MELOTRONICAL is the upcoming 3^rd Factory of Dreams album. A conceptual cd, revolving around the evolution of an electronic Molecule into a living breathing Entity. This entity, experiences several stages of life, goes through all emotions, love, hate, fear, happiness… The track list is arranged according to this evolution, and one can have a feel of each stage just by reading each song title, listening to the songs and lyrics. The finale starts with Dimension Crusher, when all hope is lost and a new Universe is idealized through Reprogramming.

Jessica’s voice reaches levels never before heard and this time, so the story demanded, Hugo also performs vocals on some tracks providing a more aggressive feel to support the storyline.

MELOTRONICAL pushes and goes far beyond the boundaries of the Electronic Progressive Metal genre, and while it is certainly Hugo’s and Factory of Dreams’ heaviest album, it still retains the fingerprint of Factory of Dreams’ sound, with heavy passages balanced by atmospheric parts, rhythmical changes and instrumental sections that are sure to delight all who appreciate the genre.

Track highlights are the epic Protonic Stream, the brutal but catchy Obsessical, the beautiful and atmospheric Back to sleep and the explosive Dimension Crusher. Hugo also decided to remake an older song called Something Calling Me, now revamped by Jessica’s voice.

Me·lo·tron.i·cal

1. Of or relating to Melody and Tronic elements: a mechanical melodic feeling/emotion;

2. Affected or stirred by music in symbiosis with tronic motion: an emotional melody in syncopation with pulsating machinery;

3. Arousing or intended to arouse music: an emotional appeal to music synchronized with electronics;

4. Something inexplicable, a combination of melody, nature, atoms.

 

FAULT: You describe you sound as Gothic / Metal / Progressive How do you keep your sound so unique?

Hugo: We let the music shine and ‘explode’ whenever necessary and we do not to stick to the norm or formulaic songs. Add to that a conscious search for originality and a search for uncommon song structures and concepts, except for a few tracks that are indeed more down-to-earth (lyrically) such as the single ‘Whispering Eyes’. The elements of all those 3 genres that you mention are very present, however the music is also quite electronic. I’ve been describing it lately as Cybermetal or Atmospheric metal, even though ‘atmospheric metal’ is better suited to characterize our first album ‘Poles’, which is lighter.

While writing tracks, there’s always something new added, including epic orchestrations and some ‘hidden’ instruments, kind of like subliminal messages and melodies to make the tracks richer. Our albums tend to grow on people. After several listenings, the real meaning starts gaining shape. I honestly prefer an album that requires time to be appreciated in its entirety, rather than one that you immediately like but whose strong points are found in no time. The result is that you will probably rarely listen to it again or you get tired of it. People like to explore and find new things, new secrets. So, ultimately keeping surprises coming with each track is also a driving force towards this originality and a rupture with the norm.

Vocal-wise, Jessica also has quite a unique voice and she manages to add the best of herself into each piece of music.

Jessica: Well thank you Hugo! About the song structures, yes, they are not the typical verse-chorus-verse–chorus structure and I think that’s definitely something that makes the sound unique along with the layering of sounds that Hugo so often uses. In the beginning you don’t always hear everything that goes on in the tracks, that’s something that might open up the more you listen to them. Hugo does this really well.

FAULT: Who did you grow up listening to?

Hugo: When I was a kid I listened to a lot of rock stuff. Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and the likes but I remember also starting hearing and appreciating some heavier artists such as Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath.  Later, came Iron Maiden, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Metallica, Megadeth and also some totally different artists such as David Arkenstone who had tremendous influence on me, with his melodic music and sonic sensations. Like no one else, he easily transmitted images with melody. This was wonderful new age music that also evolved into symphonic rock on occasions. ‘Quest of the Dream Warrior’ is quite an awesome symphonic rock album. Within this genre, Vangelis is also a favorite of mine. ‘Blade Runner’, a fantastic movie, among my very favorites, features an astonishing music score; it’s like an entity itself, the music is grandiose and definitely made the movie what it is today.

Jessica: Bands and musicians I’ve always enjoyed are U2 and Enya, to mention some. I listened to a lot of Swedish artists and bands as a child. Sofia Källgren, Izabella Scorupcou, ABBA, Europe. When I got a bit older I liked mainly pop, Swedish punk and techno. When I was about 15 I started listening to metal and that’s something I still do, although I do listen to more genres than that. Björk, Ayreon, Muse, Sarah Brightman, Nightwish, Within Temptation, The Gathering, Ladytron, OMD and Opeth are some bands/artists I really like.

