Interview: New Risen Throne

Date: 05/07/2025

Place: Zagreb, Croatia

I have been listening to dark ambient and visiting related gigs and concerts for the better part of two decades, and yet, New Risen Throne was the one act on my bucket list that had thus far escaped me in a live setting. I was introduced to the genius of Gabriele Panci, the mastermind behind the project, with his debut album Whispers of the Approaching Wastefulness, which came out on Cyclic Law way back in 2007, a period that I still consider the golden era of the label. In the 18 years since, New Risen Throne has released only a handful of full-length albums, constantly evolving its story and sound while remaining unmistakably recognisable and rather unique in a scene increasingly saturated with post-apocalyptic motives. Therefore, when New Risen Throne was announced for Ambientalika IV in Zagreb, I bit the bullet and travelled to Croatia to see the gig, meet the artist and have a chat about everything that has transpired, recently and less so. Gabriele was most obliging, perhaps aided by the fact that we conducted the conversation in Italian, which allowed me to enjoy his wonderfully Roman accent in addition to the conversation itself.

The first item on the menu, perhaps unsurprisingly, was Between Ecstasy and Death, the fantastic joint album with Phragments that recently came out on Winter-Light. Not the most obvious of collaborations, considering the stylistic differences between the two projects.

I very rarely play live, but when I do, I like to get involved with friends or acquaintances from the scene that I hold in high regard. One such occasion was the Hradby Samoty festival in Bratislava, Slovakia, where I played in November 2023. Knowing that Phragments happens to be based in Bratislava, I thought it would be fun to propose collaborating on a part of my set. I had known Phragments since forever, and despite his approach and vision being very different from my own, I highly respected his musical output. Therefore, he joined me on stage in Bratislava and improvised his part on one of my tracks. I loved how it sounded, and the track from that night made it to the actual album almost unchanged.

It's quite a big leap from collaborating on one track in a live setting to a full-blown joint album, though.

The funny thing is that the idea wasn't even ours; it was Mark from Winter-Light who suggested it. I still remember the exact moment - as we were eating, we received a message from Mark (who had presumably seen one of the videos in circulation from that evening) telling us that if we ever decided to collaborate on something together, he would be happy to release it. This one simple email in all of two sentences sowed the seeds of Between Ecstasy & Death.

Most artists in this situation would be happy to do a split release and call it a day. Not these two, however.

Sure, we could have done a simple split, like many others do, with each artist contributing his part. However, I really liked what Phragments contributed to my track, particularly the way he integrated the orchestration. That's how we came upon the idea of doing the whole album in the same vein - we would each create two tracks, named Ecstasy and Death respectively, before submitting them to be reworked by the other. I'd say that the resulting tracks are 70% one artist and 30% the other (and vice versa). I am extremely happy with the result, I genuinely like how unique the music turned out. Every time I listen to the album, I am amazed by the contribution of Phragments to my Death, and I'm very fond of how I modified his version of Ecstasy as well.

I couldn't help but notice that this release was New Risen Throne's first since The Outside came out five years ago - an album that itself came out after a nine-year break following Loneliness of Hidden Structures. In an era of relative hyperproduction, this seems like a particularly glacial pace for putting out new albums.

It’s sadly just a matter of work - or lack thereof. I started my professional career as a web designer, only to switch to making video games with a small company in Rome. Unfortunately, the latter went bankrupt at one point due to a lack of funds, so I was left jobless for a significant amount of time. As anyone who ended up out of work knows, the process of looking for a new job while doing everything and anything to survive in the meantime is not easy, so it was difficult to focus on making music in the midst of it all. It was never a question of inspiration; while I had an office job, I was able to put out albums every two years or so. Nevertheless, The Outside was also born out of these nine years of turmoil, and I think the album was actually aided by this pause in a certain sense. Of course it wouldn’t have taken me nine years for a new album in regular circumstances, but the situation also gave me a lot more time to think about the album itself; it gave me the necessary emotional distance to be able to work on it without rushing anything. What I realised after this experience is that being able to conceptualise a release and giving it more time to grow and develop is beneficial to the end result.

As a fan, these types of statements always make me fearful regarding the timeline for future releases. Luckily, Gabriele says not to worry.

The next album is practically complete, as well as the accompanying video, parts of which you were able to see during the performance tonight. As for the release date, however, I can't tell you anything except it will come out whenever it comes out. We all know that Frédéric (the owner of Cyclic Law) operates on long timeframes, and truth be told, I can't blame him considering what a busy schedule he has, not only putting out so many albums and taking care of the label's activities, but also being actively involved in the mastering process for many of them.

One peculiarity of New Risen Throne is that all of its albums are conceptual, with an abstract, but clear storyline. The next one will be no different.

I absolutely love reading. Sadly, I do it a lot less since I’ve been back to full-time employment. In the past, I used to be a commuter, so I had a lot more time to read on the train on my way both to and from the office. Like the novels I usually read, I also consider my musical output to be a saga divided into different chapters. It feels like cataloguing in a way. I am not a writer, but I like to treat my music as if I was one by creating a singular story with different facets, although this makes my albums more like spin-offs than traditional linear chapters. The concepts are often parallel to each other, but always part of the same story, or lore if you prefer. For example, The Outside is a very important album for me in this sense, both personally and conceptually. Its release ended up almost prophetic by pure coincidence; the album came out in February 2020. It tells the story of an unknown phenomenon that decimates humanity, and the few remaining humans that emerge from centuries of isolation to make a big journey in order to discover what the reasons behind their near-extinction actually were. in March of the same year, the COVID quarantine came into effect.

