I’m posting up teasers and sketches of each of the Lunatic Soul albums, in anticipation of the new album out this year, and as previews for my upcoming biography of Mariusz Duda. You will find much more discussion when that is published. šĀ If you have not read the introduction, please do that first.
The Introduction is here.Ā The sketch of LS I is here.Ā The arrows at the bottom of each post will let you move from post to post.
Lunatic Soul IIĀ
Released: Oct. 25, 2010Ā
Colour: White
My ranking: 6
The second part of the Heroās story was released two years after the first album, with Lunatic Soul II. The cover was white, the vinyl was white, and the sound was somewhat different from the first album: brighter, sharper, more jaggedāalthough it still retained its trance-oriental feel. The contrast was deliberate because the story of the Hero had changed. He had made his decision (to keep his memories) and had moved into a terrifying place of illusion and hallucination, where he began to question his choices: not only did he keep his good memories, but all the unpleasant ones as well, including how and why he died.
Musically, there is once again a mix of songs and instrumental pieces but it feels as if there is less variety. There is ambience, there is a ballad, and there remains the eclectic mix of instruments, but the overall mood of the album is one of anxious disconnection and foreboding, even in the last track āWanderingsā, which sounds bright and optimistic until one reads the lyrics.Ā
Unlike with the first album, Mariusz did not go into the studio prepared with ideas and songs (beyond the overall theme of course)āhe had to compose and record while he was there. Perhaps this is why the album does not seem to quite live up to the debut: less variety overall, less āflowā, somewhat less satisfying. Only Maciej Szelenbaum and Wawrzyniec Dramowicz remain as guests.Ā
Upside: well, it is Lunatic Soul, and it has a couple of strong, ambient and atmospheric tracks, as well as one solid heavy stomper (āEscape from ParadIceā).Ā
Downside: see aboveālack of variety in the song styles, especially obvious compared to the first album, and it feels less cohesive. Finally, there is a lack of real resolution for the Hero, who is simply left to wander eternally in limbo. Remember: at the time, this was the last album of the project. We were not supposed to learn any more about our unfortunate protagonist.Ā
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 IĀ
Released: Oct. 16, 2008Ā
Colour: BlackĀ Ā
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.Ā
This long overdue summary is something Iāve been trying to accomplish for a couple of years now but somehow I couldnāt get the feel of it right. The format I used for the Riverside reviews didnāt really work for Lunatic Soul. So Iāll try it this way: Iāve written a brief biographical sketch of each album in order of release date, and included what I think makes it work, what doesnāt work, and how I rank it. I will post up these sketches over the next week or so. Once I set up my Substack they will appear there as well.Ā
The rankings: this is not a matter of liking/disliking anything. I love all the albums but to somewhat different degrees, and for different reasons, which I have tried to explain. I expect I am in the minority for some of these, so if you agree or disagree, let me know!Ā
First thoughāa (very) brief introduction to the project. A complete and detailed history of Lunatic Soul will be found in my upcoming biography of Mariusz Duda.Ā
What have I been listening to this year? A few things have come out that I might go so far as to recommend. I have to say, what I’ve heard up to this point is better than a lot of what I heard last year; 2024 was one of the more mediocre years for music I can recall. IĀ have a lot of hope for 2025.Ā
The way things are going so far, this year looks to be one of those instrumental years. Not everything obviously, but there seems to be a fair amount of post-metal/post-rock, prog/jazz fusion, and atmospheric ambience/electronica in the pipeline. Speaking of upcoming albums, of course the BIG anticipatory release for 2025 is the new Lunatic Soul, which, last I heard, is supposed to be long enough to make into an old-school-style double album, 90 minutes worth of music (as opposed to a regular-length album stretched over two discs) and will hit in the fall. I expect weāll learn more about that at some point (trust meā¦Iām a LOT more excited than I sound here!).
For some of ya, the BIG album is already out, the new Steven Wilson solo. Yeah, Iāll say some words about that.
Every year I complain that I didnāt really listen to as much music as I wanted to, and every year I manage to scrape together some sort of list of music that I did listen to. This year was not different except that I was even more distracted than usual for most of the year and I often found that I was not in the mood, or did not have the opportunity to really explore new music. Work and some personal matters were kicking my ass, and when I was in the proper headspace a much more important project took my focus. Somehow though I ended up with a long list of about two dozen albums, so I guess it wasnāt as bad as I thought.
However, I have to say that I found this yearās crop of releases less than compelling. Nothing really blows me away. This is not to say that there arenāt good albums on the list, but overall The Year in Music feels a bit underwhelming. However, it is also The Year of the Vocalist: man, there are some great singers on some of these albums! Manuel Gagneux, Yann Ligner, Patryk ZwoliÅskiā¦ you guys killed it.
