By Keith Walsh
The second record by Lunear, “Curve.Axis.Symmetry” is marvelous. It’s majestic in sound and theme, following a popular format in progressive rock – there’s a mythical tale, about an immortal person, and a dramatic story, as he or she outlives the earth after its destruction. The album plays with the questions about the meanings of life that cross our minds from time to time, in a collection that features much artistry in writing and performance.
It’s an epic record, made all the more amazing because it was recorded remotely, in three locations in Spain and France. I shouldn’t be surprised by the level of craft on display here, as the band’s first effort, “Many Miles Away,” is itself an outstanding pop record. But this one transcends the first in theme, in an achievement that captures the adventurous spirit of 70s and 80s progressive rock from artists like Yes and Europe, in a sound that begs for the three members to get together live somehow and play a stadium tour.
The strengths of “Curve.Axis.Symmetry” are the superb artistry in the songs compositions and the performances from the three very skilled musicians.
I was fortunate to have the chance to ask Jean Philippe Benadjer, Paul J. No, and Sébastien Bournier some questions about the making of their new album.
KW: Did every one keep their same roles, as on the first album, playing their instruments from their remote locations?
JP: As the album was told in only one point of view, Paul had to sing it entirely. So I made guitars and bass, and made some backing voices. No lead this time.
Paul: As JP said, there was this concept of the story told in the first person perspective, so this time I had all the lead vocals, except the verses from Earth’s End sung by Seb. For the rest same roles, I played the keyboards and some 12th guitar on 2 songs.
Seb: I also sang the last bit of ‘Same Player’… But yeah, I wrote the story from one point of view. It would have made no sense to have several voices singing « I think, I do, I this, I that ». Otherwise, everything is the same. I played a bit of guitar on one track. But not much.
KW: Did Jean Philippe mix again? It sounds excellent.
JP: Thanks. I mixed it once again.
Paul: As on ‘Many Miles Away’ we wanted JP to mix again. He has done again a tremendous job and we’re very happy with the result! What is amazing in the band, is that I really believe that we three, we complement each other. Seb hears things that we don’t, JP hears things that the others don’t… And I can’t hear nothing ;-))
Seb: Yes but you do change the bass notes on the chords we wrote, Paul! 😉
KW: You guys need to play in stadiums. After COVID-19 is over, can you somehow see this happening?
Paul: Not at all!! We are very limited by the size of what we do. Our music should require at least 2 additional musicians. And we live so far away… I guess we are more a studio album type of band.
Seb: I would love to. But we would need support from a label, from a major. We cannot afford this.
JP: It would be great. But let’s face it: it will never happen.
KW: Is it the same arrangement, France and Spain remotely?
Paul: Yep! I live in Barcelona, JP in Dijon, and Seb in Avignon. We’re far away from each other. Logic is magic 😉 and it’s incredible how close we are, even if we live far away. I can’t imagine a day without chatting with the guys!
KW. What gear, anything new? What is it mixed on?
JP: For the instruments, i bought a new guitar, a Fender Stratocaster. So there is only Fender guitars on the album, Telecaster and Stratocaster. I mixed on the same gear as Many Miles Away : Logic Pro on a MacBook Pro, Presonus FP10 soundcard, Tapco monitors, and a Focal headphone. Just bought one additional plugin to compensate the lack of sweet tape distortion in Logic : Waves Kramer Tape. I tried also some amp simulations : Archetype Plini was used for the clean tone in Forever, and i put a lot of Ignite Amp Emissary/NadIR for big drive/distortions all over the album. Really cool simulation, and it’s free ! The rest was made with the amp simulation in Logic, with some additional free distortions and fuzz pedals (TSE 808, TSE R47 and Mercurial TSC).
Paul : For the keyboards, I bought some new sounds above all for the CP80 piano that I wanted to use in some songs, some mellotrons and some Epic Strings.
Seb: nothing new for me!
KW: So can you tell me about the source material, about an immortal man? It’s very futuristic, yet somehow spiritual! I love the story in the album? What were some influences, either in Sci Fi movies or progressive rock?
Seb: Of course. Movies, TV Show… The album is about the curse of endless life. What might seem a good idea at first is not, because « Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end » as Kafka said… I’ve been asked this question a lot. Where does the idea came from. I don’t know. From many things. I think a part of the answer lies in the finale of a TV Show. Spoilers Ahead… At the end of Alias, Arvin Sloane, the villain achieves his goal of eternal life. But he is trapped in a cave, under tons of rocks, unable to move. Forever trapped. His fate is worse than the one of our character. And I guess that it made me think. At one point I must I’ve thought that he would be freed by an earthquake or the earth collapsing… Of course, the beginning of the story is similar to Highlander and has some Groundhog Day elements in it too… I think, and it’s the first time I telling this, that somehow I wrote this story to convince myself that death is a good thing and that when the time comes it’s better to welcome it because not dying is the path to severe boredom, depression and loneliness.
KW: Does the song cycle have a happy ending? He’s survived the end of the earth? How can it be optimistic?
Seb: Yes, the character (it’s a woman in my mind) survives the end of the earth and is left floating in space, adrift in a random direction, hoping to cross another planet to land on, on her path. In the last song of the story « from its sky », she wishes to land on this blue dot she is seeing. And she is hoping to be able to do once more all the things that she was bored to do in the song « nothing left to do ». So the loop is closed here. The story went a full circle. I don’t actually say if she ends up on this planet or on another one, but she will at some point. Statistically, even of the odds are almost null, she will fall on another planet, even if it takes millions of years. And she will die again on this other planet. That’s why the album ends with a song called « First Death (Epilogue) » : there will be a first time she will die on the new planet… The only way for her to have a real end is the end of the universe itself. Amongst the many hypothetical possibilities that our scientists have thought of, I chose the one that they are calling « the Big Freeze ». I think there is also the Big Crunch and the Big Rip. But I preferred the sound of the word « freeze » over « crunch » and « rip » from a musical point of view.
KW: Finally, how are you guys coping during the lockdown? Can you give me reports from your various cities!
Paul: This moment is unbelievable… I mean, who could have thought something like that will happen? Sincerely I think that the lockdown helped us finalize the album more quickly. We never thought after releasing’ Many Miles Away’ in august 2018 that less than 2 years after we’ll have a new album. Well at least I believe Seb and JP never thought 😉
I really wanted to do another one quickly because in ‘Many Miles Away’ JP arrived late and it was enjoyable writing 2 last songs of the album the 3 together. So I wanted to carry on with the flame of inspiration. And it worked because really the 12 songs were written very quickly. And the result is fantastic. The only problem we wad with ‘Curve.Axis.Symmetry’ was that as it was a concept album, we had to respect the story so we were sometimes not so free to experiment all we wanted. So for our next record we want to go further away. In the meantime our idea is to work on a cover versions album. And this time all 3 we will sing!! So we have plenty of projects!
Seb: The lockdown is not easy every day. But I’m amongst the lucky ones… When I have free times I do « live solo covers » on my YouTube channel. When I realized that the album was finished, over, that was a low point for me. I don’t know why. Maybe because it was the end of an amazing adventure… I think it’s ok to feel some kind of blue after such an intense human adventure. But I’m better now and hopefully I will live another incredible moment with our next record…
JP : The lockdown was, in a certain way, a chance. I had time to finish the mixing of the album. We also had time to record a bonus song, the cover of the Stiltskin’s song « ‘Inside’ and make a video of it… it was fun.
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