FAULT: What is your creative process when writing new material?

Hugo: Usually I like to sit in my studio with my synthesizers at hand and just play and try out melodies and sounds. Let the music and ideas come and flow, that’s my thing.

Once I find a melody that pleases me, I start digging and figuring out how that melody will change and evolve. Usually I just let my thoughts and ideas go and when I run out of ideas I stop, since that means that the track is complete.  I don’t like to ‘force’ ideas or to make a track longer once ideas are weak or unnatural. These are the foundations for each song and after that is settled, I begin recording the electric guitars, the bass and later vocals. I also lay down my drums along with the synths and orchestrations, before the actual guitar recordings. Then it’s mixing time. Very time consuming, a bit more monotonous but still pretty cool and creative; I handle that part too since I like everything sounding the way I really want to. Later I get inputs from Jessica as well, to enhance the mixing and especially vocals.

As far as mastering is concerned, I prefer to leave that to a mastering engineer, and Melotronical had an absolutely brilliant mastering process done by Mr, Chris Brown, who worked on so many of my albums and several others from Progrock Records as well.

Vocal-wise, Jessica may shine a light on the process for creating vocals.

Jessica: When Hugo sends me a finished song and lyrics I often sit down and listen to it a couple of times before I start recording. There are times though when I only listen like once before I record, it depends very much on the track and how complex the vocals will be but sometimes also on how creative I feel at that time. I try to go along with the general atmosphere in the track and the lyrics for it. I usually add heaps of harmonies just to give Hugo some options when he mixes everything.

FAULT: Do you write from personal experiences?

Hugo: More from personal ideas and thoughts, even though sometimes personal experiences do influence. So is the case with a song from Melotronical called ‘Protonic Stream’. It’s a very critical view of our world and how a person lives confined to this ‘prison’. Actually the chorus says it all:

“Welcome to the System

Made for Survival

Not for Living

Protonic Stream”

People follow trends; follow a leader; ‘destiny’ controls them and not the other way ‘round. There’s little time to fully ‘Live’. ‘Protonic Stream’ is track number 4. When the album begins, with the opener ‘Enter Nucleon’, we see this electronic molecule evolve, she sees the world and falls in love with it. Upon track 3 it becomes a living breathing entity. Once things start getting clearer for her, the world isn’t such a paradise anymore, stressful lives and no time to really enjoy Life as it should be. The rest of the album is this constant search for a way to change things and to change her own dimension…for the better.

Story-wise, most of the time my concepts rely on scifi visions. On Poles there’s this invisible Factory, that implants dreams to people’s minds, or at least persuades them to think a certain way. The World of Poles is Dark, ruled by Tyranny, so it is a kind of ‘Negative Pole’ and people hope one day to reach the Positive Pole and a blissful place to live. The album is a journey inside that world and how a person manages to find a passage to a better place. The issue is that the ‘positive’ land, if you will, can’t really exist without its ‘negative’ side. The last track from our first album is called ‘Crossing the Bridge to the Positive Pole’.

On the second album ‘A Strange Utopia’, I try to show a voyage through a planetary system with landscapes and societies unlike anything seen before, such as a land made of sound and music (‘Sonic Sensations’ song), a land where chaos is the norm, a place where destruction can be destructed, etc…Each song is a different world as you can see.

We did a videoclip ‘The Weight of the World’ and this song speaks of a place where people’s mistakes and all evil inflicted on their planet, such as excessive pollution, have a direct impact on the planet’s mass. So people become unbearably heavy and impossible. Judgment day I’d say.

FAULT: What is the story behind “whispering eyes”?

Hugo: Whispering Eyes was the immediate single. It is catchy, it is simple but complex at the same time. The melody and choruses do stick in the mind. We released it some 5 months before the actual album’s release, as a preview to what the full album would be like and to present our new sound for this new opus.

I think that it’s the most romantic track on the album, but a quite a hard take on relations and romanticism. It’s about love, and about the good and bad side of passion. Here, to love is to have some control over the other, being possessive, but at the same time helping the other to find its way. It’s that thin line between real love, but also being blinded by possession and a certain jealousy. The album is about experiencing the good and bad of emotions. So, these two sides of love and passion had to be shown.

Lyrically it’s strong, it’s sensual and musically it’s kind of hypnotic.

FAULT: What are you currently working on?

