BORKNAGAR Mainman Discusses Forthcoming Album In New Interview

Asgeir Mickelson of Artisan Norway recently conducted an interview with BORKNAGAR mainman ystein G. Brun. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Artisan Norway: Are you excited about recording a new BORKNAGAR album?

ystein: Well, yes, I always have a full blown "musical erection" the months before we hit the studio and certainly this time around. I have a very good gut feeling when it comes to the material we have at hand. We have an "updated" lineup and we're all urging to create the best BORK album to date. [This] may sound like the typical pre-studio clich type of thing to say, but I have never before had so strong empirical reasons supporting my gut feeling for saying just that.

Artisan Norway: How many songs will it be? Can you reveal any titles?

ystein: Actually, we don't have all the material on the table yet as some songs still are in the making. But it seems like we are closing in on about an hour of music or 10-11 songs all in all. But this includes all the rough material, so some songs might be thrown into the archives along the line or used as bonus material if it turns out good enough. From my experience, an album should not be much longer than 45 minutes, so according to my foresight we'll probably end up with nine songs on the actual album without binding to it contractually. The album title is still in progress, but I have few songtitles emerging as "Northern Nobility", "In a Deeper World" and "The Winter Eclipse". At this point these titles are still working titles, but it might give you a lead where things are heading in terms of lyrics. Nothing revolutionary within the BORK lyrical universe, but we'll definitely add some new perspectives and ideas. As an example, the lyric to "In a Deeper World" will be heavily inspired by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Nss.

Artisan Norway: Are there any significant changes or can we expect you to continue where you left off with the last album, "Universal"?

ystein: With "Universal" we were definitely on to something, and we will surely follow this up on the new album, so we're definitely not going Euro pop or anything like that. My perspective on this album is very ambiguous and visionary in terms of the production. I have always had a very huge focus on the songwriting and I still have, but this time around we'll also invest a lot of time and effort when it comes to the process of producing the songs. To be quite honest, I have written my portion of the music for this new album also implementing a producer's perspective on the songs. At least that is how I have "installed" my current mindset. I am proud of each end every album we have done in the past but we still have some goals to reach in terms of production. From my perspective, we have had so many great musical intentions and ideas throughout the years that have been compromised due to the production. I am not saying bad production, more production of its time and as an always evolving band (I hope!) we also need to get the production a notch further.

Read the entire interview from Artisan Norway.