Mariusz Duda, or as we call him around these parts, The Duda, never stays still for very long.  From various solo projects and his band Riverside, it seems that he always has something going on.  The fruits of his most recent labor, The World Under Unsun by Lunatic Soul, can be found in your trick-or-treat bag upon its release tomorrow, Halloween 2025. 

Ahead of The Duda’s latest release, we were fortunate once again to catch up with him and talk for a while.  We spent plenty of time discussion the new album, but also delved into the fate of Lunatic Soul itself, the creative process, and some of the other future possibilities for The Duda’s artistic output. 

I can tell you it was a great conversation, but you would be better served to just read on and see for yourself as you dig into your Halloween candy.  So let’s get on with it.

SoC:     In a recent Facebook post, you said the current album is somewhat of a prequel to Walking on a Flashlight Beam.  Can you elaborate on both albums and the connection between the two?

MD:     Oh my goodness. I’m not sure if they have time for that, but long story short. The whole concept, it’s called The Circle of Life and Death. That have six main albums, and we have two additional ones. Their albums are put on the circle, are in the circle, and three of them are on the side of death, and three of them are on the side of life. Okay, it’s kind of definitely side of life, because this story is about the journey, about the hero who dies. He travels to the afterlife, then he revives, going back to life. And then he dies again, and then going back to life and stuff like that.  He is just in a loop. Okay. That is why on The World Under Unsun, there is a song which is called Loop of Fate. Anyway, I wanted something about the loop. And there’s the thing, that he wants to escape from this loop, and that’s the main plot of the whole album.

In general, if you listen in a proper order, it’s like: the main character dies at the beginning of Lunatic Soul I, then Lunatic Soul II, then Through Shaded Woods, and then he goes on the side of life. We have Fractured, we have Under the Fragmented Sky, and some of the most depressing ones. In work on the plot, the main character, you know, jumps off the cliff into the waves, as you can see on the prophecy. He dies in the water.  It’s basically a story about reviving and changing.

The thing is The World Under Unsun is post‑Fractured why the first song sounds like Fractured and is a prequel to Walking on a Flashlight Beam.  That why the waves you hear at the start of this album are the same waves you hear at the beginning of Walking the Flashlight Beam. Everything is connected. We don’t have to go into all the details, but the main character is an artist who always has a choice: does he want to remember his previous life or not? He always chooses to lose his memories, which is why he is forgotten in the whole world.

On the Impressions album, there is the song “Gravestone Hill” which reveals the main character’s choice. Imagine you’re an artist: you don’t want to lose your memories because you want to remember the best things you created and develop them across lives. However, you always remember how you die—that’s the problem. He asks himself, should I be afraid of the waves this time again? Long story short, he’s in a circle. One time, when he’s on the side of life, he realizes the sun doesn’t look like the sun anymore;  something has changed and the world becomes darker and darker. It’s like Back to the Future II when Marty doesn’t belong in the place he knows. The album reflects that feeling. The title The World Under Unsun reflects the hero’s mental state: he doesn’t feel well, he’s in a toxic relationship and wants to leave it. The whole process of trying to get out of this place is on the album.

SoC: Is that kind of a metaphor for something in your life as an artist?

MD:  I guess there is always something connecting the fiction with the truth.  I usually use music as a form of therapy, and the fiction is always mixed with fragments of my personal life. I don’t keep an exact ratio, you don’t need to know the exact percentage of that mixture.  That’s only my own thing.

SoC: Do you even know it?

MD: I know it (laughs).  It’s like, in one song, there is 16% of my personal life and 84% fiction  – I’m just joking.  No, but I try to balance it in a proper way.

SoC: Shifting gears, when you come up with a concept, how do you decide on the style of music that is the foundation?  For example, on the previous Lunatic Soul, Through Shaded Wood, it was very folky.  This one is more electronic.  So what is it that drives you that says “I’m going to go this way with the music”?

MD:  I guess I started this project mostly to fill it with my favorite genres. If you, uh, think about it, it’s always connected with ambient cinematic kind of stuff, a bit of electronic music, folk oriental things, and rock, maybe a bit of metal type of thing.  So that’s it. So this is the whole Lunatic Soul.  And, I think the new album shows the entire range of genres because you can find all these elements in the music.  And then there were the albums that were more oriental than the others, like Lunatic Soul 1 and 2 more like that condensed. Then there was Fractured, which was more electronic. And Through Shaded Would was more folky, more organic.

Yeah. I just wanted to, you know, this is just like, some albums should have their own identities., I was really close to one border on another album. I was really close to another border. But it’s more about this connection between electronic music, folk oriental stuff and rock.

I believe that the new album is more um, rock oriented or even alternative oriented. I don’t know. There’s more distortion. With some exceptions, of course. And it’s dark.

When I start doing an album, I always start from the story, the cover, the title, but it’s just like writing the script of the movie that you want to direct or just preparing a concept for book that you want to write.  And this is what I do. I don’t think about, I don’t keep coming up with the ideas first and then I, oh, maybe I should do something with that. No, I just, I’m telling stories. I’m just creating the stories. And then I always, I want to make them a bit different than the others. So I said, okay, so this one should be more electronic because it’s about fractured. Uh, it’s a world, uh, so if it’s fractured, there’s a, there’s lots of sharp objects. So I see this more like electronic stuff.