Hugo: Right now I’m concentrating on a forthcoming Project Creation album. This is another band of mine, more focused on progressive rock/metal. I really want to conclude the story that started with our ‘Floating World’ album, so, I’m anxious to tell everyone about this new big planet that was found on the second album ‘Dawn on Pyther’.  Pyther, by the way, was the planet that the ‘Floating World’ found and helped to be reborn.

At the same time, I’m composing new Factory of Dreams material, pretty much in line with what Melotronical has to offer sound-wise, but with a new symphonic element in the sound that was never heard before on Factory. So, loads of stuff to do!

Jessica: For some time now I’ve been trying to finish my fourth demo for my own music, under a project I call Once There Was, so let’s hope that will happen fairly soon. Other than that I’m recording vocals for another project I’m in, Beto Vazquez Infinity. And then I’m focusing a bit on an upcoming video for Factory of Dreams.

 

FAULT: What can we expect from Factory of Dreams in 2011?

Hugo: Jessica already gave it away (laughs)! We’re preparing the new videoclip for one of Melotronical’s tracks. Which track….still a surprise  So, that’s gonna be the highlight now. We’re trying to setup an epic set and having quite an atmospheric take on the video’s visuals and aesthetics.

I think it’s gonna be awesome! I’m excited. We also have several interviews in store, reviews being done and promos here and there, plus compilations to attend, so let’s see how it all turns out.

We’re also concentrating efforts on promoting Factory of Dreams on several social networks, and the response has been very positive so far from our fans.

FAULT: Are you inspired by your surroundings?

Hugo: I try to be neutral in that sense actually, what I feel is that I’m a citizen of the world, and not of a specific country or area. As I mentioned earlier, my inspiration above all is made of ideas, feeling the melody, making it evolve. There rest comes naturally and so it did with Melotronical, where music interacts with nature and flows like energy.

Besides this, my inspiration comes a lot from books, movies, mostly scifi, horror, mystery… that’s really my world. You know, the way the music turns out is pretty much related to a certain period of your life and moments. Melody represents those moments and it is definitely the fingerprint of Factory of Dreams’ music.

Sound and the way ideas are conveyed into a piece of music is always changing, but the feeling and the melodic sense is mostly kept intact. I tend to revisit my older songs and, when appropriate, re-record a few, if their melody and vibe fits the concept. That was the case with ‘Something Calling Me’, a beautiful song that I composed some 10 years ago and was now re-recorded for Melotronical featuring Jessica’s’ beautiful voice!

As far as themes and concepts go, I think that I’ve kept my scifi genre and ideas pumping throughout the years, but now they’re much more mixed with real subjects, drama, love, social issues as we discussed on ‘Protonic Stream’ and ‘Whispering Eyes’.

Jessica: I am definitely inspired by my surroundings. Beautiful landscapes and similar give me a lot of energy for what I do, and also a lot of inspiration while doing it, both vocal wise and when I write music for my own project. When writing lyrics I’m inspired by people close to me and what they are going through, or, of course, what’s happening in my own life, and sometimes I just make things up ‘cause story telling is always fun.

FAULT: Where can people hear more of your music?

Hugo: Well, for one thing they should definitely buy the albums. That’s where all the music with full quality is. Our cds, and Melotronical is no exception, feature great booklets with artwork for each song. So even though the album is at iTunes, Amazon mp3, Mindawn.com, I have to recommend getting the full album/cd for its presentation. It is available from all good stores, including Amazon, cduniverse, Tower Records, progrock Records, etc…

FAULT: What do you think of modern day Metal?

Hugo: Depends on the style. The so called ‘female fronted metal’ is starting to become pretty formulaic. More diversity would be cool, and that’s what we’re trying to do. I enjoy different stuff, like SYL, Devin Townsend, Dimmu Borgir, Birthday Massacre, Therion, The Gathering. The latest Therion is quiet original. So, there are still great bands there.

Jessica: There are things about today’s metal scene that I like and things that I don’t like. I’ve never really analyzed why I like or don’t like a band but I guess that in general, when there’s a lot of emotion behind the tracks and the songwriter lets a bit of his or her soul bleed into the song, there’s a greater chance of me liking it. It’s mainly about the atmosphere for me, not so much if the tracks are all that unique or not.

 

FAULT: What is your FAULT?

Hugo: Being restless and working on too many things at the same time and perhaps being a bit of a perfectionist.  This can be pretty stressful but at the same time rewarding since I get things done

Jessica: It’s definitely my fault that I have caffeine even though it makes me all hyper and crazy. I pity the people who have to put up with meeting me when I’m in that state.

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