What if there was a band that pushed the bounds of music as we know it? One that took the allure of the ’80s, combined with its darkwave essence—something that felt noir, raw, European—and created an almost otherworldly song, as if it had been made inside The he Upsidedown?

Meet The Peripheries, a six-piece Italian band known for their genre-defying sound. Formed in 2023, the group is a collection of artists, musicians, and composers. The Peripheries consist of Claudio “Udo” Bianconi (bass), John Johnson, aka Arnar Arvesson (guitar, synths, backing vocals), Sabina “Morgana” Morgagni (beats and merch), Carlo “Wiz” Rossi (lead vocals and graphics), Flaminia “Flame” Samperi (synths), and Giorgia “Z03” Righini (backing vocals and visuals).

‘Murmansk’ is a song with an alluring sound, described as minimalistic, affecting, haunting—and, at its heart, dark.

Now, let’s back up and start from the beginning of the new release.

The unearthly ‘Murmansk’ begins with an iconic trance-like guitar melody paired with a drum machine. Haunting vocals follow shortly, poetic and bleak.

The waves of bleakness and destruction are cultivated to the point of imagery… We see flashes of ancient ruins under charcoal-gray skies. These visions don’t just cross our minds but interject into our consciousness as we listen.

Then, the lead singer invites us, “So walk with me.” Panned synths enter, and a gradient of emotions is displayed sonically, but again and again, we come back to this one sentence:

Walk with me.

We begin to soak up the atmosphere until we become a part of it. ‘Murmansk’ takes on a meditative quality the more one listens. It’s unsettling, but somehow, we acclimate to the chaos as the song progresses.

Eventually, ‘Murmansk’ builds into a piece with a high-octane, rhythmic feel. Screaming synths enter, crescendoing until reaching penultimate waves of raw emotion… then, we’re left with an echo, a sole metallic sound… then, nothingness.

The Peripheries’ new single, ‘Murmansk,’ was released along with their debut EP, ‘A New Oblivion’.

“Many of the Peripheries’ song titles are inspired by specific locations”

Is this single named after the location Murmansk in Russia? If so, why did you choose The Gateway to the Arctic as the subject of your lead single’s theme?

John: Many of the Peripheries’ song titles are inspired by specific locations, primarily places at geographical or social margins. But they are imaginary locations—symbols and projections of a state of mind the song wants to explore, rather than actual depictions of reality. Murmansk, to my mind, remains a symbol of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear Armageddon, and one of the places where the Soviet fleet was based. Unfortunately, that overwhelming sense of an invisible, existential threat that was prevalent in the Cold War now seems particularly relevant again, along with the sense that we are all helpless, unable to stop a negative dynamic we didn’t create or desire. The lyrics themselves were inspired by a snapshot-like image: a line of military trucks and armored vehicles crawling along a snowbound highway in the dark, with lines of people slowly walking alongside them on the filthy, icy roadside verges. I don’t know where that image came from.

Vocalists—how did you approach your vocal techniques on this track?

Carlo: My voice is closer to tenor than bass, and the verse of Murmansk is right at the bottom end of my vocal range, so it’s a technical challenge to achieve the right clarity while keeping the bass resonance intact. Getting the breathing right was essential to stay relaxed and let the melody flow. It was also important to keep my vocal tone consistent in the bridge and chorus, resisting the temptation to change the timbre as the melody rises.

Giorgia: I wanted to create a smooth and ethereal sound to complement Carlo’s voice. The challenge was to maintain this lightness while still conveying the emotional weight of the lyrics. I used dynamics to add texture without overwhelming the sound.

Carlo—how did the vision of a post-apocalyptic dreamland come to you? What were you doing when this thought first crossed your mind?

John: It was late December, and I was running a fever just under 40°C, which isn’t something I’m used to or would recommend as a creative strategy. I’m not sure if I was entirely lucid at the time and don’t recall much about the circumstances. I can say, however, that the first demo of the song was written and recorded in one take, as that was all I could manage.

The lyric “Walk with me”—what is its significance? Is it hope? Perseverance?

John: The opposite, I’m afraid. Carlo’s voice is an authority figure encouraging you to join the march, accompanied by the seductive siren-call represented by Giorgia. That line of lorries and buses is ferrying people towards their own doom (“Their faces pressed against the glass”). And yet, we follow, we don’t resist, because we want to belong, seek warmth, and want to trust others. The song, therefore, is a pessimistic vision of calamity’s inevitability—whether climate catastrophe or armed conflict. In a way, the track itself is a celebration of its own relentlessness. By the end, you should be dancing, not reflecting; “Walk with me” lingers in the background as the noise overwhelms it.

If ‘Murmansk’ were a color, what color would it be?

Carlo: Transparent, like black ice, but with a splash of crimson.

Lastly, I’d love to know more about the EP/single art. Does the black nebula, split with red geometric squares, represent a duality of sorts?

Carlo: Black and red are the dominant colors of The Peripheries’ identity, from the band logo to the covers of our EP and singles. This combination has a long history and symbolic significance, dating back to Stendhal’s novel, where it juxtaposes the spiritual and the material. For us, it represents punk subculture’s history—specifically, the anarchist opposition to both statist communism and oligarchic capitalism. This cover, in particular, is inspired by early 20th-century monumental iconography; there’s a dystopian element in the geometric blocks, which spell out the EP title, ‘A New Oblivion,’ juxtaposed over the black vortex, representing an all-consuming, inescapable power hidden in plain sight.

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