DARK TRANQUILITY’s Niklas Sundin Shares Brand New Video From Upcoming Solo-Project MITOCHONDRIAL SUN

Known as a founding member and guitarist of Grammy nominated, Swedish metal masters Dark Tranquillity, Niklas Sundin is set to release his first solo album ever! After 15 albums and 30 years as a metal guitarist, Mitochondrial Sun is Sundin’s first public foray into different musical realms: Created with support from the Swedish Arts Council, the self-titled debut album is a diverse offering of atmospheric and darkly cinematic music where the songs differ wildly in expression and sonic aesthetics. The album will be seeing the light of day on February 14th 2020 on Italy’s renowned powerhouse label Argonauta Records. In addition to being a musician, Niklas is also a prolific graphic designer. This visual emphasis is transfered over to the Mitochondrial Sun project, where each song will be accompanied by an animated video further enhancing the experience and providing context. After the recent premiere of the cosmic track Nyaga ( watch the video HERE ), today Mitochondrial Sun is sharing with us another track from the upcoming record.

Says multi-talent Niklas Sundin:
“Celestial Animal” is a more organic song than the tech-y first single “Nyaga”, starting off with grand piano, cello and vocal synthesizers before transforming into a more rhythmical piece that seeks to invoke a sense of “futuristic nostalgia” – a retro vision of the future if you will.

The music has a lot of processed field recordings and samples, and I wanted a similar “layered” approach for the video, which features lots of lo-fi footage with little ambition to appear slick or polished. The imagery is often distorted and repurposed, and the general idea is to use symbol laden visuals that trigger the imagination of the viewer rather than presenting a clear storyline.

I’m very grateful to the crew of contributing musicians: The drum programming was handled by Dark Tranquillity keyboard wizard Martin Brändström and the string arrangements and playing were done by Annika Blomfeldt. Anders Lagerfors added another layer of atmosphere with his careful mixing and mastering work.“