KATAVASIA – New Album (2020) Production Diary
Just a couple of weeks before the Covid-19 madness arrived in Europe the production of the second full length album of Katavasia started. Katavasia is a Greek black metal project consisting of Stefan Necroabyssious (Varathron, Funeral Storm, Zaratus), Astrous (Aenaon), Dimitris Kontogiannis (Melan Selas, Riffobia, Warcode), Foivos Hatzis (Hail Spirit Noir, Agnes Vein, FreeFall) and I (Aenaon, Varathron).
RECORDING DRUMS
I decided to do the drum recordings once again here in my hometown in Noisyland, owned by my friend and colleague Panos Papakostas (an excellent engineer and producer with true love for microphones and recording techniques). The recording room in Noisyland has a a couple of stone walls while the roof’s wooden and curved. An excellent choice for nice, warm, roomy ambience.
In the video below you can have some insight on the recording sessions, highlights and funny moments.
Foivos did his best to complete the recordings of 10 songs in only 2 days and as you would have expected there were many imperfections. No need for editing though… black metal shouldn’t be perfect! You only need passion, hate and obviously good songs!
RECORDING GUITARS
Dimitris, Astrous and I started the guitar recordings during the first week of the quarantine (early April it is) and after a week all guitars were reamped in Suncord Audiolab. Bass guitar followed the next week and took me no more than 5 days to compose and record everything. Very happy with the result. I deeply understand and appreciate the power of bass guitar in my productions. Sounds like a bulldozer already!
RECORDING VOCALS
Stefan started recording the tracks in late April. I recorded him for the very first time using my tube preamp on maximum aiming to a much more aggressive and trebly sound than usual. Tons of delay and reverb also will be applied in the mix. Stefan’s performance is phenomenal and we are on fire! Check out the video below including a few clips from our last session (7/5/2020).
AESTHETICS
I’m tired of all polished or all “kvlt” sounding crap. A good production is a production that helps out the music thrive, brings out the best out of the performers, creates motion and emotion. There are no other rules other than those and I do hate how most of the mainstream metal productions sound nowadays.
MIXING AND FINAL ARRANGEMENTS
I’ve been already mixing the tracks and the results are stunning. Warm, natural, aggressive, full of fresh ideas and sounds. I also arrange and add some ideas with synths, samples, percs and folk instruments while mixing. This might be my favorite production so far. I must admit that Corona virus and isolation has worked quite well for this album.
GUEST MUSICIANS
The truth is, we wished we had some more of our friends as guests in the album but due to the weird corona circumstances we actually only have one. George Emmanuel (Lucifer’s Child, ex-Rotting Christ) performed and recorded an amazing guitar solo for us that you will have the chance to listen in the track “Hordes Of Oblivion”.
MASTERING
There will be 3 different masters for this album. One for the CD version, one for digital distribution and of course -as always- an optimized version for vinyl pressing and cassette.
OUT SOON
New album is coming via Floga Records soon enough! Expect a phenomenal black metal album with many heavy metal elements, original ideas and a Mediterranean vibe once again. Imperfect, passionate, bizarre and obscure!