Every story has a beginning and an end, but it seems that New Risen Throne's is nowhere near completion. In fact, Gabriele is considering branching out into new media formats. Having noticed the sheer quality of his video backdrop, I can't say I'm surprised.

One thing that I did with The Outside and that I also plan to do for future releases is virtual reality. I don’t know if you are familiar with Massimo Magrini of Bad Sector; we have been cooperating on some projects dealing with VR. My current job is with a major video game company, so I spend most of my day working on two video games in concurrent development, specifically their environment. By working on these, I am stimulating my own creative process, a manifestation of which you could also see in the video backdrop of the show. Of course, the work I do on my own is very different from my professional activities, as the latter are much more mainstream in nature, but the skillset I've developed definitely makes it easier to bring my vision to reality. Working on a personal project of this scale is something that consumes a lot of time, but I have done so much freelance work in my life that at this point I feel like can do almost anything related to graphics, including animation. Once the project is 100% complete, I plan to make it available on the Meta Store, so that fans who have the appropriate equipment can enjoy it.

Meanwhile, we can at least enjoy glimpses of it in New Risen Throne's live performances, such as the one I witnessed in Zagreb. I can attest to the fact that it is a transformative experience, completely unlike simply listening to the music at home.

I was just talking about that with Peppe (of Vestigial), a guy I have known for a ridiculously long time but haven't met in person until now, even though we live in the same city. Despite our differences in style, I could see that there were many analogies in how we approach a live performance. For me specifically, 70% of my set is already pre-recorded and simply played live, as the tracks have to be created in advance by definition, but the remaining 30% are created in real time. It would be impossible to improvise an entire dark ambient track on my own in a live setting, and the 30% that I create live are practically all drones. I just love creating drones in real time; I leave the melodies on loop while focusing on manipulating the drones. Needless to say, the visual part is just as fundamental to me as the sonic one. I dedicate an insane amount of time to it, because I want to create an experience that is as immersive as possible. Immersion is so incredibly important, as Peppe showcased tonight, and hopefully so have I.

I insist that there is nothing hopeful about it; New Risen Throne's video backdrop is an utterly impressive piece, most of it made in a single continuous shot lasting over 30 minutes, a gargantuan piece of work in its own right.

There is a strong motive of journey, and the backdrop intentionally proceeds slowly in order to emphasise the feeling of walking, not running through the storyline. I love the inherent dichotomy in this genre; dark ambient listened to with headphones at home and dark ambient in a live setting are obviously two very different experiences. In isolation, the individual has the full liberty of imagination based on the music; in a live setting, however, you as the performing artist are bound to leave a certain imprint of your own. In a way, I feel like I'm imposing my own vision on the audience a little bit, like a projection of my own thoughts onto the listeners. How you interpret that vision is entirely up to you, though.

Individuality aside, New Risen Throne is just one of many Italian dark ambient acts. Italy is a scene that has given the world many quality acts in dark ambient and related genres, comparable only to Scandinavia in European terms. That said, I've always had the feeling that Italy lacks a certain cohesion that is almost palpable in the Scandinavian scene.

There are indeed many quality dark ambient acts from Italy, including of course Vestigial, my labelmate and ally in tonight's performance, but also acts such as the recluse Neraterrae, who I have collaborated with, but haven't actually heard from in a while. Despite the relative size of the country itself, the Italian scene has always felt somehow small, and many of us were united by the mere fact of releasing on Cyclic Law rather than geography, even though I know many others who are independent or releasing on other labels. I myself am not exclusive to Cyclic Law, in fact, and I love collaborating with other labels. For example, The Outside came out as a collaboration of Cyclic Law and Old Europa Café, an absolutely historic and very peculiar Italian label; even though they release music in the same macrocosm, they tend to do very strange releases, much more industrial in nature. Their flagship event, Il Congresso Post-Industriale, is one of the most important festivals in the alternative Italian music scene of today. So there is a strong scene; it might just be more varied and consequently less cohesive at first sight than the Scandinavian one.

Rather than continue to dwell on the past, I decided to end my flurry of questions by focusing on the future, so I inquired what the future holds in store for The New Risen throne - at least the foreseeable one.

The next album is ready awaiting to be unleashed upon the world, and I’ve already begun working on another one, slated for release on Glacial Movements. That is another Italian label that has been releasing very interesting stuff; the basic concept of the label revolves around releases related to a journey of some kind. Therefore, the album that will be released for them is also conceptually very different versus what I normally release on Cyclic Law, like another spin-off, this time based on ice and glacial wastelands, a new sonic environment that I’ve never tried my hand in before - very isolationist, very frigid. As I said before, I do not feel pressed to either conclude the voyage of New Risen Throne or even to release new chapters in the story. I also have some nice guest artists lined up for the album in question: Desiderii Marginis will be involved, and I will also try to get in touch with Justin Broadrick through the label.

I did a double take there, wondering if Gabriele was really referring to the frontman of Godflesh.

I’m aware that it’ll probably be impossible, but I’ve decided to try anyway. He is one of the most genius contemporary artists across any musical genre in my view, I know and appreciate all projects that he’s been involved in - Godflesh for one, which I’m a massive fan of - but also his other industrial work. I have loved Godflesh from the moment I heard Streetcleaner, and to me, the band is the pinnacle of the industrial genre, industrial exactly as it should be, and the same goes for the first album of Jesu. So to be able to cooperate with him would definitely be the pinnacle of my musical career. Fingers crossed.