A new Soliloquium album is on the way and its as unexpected as its connected to my experiences the last few months. This will be more of a personal post than a musical post. But don’t worry, details about the music side of the new album will emerge soon!
It’s been a turbulent time. The last five months have been the most messy and confusing I’ve ever faced. My way too high life pace crashed me into a long depression. I didn’t respect my own person or my own values for far too long. I found myself floating along without finding joy in anything. It became less easy to ignore over time. Even the passion for music became a “must” among other “musts”.
Somewhere growing realizations of unhappiness and simply being an outsider forced into harmful conventions just exploded. There was nothing left of me and nowhere left to turn. What to do if I just don’t care for any of this? There is just so much panic in that uncertainty, especially in a mental state where you’re in no shape to make any kind of life decisions.
Existential nowhere and the return to music
I found myself in a strange, existential nowhere. It was a long way to find any kind of footing or sense of what to do, or what I even cared about at all anymore. In the midst of this, the concept of the new album’s opening track was born. In my mind it was a one-off single; I had no idea how much there was to express. After all, I just released a Soliloquium album months earlier. My plan was to scale down on music and focus entirely on the new Desolator album. To find the joy in playing again. And I did, especially with our return to the live stage. It was the first occasion in a long time where I actually genuinely felt like doing something.
Sudden inspiration and songwriting
Suddenly, things just started writing themselves for Soliloquium. I had previously scrapped almost an entire album of songs. The new one-off song quickly became the opening track for the new mood, and song concepts, riffs and lyrics just started flowing. It was utterly therapeutic in my cornered life-situation. Since I was going through the recovery process at the time I was writing, the songs became the ultimate diary. The songwriting was a place where things actually came together and functioned. The only place during this time. I could escape into my mind and find the only peace that was available at the time.
A natural “Contemplations” successor
The events and my maze of thoughts just fit so well for a successor to “Contemplations”. “Contemplations” was the start of all this confusion, and the unavoidable reconstruction of a life I just didn’t care for. It was the racing thoughts that just couldn’t be quenched anymore. This new album is the same, just in a new phase; action. Unintentionally, it tells the story of leaving a normality that just didn’t work. The tracks follow from dead end depression, through realization, to bittersweet liberation.
It’s strange how the music and my life events weaved a natural web like this. Every song is like a piece in the puzzle, and there are so many different vibes present. A few tracks are pitch-black. Others are paradoxally hopeful. Since I didn’t expect to write, it was the most organic process so far. It’s been such a relief to write this album. To conceptualize and put things to words. I think it will be noticeable.
I guess the song “Catharsis” from “Contemplations” ironically predicted this. Never stop, never reflect, never gaze inwards, never make the hard decisions. Just produce and look to the next thing. That’s what many things tell us and that’s what were often taught to believe.
I guess there are two main conclusions to draw from this:
- Accept your limitations and adapt to them before the crash comes. Mental illness is truly serious and there is no limit to how bad it can go if you don’t deal with it. I didn’t, and I had to pay by a long recovery time that is far from over.
- The second is how central creativity and expression is, especially to introvert, restless soul type people like me. It’s a safe space to make sense of a lot of the confusion and misleading noise, turning into something meaningful in the process.
What about the music?
I’m not ready to release any concrete info like cover art or titles, but be sure it’s not far away. I will get into the more music-related details on the album in another post, such as who will play on it and who will mix and master it. Rest assured, there are interesting things going on. I just wanted to take this post to get into the background of the record. It might be early, but I just wanted to elaborate on how it went down, because I barely know myself to be honest. I hope you guys got something interesting out of it!
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