Despite the group was born at the beginning of 2002,
it is necessary to go back to 1996 to find its origins. As a matter of fact
in 1996 Moreno and other two people founded Forever Fallen Darkness,
a doom band which was clearly influenced by groups such as My Dying Bride,
Anathema, Tiamat, Paradise Lost, Katatonia. Moreno (voice and guitar) is the
only original member who is still in the band now. After few months Aldo (who
was already a member of Mystical Fullmoon) replaced the first drummer, becoming
part of FFD. New music expressions and new inspirations delayed the work of
the group and in 1997 the group suffered a brief stop which risked to become
permanent. In 1996-1997 Moreno became part of Aldo’s black
metal group (Mystical Fullmoon) and also Ark joined a bit later as keyboarder.
Several years were necessary to consider again the idea of that old ensemble
whose tracks (were already characterised by a lot of those elements which are
now typical in LN’s music), according to a lot of people, had a considerable
critical insight. After some false starts and changes of mind Moreno, Aldo
and Ark founded LABYRINTHUS NOCTIS in 2002. After some weeks Kiara joined the
band as bassist. In October 2002 Elizabeth (who was already singing with Lunae)
replaced LN’s original singer and established the group as it still is
today. The expression LABYRINTHUS NOCTIS derives from the name given by astronomers
to a particular area of planet Mars, which is characterised by deep and barren
valleys and which was discovered by the scientists during their explorations
and studies with probes. During the first months as a group, LN were busy in
rehearsal studios to write new original tracks (LN have never performed a cover
yet). There is just one old track from the old FFD’s repertoire (precisely “Forever
Fallen Darkness”), which was properly re-arranged by Moreno’s new
travel mates. The first concerts took place in April 2003 (at Black Hole, Milan).
Some of the main characteristics of LN’s music is the track length (often
more than 10 minutes), the strong presence of keyboards and acoustic guitars,
the peculiar warm and articulated feminine voice (and complete lack of male
voices), the optimum technique of the bass/drum rhythmical session which opposes
itself to the more atmospheric and apparently simpler sections of the guitar/keyboard
binomial. Last but not least a sensible use of electronics (always “manipulated” by
Ark) which range from simple background effects to more noise and industrial
parts. The long expeditions to other worlds are always at stake and any single
human error or a rambling fireball are enough to smash vehicles and crew..And
we are science, not science-fiction…the academic epistemology would
difficultly approve human failures when the species’ future is at stake
or it would try to explain it with circumstantial words and eschatological
sentences. Nevertheless LN were able to put all the pieces back together, resuscitate
apparent deaths with cryogenic processes, save most of the crew, lift broken-hearted
souls, distract from suicidal attempts when, that time, they risked to run
ashore with the Mother-Ship in the Asteroid Belt and they risked to remain
eternally trapped in the spider-webs of the interstellar dust. In January 2006
Kiara took the drastic decision to give up the mission….she jumped on
the lifeship and in a moment she was expelled from the Mother Ship. From the
portholes Aldo, Elizabeth, Ark and Moreno looked at the ship becoming more
and more distant among the stars, in the mortal silence of Space beyond the
glasses. Then it became just a bright and remote dot and then it was nothing.
After some hours the weak radio signal coming from the ship was not detectable
anymore by the sophisticated systems of the mother Ship and Kiara’s future
still remains unknown. Sometimes there’s
a star which shines more than the other up in the cosmos…we think that
Kiara is up there in a distant corner of Universe and Mind and guides us in
our route. Naked (from Inner Eye) became our new naval officer with bassist
duties and expert in laser weapons and bombs of bass-frequency distortions.
With Naked LN sound is closer to the dimension of surgical destruction of neurons
and hammer membranes, a painless euthanasia which corrupts flesh and soul.
Now it is very difficult to find a unique fil-rouge or common denominator in
LN’s music
and it is now impossible to consider it simply as heavy metal. Each member
of the group listens to different kind of music: Moreno is the one who the
most fashinated by EBM, Medioeval Music, 70’s Italian Prog-Rock Ultra
Doom. Ark listens to Electronic and Black Metal, from Noise to Industrial.
