Hello Bruno! Please introduce your project to our readers.
Hello! My name is Bruno Karnel, I play guitar, keyboards and various stringed instruments, like Turkish saz or Ukrainian domra, and I sing. I call my style 'Urban atmospheric rock', as it borrows from different musical currents, post rock, progressive rock, post punk and metal – amongst others – without really belonging to any.
Can you tell us more about Villa Solitude?
Sure! 'Villa Solitude' is my third album, following 'Las Ilusiones' (2021) and 'Hic sunt dracones' (2023). It was recorded and mixed at Marg Sound Studio (France) by Florent Morel, with the help from Basile Combes (Dislimn) on drums, and Matthieu Gajewski (ex-Master Crow) on the bass guitar on three tracks. Like the previous one, it was beautifully mastered by Thomas 'Plec' Johansson (Anima Morte, Pixie Ninja, Molesome...) at the Panic Room (Sweden), and distributed by French label Bitume Productions. Compared to the first ones, this record is quite atmospheric, with a lot of pads, loops and electronic sounds coming from field recordings I made in different cities – hence this cold 'urban' impression you might have while listening to the album. But it also contains some very warm, organic moments as well, with the use of cellos, violin, piano, saz and soulful female vocals.
When did you start writing music and who were your early passions and influences?
As long as I can remember, I have been writing music. I wrote my first songs as a child, with some toy keyboards and various found stuff I hit to emulate percussion haha! My first musical love, without a doubt, was Genesis – especially the 70's area, but not only. I discovered their album 'Nursery Cryme' when I was 12, 13, and it was an absolute fascination back then – it still is. This music, early progressive rock in general I mean, is a wonderful blend of genres, influences and atmospheres. As a teenager, I was really into Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, and then, darker stuff like Van der Graaf Generator, Anekdoten. Later I became more interested in dark metal bands like Anathema, The Gathering, Paradise Lost or My Dying Bride, and I think their influence is still here sometimes in my music, like in the heavy passages of 'Lightnings' in 'Villa Solitude', or 'Tromsø', in 'Hic sunt dracones'.
What are your main impulses for writing music?
Hmm, excellent question – I keep asking myself that! Look, in my daily life I'm very quiet and, say, not very talkative (except when it comes to music!), so I guess I use music to express myself, to communicate with people. When I was younger, I wanted to be a writer, I used to write poems and short novels, but I quickly became aware that I was much better with short, song-size texts. I guess that's why I chose music and songwriting, after all.
What do you personally consider to be the most significant moments and pieces in your musical work?
I would choose three pieces. The first one would be 'Chant de Nezahualcoyotl', on my first album 'Las Ilusiones' : this track is an adaptation of a Nahuatl poem from XVth century Mexico. I have always been most interested in Native American cultures and languages, and I tried several times to pay tribute to them in my music. I sang this track in its original language, and tried to compose very minimalistic music, a thing I usually don't find easy to do. 'Chant de Nezahualcoyotl' (that's the name of the prince and poet who wrote the text) might be my favourite track of mine, the one I'm the proudest of.
Then I would go for 'Cérès Bus Stop', which is the opening track from 'Amra', the first collaboration I did with synth wizard Frédéric Gerchambeau in 2019. Frédéric sent me several weird and complex sequences he recorded on his modular synths, and my task was to write songs, or stuff that could resemble songs, out of them. Our work on this album might seem chaotic at times, but on 'Cérès Bus Stop' it kinda flows naturally, despite the tricky rhythms and the harmonic superpositions. I just love it!
To finish, I would pick up 'The Pond Below', from the first album of my electronic side-project Abstrakt Lake. It was a very important step in my musical career, because the music in this project is almost entirely based on field recording, which enables me to create very personal, unique sounds and ambiences. At first, the project was just an experiment, but the track 'The Pond Below', released as a single, received very good welcoming and cool reviews, especially in Prog Magazine, which was quite unexpected. It really launched the project. Nowadays, I'm using those field recording sounds a lot and sampling techniques in my music: they are everywhere in 'Villa Solitude', even if you don't notice or identify them at the first listen.
