Background for context:

I was always interested primarily in guitar-oriented pop, rock, punk and metal - ever since I was a kid, this was the direction my musical ideas always went in. After a couple of demos and first unofficial metal records released online as Metmass ("Divine Psychosis"), my life took a major turn in all possible personal ways at the age of 19-20. I became extremely interested in experimentation, spiritual scrutiny, soundscapes and expressing raw emotion, all in the midst of life-changing decisions (moving out, going to university etc) and all fueled by mind-altering discoveries.

The result is "Isolation" - a de facto debut full length Metmass album, although in reality it's a compilation of the essential tracks from that time, originally released as "Winter/Spring 2010 Sessions" + a bunch of EP's.

Anyway, back to the record:

Musically, it's all clean electric guitars with reverbs and delays, playing with colorful melodies and harmonies, as a companion to images of the night sky. If this record had full artwork, it would be dozens of pictures of deep space taken using the Hubble Telescope. A lot of the record was largely improvised and done very quickly, usually the song was finished the same evening it had been started - the point was honest, raw, unfiltered and IMMEDIATE expression and fulfillment with no second guessing.

There is barely any production to speak of, it's literally a couple tracks of guitars recorded directly from a Zoom GFX-1 processor into the soundcard of my PC, with basic panning and volume tweaks. I'm pretty sure I didn't even consider EQ at that time, just played through some presets that I liked. It was a very instinctual, quick and direct process with no knowledge or awareness whatsoever, which had its benefits as I would not be distracted by anything other than pure expression.

"Isolation" is the only Metmass album performed solely on guitar (ok, track 11 is keyboard-only) - next EP "Otherworld" would introduce fully electronic production and that would remain as the fundament going forward, as I kept exploring different shades of that. So the detour in my musical interests actually became "the main thing" for a couple of years as far as my recorded output goes - although I was playing in a metal band at the time and writing material there too, as well as writing A LOT of guitar music in general (much of which I've still never done). After a while I would eventually come back to guitar/vocals (plus began writing lyrics) as the main focus for the acoustic project Sokólski and eventually would go full circle back to punk and metal with Plan Minimum, almost ten years after.

"Isolation" is a very minimalistic and mellow solitary trip through empty space. From perspective it is very clear that this was a documentation of an identity crisis coming from being completely lost and emotionally confused after stepping into adulthood with various ongoing and unresolved issues - many of which would probably be exorcized 2 years later with High Limiter. The record is sad, yearning, hopeful and lonely; it served as solace and raw, honest expression at that time. As the creator, it is difficult to really sink in this album again as it marks a hard time to go back to, which doesn't necessarily make this a fun listen - but that is exactly the reason why I think it's important and a good true representation of the reality there and then.