Dear readers, this article features an interview with an up-and-coming band from Bratislava, Slovakia, which offers an interesting mix of genres and styles between Progressive, Jazz and more. We welcome ATYPIC.
Hi, it is a pleasure to have you among our pages, how are you?
“Hi Jacopo, thank you for the opportunity to learn about us from your site to fans all over the world. We hope that your readers will listen to our music and it will leave a good impression on them. We are feeling fantastic at the moment, we are receiving incredibly positive feedback on our debut from all over the world. Even from distant countries like Turkey, Australia, Japan, which we did not expect at all. This is an undeniable advantage of the Internet, its boundlessness and easy access to what interests you, even if it is a narrowly defined topic.“
The band was formed recently, how did the project and the choice of the name ATYPIC come about?
“We founded the band towards the end of the Covid pandemic: me, Alojz Hajovsky – guitarist, main composer, and Peter Fedorcak – multi-instrumentalist, playing Chapman stick in our band. I had a lot of time to compose, so we started planning an instrumental jazz/fusion/rock project, where we planned to use vocals only in a few songs. After hiring singer Lukas Mikulsky, when we realized that he had a golden voice, we reconsidered our intention and decided to start a regular prog band. The name ATYPIC has been with me since about the last millennium (i’m 45 already). That was sometimes the name of one of my hyper-technical instrumental projects in the style of Cynic, Aghora and Italian Sadist in the late 90s. At that time, we didn’t complete the whole thing with an album, because I started to devote myself to work and family – my wife and 3 children. But I always wanted to release an album and have a band with that name, as it accurately describes my musical intention. “To make music that is unusual, but also properly listenable, even with hit ambitions.”
Proposing a blend of Progressive Rock/Metal, Jazz/Fusion with Gregorian chant vocals, how did your passion for these sounds come about? What are your sources of inspiration in this regard?
“ATYPIC’s music is the result of my lifelong musical journey, where I was gradually inspired by pop, rock, metal, jazz, classical music and ethno world music. Like almost every trained guitarist, I started by studying classical guitar at the conservatory. I loved playing Bach and Mozart. Subsequently, when I started listening to metal, I was more inspired by bands that went beyond the boundaries of common harmonies and genres and were labeled as fusion or jazz/rock/metal. I heard a few combinations of Gregorian chants with metal, but apart from the early Symphony X, none of them convinced me. Gregorian chants have so much beauty, mystery and mysticism that they have enchanted me for life. I often listen to
them when I’m stressed, they can calm me down incredibly. I will answer the overall life inspiration a little atypically: chronologically with the names of the bands that I adored at certain times. Some will be entertaining, but I think that says it all. Everyone will understand how it messed with me in terms of genre 🙂 and how it affected me.
Phil Collins, Deep Purple → Army of Lovers → Bach, Mozart → Metallica, Megadeth → Dream Theater, Symphony X → Death, Sadist, Gorefest → Cynic → John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Exivious → Myrath, Leprous, System of a Down → Dead Can Dance, Irfan → Caligula’s Horse, IONS, Lavina“
Your new album “APOTROPAIC” is due out on February 25, 2025, how would you describe this work?
“The intention was to create an atypical prog rock/metal album that would have relatively clear compositions and, despite the complicated time signatures, would be very attractive to listen to. Some songs should be accessible even to rock radios. During the arrangement, we tried to avoid prog metal clichés, which no longer make prog progressive, as they are copied. The album is exactly 40 minutes long in 9 songs, where 4-5 songs are straightforward and easy to digest and the others are more complicated, but all the more unique. The most famous Slovak metal presenter called our album the most anticipated Slovak album of the year. So let’s hope we succeeded.“
You alternate clean vocals with Gregorian chants, what themes do the lyrics deal with?
“The lyrics deal with themes of mainly dark human qualities, depression, phobias, lies, falsehood, religiosity, violence – with a mostly positive message. The song uniGod is a call for mutual respect and tolerance of Abrahamic religions. Although Abrahamic religions come from the same roots and still have one common “uniGod”, they still do not like each other. unaXeptable – criticism of certain religious rituals that slightly spoil those beautiful original noble ideas that determined the ideals of morality of the Western world. It is about a false Christian who uses and abuses holy confession to cleanse his conscience and feelings of guilt and prefers it to the possibility of apology or reconciliation with the other party he has harmed. Instead of ending the conflict, it still lives on the harmed side. Mel N’ Choly – personalized mental demons try to take over your mind and destroy your existence in difficult times. Made of doom – a song about depression, about excuses that you cannot distinguish whether they are just for your comfort or something destructive, about a smiling mask that you put on even when you feel bad inside. Purposeful lies – parents in good faith protect their children from the pitfalls of this world with purposeful little lies. However, it often lacks effect. The child does not learn to face the pitfalls early enough. Eventually, he considers lying to be the norm and passes it on to the next generation. Parallax – the song is about how life seems to always offer you new pitfalls and challenges that you have to face, but ultimately it is still the same process for you, because your ability to process such situations is defined by what you had no control over (upbringing, genetics, social background, demographics) until you started thinking about it at all, and therefore freedom is just an abstract concept used by “dreamers” who believe they have free will.” nanoSpace disaster pt.1 and pt.2 – a song about isolation /parallel with historical Japan – opening melody and ethnic Shakuhachi flute/ and about unwanted phenomena of living together in cramped spaces. Even a safe home environment can witness unexpected negative phenomena of family living together during forced quarantine or isolation. A challenge on how to escape from the clutches of domestic violence.“
The sound is fresh and modern, how does the creative process of your music take place?
