Antigony Records and Antigony Agency have teamed up with us to give this official presentation of “Tales”, highly anticipated debut full length album by THE CHASING MONSTER, Italian post rock act that is both familiar in its finest emotional moments, and thrillingly foreign, proving that experimental / instrumental rock artists aren’t stuck in any creative rut. We’re excited to uncover the beautiful atmosphere of 2 versions of the record and share some more details through our short interview below. “Tales” is a masterful, powerful and emotionally rich work and it demands to soundtrack something. Listen for yourself.
The Chasing Monster was born in Viterbo (Italy) in 2014, from an idea of a group of friends to express clear concepts through music and stories .
At the beginning, their sound was influenced by genres such as Post – Hardcore and Post – Metal but after the release of their self – titled debut EP, the band began to evolve, moving towards Post – Rock and Spoken Word with their next three singles, creating a strong following and high expectations among the general public as well as ind ustry professionals.
What sets the band apart is their use of narration linked to existential themes. The long-awaited debut album “Tales” was released on 13 th January 2017 on Antigony Records and will be preceded by the release of two singles, “La Costante” featuring Theodore Freidolph (Acres) and “Itai”.
Band photos by Laview – Flavio Gasperini Production
Welcome guys! Congratulations on your epic new record. How does it feel to have it already out?
Hi Karol! We’ re proud about how things are going! The amount of positive feedback we received was impressive and we’ re glad to finally share our “creature” with all the people who follow us. The fact that fans constantly showed us their support in the various phases of the album’ s creation, helped us reach this step…we couldn’ t have done it without them!
Tell us a little bit about your background. Who were your early influencers and what makes ambient post rock such a compelling music?
We were clearly influenced by giants like EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY, IF THESE TREES COULD TALK, GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT and MONO. By the way we found a lot of inspirations in “smaller” bands but mostly, we are influenced by people’s stories, by human conditions and what we see during our journey! Post-rock is like a box full of emotions. If you are a deep listener you can feel the warmth from that box and it can be confortable, or sometimes it can break your heart leaving you to face what you bear within, but you know this is post-rock…that’s how it works.
How did you team up with Antigony Records for this release?
THE CHASING MONSTER and Antigony are a family now but everything began months ago, during our first live. We played with a band called DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL, invited by the guys from Antigony and after the show they started to take an interest in us…we talked a lot. First of all we found friends and then very kind, available and competent people, so we decided to start a collaboration with them, both as an agency and as a record.
What are the differences between both versions of the album?
There are two versions of “Tales”, the hard copy and the digital one. This last version contains acts, a mix of musical backgrounds and spoken word parts, aimed at creating a whole story.
Can you expound more on the content side and story behind it?
We tried to create someting that could contain our experiences, our points of view, letting the listener the chance to immerge himself in our stories. In “Tales” the two protagonists, Emm and Oliver, represent the insecureties and fears that live inside of us and that often come out in extreme situations, revealing us for what we really are.
Why did you prefer the spoken word add-on as reflected in your work?
We chose to insert some spoken word parts, because we think that they could give more value to the tracks. Post-rock is mostly an instrumental music but you can add more stuff to it to create new paths, to experiment new ideas. This gener is a base on which you can build something more and render it as personal and unique as possible!
What are your thoughts on the post rock genre as compared to earlier days when it was truly groundbreaking and innovative? Is there still a room for expansion and, some might say, creativity deadlock?
As you can deduce from our last answer, we think that post-rock is just as innovative now as it was back then. Post-rock is just the music we create, the creativity and the room of expansion is limited only by human expression, and we believe in what human beings are capable of…so the answer is yes!
Alright, so what are your next steps? What shows do you have lined up for the coming months?
We have many projects for the future, for example the making of a music video, but without exposing ourselves too much for the moment, we’d like to announce them further down the road. We have a lot of live performances planned both in Italy and abroad (our partecipation at the Dunk!festival 2017 in Belgium has been confirmed), in time we will revail all future dates.
How did you end up on a Dunk!Festival bill?
We managed it thanks to our agency and we think that the organizers of the festival probably liked our music :)
Apart from music, what are your current art inspirations? Do you look to other forms of art and contemporary artist’s work during your artistic process?
We consider every form of art, but in particular we took inspiration from past literature like “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner” by Coleridge, as you can see in “Albatross” or Schopenhauer’s “The Porcupine Dilemma” for example.
Great, thank you sao much for your time! Feel free to add anything you feel deserves a mention and take care!
