Owl Lights by ANOJA

ANOJA is the main musical project of French musicians Raoul Vignal and Pierre-Hugues Hadacek.

The pair met at the ENM of Villeurbanne in 2006 during their final year of high school. After graduating, they started a punk metal band called The Pretty Hate Machines and subsequently played in the Lyon underground scene for three years before disbanding.

A real musical chemistry developed between the two, and they decided to work as a duo from then on. Their love of ambient and doom metal prompted them to start a new project in 2011: Volcan. The goal was to produce intrinsically violent music while remaining melodic at heart.

After a gap year, the pair relocated to Berlin in 2013 and quickly set to work on new material inspired by bands such as The Body, Pallbearer, or Lord Mantis. Material was recorded but never released.

Around 2014, heavy guitar and drum jams in the rehearsal room on the outskirts of town slowly gave way to acoustic guitar and synth sonic explorations, conducted from the coziness of a bedroom carpet floor. These sessions would become the foundation of what would eventually be ANOJA.

In February 2015, they released a debut EP under the moniker Volcan. It featured four tracks recorded in the aforementioned bedroom with the resources they had at their disposal. Conceived as a one-off release, no follow-up was ever intended; the goal remained doom metal.

That effort went under the radar, although the positive response from friends and peers pushed the duo to continue in this direction. In April 2015, Raoul and Pierre-Hugues decided to start recording a full album, with some material already drafted. Volcan was no longer a doom metal project.

As Raoul moved back to France in 2016 to pursue a solo career (having since released three albums on the French label Talitres, with Pierre-Hugues' participation as a session musician or engineer), they decided to drop the name Volcan in favor of the more fitting ANOJA, marking a new start.

The result of nearly a decade of work, ANOJA's first LP, 'Owl Lights,' is entirely self-produced by the two musicians. By either borrowing or renting equipment from friends, the album was recorded across three different countries and twice as many bedrooms, giving ANOJA's music a distinctly DIY cinematic vibe.

Blending acoustic instruments with electronic sources, ranging from the raw to the lush, 'Owl Lights' is a kaleidoscope of musical influences, a reflection of the duo's sonic endeavors—in other words, it is the soundtrack of a friendship in motion.

Raoul Vignal & Pierre-Hugues Hadacek are the two halves of ANOJA, a Berlin/Lyon based music duo and the main project of SOB Heavy Industries

SOB Heavy Industries
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