Photo Credit: Roberta Lo Schiavo.

Traditionally Brutal has always covered rougher material in the vein of industrial music and hardened dance beats. Something that’ll make you sweaty on the dancefloor or at least something that’ll make you disassociate while staring into the void as you sit on your bed and question all of your life’s decisions. Every once in a while, however, we like to take it easy. To chill. To meditate. To relax. And we do that with a bit of ambiance. Italian producer ATMAEN is the latest ambient producer who strolled across our desk and does she have some melancholic synths that’ll get you nice and cozy. And we get to know her a bit on today’s edition of INTRODUCING.

Give us a brief about your band. Who are you and what do you do?

I am a singer, a songwriter, a voice teacher, a holistic sound professional and a voice researcher from Italy. I am interested in all kinds of traditional and folk music and I’ve done research in ethnomusicology and anthropology of music, focusing on ritualistic, sacred and shamanic chanting.
I am trained in modern singing, early music singing, Gregorian chants singing, Irish traditional singing, overtone singing and I am currently studying and practicing extreme vocals. I also play the frame drum.

When did you first launch the project and how has it come along since?

I founded ATMAEN in 2022, as a solo project. The first album called “Canto Sagrado” was released in March 2024 as a digital release. Then the Italian label Inertial Music got interested in it and helped me release a deluxe digipak physical version that includes three electronic remixes and all the beautiful images that Niklas Sundin has created for the cover artwork and the singles. I’m very happy with the response to the album. Almost all songs have been featured (and keep getting featured) in very interesting genre specific playlists all around the world, and the album’s received very positive reviews from specialized press and media.

What bands and artists influenced you the most and why?

This is a difficult questions. I am a huge fan of ambient music, electronic music, ethnic and folk music, melodic death and doom metal and everything in between. I’m also deeply interested in sound design, sound installations and in the world of live electronics. Regarding specific artists or bands, I think I should mention Vangelis for his groundbreaking use of reverbs and sound effects as a crucial element within the composition. Then I should mention Moya Brennan and Sandy Danny for their incredible voices and for recording stunning renditions of the most beautiful Irish and English folk songs. Then I’d like to mention my favorite metal bands, like Dark Tranquillity and Paradise Lost for showing what it means to write meaningful, soulful and emotionally intense music.

If you could pick a single song from your discography to explain your music, which song would you pick and why?

I think it would be “Feathers in the sky”, the first single from the debut album. Even though I’m now going into a more instrumental and ambient direction, I believe that “Feathers in the sky” still represents my music as a whole pretty well because it contains all the crucial elements of it: nice melodies, atmospheric soundscapes, different voice tones, and a strong ritualistic / meditation / spiritual vibe.

What is your most recent release and what is it about?

I’ve just released a single titled “Blue Ghost”. It’s the first single from an upcoming EP called “Lullabies from the Dark Ether”, which will be released on 12th December via Inertial Music.
The new single, “Blue Ghost” is an ethereal and atmospheric song. An invitation to gently drift into dreams, a preparation for the journey. It invites the listener to experience the special energy when day turns into night, guided by a piano that sounds like it’s coming to us from another dimension, yet speaks directly to the souls.

The EP as a whole is some kind of journey through meditation music. I believe it can be a good companion to cross the line between the state of consciousness we experience during our everyday life and the one we experience while we are falling asleep and drifting into dream. It’s a very particular threshold. Many cultures and traditions think it’s a special moment, when the veil between worlds is lifted and our perception is greatly expanded. The guiding character here is an ethereal, metaphysical owl that carries the sleeper/dreamer on a flight through the night sky, from the world of matter to the world of the invisible, from the depths of the subconscious to the limitless spaces of the universal mind…

Take us through your creative process. How do you compose a song from start to finish? Where do the ideas come from?

For me, the creation of a song can follow many different paths. Sometimes everything starts with a melody that suddenly appears while I’m singing freely or improvising on the piano. Sometimes it’s an emotion, an image that I want to portray with sound. I often find my inspiration in a sound itself. I love spending time experimenting with synths and virtual instruments and letting the sound take me to different places. Wherever the first spark of the song might come from, I then start building from that. I always look for a melody that’s the signature of the song, so to say. It can be a vocal line or an instrumental one, maybe for piano or for a lead synth. I also set the general tone right from the start, choosing the main instruments that will create the soundscape. That’s one of the things I like the most, given my passion for sound design. Once the core ideas and the vibe are there, I start building the structure of the song (my music doesn’t generally follow the verse / refrain / bridge format) and then I work on arrangements.

I make demos (which are actually pretty close to the final song), record proper vocals if needed and then I go to the studio for mixing. That’s actually my favorite thing to do. It’s amazing how a good mix can change your song for the better and truly make it shine. Mixing this type of music is not easy because there’s a lot of “empty space” between sounds and you need to take care of it because it’s a very important element with a crucial role. With my long time friend and great mixing engineer Francesco Altare, we work on every detail, spending a lot of time on reverbs, sound spatialisation, and making sure that the whole song sounds balanced and organic.

What’s your current favorite song, band, or album within your scene? And vice versa, what do you enjoy the most that’s completely opposite of what you make?

I have recently fallen in love with Osi and the Jupiter, a wonderful trio from the US that make atmospheric neo-folk music. I’ve been lucky enough to see them live and it was a magical experience! Speaking of music that’s very far from what I do, I am truly enjoying a jazz / world music artist from Italy called Mila Trani, who’s just released a very interesting album called “Menta Selvatica”.

What is on the horizon for your project? Upcoming gigs, tours, merch, videos, etc. Name it, link it, show it off.

Performing live in a traditional setting is a bit complicated, but I often present my music in holistic events, where I play acoustic versions of my songs as a part of sound healing sessions. I’ve also partnered with a writer who blends spirituality, history, and fiction in her books. We’re developing a musical experience tied to her storytelling, and there’s a little tour across Italy planned in 2026.

There will be videos on YouTube for the upcoming singles, which will be released on 24th October and 14th November. The video for Blue Ghost is available on YouTube. And then, who knows? Maybe this EP will be released on physical format at some point, maybe on vinyl…