Short Bio
Niovel was created by Josefiene "Fiene" Pertosa and Simon Krajewski in 2021. They describe themselves as a metal duo, and strong influences from the power metal and symphonic metal genres are evident in their music. Pertosa's clean vocals sit on top of a rich mix of guitars and orchestra, sometimes spiced up with some synthesizer sounds. Their lyrics typically explore various loosely-connected stories in a low fantasy setting, where oftentimes the presence of a higher power can be felt.
Band Q&A
Q: Can I use your songs for my [whatever]?
A: Yes! We write our own songs and also retain the full rights to the final recordings, so you don't have to fear copyright strikes or anything of the sort for any transformative use. If the format allows it, attribution is appreciated.
Q: How did you get into metal?
A Simon: Back in the day, a friend of mine was searching online for songs about elves because she was really into that at the time. This led her to finding two songs: "Elvenpath" by Nightwish, and "The Ancient Forest of Elves" by Luca Turilli. When she shared these with me, I knew that I had found my musical destiny. Around the same time, another friend showed me "Ice Queen" by Within Temptation, which was the second point of entry.
(Fun fact: The keyboardist of Luca Turilli, Miro, is now mastering our songs!)
A Fiene: I met Simon.
Q: What instruments do you play?
A Simon: Uh, the piano, kind of...
A Fiene: Uh, the piano, kind of... But there's also a picture of me holding a hurdy-gurdy.
Q: How long have you been singing?
A Simon: I'm not singing. :|
A Fiene: Forevah! In first grade, I gave my mother a big scare because I didn’t come home from school at the expected time. After a frantic search (old-school, running and checking everywhere) she found me by a tree in a little corner park on the way.
When she asked me — rightfully angry — about what I had been doing at the tree, I answered “I sang”. I haven’t stopped since.
Q: What musical education do you have?
A Fiene: I spent most of my career as a student in schools that had special music programmes so I guess my musical education up until I graduated from high school can be described as “classical”. I played the piano, the violin, and the recorder and spent a lot of time singing in the choir.
After school, I didn’t do much with music for ten years. Then I took a “band class” in university, found the best singing teacher ever and now go to my classical singing class every week.
My formal vocal training specifically is rooted in the Bel Canto technique, very much focussing on classical pieces and operatic singing. Of course, I experiment and train “not so classical thingies to do with my voice” with the generous help of YouTube and online coaching.
A Simon: Mario Paint.
Lively Bio for Fiene
Niovel is a symphonic power metal band from Germany. It’s also Fiene and Simon. And coffee, video games, and warm socks.
We founded the band in 2021 because you have to give a “band name” when you want to release music into the wild unknown of the internet. Our official founding date is the 1st of January 2021…we even notified the tax office and got a bank account. As far as new year’s follies go, this one was as official as they come.
So, there we were, with lots of ideas and very little clue. Back at the beginning of 2021, we thought our album would be finished “some time in March”.
We were SO cute. SO optimistic, too!
Throughout 2021, we kept working and slowly but surely finished one song after another. During the second half of the year, we released two singles…and people did not hate them. Success!
It took us until December 2021 to finish that first album and, optimists that we are, we are SURE the second album will be “easier”. After all, now that we have figured out how to make our ideas sound like music, found amazing people to work with, and how not to lose five recording sessions in a file sync accident, nothing can stop us! (Except for the ghost behind the sink).
So we’ll just keep going until we run out of songs or until we run out of cabbage turnips.
[See, I wasn’t lying!]