Alchemy Of Life, I made every kind of different music

Alchemy of Life is the metal project of Matteo Bosi, a multi instrumentalist born in 1976. Music enthusiast since 1998, he has advanced skills in home studio recording. He explored many different music genres, from ambient to rock, soundtracks, experimental, world music, electronics.

His first release was “Alchemy of Life – Soundtrack A.D. 1312”, available on bandcamp, an metal instrumental soundtrack for ghotic-fantasy story released in 2001. Since then he released several albums with different moods and genres, amongst them “Note di Viaggio” (instrumental rock), “Memories in Time” (with intimate piano tracks), “Around the World in 80 Instruments” (featuring ethnic and traditional instruments collected during his travels abroad). He played in a melodic hardcore/punk/rock/ska band from 2000 to 2007 (“No Direction”), of which he recorded the album “Torno Subito”.

In 2023-2024 he came back to metal again with the solo project “A Journey to Nowhere”. The work features the “maestro” Khaled Abbas (guitar MMI theacher) in two solos and had some inputs from his friends with lyrics and melody of some songs. “A Journey to Nowhere” was mastered in Real Sound Studio in Parma, Italy.

When started Alchemy Of Life’s Project ?
The first release with the name “Alchemy of Life” was about 25 years ago with my first album “Soundtrack A.D. 1312”, available on bandcamp (https://matteobosi.bandcamp.com/album/alchemy-of-life-soundtrack-ad1312) it was a pioneering work of homerecoring, a concept album based on a gothic story and influenced by bands such as Rhapsody, Dream Theater, My Dying Bride.
During the 25 years that separate “Soundtrack A.D. 1312” from “A Journey to Nowhere” I made every kind of different music, from videogame music, to soundtrack, to solo-guitar or piano.-oriented tracks to experimental sound design and ethnic/folk music. Recently, some development in the music software technology inspired me to go back to metal and “A Journey to Nowhere” was finally born.

Tell us about your latest release !
It was really an accomplishment! I’m really happy with it because it’s the first “real” metal album that I have manage to finish in more than 25 years of hobbyist music “career”. I’m basically a solo musician, doing everything in my personal studio in my free time. I think I’m quite confident with software and technology, and I have always explored the forefront of computer music. Last year I have discovered a new software (Dreamtonics SynthV) that could produce extremely realistic human vocals and I began immediately to use it. I had several metal instrumental tracks sketched many years ago that never found a singer. I’m not able to sing myself… and SynthV was my holy grail! All the vocals of my album (beside some “screams”, done by me) are actually made from that software that permitted me to finally pursue my favourite genre of music. It was a long development and, sometimes, really fatiguing, but at the end I feel it as one of my major musical accomplishment! Some of the tracks of my new release “A Journey to Nowhere” are re-recordings of the original tracks featured in “Soundtrack A.D.1312”, so I decided to maintain the same name for the sake of continuity… also the album name “A Journey to Nowhere” reflect this mood… after 25 years I came back to make the same songs, so my trip actually finished where it began!

What’s your favorite song and why ?
I have two favourite songs: the first is “The Dungeon and the Dragon”, first because it’s perhaps the only track I ever made in an epic-power that may resemble the early Rhapsody (one of my favourite bands 20 years ago) and second because of the lyrics, where I express the feeling of me getting older and leaving behind the joys of where I was young. The second favourite song is Wanderlust, because I was able to incorporate some solid prog-metal parts and, also here, for the lyrics… it’s essentially a love song about travelling with my wife! 😀

Which bands influenced your style ?
I feel in my album you can get influences from bands that I Iisten from nearly a life time (Dream Theatre, Rhapsody – of Fire – , Within Temptation, Ayreon) but also from some newly (for me) discovered ones such as Sabaton, Myrath and Orden Ogan

How many stile we can listen in your music ?
A difficult question… there are prog-metal ideas (Wanderlust), ethnic contamination (Hands of Fate), power metal (The Dungeon and the Dragon), some doom-metal influences (Digital Prison), a female pseudo-symphonic metal oriented track (My Own Words), an almost Dream Theater like ballad (A World I don’t Belong)…

What about the cover ?
The cover is a Moebius strip that I physically printed and cut with the name of the band and the album, placed over an abstract painting done by my wife, and captured with a pro-camera (also by my wife!) It has no particular meaning related to the album, I just liked the idea of the Moebius ring, a topological surface that has only one side and one edge.

How is the music scene in your country?
Being honest, I don’t follow a lot the music scene in Italy, but I can tell you that my favourite Italian band is Nanowar of Steel. They are genius!