DEVIL'S ISLAND featuring Primaluce
Welcome to this weeks edition of Devil's Island! Every week we maroon a band or artist on the island and see what they get up to, how they cope with being all alone on a small island in the middle of the ocean. It's not your average desert island and we'll see just how each person copes with the extreme conditions.
This week when we arrived at Devil's Island we find Primaluce sat on the beach. The island is far from their home, so how did they end up here and how did they cope with life on Devil's Island?
Find out now...
Welcome to The Razors'e Edge and our somewhat lovely, warm desert island. Don't worry about it's name I'm sure it's not as bad as that would suggest.
You're marooned here on this island, but before you ended up shipwrecked you chose one album that you couldn't live without. Which album did you each chose and why?
I’d take Lunar Strain by In Flames. That album has always felt like a deserted island in space. Cold, silent, and distant from everything familiar. Lunar Strain doesn’t feel human in the conventional sense. It sounds like music written at the edge of something vast and indifferent, where nature, cosmos, and instinct merge into a single presence. There is solitude in it, but not loneliness. It is the kind of solitude that strips everything away and leaves only awareness. On a desert island, survival is not about comfort. It is about understanding where you stand. This album carries the same feeling. You realise how small you are, how little you matter, and yet you are still here, still listening, still searching.
That is why Lunar Strain is the album I would choose. It is not an escape. It is an environment.
Just behind that palm tree is a shack for each of you to stay in, with enough space for you to put up a poster on the wall of one album cover. What album cover do you each chose?
The artwork of Lunar Strain by In Flames.
It feels more like a vision than an illustration. A sea on the moon, something that should not exist, with mystical, elemental forms emerging from the water.
Not creatures. Not gods. Presence..
The image gives the impression of standing on a shoreline that was never meant for humans.
There is water, but it is alien. There is movement, but no life as we understand it. It is beautiful, unsettling, and sacred at the same time.
On a desert island, the sea is both a boundary and an opening. In this artwork, that same sea is displaced onto the moon, turning isolation into something cosmic and metaphysical.
It suggests not only being alone in the world, but alone in existence.
That is why this is the cover I would hang in the shack. Not as decoration, but as a reminder that meaning begins where familiarity ends.
There's also a bar on this here island. But alas each of you only get to choose one drink for the entirety of your stay. What's your tipple of choice?
Water.
Not out of asceticism, but out of respect.
On the island you quickly realise that anything which alters you is just a temporary escape. Water is the only thing that doesn’t lie, doesn’t promise, doesn’t betray.
It’s the drink of clarity. Without clarity, there is no way forward.
Your suitcases were lost when your ship sank, but you each managed to salvage one item of band merch. What’s the merch and for what band?
A Legion T-shirt by Deicide.
Probably the least appropriate item to wear on a peaceful, sunny island. Blazing sun, palm trees, turquoise water… and a shirt that looks like it was designed to summon the apocalypse.
But that’s exactly why it works.
It’s a reminder that darkness doesn’t disappear just because the setting is beautiful. And proof that no matter where you end up, some parts of your musical DNA never get washed away.
Besides, every island needs contrast.
You’re sat on the island thinking “I’m stuck here on this island with my bandmates for eternity”… who would you rather have been shipwrecked with?
Someone like David Gilmour.
Not for conversation, but for silence. Someone who understands that restraint can be more powerful than excess.
On an island, you don’t need noise. You need presence.
There's a walkman in your pocket, on the tape inside is the recording of the one live show that stands out for you. It could be any show, from any band, anywhere in the world. What show is on that walkman?
Live in Europe by Transatlantic.
It captures a band at the peak of collective awareness. Long compositions, patience, risk, and trust between musicians who listen as much as they play.
On an island, time expands and loses its usual shape. This recording feels the same way. The music breathes, stretches, and refuses to hurry.
It reminds you that intensity does not come from speed or volume, but from commitment and shared direction.
That show would stay on repeat in the Walkman. Not as background noise, but as proof that even in isolation, creation can remain vast and human.
You're getting desperate, you decide the only course of action is to put a message in a bottle and hope someone finds it. Your message could be to any member of any band, but should be the most suitable for a rescue attempt. Who is it?
I’d send the message to Steven Wilson.
Not because he would necessarily come to rescue me right away, but because he would understand the message itself.
A message in a bottle is not a cry for help. It is a reflection set adrift, sent without certainty of being received.
That feels deeply connected to his way of working, where isolation, distance, and introspection are not problems to solve, but conditions to explore.
If someone were to find that bottle and recognise its meaning rather than its urgency, it would be him.
And sometimes, being understood is already a form of rescue
You've been stuck here a while and food supplies are running low. There's only one thing for it... which fellow band member gets sacrificed to help the others survive?
The ego.
Always.
It’s the most demanding band member, the one that consumes the most resources and produces the least music. Once it’s gone, everyone suddenly survives much better.
Finally, when the ship sank you each managed to save one person from the wreckage. That person is the one musician that has influenced your career the most, shaped your way of thinking and your outlook on life. Who did you save?
Ludwig van Beethoven.
Not because he represents perfection, but because he shattered it.
He taught us that limits don’t end creation, they redefine it. That struggle can become form, and suffering can become structure.
Beethoven didn’t write music to please his time. He wrote to survive himself.
Saving him would mean saving the idea that art doesn’t exist to be beautiful, but to be necessary