And if it comes from the green color connected with woods, trees, organic stuff, let’s make it more organic or folky. So everything starts with the, you know, the title, the main vibe. And I’m just following this and that’s it.

SoC:  So you did say that, you know, out of the 8 Lunatic Soul albums, 6 of them are telling the story. Which ones are not part of the story?

All albums are the part of the story, but the Impressions album that was released after Lunatic Soul 1 and 2 and Under the Fragmented Sky, they are sort of like the bonus material for the albums, the main albums.  Impressions is like something connected with Lunatic Soul 1 and 2.  And the three of them are kind of connected. And Under the Fragmented Sky, these are the leftovers from Fractured. And the bonus for Through Shaded Woods was already on the album. I didn’t do the separate release because I have it ready already on the album at that time. Yeah.  The leftovers for Impressions or Under the Fragmented Sky were not ready yet. So that’s why I just released that later on.

And this time, I didn’t want to do another bonus material. I wanted to create the classic double album, for people who have time to listen to music these days.

SoC:  So you set out to create the double album?

MD: Yes, from the very beginning. Okay. It was very important for me because I first  wanted to fill the gaps with all these, you know, answers for the questions. Speaking of the plot, the story. And also I wanted to show all the genres, and I just thought that if I do, you know, the 50 minutes long album with all these, you know, electronic, folky mental stuff, it would be too intense, too much for it to be a pleasure to listen to. So I just said that maybe if I do more space here, do more space there, and extend this, it will be more natural. We don’t have to be in a rush. You know, we can create something longer.

So tell me, someone can tell me, these days, it’s really hard to play to record that kind of long because people don’t have time to listen to them. Then don’t listen to them!

The album for the people who have time to listen to music. So I don’t care if this is 40 minutes or 90. But on the other hand, the previous album, 3 Shade Woods, had 39 minutes, so come on, I know what, how to do short albums as well.

SoC:  Well, also, Riverside ADHD was only what, 47?

MD: 44

SoC: Getting back to the concept of the present album, I know part of it’s the story, but do you think some of it is kind of informed by what is going on in the world? There’s a lot of turmoil going on. Is that affecting your character or affecting how you’re writing these things?

Um, actually, I always have 3 layers in terms of writing lyrics. The 1st layer is actual, the fiction, the story that I’m coming up with. The 2nd phase, it’s my personal life, my personal experience. The 3rd is, uh, what’s going on all over the world. You know, the outside world. It has to be important sometimes because, you know, I don’t know.  Let’s say, if there is a war, I don’t want to record the album that doesn’t fit to this whole situation. Yeah. Well, um, all these layers are blended sort of the way. I try to avoid political subjects.  However, from time to time, I do this. ID Entity [the most recent Riverside album] was full of that. But it was also very direct. Yeah. Whereas between Riverside and Lunatic Soul is that Lunatic Soul is more metaphysical, more like, you know, inner journey. And um, uh, that is why I didn’t want to write about, like, on social media, for instance. It’s more about live, death, love, loneliness, solid, some mystical things.

And, there’s one song, uh, which is called Torn in Two. I have to admit, I wrote the lyrics after, um, the results of the presidential election in Poland.  So, yeah, the thing, like, and it was inspired by, let’s say, something that was outside than inside.

SoC:  Ok, I’ve seen some things online – word is that this is the last Lunatic Soul album – is that true?  If so, what drove the decision to make this the last album?

MD: There’s a beauty of PR, you know, beauty of public relations. This is the chapter of the story, right? Yeah. So sometimes I don’t have to add that this is the word chapter. This is the last look. So it sounds much more powerful in the news. I believe that this is the, but I agree. This is the last Lunatic Soul in that form. Okay. And if I will bring Lunatic Soul back to life, it will be different kind of form. If I can just, you know, it’s like, for instance, King Crimson. That’s a good example of the lineups, the vibes, the moods, the approach to music. So maybe he will not be so. And next life he will have electric guitar because, uh, that’s very important information for many people that they don’t know Lunatic Soul. This is the project without the electric guitar. I wanted to distinguish this from Riverside. I didn’t want to have those, you know, David Gilmour kind of solos.  In music, I made these limits mostly to trying to be try to make myself innovative and creative in different areas. So that’s a reason for that.

SoC:  So what you’re saying then is we might see something else that has the title of Lunatic Soul, but it’s not necessarily going to be within this story.

MD:  Maybe this is story of life and death is done. So, uh, I’m not sure if, for instance, if Lunatic Soul will exist somewhere else, if I would change everything: “Now I will talk about social media.” No, no. The thing is that this kind of music from different kind of dimensions, I like it very much. I would like to continue this vibe, but definitely it will be different kind of story.

SoC:  So that leads me to: What’s next? Might there be another Lunatic Soul album, but outside this story, might there by another Mariusz Duda solo album or something like that?

