Progzilla Radio

Infirmum (former Kuolonkoura) is a one-man death/doom metal project from Jyvaskyla in Finland, founded by multi-instrumentalist and composer Timo Solonen. In December 2018 he launched a debut EP and is already working on its full-length follow-up. Solonen spoke for Prog Sphere about the project in the interview below.

Define the mission of Infirmum.

To deliver feelings and thoughts persons may go through in a one single day. Am I successful or not. I hope I am but you can tell me.

Tell me about the creative process that informed your recent EP “Infirmum” and the themes it captures.

What you see and what you hear. What happened globally and caught my eye or something that happened locally. If there was something that make me feel strongly was unfair.

Themes? Well anger could be it. Everything else is developed from that feeling in ”Infirmum”.

What is the message you are trying to give with “Infirmum”?

Honesty. For yourself.

Don’t live life of other’s, make your life to be your own. Never give up. If you make mistakes learn from them don’t pity yourself. Get up and do it better next time. Even if something hits you time after time get up when you have the strength but don’t wait too long. Follow your instincts, you notice sooner or later if you are not doing something what you ”Soul” ”self” want you to do. Can not find better word than ”soul” but it is not meant to be as it is in a religion context. Every song have it’s own story but all songs are connected to each other.

How did you document the music while it was being formulated?

Every time I had a chance, I recorded riffs on my phone. Sometimes riffs just will not go away if I do not record them. Lyrics came much later. It was quite easy to write lyrics in Finnish only problem was try to avoid too aggressive or depressive lyrics. I just tried to find right mood to write.

Is the dynamic flow of the pieces carefully architected?

Not really, I just let everything out and let my guitar tell a story To be honest, after I listened what kind of music came through me, I started to think the song as a whole with lyrics. What to add and what to remove. How to capture the feeling and atmosphere I want to express. How something would make the song to tell a story the way I wanted

Sometimes it took day or two or week I had chance to listen riffs or ideas for whole song.

Describe the approach to recording the EP.

This is my first recording, if we don’t count demoes from the beginning of 90’s. There was feeling I have to do this and I still had something to give. Nothing to loose-mentality musically. If I don’t try it I’ll regret it when I am old and sit on my rocking chair.

So I just tried to learn my DAW and ”do my best and see what happens”.

How long “Infirmum” was in the making?

It took less than three months to complete Infirmum. I already had lots of riffs recorded. Lots of time took to program drums and to record some tracks again and again and again. When mixer was satisfied I was quite tired and thought I would never do this again. Next morning I was thinking about new release It was hard school but I am grateful Samu Oittinen at Fantom Studio helped and taught me and had time to answer my stupid questions.

Which bands or artists influenced your work on the release?

Hard to say. I really wasn’t listening any bands or artists when I was composing or writing lyrics. I just listened radio, not metal- or hard rock-channels because I didn’t want to be influenced by any one too much.

Well I bought one David Bowie cd and listened it once, I also bought ”Satanist” and ”I loved you at your darkest” by Behemoth. Those CDs I also listened once. Loved them but I couldn’t listen more to avoid influence. Maybe atmosphere is something I got from Behemoth’s cds.

Other influences I do not know, if there are something it must have been subconscious.

For example, one friend of miner told me one song remind him of a band I even never heard of

Timo Solonen (photo: Jouni Schuurman)

What is your view on technology in music?

Without technology EP would not exist. I recorded songs at home and send files to mixer who mixed and mastered at his studio when he had time.

So most things technology brings to music is positive but too much is too much. If you let technology to be your master in composing and so on, are you really the one who creates your music?

Technology in general is mostly beneficial to human kind. But of course it could do harm in wrong hands. In small scale for example auto-reply is great but also could be with scripts really annoying.

Do you see your music as serving a purpose beyond music?

I want to deliver different kind of feelings from aggression to deep depression and between. Hopefully someone finds comfort from my songs and don’t do stupid things. I also hope people start to think and don’t take everything that is written/told true.

If my songs deliver more good than bad, them I am satisfied.

What are your plans for the future?

First of all I want to finish next album. I hired a session drummer for this album. It is recorded in two parts. Kind of first A-side and then B-side. I’m from old Vinyl LP time. Of course Kuolonkoura, now known as Infirmum, should be proper band as it was meant to be. So hopefully soon there are more than one in this band And perhaps we have chance to play somewhere next summer. I am also designin logo for Infirmum with my friend. Logo should be in a way like me. Simple.

Check out Infirmum on Bandcamp.

Cover photo by Jouni Schuurman