Angtoria

History

In November 2001 when singer Sarah Jezebel Deva (Mortiis, Therion, Cradle of Filth), and composer Chris Rehn (Abyssos) met each other on tour. Since life on the road means spending a lot of time with everyone concerned, their friendship grew quickly as the tour proceeded. Conversations about music were not far at hand, and as time went by the two realized that they both had ideas about a purely orchestral project, in the vein and atmosperic spirit of movie soundtrack/film score music. Due to this they decided to start working together.

A couple of months later Sarah visited Chris in his hometown Sundsvall, Sweden to in depth discuss how they wanted the album's atmosphere to be. In late January 2002 Chris began composing the songs.

In November 2002 Sarah went back to visit Chris once again. This time the songs were composed and it was time to enter the studio. At Virtual Symphony Studios, owned by his brother and producer Tommy Rehn (Moahni Moahna), they recorded an unofficial demo intended for record labels only.

In association with MtGrave Art and Graphics they produced a limited edition exclusive dvd box packaging for the demo to send out to record labels. They got nothing but great respons for their demo all around the world, but finding a record label interested in investing in them turned out to be very difficult. Since all their connections were withing the metal scene, they were constantly asked to put distorted guitars and real drums on the songs in order for the labels to know how to market their music. Since the whole point of the project was to do an orchestral album, that wasn't interesting for Chris and Sarah.

Chris and Sarah had plans on starting a project together which would be in the same orchestral atmosphere, but more focused towards metal and with a full line up band. So the two decided to start working on that project along side with their orchestral project.

Chris wrote the songs and Sarah wrote the lyrics, and in early july 2004 Sarah went back to Sundsvall, Sweden to record vocals for their new demo. Angtoria was born. During the recording at Virtual Symphony Studios, owned by Chris' brother Tommy, Chris asked his brother to join the project.

(source: the official Angtoria website, March 2005)