Cosmic Putrefaction’s Gabriele Gramaglia

Words by David C. Obenour

A journey that’s spanned decades, multi-instrumentalist, Gabriele Gramaglia returns to Cosmic Putrefaction for Emerald Fires Atop The Farewell Mountains – the final album in his defined trilogy. Having started as a project to breath new life into an uncompleted album, Cosmic Putrefaction has evolved on its own trajectory – continually building and exploring Gramaglia’s approach to brutality. While other projects have scattered their influences, here a matured sound has steeped to naturally bleed into the progressive and symphonic.

Off Shelf: Cosmic Putrefaction began as a way for you to complete an unreleased Oaken/Throne album. Did you envision that this project would continue after that initial effort? What keeps you coming back to it?

Gabriele Gramaglia: After the debut album I immediately thought, “Ok but now I would like to create something that captures my current self through this music entity as well”. Because after all, the debut was already born “old”, if you think about it. In the time between 18, when I originally wrote the Oaken/Throne record, and 25, when the first Cosmic Putrefaction was released, the years seem like geological eras. You change a lot, you’re even still growing physically.

So I immediately committed myself to working on something that would sound more mature and representative to my ears. After a few years Cosmic Putrefaction established itself as my main solo project, as I stopped making The Clearing Path records and I don’t see myself going back to Summit either.

OS: Thinking back to that point, what has evolved and what has remained constant? How does it differ from what you’re able to do with Vertebra Atlantis?

GG: At a certain point I realized that my main project at the time, The Clearing Path, was exhausted and that it was better to channel all that energy into Cosmic Putrefaction.

I’ve met some people who never liked my music after I put The Clearing Path to sleep, or I’ve even heard that I somehow stopped being adventurous after that. The point is that The Clearing Path was certainly meant to be adventurous, but it was such on some premises I would call naive right now. Currently my songwriting is perhaps less untamed, but I think it is more thoughtful, more purposeful and characterized by more precise frameworks; probably more mature, so to speak.

Vertebra on the other hand is a totally different beast, it started as a band or at least as a collaboration and there are other frameworks and concepts that lead to other creative shores. Also, I use a different tuning for the guitar compared to Cosmic Putrefaction, which in some ways influences the artistic choices.

OS: The press release talks about how Emerald Fires Atop The Farewell Mountains continues a narrative from Crepuscular Dirge for the Blessed Ones. Can you set the stage for how the new album begins?

GG: I think it’s sort of the conclusion of a trilogy. I didn’t think of it that way at first, but the story arc that started in The Horizons… has developed and evolved to end here, two albums later. There’s a reference in the outro of “Entering the Vortex Temporum,” Emerald Fires…’s title track which is a reprise of Crepuscular Dirge…’s title track initial arpeggio but revisited in a more obscure key. Lyrically the first tracks of each evoke between the lines – and not – of what happened before.

I decided to start full throttle without an intro here, though, as the album takes its time to breathe and shape-shift later on, especially in the second half.

OS: Delving into the songs – what are you exploring in the lyrics of this new album? How does the narrative progress?

GG: The album is really a huge metaphor for dreams and the acts of preparation before death. Where The Horizons… talked about a geophysical apocalypse and Crepuscular Dirge… translated the catastrophe to a more metaphysical dimension, Emerald Fires… questions if all these grand adventures have just been a huge pre-mortem hallucination. But there’s not really an answer, it can all be that the main character has actually walked all those wondrous astral paths towards something mysterious and unknown, yet revealing at a certain point.

Although lyrics will be made available and their content is apparently very figurative if not self-explanatory, they will also contain something that’s hidden between the lines. Giuseppe Ungaretti once said in an interview that poetry is such when it contains a secret, and although my lyrical style is rooted in prose – and I don’t presume to embody its greatness, needless to say it – I followed thoroughly this precious advice, taking it as an occasion to sublimate some inner shadows as well. After all, artistic expression is also catharsis.

OS: How much of a story do you have in mind to tell? Does Cosmic Putrefaction primarily live inside of this universe or is it free to reach beyond those story arches?

GG: Good question. I think a narrative arc was closed by Emerald Fires…, so I don’t really know what comes next. I need to recover from the burnout a bit now but if and when I get back to music, I’d probably prefer to work on something else before returning to Cosmic Putrefaction, anyway.

OS: How do you see the connection between song and lyrics? How does one further illuminate the other?

GG: They are all pieces, however seemingly unrelated, of a greater puzzle. Like those more lucid dreams, where the logical correlation of events isn’t always rational or coherent, but there’s still a scheme, somehow.

OS: Can you talk about what you see in Khaos Diktator’s art for the album cover? Are there any specific elements that connect to the story you’re telling?

GG: Khaos is a great artist and I was particularly taken with two of his pieces, the paintings he did for Coscradh’s Nahanagan stadial and Lychgate’s Also Sprach Futura, which is also a criminally underrated record. These made me think that he would have fitted the idea I had in mind for the cover.

So Semjaza from Thy Darkened Shade, whom I thank very much for his willingness, helped me to get in touch with Khaos, as they are friends. Working on this artwork hasn’t been easy at all and it required many Zoom calls between us to define many aspects of it, from the general mood to the last details. It’s been very distressing for both of us, not without setbacks – like everything else on this record anyway – but the painting came out great in the end, probably one of the best pieces he’s ever done, I’d say. Well worth the effort and the hassle!

To answer the second part of your question, if you are wondering if there are any specific elements that relate to the story, yes, of course there are. The artwork depicts certain moments that happen during the self-titled track, the final moments of the story arc so to speak.

OS: If you were to add a video experience to the music of Cosmic Putrefaction – what would it be? What does it look like in your mind when you perform these songs?

GG: If I had to choose a song it would probably be “Swirling Madness…” and I would imagine the video to be chaotic, disorientating and astral, similar to that long beautiful sequence in Kubrick’s masterpiece Space Odyssey, towards the end.

And the second question… if only I could remember how to perform my own stuff! I usually forget how to play it after I have finished recording it, because I am not used to rehearsing it for live purposes with a full band. To be honest, I wouldn’t meticulously learn how to play it before recording either. My workflow is completely insane in general. One thousand percent wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

OS: There are elements of symphonic metal on the latest album, how did you make the decision to go bigger with your sound and scope? What did you hope that would add to your sound?

GG: I implicitly posed the same question to myself. In order to make the record sound wider, I expanded the arrangements in a symphonic manner, similar to what I did in my previous Vertebra Atlantis record – another project of mine. To achieve this purpose, I proceeded along the same route previously traversed by Emperor, Diabolical Masquerade, Abigor and Obtained Enslavement, for example.

OS: Was there anything you were concerned it might misstep if not handled correctly?

GG: I believe that when you oversee the majority of processes – composing, arranging, recording, and mixing – in my case, there are significant risks of missteps around every corner. I’d probably proof-read and revise forever, it’s just at a certain point enough’s enough and for your physical and mental health you have to let it go.

You also have to come to terms that perfection is something out of this world.

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