Musician / Digital Artist
Musician / Digital Artist
31 Oct 2010 - - Discography,Official albums
This album, dated 2010, is my list appearance in Karnak, a band that I was involved in since 1993. Perhaps this title is somehow meaningful.
I left the band right after the publishing of this album by Copro Records UK, due to personal and musical differences with the other members of the bad, actually a quite common situation in the music industry.
Dismemberment is structured in a similar fashion as Pestilence’s Testimony Of The Ancients dei Pestilence: there is an alternation between short musical pieces (written by Marco Colella in our case, who worked with Karnak for the previous 3 releases) and the actual songs.
Lyrics are about medioeval tortures and the music, once that all progressive fancies have been left alone, returns to the initial brutal mood that the band has in its beginnings, continuining the sound of the first album (Perverted, 1997).
The artwork is a Bruegel‘s painting, used by kind permission of the museum that host the original.
At the moment, this is the only Karnak album that you will find in digital format on the main streaming platforms.
Stefano Rumich – drums
Gabriele Pala – backing vocals, lead guitar
Francesco Ponga – main vocals, rhythm guitar
Emanuele Cucit – bass
Music (actual songs): Karnak
Music (interludes): Marco Colella
Lyrics: Stefano Rumich
Recorded by: Niccolò Gasparini at Music City Studios (Montebelluna,TV – Italy)
Editing: Gabriele Pala
Mixing and mastering: Simone Mularoni at Fear Studios (Alfonsine, RA – Italy)
Logo: Gabriele Pala
Layout: Emanuele Cucit
Pictures: Giovanni Assirelli @ Assirelli Photo Studio
13 Nov 2008 - - Gear
In 2008 I contacted Heiko Hoepfinger, creator of the BassLab brand, for the realization of a guitar built upon my specifications. At that times, building a custom guitar was not as popular as today, so why not choosing the most alien stuff available around?
As you can see, the first thing that tickles curiosity is the unusual shape of this instrument. BassLab produces its guitars and basses by using a special patented composite material instead of regular wood. This gives the guitar a more lifely and airy sound.
These are the main specs:
The main thing that people normally ask me is about the sound of this guitar. Its shape is evidently shocking, but how this alien creature that apparently is made of plastic will sound? My answer is: it sounds amazing, but only if you spend some time to look for the proper tone. You must remember that it’s hollow, so we are in the world of the semi-acoustic guitars.
When unplugged, the body made of BassLab’s resonant material produces a soft, warm, open, airy sound. When you play it for a while and switch back to wooden solid-body instrument, you will find the latter sounding suffocated, like if the sound is coming from beneath a blanket. The BassLab will sound warm, present and dynamic with some more volume added. A comparison with a regular semi-acoustic guitar is also interesting: the BassLab tends to mitigate even harmonics, producing a more stable and creamy sound, even if the global sustain is a little bit shorter.
When you plug the guitar into your rig, there are some considerations to make, and maybe this guitar is not suitable to everybody. Again, you can feel its wide breath. However you must be careful with distortions and overdrives: the instrument is hollow and some specific frequencies will cause unwanted resonances, that will be particulary bothersome at high volumes or in a stage situation. The minimal action (the average height of the strings on the whole fretboard is always below 1 millimeter) can foster the birth of unwanted noised and whistles, expecially if you don’t have a refined playing technique.
Once that you can find the right balance of sounds and your hand technique and sensibility, the satistactions are unbeatable. Don’t be frightened by what I said in the previous paragraph: I also played death metal with this beast, and finding the right spot is just a matter of speding some time in tweaking your gear’s knobs.
You can embrace this guitar and it will embrace you back, because of its shape. The balancing of the weights (very lightweight) are perfect and you will find an instruments that seems molted upon your body. The single note will sing and will be modelled by your minimal hand gestures, and the chords will sound full and defined.
After more than 10 years, it’s most high level guitar I own.
01 Nov 2007 - - Discography,Self productions
In this second album of my personal project named Goldenseed, written between 2006 and 2007, i had the chance to experiment a lot with my voice.
I tried to utilize different kind of voices, ranging from classic clean metal belting, to growls and fry, spoken vocals and even sometimes some high-pitched falsetto, along with all possible blends.
Music is a mix of all my inflences in the metal and progressive genre. Conceptually speaking, perhaps this is the most varied work it did so far.
The only point that I honestly regret is the really poor production and hyper-fake drum programming that really impacts on the general quality of the music. Sometimes I think that I will completely re-record the whole thing if I have the time.
Music: Gabriele Pala
Lyrics: Cristiana Bergamasco
Recorded, mixed and mastered by: Gabriele Pala
Artwork: Gabriele Pala
01 Nov 2004 - - Discography,Self productions
In 2004, Karnak went mad.
This is the apex of the progressive phase of this band.
We abandoned the growl voices and any other kind of classical death metal directions, to land to avant-garde and obscure atmospheres with a lot of references to the great composers of the XX century like Ligeti, Berio and others, yet preserving the aggressive mood of the distorted guitars.
On vocals there is mr. Alessandro Seravalle, already known for being the mastermind of the Italian progressive act Garden Wall, a band very popular among the experimental music lovers.
Actually the complete album consisted of 11 songs, but only 7 of them were recorded to be included in this promo, back in 2004.
After its realization, we got in contact with various record labels, that didn’t really understand our new artistic path, and refuse the official release saying that this music is not original. Well, just take a listen to the tracks on this page and judge by yourself. Do you really think that this music is not original? Really?
The few live performances with this line up left the audience totally upset and perplexed. I still remember their faces, trying to follow the music :)
I really hope one day to convince the former members of the band to record the whole thing once again, to give the proper splendor to a record that really deserves to be listened.