How would you describe and rate the music scene of the city you are currently living in?
As I live in a very small town, I can say that there is no proper music scene there, without being despising I guess. We are very close to Paris, about 50 or 60 kilometers, and I guess it's too close to the capital to enable a real original scene to develop here. In my early days, I picked up my guitar, my saz or my mandolin and played everywhere I could in the area, in small or medium size towns in the area, but honestly, I grew a bit tired of this, as people here really don't care about post rock or progressive rock, they only want to hear songs that they already know. Of course, there are very good semi-pro bands and artists, but to me they all play the same kind of music, be it blues, country (a genre I hate) or French chanson. The best bands in my opinion, the most original ones, play in Paris. Without the shadow of a doubt, I would cite Dislimn (stoner/prog) or NVAGE (post-metal). They are great.
When it comes to being a musician, what are your criteria for quality? What are your main challenges and ambitions as a musician? What do you usually start with when working on a new song or lyrics?
Of course the technical aspect is important, you can't do anything without it. But to me it doesn't have to be put in light so much. I don't intend for people to go into raptures when they listen to my music, I don't need them to cry out 'OMG, how does he do that ?'. Actually, I would find that embarrassing. I'm no fan of those flashy guitarists or operatic vocalists, for example. Honestly, it bores me to death. I think it's more difficult to write good songs, with interesting arrangements and structures, and without repeating oneself, which might be one of the hardest things to do. On 'Villa Solitude', I tried hard to deconstruct the songs: 'Edepol', 'Lightnings', 'Oktha-Tsentr' for instance.
My main challenge as a multi-instrumentalist is obviously to find the time to work on my different instruments, rehearse, record, and still continue to write new stuff. Not an easy task, believe me, as I also have a daily job, like most independent musicians today! And my biggest ambition – maybe it will sound naive or/and pretentious – would be to write, play and record THE music I would want to listen to. Not quite there yet, but I'm trying!
Please tell us a bit about the selection process for deciding what to write about. What sources do you draw from for research purposes, and how much time do you generally spend on research and gathering material?
Well, usually ideas come a bit out of the blue, while walking, reading, or messing up with a guitar or any instrument. When I can, I try to record any idea on the phone, or note the chord progression, the arpeggio, the lyrics or just some words... Sometimes I totally forget about the stuff, but usually, if it's good, I mean if the idea is strong enough, it stays in my mind and I find some time to work on it later. But I don't often just sit and write – for me, it doesn't work like that, even if I would love that!
My main sources are books, serious press articles (by serious, I mean well-documented), and travels. I know that a lot of people like to hear lyrics about everyday life, friendship, love or whatever... but that's not my thing. Not that I despise those subjects – I just think that there are a lot of authors out there that are much better than me on those. Usually, I begin to write on a certain subject when I'm sure I have something solid to say, not before. It can take months, years sometimes, or it can be quicker. For instance, on 'Villa Solitude' there is this weird, heavy-motorik track called 'Oktha-Tsentr'. The lyrics are based on an article I read about this scary, dystopian town owned by Gazprom near Saint Petersburg. I wrote the first version of these lyrics like 10 years ago, but somehow the text wasn't ready. But lately, with all this shit Russia is doing, I thought about this track again, and I rewrote it almost entirely, because I had at last something new, fresh and relevant to say about the subject. Now, I am currently working on my next album, which is called 'Brno-Vilnius', and is based on my family roots in Eastern Prussia. In order to prepare for it, I took advantage of a trip in the Baltic States, to do some field recording (town ambiences, waves of the Baltic sea, traditional instruments in music museums) to build some sort of sound library for the album. I also downloaded a lot of high quality samples and VST emulations of Soviet synths and drum machines (some of them I already used on 'Villa Solitude', like on 'Heliopolis' and 'Vndadiem'). Once I had done that, I was finally ready to record the demos!
As more and more people produce and release music, there has been an exponential growth in promotion agencies. What's your perspective on the promotional system? To what extent do you feel it possibly undermines musical freedom?
