BRUNO KARNEL – new single

French musician BRUNO KARNEL releases his new single “TROMSØ”, from the forthcoming album “Hic sunt dracones”.

The album was recorded and mixed by Florent Morel (France – Bandits Bandits…), and mastered by Thomas “Plec”Johansson (Sweden – Soilwork, Pixie Ninja, Anima Morte…). It will be released in November by Bitume Productions. 

Bruno Karnel’s music is a crack between dark rock, post-rock contemplation, memories of 70’s prog and metal fulgurances. After several self-produced demos in the 2010s, the multi-instrumentalist singer ventures into surreal folk-rock, often inspired by South America, with the “Satellites” series (2017-2019), 4 EPs offering a “nomadic rock”, where world instruments overlap and sometimes replace guitars in a unique collusion, which has received an enthusiastic welcome from French and South American webzines, as well as the British magazine “Prog“, which featured the instrumental track Adour on its August 2018 CD. In the latest “Satellite”, En ti sólo, Bruno pays tribute to César Vallejo: the adaptation of a text by the great Peruvian poet gives birth to an impressive video, financed by crowdfunding.

In 2019, modular synthesizer wizard Frédéric Gerchambeau asked Bruno to produce a duo album : this would be Amra (“Eternity”, in Sanskrit). A dense, experimental work, between futuristic hypnosis and acoustic sounds, supernatural poetry and homage to Amerindian languages such as Quechua (Tutayan) or Nahuátl (Axolotl). Then, during the year of pandemics, 2020, unable to finish his new album “Las Ilusiones”, Bruno reunites a rock trio to offer a new “lockdown live” version of “Satellite 3: Après-demain”, with Julien Waghon on bass guitar and Sonia on backing vocals and cajón peruano. Produced at the brand-new Marg’Sound Studio by Florent Morel and filmed by François Richer as a true live concert, with 3 bonus tracks (including a psychedelic version of Amra‘s single Îles espace), this project becomes an album in its own right: Evaporation des voix off.

In 2021, Bruno was finally able to produce Las Ilusiones, recorded, mixed and mastered by Florent in his ever-expanding studio. Dark photographs of our times (traces of the Serbo-Croatian conflict in Osijek, cybersolitude in Nébuleux Software, end-of-year holiday merchandising in Rebooting Clouds… ), the 12 tracks do not forget references to Latin America. Bruno even invites us on a journey through space and time, adapting a poem by Nezahualcóyotl, a prince-poet from ancient Mexico. The track is sung in its original language, Nahuátl (already used in Axolotl, on Amra). The album’s bonus track, Icnocuicatl, a rock cover of a song by Lila Downs, shows that this noble, age-old language is still very much alive!

And in 2023, the dragons arrive : Hic sunt dracones…

… “Here are the dragons”: on the maps of the Middle Ages, this phrase was used to designate the limits of the known world, the strange, dangerous and extreme places where terrifying monsters were supposed to live. Bruno Karnel’s new album explores some of these extreme places, lost in the ice (“Tromsø”, “Mare Congelatum”, “Opération Septentrion”), crushed by the black heat of ancient Mexico (“Thiua”) or smothered in desert sand (Lima, “La grise, la triste, l’horrible”).

Between post rock (“Kusi Kuyllur”), heavy prog (“Tromsø”, “Musique obsidienne”) and lunar folk (“Négatif des vagues”), the 11 tracks on “Hic sunt dracones”, sung in French or English, also explore many musical territories.

Recorded and mixed by Florent Morel, like the previous album Las Ilusiones, at Marg’Sound Studio (which now plays host to big names on the French scene, such as Bandits Bandits), “Hic sunt dracones”, unlike its predecessor, features a host of guests (over a dozen ! ) from all over the world, including bassist Julien Waghon, drummer Pavel Ljubičić, guitarists Ricardo Da Silva (In Your I) and Matthieu Gajewski (Mattheui, ex-Master Crow), and cellist Polina Faustova (who toured with Hans Zimmer)… The album is mastered by Thomas “Plec “Johansson (Soilwork, Molesome,Pixie Ninja, Anima Morte...).

Official site : www.brunokarnel.com/