Sea Of Tranquility recently caught up with RIVERSIDE / LUNATIC SOUL frontman Mariusz Duda. Following is an excerpt from the interview:

SoT: What made you decide to start the Lunatic Soul project?

Mariusz: "I think it was my own love and inspiration for Oriental music. I did it quite a number of times in Riverside, with albums like Voices In My Head or the track 'After' on Second Life Syndrome or 'Schizophrenic Prayer' on Rapid Eye Movement. It was always that I wanted to do a project with that kind of music mixed with the music I did with Riverside. More focused on Oriental music and metal music, plus I wanted do to something by myself, right?"

SoT: You already spoke a bit about how the music differs from Riverside, but can you elaborate?

Mariusz: "Well, Lunatic Soul is the mellow side of Riverside. You can compare Lunatic Soul to the Voices In My Head EP. To me, the main differences are that Riverside plays rock music with some classic rock elements. In Lunatic Soul, because there is no electric guitar, I guess you could say that it isn't even rock music. It's different. In spite of the obvious differences, I think that the music with Lunatic Soul is based more on the groove, and on the drums and rhythm, and connected with the nice melodies and some balance and those Oriental things. The music is colder, more black and white, and darker. Riverside is more colorful and I always thought that Riverside was about joy, sadness, whisper and scream. I think we finally accomplished this on the last record, Anno Domini High Definition. I've always had trouble with joy, though, and there is definitely no joy with Lunatic Soul. Riverside is more connected with this progressive rock style and there are a lot of classic elements. We try to connect old stuff like PINK FLOYD with new stuff like electronica. Lunatic Soul is more alternative, more post-rock. There's nothing like solos for guitars; the instruments are playing quite simple. I know people who just listen to alternative music who enjoy the distortion and noise like this. There are a lot of these elements somewhere in the background of Lunatic Soul."

RIVERSIDE played their first concet in Bulgaria last SpringВ at Tangra Mega Rock'sВ Fourth anniversary bash.В 

photo: Р•lena Nenkova

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