In terms of genres: 2024 has made up for last yearās dearth of metal. I heard quite a bit of it this year, along with prog and prog-related, industrial, and some art-rock. There was no Steven Wilson this year, so no pop. (/jk)
I have nine solid contenders, and if I had to pick one more to make it an even 10ā¦ well, there are four leftovers of roughly equal merit so I might say something about those, too. Iām still not real sure about the order though, or which album I would make āNumber 1ā. There are two or three that could take that spot.
Walking on a Flashlight Beam turns ten years old on October 13, 2024. This album has a special place in my heart, and I want to explain why. It was the first Lunatic Soul album that was released after I became a fan, but that is certainly not the only reason or even the main one. Of course, what Iām about to say are my personal observations, and you may disagree with meābut youād be wrong. š
Iām not going to talk about the songs, so if you want to read about those, I have a full review here.
When Walking on a Flashlight Beam came out in 2014, it was almost immediately recognized as something very special in the Mariusz Duda discography by many reviewers and fans. It was the fourth Lunatic Soul release, a solo project which originally was supposed to consist of only two albums (Impressions is an instrumental supplement), but at some point, happily for us, Duda decided to keep the project going.
It was an album that was made during a very dark time in Dudaās life. Personal and emotional issues weighed on him; and when he first went into the studio, things didn’t go well. In order to recapture inspiration, he had to re-adjust his thinking and change the ideas, the approach, sounds and mood. Originally there were to be guest musicians, but he abandoned that idea: only Wawrzyniec Dramowicz remained on drums. There would be much less of the lush orientalism of the first three albums, and much more in the way of electronics. Shifting creative gears worked because this masterpiece came out of it. And it is a masterpiece.
There have been three subsequent Lunatic Soul albums in the decade since, so how does Walking on a Flashlight Beam hold up?
WoaFB is one of those albums in my collection that is of such importance that I cannot play it very often. I feel that when I do play it, I must give it my full attention, to honour it with nothing less than my entire listening presence. I own a few other albums like that, but not many.
For me, it is the most inspired, the most cohesive, the most nuanced, and indeed most intellectual of the entire Lunatic Soul project, and perhaps of Dudaās entire output.* After ten years it has lost none of its power; in fact it has gained stature as the other LS albums have been released. WoaFB reached a pinnacle in terms of flow, vision, and thematic integrity that the other albums did not quite achieve. In the wider context, it pulls the first albums (LS I, LS II, and Impressions) together, and provides an anchor point for the whole project. It is an album that is much greater than the sum of its parts.
There are LS albums that I play more often, that I consider āfavouritesā: the astonishing Lunatic Soul I; Impressions; and the joyous Through Shaded Woods; but I will state outright that by any objective measures, Walking on a Flashlight Beam is the best. It is a true showcase of Mariusz Dudaās creative powers, an album where all the elementsāthe music, the lyrics, the mood and atmosphereācame together in a perfect storm of inspiration.
*with the possible exception of āTransition IIā, to which I have much the same response as WoaFB but this of course is not an album, and is a bit of an outlier in the LS canon.
There will be much more about this album in my upcoming book.
Ā Itās time to update whatās new in music in 2024 that has at least caught my attention (or enough of the attention of others for me to try it).
Itās been a bit slow this year, but Iāve also not been actively looking – several other things are keeping me busy. Iāll save or bookmark something, but it might take a week or three for me to get around to focusing on it, so right now, there is not much here. Anyway, in no particular orderā¦.
It is that time once again, when I gather together the music that I have liked over the past year, and give a brief explanation of why I like it.
This year feels like a good year, and that is because most of the albums Iāve included feel like they may just stick around longer than the time it took to get to know them well enough to talk about them. Other of my year-end lists do include entries that never made much impact beyond the listening and inclusion; as much as I thought I liked them at the time, they ultimately made no lasting impression, which is not what I hope for. This year, either the albums are better, or I have made more of an effort to exclude the ones that might be short-lived. Or both. Still, there are a handful at the bottom end of this yearās list that are unlikely to be long-term players, but that do have some good songs, so hopefully I will continue to sample them.Ā
There are fourteen albums here that represent a relatively narrow set of genres compared to other years. There is a fair amount of prog, or at least a fair amount of music from bands with a proggy reputation, which might be a bit of a surprise if you know me. I do not consider myself a fan of modern prog and do not seek it out, mostly because I find the vast majority of it tedious and entirely predictable. However, there are a handful of bands who fall under that (admittedly rather broad) umbrella who can manage to sound fresh, so I canāt write the genre off completely. A few of them released pretty good albums this year. There is some industrial/industrial-related, some post-rock, and straight-up rock. No metal or post-metal this year, and no oddball genres.Ā
In terms of the rankingā¦ Iāve put numbers on them but except for the three or four at the bottom, those numbers donāt mean very much. Itās crowded at the top. There are some clear distinctions among some albums, but there are also places where making a choice is largely arbitrary.Ā
Mariusz Duda: synths, keyboards, bass, vocals, all other instruments except
Mateusz Owczarek: electric guitar on tracks 1, 3, 4, and 8
Tracklist:
Taming Nightmares
Good Morning Fearmongering
Fake Me Deep, Murf
Botsā Party
I Love to Chat With You
Why So Serious, Cassandra?
