INTERVIEW: On latest album, Liv Kristine sets her ‘mental downloads’ to music
Photo: Liv Kristine’s new solo album is called Amor Vincit Omnia and is now available from Metalville. Photo courtesy of Metalville / Provided by press rep with permission.
Liv Kristine is having a renaissance in her professional career. Her creative ideas, or what she calls “mental downloads,” are coming fast and helping her to produce some solid sonic work. A couple of years ago, her many fans saw the release of River of Diamonds, a well-received album that was deeply personal for the singer. Now she’s back with Amor Vincit Omnia, translated as “Love Conquers All,” out today, April 25, on Metalville.
“This one didn’t take as long as River of Diamonds,” Kristine said in a recent Zoom interview. “During that period when River of Diamonds, my sixth solo album, was released, we had already started the demo recording process for Amor Vincit Omnia. … [For this one], we needed one-and-a-half years, maximum, yeah one-and-a-half years. The whole pre-production took about one year, and then we got into the final recording session.”
Helping Kristine for this recording effort was Sascha Dannenberger, and they worked together at the SaDinTheBox Studio and the Twilight Sound Studio in Karlsruhe, Germany. Dannenberger was the composer of the album, and he also serves as Kristine’s live guitar player. They met in the studio, and over the course of five days, they recorded the entire album.
“The pre-production period was very intensive but very productive, so when we finally met in the studio, everything was planned to the very last point,” she said. “It was amazing working with Sascha.”
Kristine, a Norwegian singer who is also known for her time with Theatre of Tragedy and Leaves’ Eyes, said that each of her seven solo albums sounds differently. She likes to change the style and genre of her songs when she’s in the recording studio.
“I worked with different people as well,” she said. “Tommy Olsson, from Theatre of Tragedy, was the composer and producer of River of Diamonds, and Sascha Dannenberger is the composer-producer of Amor Vincit Omnia. Different people, different sounds, different feelings. … It’s something that comes from the heart, from the soul. It comes from within. It’s a way for me to experience how beauty, how art manifests through me, so it’s been a wonderful process now having all those ideas — I call them mental downloads — after Sascha sent me his compositions. Everything just came into place, so, yeah, I’m very lucky. You guys out there have always granted me the freedom to do whatever I wanted to do, so I feel completely free when it comes to my artistic work.”
Kristine acknowledged that some of the most difficult and painful chapters of her life have inspired her creative output. She said 2016 was a pivotal year, a time in her life when she met a crossroads and needed to change directions.
“There were lots of questions coming up for me as a woman, as a person,” Kristine said about that time period. “What am I doing here? Why is this life so hectic? Why am I striving all the time? So River of Diamonds actually opened up all those stories, experiences, traumas, putting everything on the table chapter by chapter, and then Amor Vincit Omnia answers these questions. So you can put these two albums as books next to each other on a shelf. Amor Vincit Omnia kind of follows River of Diamonds. River of Diamonds was about hope, although it was very, very realistic and very opening up about stuff that is not so nice in your life, showing that life is sometimes broken, sometimes [it’s] beauty. Amor Vincit Omnia brings the answer that life unfolds anyway. It’s the way it goes.”
Kristine sees her solo albums as invitations to her many fans. She wants the listeners to dive deep into the songs and explore their “soul life.” The singer admitted that this process can be difficult, for her and her fans, but it’s necessary in order to capture some healing.
“Sometimes it’s very hard to have to go and dig really deep into your soul stuff,” she said. “It’s not always pleasant, but then if you survive it and if you survive the unpleasant experience, you come out on the other side much stronger. All my albums have one red line, and that is courage, to have the courage to do so and to know that it is why we were born, that is why we exist, to find out who we really are. Very, very often for all of us it takes a breakdown or a crash or a personal crisis, maybe something happens to your health, and then you experience afterward what it feels like to come home to yourself and feel safe again. I really want to give everybody some sense of courage and hope to really try to be kind to yourself, although you’re going through a rough time, because it’s absolutely worth it. I’m 49 years old, and I feel like I just landed. I just came home.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Liv Kristine’s new solo album is Amor Vincit Omnia, which is out now from Metalville. Click here for more information.
