GAZPACHO SET THE SCENE ALIGHT WITH FIREWORKER
Introspective art rockers go even deeper.
Putting a magnifying glass to the human condition has been a constant over Gazpacho’s 24-year career, but Fireworker, their latest philosophical-cum-musicalmusing, delves deeper into that thinking than ever before.
The Norwegian introspective art rockers’ 11th studio album, which follows 2018’s Soyuz, will be released worldwide through Kscope on September 18, and has been conceptually designed from keyboard player Thomas Andersen’s contemplations.
“I believe there is a force inside us all that’s used us throughout history as a vehicle to survive,” he reveals. “That force, which I call The Fireworker, is in complete control of us. It can reward us with immense pleasure, but it can also punish us severely with anxiety and depression when we do things that it doesn’t like. Your consciousness is you, but your consciousness is being pushed and bullied around by a parasite that’s responsible for the things you do which you can’t control.”
He continues: “The album is centred around that theory. It was written about someone who travels into his own mind, which is depicted as a very complex cave, to confront this force and see what it really is.
“We wanted to write an album that felt very cinematic, like music for a psychological thriller. That and a B-side from Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love, because that’s the sound we’ve always tried to emulate with our music.”
The five-track record – whose opening and closing songs clock in at a combined 34 minutes – aims to be another typically Gazpacho affair that blends grandiose subject matter with serene musicality. “In a sentence, I’d say this album is like reading [psychologist] Carl Jung for the first time,” Andersen reflects. “You don’t understand it all; some of it’s fascinating, some of it’s really weird. It’s a mixture of magic and psychology and it’s an album that has to grow on you a little bit, I think.
“But there are moments of instant gratification too, which is why we used a lot of choirs and tried to bring in an essence of Beethoven’s Requiem.”
He adds that the work has a greater purpose, explaining: “I see Fireworker as somewhere in between an album and a self-help book. With the world moving so fast, I think you need something like this to give you some introspection.” POW
“We wanted to write an album that felt like music for a psychological
thriller.”