         
|
|||
|
|||
 DEMONIC MENAGERIEOnly nine months after their latest album, “Revelations Of The Black Flame”, which polarized the fans of the band to a certain extent, 1349 is back with a vengeance. Were the band in a hurry having learned from their mistakes or was it a spontaneous outburst of creativity? In order to find out this and a few other things, we hooked up with 1349’s guitarist, Archaon, who gave his honest view of the current situation.
Hello Archaon, what’s been going on in the 1349 camp, just weeks away from the new album release? We've been rehearsing, played a show in Sweden, doing interviews etc. I generally hate to ask this question, but having in mind the stylistic variety of your previous albums, there is no escape from it this time – where does “Demonoir” stand between “Hellfire” and “Revelations…” from your point of view? “Hellfire” showed a band that through three albums had matured and found its place in a crowded scene. “Revelations Of The Black Flame” was a necessary step for us at that stage to incorporate new elements in our music; broadening 1349's musical horizon, so to speak. It was a result of our asking ourselves how to proceed and develop in our musical careers. What is depicted on the cover and what’s the concept behind the album title? Who was responsible for the cover/layout for the album? The cover is a painting by an underground Norwegian artist, Kenneth Nilsen. There are actually two different paintings by him that are used, one for the European version and one for the limited edition and USA release – just like we used two by Lillian Tyriberget for “Revelations Of The Black Flame”. The fact that we have the opportunity to front this form of art is an advantage, there are so many talents out there that don't get discovered. For the limited edition of “Revelations…” and the standard version of “Demonoir”, Frost was the one who described his ideas to the artist and he depicted that to the best of his painting abilities.Covers for the standard edition of “Revelations…” and the limited edition of“Demonoir” were painted without directions from us – all was left to the artists’ minds... As far as the title goes, I had an idea for it that I presented to Frost – and after twisting and turning it for a week, he came up with the perfect one –“Demonoir”.  The new album sounds very technical, especially regarding guitar work, even compared to “Hellfire”. As the band’s guitarist, what’s your perspective on it? What was the songwriting process like? Well, there are technically quite demanding parts on all of our previous releases as well, but to totally take off and squeeze out all the ugliest, rawest music that's inside, it felt natural to step things up a bit. Evolution in a scene full of great competitors is of course demanded to keep the art alive, and also a factor that gives way to new ways of portraying black metal – innovation within what I'd call the natural guidelines of the genre. One has to do one's best, no matter what style he’s playing – be that thrash, doom, death or black metal. 1349 incorporates all of these, but with our feet firmly planted in the genre to which we belong –black metal. I must admit I enjoyed having the opportunity to work freely on the majority of the material. I believe we succeeded in achieving the continuity throughout and the thread from each work to the final result as a total. The new album is considerably faster than “Revelations…” was. Did you intentionally step things up a notch and get back to the “Hellfire” form, or did it come naturally to you, without any intentional, calculated input in the songwriting department? Speed on its own has nothing to do with “Demonoir”'s position in terms of escalating from the last album. It is always a decision that one reaches there and then – what suits the song best to achieve the result one aims for. As far as “Revelations Of The Black Flame” goes, I wrote considerably less of that material, whereas on “Demonoir” I had more “free space” to exploit, consciously and highly aware of every change of mood. Many have noticed that it took the band four years to release “Revelations…”, but less than a year to release “Demonoir”. I personally don’t want to imply that the new album was rushed (it certainly doesn’t sound that way), but was there indeed a need to put out a fast album (which 1349 is known for, after all) as soon as possible after the rather mid-paced “Revelations…”? Have the album sales from the previous album been satisfactory and did that fact perhaps influence the decision to release a new album so quickly? One cannot make music based on those grounds, at least not in 1349. We are continuously working on new stuff, more or less – often one song parallel with another. Some take more time than others to fall into their place. To give album sales of an earlier album much thought could make a difference in the quality of the new material, and it is therefore not