The next time I drive through Swindon I will find myself scanning the horizon for a Gothic mansion high upon a dark hill above the town. Why, you may ask? Well, I’ve just had the darkest corners of my overactive imagination stimulated by some extraordinarily compelling music from Karda Estra’s album Weird Tales.
Karda Estra is the studio project of musician and composer Richard Wileman. I can see him sitting by a dusty grand piano in that gothic pile leafing through a long forgotten volume of classic literature. These gothic tomes are, however, just one of the sources from which he draws his inspiration for the musical soundscapes he creates.
In fact, he is inspired by a whole host of equally strange and mysterious sources. Not only does he delve deeply into the world of the gothic novel but he also explores surrealistic art, gothic horror film, science fiction, the universe, and its many mysteries.
Let us start by going back in time. Not as far back as you would expect, after an introduction like that, but to 1998. This is the year that Richard began his musical quest to explore these dark places and put them to instrumental music intended to capture the very essence of their fascination.
In 2001, under the Karda Estra name, he released the album Eve. It was inspired by a short gothic story entitled The Future Eve, written by French novelist Villiers de L’Isle Adam in 1986. Two years later the album Constellations explored space and the universe as he followed one of his other paths. 2004’s Voivode Dracula saw him return to the gothic creating musical scenes from the Bram Stoker novel.
He has also released soundtrack pieces and music inspired by surrealistic art. You know that Karda Estra has got under your skin when you find yourself searching for long forgotten French novels, looking up paintings, or watching classic Hammer House of Horror films. Richard’s knowledge on all of these subjects gives the whole project a breath of authenticity which makes the music of Karda Estra so disturbingly intriguing.
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