“I prepared a demo of 9 songs with the singer, which we gradually improved in terms of arrangement. A modern sound was of course a must, a retro sound would be doomed to failure. Peter Fedorcak made amazing variations of the bass lines I composed and gave ATYPIC’s music a huge musicianship. Together with the drummer, they fine-tuned the rhythms, which are very important in our music.“
I was impressed by your instrumentation, what equipment did you use to make the album?
“In addition to the classic rock equipment (2 guitars, drums), we used a Chapman stick and a Turkish baglama. The Chapman stick has incredible sound possibilities, in addition to fully replacing the sound space of the bass guitar, it has the ability to play the main melody continuously. It explicitly invites the player to use it more creatively, even at the level of a solo instrument. In the overall mix, we put the Chapman stick much louder than rock bands have bass guitars, which managed to achieve our unique sound. We used the Turkish baglama in the only instrumental track on the album as a demonstration of what we are capable of 🙂 I have composed a whole demo of songs on it, but it is too experimental material and it would reduce the listenability of ATYPIC’s songs. The baglama allows you to play quarter tones that the “Western” ear cannot digest at first, it only gets used to it over time. Until then, it sounds like out-of-tune music.“
Many of your fans and our readers wonder if there will be a chance to hear your music live, do you have plans in this regard for the near future?
“We would like to play for an audience that will know our songs and enjoy them more. That’s why we are not going on any international tours at the moment, we will wait until the album reaches a wider audience. We would like to play at various specialized prog fests. We will see how far we can get in Europe.“
You played at the Wacken Metal Battle, what memories do you have of that experience?
“They selected us for the semi-finals of the national selection based only on the demo, which was a big moment for us. Before the concert, we were reinforced by the experienced guitarist Jan Rosocha. It was our first concert overall and we immediately played in a hall in front of 400 people. It’s not easy to play technically demanding material and still put on a metal show like the other competing metal bands. At the end of the performance, we received quite positive reactions. It was a huge experience for us, we had a lot to work on in the rehearsal room.“
The music scene is constantly evolving, how do you see today’s scene as far as Progressive sounds are concerned?
“We don’t have problems with electronics, we use it in every song to. It nicely completes the atmosphere of the music. But we don’t like the use of artificial intelligence in music, even in composition. That is a complete decline of the human spirit. Everything on our album is composed by a human, there is even a symbol on the CD 🙂 We also do have a problem with the modern metal sound, when everything is extremely overcompressed and the recording doesn’t even have to be played by a human, but only by VST instruments (guitar, drums). We like the path Opeth is taking in this regard. We also left small human artifacts and mistakes on the recording to make it clear that it was played by humans. We also didn’t quantize the individual recordings to the grid extremely.“
Are there artists with whom you have musical affinities and how is the Prog scene in your country?
“The singer and drummer also have their own prog band LATE. Peter Fedorcak is the leader of black/death fusion metal band Ravenarium. The biggest discovery of last year is the band IONS of the excellent guitarist Jakub Tirco, who are already playing all over Europe and are quite successful. A few years ago we had a quality prog rock band Persona Grata in Slovakia, which also had a worldwide reputation, I even remember that Mike Portnoy mentioned and recommended them.”
What difficulties, if any, does a young artist who is trying to establish himself by proposing a more sophisticated genre such as yours encounter?
“The biggest disadvantage in such a marginal genre is the absolute absence of a financial budget. So everything is financed only by the members from private sources,which affects all processes related to the publication of the album. Here we hope that when we become better known, we will have higher support, including subsidies for supporting culture or help from music labels. Another problem is that this music has a slower success curve than simpler styles. But when it finds its fans, it keeps them for a long time. That’s why we don’t go on tour right away, but we try to get our music to people first.“
Technology is increasingly gaining a foothold in rock music, how do you see this technological contribution in the music field?
“I commented on AI above. Social media is currently the basis of communication with fans and it’s great that this option is here. But you need to devote a lot of time to it, success doesn’t come for free.“
Do you have any other activities or artistic passions outside of music?
“We are all creative people in real life too. We are: web designers, developers, digital artists, animators, TV editors or lawyers. So our life path is to be creative. Our guitarist even brews his own beer 🙂“
I thank the band for the interview, wishing them all the best for the release of their new album and the continuation of their artistic career.
“Jacopo, thank you for your wishes and very interesting questions and we hope to talk to you again after the release of the next album or after some notable live show. Good luck to ProgRockJournal too!
APOTROPAIC is available at: https://atypic.bandcamp.com, either as a digital download or physical CD and on all streaming platforms.“
