WHISPERS INTHE SHADOW way or another. for us. He also designed stuff for my other band The Devil &The Universe. It’s safe to say this time he created his best artwork for us so far. I’m very happy with the result. It fits the music perfectly. He resorted to the magical technique of automatic drawing and was inspired by the spirits of the actual music, which made their way right into the artwork. He created the artwork while listening to the songs.The sound guided his hand, so to speak. You have now been making music for 27 years. When you look at the road you have travelled from the early beginnings up to this excellent new album ‘Ghosts’, what are your reflections? I’m still amazed about how lucky we were at the beginning. The band was not even in business for one year and we already had a proper record deal. They even let us record the kind of music we wanted.Back in the day when studio time was necessary and you had to book a recording studio with a lot of money, that wasn’t common practice. Just to make it clear how long ago it is: we still recorded on analog. No computers. It was all pre-pro tools times. It’s unbelievable that we got away with it though. I still like our debut album ‘Laudanum’ (1996) a lot. There are songs from it we perform live to this very day. But of course, there were difficult times as well, especially the period from 2003 until 2008 when we didn’t release a new album for years. It just wasn’t the right time for us, for several reasons. But we soldiered on and prevailed. I’m very happy that we are still able to create and perform. And I’m very thankful to everyone who listens to our music,some for as long as these 27 odd years. I do not take that for granted.Music wise we came a long way and we had quite a few lineup and sound changes. I’m thankful to everyone who contributed to the saga in one www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be - 14 - When the retrospective ‘Gilding The Lily’ album appeared, you said the work of Whispers In The Shadow could be divided into four phases: the Cure phase, the psychedelic and experimental phase, the alchemic phase and then the new turn you took since ‘The Urgency Of Now’. Still, it is not evident for me what would bind ‘The Urgency Of Now’, ‘Yesterday Is Forever’ and ‘Ghosts’ together. Do you have a clue? You know, I have to confess I actually do not. What I meant is there the first three phases are clear but you are not wrong when you say the last 3 albums are so different to one another that you could even say each album is actually a phase in itself. But that would be a bit too self-indulgent even for me.So, let’s call it the ‘we really don’t give a fuck anymore and do as we please’ phase? I think with these three albums we found our own identity and we clearly showed that there are a lot of things this band is able to pull off. Maybe that is the main motivator to go on anyway, I don’t know. I supposeWhispers In The Shadow is your main project these days but I can’t help asking a question about your other great project: The Devil & The Universe. What is the actuality about the trancerock goats? The Devil & The Universe is actually growing bigger and bigger yes. But neither Whispers In The Shadow nor The Devil & The Universe are my‘main’ Project.There is room for both being my‘main’ projects because they are so different from one another. Even my stage persona is very different, I’m not the same person when performing with The Devil & The Universe or Whispers In The Shadow. With The Devil & The Universe,we will go on a UK tour in November and we started working on a new album which will see the light of day sometime in 2024. But that’s about all I want to say about that now. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. Any last words? Thanks for the support over the years! It is indeed very much appreciated! Always a pleasure and I dare say, until next time. Xavier KRUTH https://www.whispersintheshadow.com/ https://whispersintheshadow.bandcamp.com/
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