Alessandro Seravalle – vocals
Gabriele Pala – guitar / guitar synth
Marco Colella – keyboards
Romolo Del Franco Natale – bass
Stefano Rumich – drums and percussions
Music: Karnak
Lyrics: Alessandro Seravalle
Drum recording: Diego Biloslavo
Guitar, bass, keyboard recording: Gabriele Pala
Mixing and mastering: Gabriele Pala, Stefano Rumich
Artwork: Gabriele Pala
03 Nov 2002 - - Discography,Self productions
This self-produced album by Karnak, dated 2002, is a tribute to the Italian horror filmography of the 70s, hence the title (it’s a famous Sergio Marino‘s movie, year 1972).
The song are very obscure, but still brutal and aggressive.
This works features a lot of guitar synth interventions, not all the parts you hear are coming from a regular keyboard, but from a guitar, connected to the famous Roland GR-50.
It’s the first album in which I use extended range guitars, an Ibanez 7 strings in this case.
It’s the first time, ahead of the times, that I used amp simulators to record the guitars. Nowadays they are quite a common market standard for a certain kind of productions.
So, from a technological standpoint, it was a very innovative release. The first seeds of this kind of approach were already present in the bonus track included in the previous album (“Melodies Of Sperm Composed”), entitled “Zeder” (a Pupi Avati’s movie, year 1983).
Stefano Rumich – Drums and electronic percussions
Matteo Weber – Growl vocals
Roberto Sarcina – Bass, spoken vocals
Gabriele Pala – guitar, guitar synth
Marco Colella – keyboards (not present in the picture)
Music and lyrics: Karnak
Drums recorded by: Enrico Perusin
Recorded, mixed and mastered by: Gabriele Pala
Artwork: Edoardo Sartori
Shapeless (8.5 / 10)
05 Nov 2000 - - Discography,Official albums
Perhaps, my most representative musical work so far.
This album contains all the elements that I always want to find in music: complexity, deviated riffs and melodies, horrorific keyboards, different types of voice, insane lyrics and a lot of virtuosity in the rhythmic section.
All the songs were written in few months in 1998 with the help of Marco Colella, a professional pianist living in our area. Marco, along the years, entered and leaved the band several times. He quit right before we entered the studio for the recordings, so I tried to play his part at my best at that time.
This was our first experience of a full studio recording. Everything was made at Fear Studio, in Alfonsine, by Gabriele Ravaglia and Riccardo “Paso” Pasini. All the music you hear has been recorded good on the first take, without any kind of click track or editing.
The recorded material remained in a sort of limbo for a couple of years, then it was published worldwide by the Italian label The 12th Planet Records.
Right after the official release, we stared being flooded by congratulation messages from all over the Earth. Now, even after more than 20 years, I’m still getting messages from people coming from a lot of countries. This is really satisfying, thank you, whoever you are!
However, the band at that time did not have the strength and maturity for the big leap, so this album remained just an iconic episode in the Italian underground music.
The final version of the CD contained also a multimedia track (at that time when internet was not mainstream it was quite common). In this track we put images, videos and a bonus tune entitled “Zeder”, that should have been included in the next upcoming work of the band.
Stefano Rumich – Drums
Roberto Sarcina – Bass
Seby Dimartino – Vocals
Gabriele Pala – Guitars, Keyboards
The official guitar transcriptions that include full tablature and solos, are available on Amazon at this link: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0D8ZQDVG6
Music: Karnak / Marco Colella
Lyrics: Seby DiMartino
Recorded, mixed and mastered by: Gabriele Ravaglia / Riccardo Pasini @ FearStudio
Artwork and logo: Edoardo Sartori
06 Nov 1999 - - Discography,Self productions
This is my first release under the moniker of Goldenseed, back in 1999.
Initially, the project was born to recycle the songs of the first demo of Subtraction (a band that lately will change its name into Karnak), entitled “Eternal”. But, from the very beginning, that idea was abandoned and something really different came out.
In those years I fell in love with the first bands that were starting to mix the classic cold scandinavian black metal sound with orchestral and electronic elements, like Emperor, Abigor, Limbonic Art and many more. I think you will recognize those influences in this music.
So, thanks to the first DAWs that came out for the hobbists and home recording and some physical synthesizer, I wrote this album. Keyboards, bass and drums were programmed and rendered through a Roland E35.
Despite its age, I still feel this album fresh and catchy.
The shrieking monster that screams throughout is really me, without any effect but reverb and compression. I think that I’m not able to do it anymore :)
Perhaps this is the most complicated music I’ve ever written.
07 Nov 1997 - - Discography,Self productions
Perverted is the first full-length Karnak album, back in 1997. It was the first time that we approached a studio recording.
The songs were heavily influenced by the main death and brutal bands of those years like Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Pestilence, Death and many more, yet we tried to give a personal touch to the music. You can listen to the first synthesizer incursions, here and there.
This release was initially recorded by Seby DiMartino, who became Karnak vocalist in the subsequent album. A first selection of songs (entitled “Void”) was mixed and mastered by Gabriele Ravaglia at Fear Studios. The complete version was mixed and mastered by me some years later.
Even if many years have passed, I’m still tied to these songs and I think that some of the most impressive guitar solos I did so far are present in this album.
Gabriele Pala – Guitars, keyboards
Ivan Rassu – Fretless bass
Francesco Ponga – Guitars, vocals
Stefano Rumich – Drums
Music and lyrics: Karnak
Recorded by: Seby DiMartino @ Cranial Studio
Mixing, mastering: Gabriele Pala
Artwork, logo: Gabriele Pala