an option as a way of working. Keep in mind – during the course of three years, we released three albums. This was because we had all the time for it in between, Liberation was recorded in 2001, but released two years later; by that time, a lot of Beyond the Apocalypse was written, and the same is the case with Hellfire. After that, we've focused a lot on perfecting 1349 as a live act as well as a studio act, and worked on a lot of different material. Some of it ended up on “Revelations Of The Black Flame”, some of it needed more time/adjustments, and sees the light of day now. You’ve implemented the ambient parts as interludes on the new album, the tracks being entitled “Tunnel Of Set”. What is the meaning of that title? Also, was it a conscious decision to make shorter ambient interludes instead of entire ambient songs as seen on the previous album, or did it simply turn out like that naturally during songwriting? All material is to every extent based on conscious decisions on our side. Having listened to the songs, Frost came up with the great idea of having small intermezzos binding them together. As many may know, Set is an ancient god (originally the god of the desert, storms, darkness, and chaos) in ancient Egyptian mythology. The riff creation department has remained much the same over the years, but who in the band is responsible for composing ambient pieces? Ravn is the man behind most of these pieces. He did most of the work on “Revelations Of The Black Flame”, consisting of similar elements. The limited edition of the album features a bonus CD of various covers, says the press release. Now, it’s fairly ordinary for a special edition of an album to feature a bonus song or two of different covers, but an entire bonus CD of covers is quite an unusual feat. How did you reach such a decision? How many songs will there be and which bands have you covered? It is an extra CDthat comes with the limited version, you're right about that, but it is for sure not an additional album consisting of cover songs – more of a bonus for those who won’t have gotten enough after listening to 49 minutes of our terrifying black art. The CD contains covers of Morbid Angel's “Rapture”, Exodus' “Strike of the Beast” as well as Bauhaus' “Nerves”. We thought it would be cool to record some of the songs that have inspired us, and at the same time give the listener something extra. Who was responsible for album production and where was it recorded? The album was produced by Ravn and me and co-produced by Tom G. Warrior, but everybody was involved in this process, as we've really put in an extra gear to maximise everything that is 1349. “Demonoir” was recorded in Studio Nyhagen, as all of our albums except for “Liberation”. Now that Satyricon is on hiatus and Frost is able to dedicate himself entirely to 1349, what are the band’s future plans? Will you be touring more? We're aiming at that, for sure. First off is USA/Canada with Cannibal Corpse, then some festivals including Wacken Open Air and Summer Breeze. Hopefully, we'll also be out in Europe in the fall this year. What has it been like to work as a four-piece, four years after Tjalve’s departure? With two albums written without him, do you feel that his leaving the band changed the songwriting in any way? Not much. Nothing is changed, composition-wise. Even before Tjalve left, we had pretty much started writing songs individually. So in those terms, the only change was that it was more stuff to write than before – as one instead of two. But I don't think it has affected us much though –Seidemann and Frost have also contributed with a couple of riffs for one of the songs. That gives some kind of variety, to have more than one mind for this job. But obviously, the quality has to be outstanding – we operate by“quality before quantity”. You’ve signed a deal with Indie Recordings for the release of “Demonoir”, after a rather lengthy contract period with Candlelight. What was the reason for switching labels? How has the cooperation with Indie been so far compared to the conditions you had in Candlelight’s roster? The reason was that our contract with Candlelight had expired.Indie came up with the best offer, it’s as simple as that, so we decided to go with them, and so far, I can only say that the decision seems to be the right one. That would be it for now. Thank you for the interview and congratulations for the excellent new album, which we’ll hopefully be able to hear live in Serbia as well during tours to come. Do you think 1349 might be making an appearance in Eastern Europe any time soon and do you have any final words for your fans in Serbia? Thank you for the time, good to hear that you enjoy “Demonoir”. We will for sure tour Europe as well,but no dates are set as of now, so we'll have to wait and see. But yes, Serbia would be killer –it was the last time we played there! Interview done by Vladimir Gojković |
PUBLISHED ISSUESMETAL SOUND # |
||