Mid Jorney to Freedom
Embracing the Unknown
Back in 2008, Mariusz Duda began Lunatic Soul, a project that was intended to be different from Riverside and showcase another side of his musical identity. Eventually though, these two āmusical worldsā (as Duda likes to call them) turned out to be insufficient to contain his ever-evolving musical inventiveness. He created a third, under his own name, for ideas and projects that fit neither Lunatic Soul nor Riverside. At first the MD world was to contain one-off alt/pop songs (and a couple of those have been released), but Duda found himself driven to revisit his first childhood musical love, ambient electronica: and the minimalist, digital Lockdown Spaces project was born.
AFR AI D is the next installment in the Mariusz Duda world of electronica. On this album he addresses current cultural fears and angst (as he did with Riversideās ID.Entity), but this time focused around the growing dominance of AI in many areas, and the suspicion that many people have of it. It is also the first album since 2018ās Under the Fragmented Sky to include a guest musician, in this case Mateusz Owczarek (Lion Shepherd and guest guitarist on Wasteland) who provides electric guitar solos on several tracks.Ā
As if to live up to its title, AFR AI D begins with āTaming Nightmaresā: we hear hissing, the catching of breath, drones and wails and other unsettling electronic noises, until finally a repeating melody begins in the background. Synthetic percussion, distorted vocals, unintelligible words, and a jazzy, jittery guitar solo towards the end, all of which are clearly meant to evoke the unease and anxiety that the rest of the album will work to dispel.
And thatās the key — from this point on, the album begins to get brighter and more upbeat. Dudaās message is not one of fear and suspicion; this is not music that aims to unsettle. As the album progresses the tracks become less jagged, smoother and less anxious, there are more analogue sounds, small bits of percussion, real piano and bass, and more of Owczarekās thoughtful, careful guitar.
āBotsā Partyā (the fourth track on the album) was the second single released; despite what the title implies, this is a gentle, cheerful track. It starts with a slow piano melody, gradually becoming more and more programmed and synth-heavy but never losing its serene rhythm, even when it segues into party-time and the rollicking guitar solo.
This is followed by āI Love to Chat With Youā, the perfect reminder of the beauty of the human touch, with its gorgeous rolling piano theme and choral backdrop, featuring Mariusz Dudaās voice — heavily autotuned, but soaring and hauntingly delicate nevertheless. It links moments from Under the Fragmented Sky to moments in Eye of the Soundscape. It is a truly lovely song, my clear favourite on the album.
The last track, āEmbracing the Unknownā, was the first single, and it was an interesting choice given that it is the longest track on the album, and stylistically it doesnāt really reflect the album as a whole. It is heavier and perhaps less obviously electronic than the rest. However, it is a powerful track and gave us the first chance to hear Owczarekās guitar contributions.
As noted, the album is named for the fear and suspicion of the rapid proliferation of AI into our lives. And yet AFR AI D is a surprisingly upbeat and optimistic album: Duda seems to be reassuring us that our fears are misplaced. AI is a tool, and will be used, but we will not lose our humanity in the process, or our emotional connections to each other.Mateusz Owczarek provides us with much in the way of that human touch, and Dudaās choice of him as the guest guitarist was a stroke of genius. He certainly has the chops, but more importantly he seems to understand the intent of the album, and he adds a rich, organic reality to otherwise deliberately digitized, synthetic, unhuman sounds. The solos are brilliantly and instinctively right. This album would not be the album it is without him.
When I first got the files, I was a bit worried about the musicās longevity: I do not play Lockdown Spaces material very much any more, and the new album is another offering from that same musical world. I should not have been concerned: AFR AI D is richer, meatier, and more immersive than Lockdown Spaces, while extending the electronic identity of this third musical world. Duda sometimes talks of the āflowā of an album — a seamless weaving together of the songs and the sounds that give an album a satisfying sense of unity. AFR AI D flows wonderfully well: it is an album of clear vision and great confidence. Mariusz Duda, in all his musical worlds, continues to surprise and captivate with his endless creativity and the breadth of his vision.
Itās a few months and releases later from the March overview, so letās see what is going on and how the new stuff stacks up. Iāll also take a look at some upcoming albums. You can see what I reviewed earlier in the year, here.
