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24 дек 2007
Qntal Announces New Album
When QNTAL released their debut album back in 1992, a light-flooded pattern which brought to mind the magnificent window rosettes of Gothic cathedrals graced the cover. This graphic element has featured on every one of their releases – always in new variations. If the form had consolidated to a clasp on "Silver Swan", it is now dissolving again, becoming transparent – all in line with QNTAL VI's title, "Translucida".
"Silver Swan" lures its audience into a sonically opulent parallel world. In QNTAL VI, Michael Popp, Syrah (née: Sigrid Hausen) and Philipp Groth have produced the matching counterpart to that opus. While it was the aim of their previous release to have the electronic elements of their music sound as organic as possible, this time the medieval sounds converge with the sound of the electronics. "QNTAL VI – Translucida" with its clear sonic language has turned its attention to our times again. Which doesn't exclude a reflection of the past. Like a window, QNTAL's music remains transparent in both directions.
Old music and avant-garde
Transporting modern times to the middle ages and the middle ages to modern times – this approach has marked QNTAL's work since Michael Popp and Syrah, both alumni of the Mozarteum University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Salzburg, Austria, founded the band together with Ernst Horn in 1991. Both had delved deeply into old music during their studies. Michael Popp subsequently worked for the Burgtheater in Vienna and the Kammerspiele in Munich as a free-lance theatre musician and composer. In both venues and on the independent theatre scene, he was involved in a number of productions, and – alongside Ernst Horn – played as a live guitarist and medieval instrumentalist with DEINE LAKAIEN. Together with Syrah and ESTAMPIE, Popp worked on his own interpretation of medieval music.
And now there is QNTAL. An arc between history and avant-garde. It did not take long for the band's first success to arrive, "Ad Mortem Festinamus" from their debut album, "QNTAL I", being their first club hit. "QNTAL II" went one step further with Walter von der Vogelweide's "Palästinalied". The trio were not satisfied with simply pepping up medieval sounds with contemporary beats. QNTAL transport worlds of emotion and thought that apply to the 12th just as much as to the 21st century: love, mourning, longing, beauty, transcendence. Like those glass ornaments in Gothic architecture, QNTAL's music forms a focus with great suggestive power. In the end, stepping out of everyday life is just as easy for the listener as a reflection of their own reality.
The journey to the silver swan
Together with producer and keyboardist Philipp Groth, who has joined the band to replace Ernst Horn, QNTAL devoted themselves to the group of sagas surrounding Tristan and Iseult in 2003. An increase in sonic detail and the consolidation of the individual songs in a concept album set new standards – also in terms of commercial success: "QNTAL III" made no. 2 inf the German alternative charts. The magic of QNTAL's live shows was captured on their first DVD release, featuring footage from the Leipzig Playhouse.
"QNTAL IV – Ozymandias" saw the band expand the temporal horizon of their musical universe, setting to music a poem by the English romantic poet, Percy Shelley, including the renaissance with the lute song, "Flow", and the baroque era with Henry Purcell's aria, "Remember Me". The heart of QNTAL's style, however, has remained unaffected. Innovations have been accompanied by a refinement of old strengths, with the result that the single, "Cupido" went to no. 1 in the German alternative charts.
"QNTAL V – Silver Swan", at last, is an epic journey through another reality. A film score without a film, unless you count the atmospheric "Von den Elben" video clip. QNTAL have come very close to their target of newly created old music. But the other, the electronic side, always remains but a shoulder check away.
"Translucida" – between present and future
Now QNTAL have turned their backs on the world of fairies. Bright-as-bells sounds bring back the band's roots on "Translucida". Instead of great gestures, the album is dominated by unadorned elegance. Translucent arrangements focus the attention on Syrah's multi-faceted vocals, which are not accompanied by choral passages this time around. From the iridescent opener, "Sleeping", to "Passacaglia", which reveals Antonio Vivaldi's melancholy side, the exceptional voice of this classically trained vocalist explores the most diverse sonic spaces. Next to measured moments, the sixth QNTAL release includes a number of candidates for the club circus, such as "Sumer", "Ludus" or indeed "Glacies", a medieval dancing song, which was synthesized consistently without taking away any of its inherent joie de vivre.
"QNTAL VI – Translucida" brings together past and present in two respects: Both in historical terms and in terms of the band's biography. The album with its balanced mix of reflection and innovation opens an opportunity of looking ahead or back, whichever you prefer: QNTAL continue to operate on both sides of the timeline in 2008.
Translucida is out 29.2.2008 via Drakkar.
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