I have absolutely no problem with that. It's true that nowadays, we independent artists have to be multi-tasks, to have production skills, to be able to design cover art, to do some DIY photo shooting sessions... But you can't be good at everything. For instance, I can play some bass guitar parts, but not well enough to record a song like 'Candlelight City' or 'Leaving Diaspar' : so I asked my friend Matt to do it. Or, my personal home studio is OK for demoing or for electronic production, but not for recording a band, so I work with Florent at his studio, and so on... So, as I want the best for my music, I work with a label (Bitume Productions) and a promotion agency, Grand Sounds. And they're all great, very nice and professional, they did a wonderful job so far. And the only tie I had was to release the single 'Heliopolis' sooner than I had planned – as for the rest I have total musical freedom!
The music scene has changed considerably over the past century. What, in your opinion, could or should be new forms and formats for music? Should we preserve the old-school spirit or move forward together with musical "evolution" (or "degradation")?
Yeah, you're right. It has changed a lot, and not for the best if you ask me. Basically, streaming services are making profit for themselves, and stealing money from the creators. The audience seems happy, because you can now have access to almost all the music in the world, and it's almost free (it is if you have a shared account). Why would it change, then? But making music, recording albums and editing videos cost money: how are we independent artists supposed to do that if we don't sell anything, anymore? Well, the mainstream audience might not be the problem, because huge labels and stars continue to make enormous amounts of money, but if you are a true music-lover, maybe you should consider buying some CDs or vinyls from your favourite artists, at least sometimes, just to support them. Because free music just kills creative music, you know. It has nothing to do with any far-left utopia, on the contrary: it's just fucking tech business cynism. Well, OK, independent, alternative or experimental music never made much money in the past, but that's not the point. If you're not mainstream, the best thing you can do is overflow. The other thing is that the album format is clearly disappearing. Some younger musicians don't even try: they release singles, or EPs, because it's cheaper and easier to promote on playlists. Since my young age, I always knew that I would make albums, because I like to build something in a 40/50 minute size. That's my way of apprehending it. But today, I'm not so sure I will continue for long. I have nothing against YouTube shorts (I make some!) or 15 seconds music fragments on Instagram or TikTok, but as an artist I need to create something deeper in a longer time. And as your question seems to imply, it's difficult not to be pessimistic on this very subject.
Music-sharing sites, blogs, and a flood of releases in general are said to be killing music. What's your view on this topic?
I think blogs and sites are cool; independent music relies a lot on them. They are often run by passionate people, who do great stuff and try hard to help us. But sharing someone else's music without his/her consent is wrong, it's not helping. The very day 'Villa Solitude' was released, I noticed it was already available on some obscure, free download shitty sites – and nobody asked for my permission. If you love music, please don't download on those sites. Stream if you want to discover, buy if you want to support – but please don't steal.
Please recommend two bands to our readers that you feel deserve their attention.
Obviously, I would recommend Dislimn, not only because they are my friends haha, but because they are so fucking good! Their EP 'Esmee' is one of the most interesting rock/metal stuff on the French modern scene. Somewhere between The Gathering, earlyThe 3rd and the Mortal, and Grandma's Ashes I would say. The other band/artist I would recommend is Autumnist, from Trenčín, Slovakia. Actually, it's more electronic / trip hop stuff than rock, but it's great – very dark and personal. Their latest album 'Anatomy of Shadows' is fantastic, with shades of Massive Attack, Depeche Mode and an amazing Central European electronic background.
What are your plans for the near future? Thank you and see you next time!
Currently, I'm preparing the release of the second Abstrakt Lake album, called 'Meanderings'. Like the first one, it will be distributed by Lancashire label Wormhole World Records, and was produced by Vadik Squarez, from Riga based pop-metal band All the Devils. The single 'Psittacalling', featuring my friend Artem Litovchenko on the cello, is already doing well, which is cool. And I'm working on its follow-up. But I'm also finishing the demos of my fourth solo album 'Brno-Vilnius', which will be in the vein of 'Villa Solitude', but with even more contrast between heavy and atmospheric parts. We should enter the studio at the end of October. Thank you for this great interview, see you next time!