MD:  I don’t know that yet. Now it is completed the cycle. The last song of the last, let’s say, Lunatic Soul of this cycle is The New End. It’s a reference to the first song on the first album, which was The New Beginning. Yeah. Can you begin with the new end? So this is something that I always use, for instance, in Riverside, we had After, Before, Lost and Found, The Night Before, now we have The New Beginning and The New End. The circle is closed. What’s next? We will see what the future brings.

SoC: Do you think you’ll do more cycles? You did that with the first three  Riverside albums and then the second three could be kind of a cycle as well. And then Lunatic Soul here has been a cycle. So you really want people to listen for a long time!

MD: I also did in the pandemic, I did some kind of like very initial electronic project and I did like something just called the Lockdown Trilogy. Oh, yeah, that’s right. That was another trilogy. That’s some weird experimental music instrumental. Probably, yes. It’s always nice. It’s just like, you know, when you, I like series. Yeah. I’m a huge movie fan and I’m inspired by the cinema. I’m always cherish, you know, if the director or the creator on the scriptwriter, they have something like, you know, five parts of something, four parts of something, Rocky, Rambo, Back to the Future, Star Wars, whatever. Harry Potter. It’s cool.   It’s simply cool because on the shelf it looks nice and it’s a part of something bigger, right?

SoC: I remember when I talked to you another time after Wasteland [the Riverside album of the same name], you were, you’d been kind of inspired by the spaghetti westerns and the music had a lot of the spaciousness of the sound.

MD: We had the trilogy, right? It’s yeah. So probably, yes! All right. Probably yes.

SoC: Okay, well, looking forward to it how you record something when you’re like the only player? You’re the only guy doing an instrument. So how do you manage to have all those tracks playing in your head and then get them down on tape or recorded somehow?

MD: I have I have guests on this album, on drums, on saxophone, and to the guitar. So I didn’t play everything by myself. But most of the things I did by myself, yeah. It started with my love for electronic music when I was a kid. And my love to keyboards with sequencer. It’s the fact that I started to compose the songs by myself, having the sequencer at home.

So I just, you know, started from drums [vocalizes drum sounds].  Okay. And now it’s at bass [vocalizes bass sounds].  Okay, we’ve got it. Now keyboards [vocalizes keyboard sounds]. And I did always the same, and my sequencer is in my brain. And when I create that, I always put some layers, you know. I don’t have use keyboards anymore. I’m going to the studio and see those layers and if there’s something that I can play by myself, I do this by myself. If I want to achieve something else, then I ask someone to make it.

So that’s the thing, you know, that’s the problem with me. Sometimes I find it like a virtue, sometimes it’s a flaw. Because I’m not that kind of guy who’s just taking an instrument and let’s play for fun. I always had to create something, you know, like something bigger. But I liked it. I got used to this and of course, it’s cool stuff. During the stories, this is just like writing books, you know, when I see that Stephen King wrote another book and I said, my goodness, I need to record another album. That is why I don’t like this system that’s going on in the music business. Like, you’re listening an album, and then you have to go for two years for playing live shows because you need to earn money.  What about the art of creation? What happened? Why in the 70s, for Christ’s sake, people were releasing the albums every year or why the Beatles released two albums every year? What’s going on? Why? Why can’t I be in the studio all the time? Because I have to play shows.

So I’m being a rebel and sometimes I prefer to be more in the studio. I know that some people says, yeah, but what about the money? If you do lots of stuff in the studio, you can have the money as well.  I don’t want to have the house with the pool. in the suburbs. I’m pretty happy with my average life. It’s just the fact that I don’t have these urges inside of me that they’re crazy. So that’s the thing that I truly love doing stuff and recording. And as I said before, this is like my therapy. So it helps me. To not take pills. So I have to do this.

SoC: Well, that’s a good therapy. I’m glad you’re doing that because we can enjoy that much more than we would enjoy you taking pills!

MD: Thank you!

SoC: I guess we’ll wrap it up. Do you have any other projects lined up or anything you’re thinking about doing after this?

MD: And you know, I was thinking you’ll maybe go back to my electronic world, but this time after this album, I feel that I have an urge with me that it’s, I want to go back to songs. I want to go back to something organic, especially in the AI days. I’m not sure if I want to continue this, you know, instrumental projects because AI can make it. But I think it still struggles with the basic classic normal songs that comes from your heart. So I want to focus on the classic structures of the songs and, well, we’ll see, which name it would be.

But with Riverside I wanted to take a break now, especially from the live shows, which is really important for me. I turned 50 this year, so I kind of deserve to make a time to rethink something. Always have to be this way. Like, I don’t know, lockdown or COVID forces us to stop. Yeah. So I did force myself to just stop. Yeah, but I probably want to create something new, but maybe, as we said, the new shape of Lunatic Soul will appear. Okay.

In Poland, I do some kind of promotional meetings, meet and greet kind of stuff. I should do that in more countries. But, you know, this is another limit. And I’m going to play, I talk about the album. I’m going to play like a few tracks acoustically as well. So maybe that will be like the transition to something new. We’ll see.

SoC: Thanks again for talking to us and I hope I hope to hear from you again someday very soon.

MD: Thank you so much, Erik, for your time. Wish you all the best. Thank you very much. Bye bye.