Elizabeth likes Bucolic and Alien Metal, Nordic Folk. Aldo is fond of New Wave,
Insie/Post Rock, House, while Naked is doped with Fusion, Nu-Jazz, Trance,
Techno, Hard Rock from moon expeditions, Indie Rock. In 2004 LN came back on
stage (Indian Saloon, Inkubo Café) with concerts which fused the pure
musical element to a distinct and accurate study of stage designing which add
a theatrical element to the show, which, like music and lyrics, mirror the
most introspective aspects of human soul, futurism, unknown and astronomy.
As a matter of fact this inner dualistic microcosmos produces and suffers from
anxiety at the same time on the one hand represents the infinite universe in
which one loose himself/herself and on the other hand is the main characteristic
on which LN are based. This dualism can be perceived in the sweet voice or
in the refined touch of the drumsticks on the skin as a counterbalance to musical
suite of endless sadness and melancholy. Or also in the deep vibrations of
precise and complex bass patterns which blend with long single guitar chords
which are free to loose themselves in the distorted vortex of a storm on Venus.
There is no optimism in LN music. Death and suffering are taken for granted
in the next note. From the opening with the first and far touches of dreaming
keyboards, to piercing feedbacks which seem desperate cries and moaning, to
continue the execution of the infamous stave which interprets extreme melancholic
melodies which vibrate under the arrows thrown by Aldo’s
war machines which hit and hurt the skins and whiplashes on the flesh of the
convicted. And the curse and the events are told by a celestial and murderous
voice which, as happened to sailors who heard the mermaids’ songs with
Ulysses, kidnaps and disorientates from any remaining reality. Dismay surrounds
you with the exhausting length of tracks which paralyse and misshape time and
space. The electronic unnatural sounds of unknown alien source cause fear and
paralyse you because of their unknown power. Teardrops which, sliding on the
body of an old guitar, fall on the console of our spaceship which is going
adrift in space. This space does not allow any sound to spread and the work
remains closed in the claustrophobic vortex of our inner land-off ship. Is
there any hope? The only one left is to travel in the now-distorted time until
reaching the cancellation of time itself. Travelling for an instant in full
Middle Age, between plague and invasions, between Autumn fog and bucolic life,
in the evening you find yourself in a tavern, drinking watered beer and strum
or listening to someone strumming ballads with lutes, flutes, hurdy-gurdies
and psalteries. A medieval village built by unknown and alien hands on a lost
star up in the macrocosmos of our loneliness. But like the Little Prince, we
roam among celestial bodies to meet new adventures and new fates, but we realize
that it is not enough. Here our awareness suggests us that our mocking fate
is at one time a melancholic and dreaming reality which waits for us beyond
an unknown threshold and leaves us only the time for a prayer. A final lullaby
in a dead language.
The passage through a stormy black hole revealed a
new horizon of events which allowed the Mission to abandon the four anthropic
dimensions and reach the following dimensions of Strings and Membranes and
an unexpected Super-symmetry. Now LN are left in an equilibrated and symmetric
quantic primordial state and in a plasma with very high levels of temperature
and energy. This was possible thanks to the arrival of Frank at the bass
instead of Kiara and Lu.Na at the vocals, as a replacement for Elizabeth.
The roaming was very long and dangerous, lost in the Multiverse looking for
two Musicnauts of great depth such as Lu.Na and Frank (two vital bubbles
of pure oxygen loosened in millions of parsecs of barren and frozen space),
but in the end the results inside LN were exciting. Just like the
impact of the Theory of Relativity in the last century, Lu.Na and Frank shook
the group's foundations with their innovative constancy of physic-music.
Now the Five, with their empathic instruments, are trying to investigate
the origins of the cosmos beyond the breach of the trillionesim of second
before the Big Bang and eventually come face to face with God.