and Michał Łapaj (who, it must be said, is partially responsible for “The Final Truth,” one of the most powerful songs in the entire LS canon); and introduces us to Wawrzyniec Dramowicz on drums, who would remain a fixture in Lunatic Soul, the unacknowledged “second member” for all subsequent albums save one. 

Upside: LS I is a stunningly immersive introduction to the Lunatic Soul project, the songs an eclectic mix of styles that the subsequent albums never quite matched. A compelling, atmospheric journey tackling one of the great questions of humanity.

Downside: there is nothing musically to complain about. However, its very eclecticism may work against it: it has no real genre, no identifying marker for the algorithms to easily find and help the project show up in streaming playlists. While Duda’s aim was to create music that was genreless, it may have cost him in exposure and popularity.