Interview with Abstracted Mind

Singer Juli Hope and guitarist Yamil Ladner had classical training at the Ástor Piazzolla National Conservatoire in Buenos Aires. In 2020, they founded the Metal project Abstracted Mind. They are both connected by their love of Symphonic Metal, which combines powerful orchestral arrangements with Modern and Progressive Metal. In 2021, they released three singles, all three with lyrics in their native language, Spanish. Later that same year, the two musicians moved to Europe, settling in the Netherlands. They began writing English-language lyrics for their songs. They found the right band members in bassist Rutger Klijn and drummer Eva Levina. Following the release of further singles, their debut album, ‘Break Down Your Fears’, was released in September.

Hello, I’m Rainer and I write for Keep on Rocking and Metalheads Forever Magazine. Thank you for giving me the chance to do this interview with you. How are you all?

Hello! Thank you for having us, it’s always a pleasure! We are doing great and really enjoying the release of our debut album ‘Break Down Your Fears’.

You’re still a young band. Please introduce yourselves briefly to your fans.

Well, as you mentioned earlier, we are a half-Argentinian, half-Dutch symphonic progressive metal band now based in the Netherlands.

Juli Hope and Yamil Ladner completed a classical music education at the Ástor Piazzolla National Conservatoire. Did you meet there? And what did your studies involve?

We met long before that and have always shared our love for music. We both studied classical piano at the conservatory, along with music theory, music history, choir and many other subjects. We are kind of music nerds ourselves.

How did your education inspire you to start a Metal project? How did your classical education influence you in this regard?

Metal has been a part of us from a very young age, and so has classical music. Discovering bands like Rhapsody of Fire, Epica and After Forever was a real eye-opener for us. And regarding our education, a lot of people will say that “classical education just limits your creativity”, but in fact, it helps you learn from the greats and gives you the tools to develop and explore your creativity instead of limiting it.

Please describe the sound of your music.

We like to describe our music as a mixture of symphonic or cinematic elements with progressive metal. But we don’t want to limit ourselves creatively, so you can also find elements of death metal or even black metal in some of our compositions.

In Argentina, you released three singles in your native language. Did you play all the instruments yourselves, or did session musicians help out?

Yes, we wrote and recorded all the instrumental parts ourselves, as we (Juli and Yamil) are both multi-instrumentalists.

You moved to the Netherlands in 2021. What was the reason behind this?

Yamil received a job opportunity here in the Netherlands and we signed up for the adventure!

The lyrics for your new songs are in English. Was it difficult for you to use a different language for this – a foreign language for you, after all?

It would have been a challenge writing in Dutch! Haha, but jokes aside, Spanish is also a very challenging language to write songs in, and we are all so used to listening to music in English that it makes things easier sometimes.

In the Netherlands, you found some more fellow musicians and developed the project into a band. How did you find Rutger Klijn and Eva Levina?

We found Rutger through a Facebook “bass player wanted” post, haha, and Eva joined shortly after. We met her while exploring the metal scene in the Netherlands and going to other bands’ shows. They were definitely key to turning this studio project into a full band, and we couldn’t be happier with our lineup!

Your debut album was released in September. How did the songwriting process go? Are Juli and Yamil the main songwriters, or do all four musicians contribute to the creative process?

When we started looking for musicians, almost all the songs were already written, but they still evolved and reached their final form as we started playing them together.

What inspires you when you’re writing songs? Do you have any musical role models?

We get our inspiration from very different places, sometimes literature, sometimes our feelings about reality or certain events that catch our attention. Also, all the songs have different approaches to the writing: some of them start from orchestral arrangements, others from a chord progression and vocal melody. So, inspiration can come from anywhere!

How satisfied are you with ‘Break Down Your Fears’?

We’re very satisfied with it! ‘Break Down Your Fears’ is an album that took a lot of effort and hard work to put together, and we are very proud of how it turned out. This is an album that covers a lot of different topics that we consider important to address, like mental health, the constant search for external validation, social and political criticism, and encouraging everyone to pursue a better version of themselves. So there’s a lot that we wanted to communicate, and we think we are starting our journey as a band with a bold statement through the release of this debut album.

What were the reactions of the fans and the press?

We’ve been getting so much love and support from our fans and the press, and it’s very encouraging. It pushes us to keep working on more music and to keep our community growing.

What can we expect from Abstracted Mind in the future? Are you already working on new material?

Yes, we’re already working on a second album, so you’ll have more Abstracted Mind coming your way! We don’t want to spoil too much as our debut album has just been released, but you can expect more cinematic atmospheres and heavy stuff in the future.

Will it be possible to see you perform live outside your home country in future?

That’s a work in progress! We have already played in Portugal in 2025 and Belgium this summer, both great experiences, so we’re working on getting more shows in and outside the Netherlands.

I’d like to thank you once again for the interview. Is there anything else you’d like to say to your fans to round things off?

Thank you once again for having us! It was great to share a bit more about our background with you all. To our fans and new fans alike, thank you for your support, and welcome to the journey. Hope you enjoy the ride!