Milano
Milano is responsible for the bulk of the music on the album. He originally has a background in electric guitar, but has since dabbled with many other stringed instruments. Those include the ones featured on the debut album, like acoustic guitar, Irish bouzouki, bass guitar (on most tracks), mandolin and ukulele. The bouzouki can often be heard on the album when it's layered with acoustic guitar. However, in the song Innocent Eyes it takes center stage as a melody instrument. The mandolin and ukulele are used sparingly on the album, but can be heard prominently in the intro/interludes of Victim Mentality and in the bridge of Invincible.
Beside all the instruments, Milano also took on all vocals for the debut album. As a self-taught singer with little experience, it took a lot of takes to get the vocals right. Most vocals were re-recorded multiple times, because Milano wasn't satisfied with the original recordings.
After all instruments were recorded, Milano started to learn to mix/master from scratch. Luckily, he found his bandmate Robin (see below) willing and able to teach him how to mix and master properly.
Photo courtesy of by_marielle_photography
Dave
Dave has contributed bass guitar on the tracks Innocent Eyes and Eternal Blue Skies. Those bass tracks have been written by Milano specifically for Dave to play, so he could bring his unique style and technique to Aelios Nova. Naturally, the bass guitar in those songs is more elaborate than on the others, and features more prominently.
Besides bass guitar, Dave also contributed all the artwork for the debut album. We decided in an early stage to work towards a vinyl release, so we ended up with a two-faced concept to mirror the themes on the A-side (tracks 1-3) and the B-side (tracks 4-7) of the record. The artwork on the outside of the gatefold depicts a dystopian and cyberpunk-inspired cityscape, with a myriad of easter eggs and nods to the song lyrics of the A-side. The artwork on the inside of the gatefold (which corresponds with the lyrical and musical themes on the B-side) features the same cityscape, but with a completely different feel and tonality. It’s brighter, more optimistic and leaning somewhat into the solarpunk aesthetic. When you look more closely, lots of other differences with the outside artwork become apparent.
When you keep flipping back and forth between the two sides, the artwork describes the same journey portrayed in the lyrics of the album in surprising detail.
Photo courtesy of by_marielle_photography
Remy
Remy has contributed his impressive skills on the recorder to the tracks Innocent Eyes and Eternal Blue Skies. That means that these two songs prominently feature not one, but two great guest musicians. The original melodies to be recorded have been written by Milano, but those didn’t include any breaks in between for Remy to breathe. Despite this, Remy showed up to the studio and blew us away by playing those melodies anyway.
During the studio session there was also ample time for Remy to show off his improvisational skills. During the song Eternal Blue Skies you can hear the exact moment where Remy departs from the written melody and shows his own exceptional artistic flair.
For the recorder melodies in the song Innocent Eyes, we didn’t start the recording session with a fixed plan in mind, and we didn’t need to. Remy could hear the bouzouki melody and iterate on a counter-melody on the spot, again showing off his musicality and skills.
Dennis
You can’t make a song inspired by Irish folk without including a bôdhran, and we found Dennis willing to lend his amazing skills to Aelios Nova for the song Victim Mentality. The sound of his bôdhran is actually the first sound you hear on our debut album Eternal Blue Skies, where it takes center stage together with the bouzouki. You can also hear Dennis driving the hook just before the chorus in that song.
The bôdhran is a unique instrument, because it can be varied in pitch while it’s being played. This allows Dennis to provide a full drumbeat with a single drum. The beater can also be used on the sides of the drum, to get a unique sound somewhere in between a woodblock and a rim shot. If you listen carefully in the song Fly Away, you hear a “clock” ticking to signify the passing of time. Dennis also provided that sound with his bôdhran.
Before the recording session with Aelios Nova, Dennis had never recorded his instrument before, and only played it in a live setting occasionally. As it turns out, he’s a great session player.
Robin
Robin is a fellow band member of Milano and Dave, and has recorded, mixed and mastered all of their tracks for the past 13 years. When Milano started mixing for Aelios Nova, he asked Robin to show him how to start mixing and mastering from scratch. It turned out to be no small task, especially for a project as big as Eternal Blue Skies. At its peak, the master project contained over 130 tracks, ranging from drums to a complete choir of backing vocals and a wall of layered guitar tracks.
The process of mixing and mastering took many months and iterations, and several studio sessions where Robin mainly acted as co-producer to Milano. Together, they shaped the sound of Aelios Nova.
Without the help of Robin, we would probably still have released Eternal Blue Skies into the world. But taking on the task together gave us the confidence to also consider our vinyl release.
Photo courtesy of by_marielle_photography
