Liner notes:

Golden Age
Nucleus Torn always take their time to complete their albums, and “Golden Age” makes no exception. The bulk of the material was actually written back in March 2008, during an exceptionally short session of around ten days. Due to a rather stressful period in my job, the immensely difficult completion of the album “Knell” and the corresponding promotion work, I was very exhausted, and for that reason withdrew to the Alps – to be more precise, to the mountain village of Uors in Graubünden, from whence the family of our vocalist Patrick originates. My most important piece of luggage was my twelve-string guitar – a fact you can tell especially from the title track.

Hunger
Without any prepared material, I ventured on a song-writing process that differed significantly from that of either “Andromeda Awaiting” or “Knell.” Instead of sitting at my piano and writing scores, I improvised on the guitar for hours on end (no mean feat if you are not regularly practising on a twelve-string instrument) and took note when something stood out for me. Except for a few chordal notes, I wrote down nothing, and I made no demo recordings either. Apart from three complete tracks – that were subsequently revised and, most importantly, shortened –, many other parts that served as the basis for “Golden Age” were created in that way. As a side-line, on the track “Hunger” you can hear that I also took my frame drum with me to the Bündnerland.

Silver
Concept-wise, I was collecting ideas as well. It emerged that I would write “Golden Age” as a sort of prequel to the trilogy of “Nihil”–“Knell”–“Andromeda Awaiting.” I was fascinated by the idea of re-using material from the “Silver” EP dating back to 1999/2000. I was, however, only taken enough by one segment to use it on “Golden Age” – connoisseurs of Nucleus Torn will recognise that part straight away. But apart from this one fragment from the song ‘Nucleus Torn,’ I also utilised a really old guitar part which I had written directly after “Silver” (the story of which would go beyond the scope of this) and incorporated earlier chord sequences (also from the song ‘Nucleus Torn’) into this track. That still wasn’t enough to finish my critical reckoning with the “Silver” EP. This, in turn, led to the release of “Travellers” which includes a completely re-worked version of the original EP.
On contrabass, you can hear the excellent Swiss jazz musician Daniel Schläppi.

Against
A few weeks after my return to the supposedly real world, I started with the first recordings for “Golden Age.” After I created the pilot tracks, the first thing I recorded was the twelve-string guitar. The song ‘Against’ wasn’t yet written then, but was created in the following months. Originally, I had envisioned a trippy track in the vein of Massive Attack, but then something completely different came out of it, maybe pop à la Nucleus Torn. You can hear that this stimulated both Patrick and Anna. I know it is hard to believe that for a while, I flirted with the idea of including a song with hip-hop vocals. And no, to obtain those Gilmour sounds I needed neither an exceedingly expensive amp nor rare effects. If guitar magazines choose to make claims to the contrary, do not believe them.

Ash
The title of the album and those of the songs have several meanings to me. Of central importance are an anti-nature-mystical attitude and a focus on possible collisions such as nature vs. technology, emotionality vs. reason, and gold/fire vs. ashes. At the same time, the titles are not without a certain irony – like so many things on this record which only I can perceive as such.
a) Out of “Silver” came the “Golden Age.”
b) “Golden Age” is part of a central lyric passage in the first track on “Nihil.” Thus, “Golden Age” segues into our debut album lyrically as well.
c) At that time, I worked professionally on a historical publication on the subject of the Golden Age.
d) To every Golden Age belongs a process of decay, and that gave me the fitting framework for the album’s dramaturgy.
e) I’ve forgotten that, but it was funny.
Another thing that comes to mind: after “Silver,” Marc Grassi, a musician and designer and friend of mine, joked that one day or other he would make a solo record called “Gold” ... Great idea, thank you, Marc!

Death Triumphant
This track passed through a long evolution and was greatly revised in the course of the years. In terms of recording, this led to a crucial innovation. Instead of playing most instruments over a click track, I merely prepared a (lousy) pilot track for Christoph to play the drums to. It was important to me to prompt him to leave the sphere of a song-appropriate performance and to create something extroverted. Subsequently, it was a pure pleasure to be driven forward by his rhythms, and this didn’t just affect me. In the finished track, you can hear Maria’s vocal improvisations from the very first demo sessions, so they are literally first takes. Alongside Christian Kolf, who lends his voice to the chasms of the urban world, she leads the drama into the final phase.

(FS 2011, translated by Prophecy Productions)