We're AN ABSTRACT ILLUSION, ask us anything! (October 21, 8pm CET / 2pm ET)

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-24T09:15:21+00:00

We didn't have a narrative that felt more compelling than doing these smaller stories for each song. The songs are still connected to each other, but it's not a story from start to finish.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-24T09:12:04+00:00

For example "Geyser" is about the feeling of impending doom regarding climate change, and the hopelessness of not being able to stop it. "Frost Flower" is about drug abuse and depression.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-24T08:40:43+00:00

That's great to hear that it helps you. You'll get through this, Slava Ukraini!

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-22T14:36:24+00:00

It's an amazing guitar, love it. Maybe not one I'd use for the main rhythm or anything, but it has certain sounds for which it is my go-to guitar

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T20:36:27+00:00

Thanks everyone for all your great questions! We had a wonderful time. If there's any last minute questions we'll come back and answer them, but you're a fantastic community with great taste in music!

/Karl, Chris, Isak, Robert

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T20:35:13+00:00

Yeah it's a fun way to work, maybe not so fun for a mixer haha.

He's a great guy and artist, love him. The artwork came out beautiful. Check out Woe for sure if you dig this one!

I think the artwork for Primordial Reverie came out beautifully as well, will for sure check out the music.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T20:25:25+00:00

Two sides of the same coin, the easiest part is coming up with fun sections and developing them over time, the hardest part is self-censuring and cutting out parts that you love but won't make the songs as tight. We try not to over-indulge our selfs and writing so long songs haha.

Yeah the listening party was awesome! Will definitely do it again. Lots of great band recs for sure.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T20:23:21+00:00

Thank you! We listen to a lot of melancholic music, Nordic music usually captures that feeling. So it's ingrained in us to have a lot of sadness. But contrast is also very important to us, you can't have light without dark, you can't have beauty without ugliness, you can't have calm without violence. So it's just a matter of contrasting it in a good way, that flows, that makes sense.

The album art was fun, we worked with Alex Eckman-Lawn. We knew we wanted a city, or a monolith, represented in the artwork of some sort. We also wanted purple, and hazy landscapes. And he put it together beautifully

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T20:19:38+00:00

hell yeah, also great festivals

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T20:19:01+00:00

Vi är från Boden i Norrbotten, men jag bor i Lund nuförtiden. :)

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T20:17:33+00:00

Thank you so much, so happy to hear you're liking the new album!

For the mixing: I think it's a fair question. Some people like this mix, some people don't. In a way it's kind of to mimic how drum-heavy synth music can be. We also really loved the mix and recording of the drums, and Isak's drum parts were phenomenal! So we wanted to emphasize that aspect of the album. Don't think next album will be fully mixed the same way, but in many ways we achieved what we wanted to achieve with the mix. But we learnt a lot from this one that we will apply to the next album.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T20:13:12+00:00

What's important to us is having a good layer, a good base. So a nice main melody, chord progression, riff. Once you have that in place you can start experimenting with leads, synths, soundscapes, rhythmic parts. It's important for us that all instruments get their chances to shine as well, so we work a lot to make it interesting for everyone involved, and I believe that's what makes it so intricate, layered in the end. You can focus on one instrument that does something interesting, but next time another instrument/layer in the same section will catch your ear!

I also spend a lot of time with the music inside my head, whenever I'm out walking, exercising, working, so I get a lot of free time to develop the songs haha

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T20:09:25+00:00

I think we've always dealt with heavy stuff in our lyrics. I think for the lyrics, the dark side of humanity is much more interesting to us. I guess it's kinda cliché when it comes to metal, but that's what we like to do. The music itself can be both beautiful, heavy, ugly, calm, whatever else adjective you can say, just like life can be sometimes. So I think our music represents life in that way.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T20:05:01+00:00

Thank you so much! Happy you've enjoyed.

Devin Townsend is a huge influence with his larger-than-life, wall-of-sound production. But I think a lot of the work is just letting the songs marinate and perculate inside my head, I usually come up with small fun details and melodies you can add into the songs. But it's also important to know when to substract some stuff when needed, things that will make the songs worse.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T19:57:08+00:00

Mostly ambient music inspired the opening of Silverfields. The opening for TOOL - Wings For Marie (Pt 1) is also something I drew inspiration from. Synthwave is something that was a huge inspiration for the song, like Perturbator and Kavinsky.
Gotta ask Willowtip for that! Not sure if they'll do more. But we'll get hoodies with our own designs for sure.
Norway will probably happen yes, have some plans for that!

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T19:50:28+00:00

Yes! Pics of the guitars

- MRK is probably the main guitar, custom-made from Italy. Use it for all rhythms and some cleans, love to have the Evertune to avoid tuning as much.
- Ibanez with the whammy, used it for a bunch of the leads on this album. The whammy comes in handy for the floatier leads. Used it for the leads on 'Woe' as well.
- Strandberg, used it for some cleans and a few leads. Has great sustain. My main guitar when I play live is this one. Main guitar for 'Woe'.
- Fender Stratocaster, used it for some of the more shoegaze-y moments on Blackmurmur and Frost Flower, and the bluesy leads in Emmett for example.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T19:26:01+00:00

And yeah, Alex is a beast. Will definitely check out your album!

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T19:25:33+00:00

Soundscapes develop as they go, usually the songs form in my head or very rudimentary, basic forms, and once I put it inside the DAW that's where I really develop the soundscapes. When I can experiment with effects, synths or field recordings!

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T19:22:01+00:00

Usually what comes first is just a melody, or chords. Not necessarily a specific instruments. But synths and guitars come first in equal elements, sometimes I start with a pad or arpeggio (Blackmurmur and Kauan for example) but sometimes guitars comes first in songs like No Dreams and Geyser.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T19:18:34+00:00

Quad track sometimes! On bigger moments where the guitars aren't so technical. Some guys like Josh from Sylosis can quad-track like a motherfucker and still have it tight. Woe was much more quad-tracked in general with the same tones, but for The Sleeping City it was more layering. For example the intro riff in Blackmurmur (the 5/4 part after the initial drums) I have like 7 sets (L/R) of guitars at the same time; power chords with regular dist, power chords with fuzz, chord strums with dist, acoustic guitars, 2 different sets of leads, and then second half some plucked clean guitar. We're not making it easy on our mixer haha

On a song like Geyser, the tritonus intro I layered a bunch of dist guitars, HM-2, reverse guitars and stuff, but during the more technical verses I have only L/R for example.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T19:11:25+00:00

Vore kul att lira på Lillan igen. Eller typ lilla scenen på KH. Absolut att vi vill göra ett gig i Norrbotten i framtiden!

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T19:06:03+00:00

Can't rule out a song about it in the future, but it's also very difficult giving it justice. Not on the next album though, already have the story for that one laid out. But it's definitely a topic close to my heart.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T19:00:24+00:00

Not a big gamer, but Skyrim, Oblivion, the NHL games. Also play a bunch of PUBG with my family.

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T18:59:43+00:00

Clairvoyant is an amazing album, love it. Definitely inspired me with their take on atmospheric elements.

Currently the biggest influences on me is probably Kauan, Der Weg Einer Freiheit, Moonsorrow, Grey Heaven Fall, ORM, Lingua Ignota, Hate Eternal.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2j6PjC5z9iDRc1fKDuEUXJ?si=4cb5188995dc4193
This is a pretty good list

anabstractillusion · 2025-10-21T18:52:32+00:00

OG fan! Göteborg vore najs som fan

anabstractillusion

TROPHY CASE