The Auditory Journey Through A Day In Venice

The Auditory Journey Through A Day In Venice

A Day in Venice is the auditory journey of Andrej Kralj, a multifaceted artist (painter, poet and music producer) from Triest (Italy), who has been creating music and published three albums under this banner since 2013.  Lights is the name of the latest masterwork from A Day In Venice, a 4-song EP showcasing the maestro Kralj at the height of his creative energies.  Highwire Daze recently interviewed Andrej Kralj to discuss the sonic artistry of Lights through the wonderland known as A Day In Venice.  Read on…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in A Day In Venice, and how long the band has been together.
I am Andrej Kralj, a music producer based in Italy. A Day in Venice is my artistic alias. I have been composing and producing songs under this banner since late 2013. Since then, I have released 3 full-length albums.

Where is the band based out of and what is the local music scene like there?
The scene here has changed in the past decade, there used to be more original scene, now we have more cover acts. At the same time I believe the quality of origninal acts has increased terrifically, which is a good thing.

Is there any overall story or concept behind the Light EP title?
I probably urged to change direction again and explore new things after the previous album »III«, which was a pretty dark album, lyrically and in terms of sound. Creating means for me exploring and using the same tools and the same approach could be really frustrating. I still haven’t figured out how some bands or musicians can manage to stay inside the same genre or use the same sounds for decades. They might need to, because this is their profession, they need to preserve their fanbase. After each full-lenghts I usually need time to get on different trails. Therefore I wrote 4 new tracks with a completely different approach each and learned many new things again.

Select two songs from the Lights EP and what inspired the lyrics.
I think Vampires and Lights are both about appreciating life. Most often it happens that we appreciate more intensly what we have after a bleak period. We can see light only through darkness.

With a song called Vampire on your EP, what is your favorite Vampire movie of all time and why? Mine is The Hunger but there are so many good ones to choose from…
I think I would pick up The Hunger too. David Bowie is one reason, the second reason is a vampire is a powerful metaphor. Especially in modern times. Patrick Bateman in American Psycho is another example of a modern »vampire«. He’s not a product of consumerism, on the contrary he represents consumerism or he is capitalism himself. A »vampire« sucking blood and blossoming during nightime. While people are sleeping.

What was the experience like working with Russian violinist Maria Grigoryeva and how did that come about?
She’s a great professional and amazing violinist and since I worked with her in the past I wanted to add a string quartet to Vampires and wrote to her. The string orchestration is in the background here, but all the other parts were organic and real instrumentation, therefore I did not want to use a virtual library here.

What is the easiest and most difficult part about producing your own music?
The easiest part is composition, because it is pure enjoyment. Whereas mixing is the part that I hate, its outsourcing and takes a lot of time.

What has it been like to release a new EP right in the middle of a pandemic?  Have you had any shows cancelled because of it?
This pandemic came by surprise, but fortunately shows haven’t been planned during this period.

What could one expect from a live A Day In Venice show?
As this is a one-man band project there have been very few gigs in the past. I presented some songs of the previous album with Paolo, the singer on »III«. We performed the songs playing an acoustic and an electric guitar using analogue pedals on my electric guitar and a vocal doubler on the vocals. For the show we choose a mystic location in an old house garden on the Karst plateau. The live rearrangement came out very rich and musical without compromising the original versions. The audience was overwhelmed by the resonation favoured by the stony garden. Now I have been planning to gather more musicians around this project in order to go live, but due to this virus this won’t go anywhere.

Are you involved with any other bands or projects outside of A Day In Venice?
I occasionaly collaborate with other musicians on songs.

What’s up next for A Day In Venice?\
I think after this EP I will have a break with music for a while and go back to painting.

Any final words of wisdom?
I would like to quote Robert Frost here, when he was asked as an octogenarian what he had learned about life, and he replied: »In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.«

Line-up:
Andrej Kralj – all instruments, vocals, composition and production
Lights feat. Scott Foster Harris (vocals)
Vintage Variation feat. Jyi (vocals)

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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