Track By Track: Nagaarum - Apples (2018)

I believe that Isaac Newton was the greatest scientist of all time. Spirituality - was so clear to him, just as the apple would fall when dropped. Religion and science are two phenomena which became one in his mind. He said: "God gives us signs to discover the whole world".

The first track "Middle Age" represents the darkness of the Middle Ages. Isaac Newton lived in an era which still had many thoughts and ideas rooted in the middle age. These industrial noises in the track were recorded in my workplace.

The next song sparks reflection through the course of Newton's life. The theme towards the end of the track was created with the help of Betty (female vocalist). The original idea was that I would do all narrations on the album as well, but when I started to record them it felt that something wasn’t right. The speech was full of pathos or sounded too apathetic...so, Roland (the translator of the album text) had recorded the narration parts earlier to help me create the right accent for my own speech. After a while I decided that Roland’s recordings fitted better to the music. I thereby sacrificed my principle of being the one and only role through all Nagaarum albums (except female vocals).

Celestial Mechanism perceives the physics of both sky and space. I did some experimentation with the harmonic effects to give these impressions in our ears and through our souls.

In all creative works a lack of inspiration can occur sometimes. I am able to recognise this and handle it positively over the years. I used random sound method in this track, with this method producing some of the most interesting moments. The starting theme of Prism was created in this manner. Following this I felt that I could make further experimentation with my vocals. Sometimes I am on thin ice with my vocals, because my vocal-tones are not strong enough for individual parts, it needs to be polyphonic. But in this track the unusual melodies seem to work. My aim was to demonstrate Newton's fight with the glass prism, the times they believed that the prism could create colours from white light. But Newton discovered that the prism defracts the white light to all colour. He was the first scholar to conceive that white light contains all colours. Robert Hooke who was an influential member of the Royal Society laughed at this statement, which would lead to a lifetime of hostility between them both.

This hostility is displayed in the track Robert. Nagaarum's first death metal song. Roland opens it with his dramatic tone: "Mr. Newton, you shall be no scientist as long as I am here." I re-constructed the structure many times, and couldn't avoid the emerging ambient themes during the ending of the track.

The song "Hermit" portrays how Hooke, the scholar, moved away from the world following this resentment. Hooke helped Newton unwittingly, because this isolation gave Newton an opportunity to write his Theory of Gravity and the precise laws of planetary motion. He needed a new method for calculating this so he created the differential calculus, which remains the cornerstone of modern science now. These type of tracks are important for consideration and contemplation - relaxation for my ears between two harsher parts.

During this time the British Royal Society was the scientific centre of the world. Their slogan was: "Nullius in Verba" meaning "we don't believe the words". So when anybody made a scientific statement he had to find evidence for its publication. Hooke declared that he now knew how the planets moved within the Solar System but he didn't have any evidence. Edmond Halley asked him for the calculation but there were none. Newton then formulated that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centrifugal force which was inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector. Halley was surprised and started to encourage Newton to write down all of his statements to a book. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica was born.

Originally there were no drums in this track but I felt so empty without them.

Edmond tells a story about Edmond Halley which was touched upon in the last track and Betty's magnificent vocals guide the listeners. Halley was a noble-minded person, contrary to Newton and Hooke, so I had to compose a song containing more classic elements than the other ones. Halley was given command of the Paramour, a 52 feet sailing-ship, so that he could carry out investigations in the South Atlantic Ocean into the laws governing the variation of the compass. The star chart of the south was created by Halley. The constellations narrated in the middle of the track are some of the constellations which were explored by Halley. The Royal Society didn't have any money to publish Newton's masterpiece, so Halley did it at his own expense. He computed the orbit of Halley's Comet, which was named after him as a result.

In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal and symbolic interpretation of the Bible. He would have preferred to be remembered mostly for his biblical predictions. He used science to explain how God manoeuvres the world, instead of eliminating his existence. He predicted the apocalypse to take place in 2060. This track was among the first written for the album.

The most stressful and amusing song on the album is the New Tone. This track demonstrates a changed protagonist after a conflagration which destroyed part of his work, informed by a transient mental disorder for Newton. I have played the jew harp on previous recordings, but this is the first I gave it a main role in a composition. The narration by Roland and Betty is perfect. The end of the track is a black metal tornado which highlights the unstoppable advance of a scientist.

Modern history is the next track. I wanted to compose a song about modern science, which is a glory and bitterness at once. As we go ahead with advanced technology, we step backwards in our spirituality. Our endeavour makes for a godless world.

The final track the Royal Society is an ode to joy, Newton's inaugural. He can't beat his own demons and clears away all the thoughts about his early opponent Robert Hooke.

Apples is fundamentally a story of three masterminds, with the word "apple" making the connection between the human genius and God, between curiosity and sins. A strong connection and a symbol throughout these 70 minutes.