jueves, 11 de abril de 2019

What the mirrors return. Interview with SoH (Kazakhstan)


 Careo EdeM

INTERVIEW WITH: Symphony of Horror. 

Country of origin: Kazakhstan (Almaty ).
Formed in: 2.008
Genre: Symphonic / Experimental Black Metal
Discography:
- "The March of the Damned" (2012)
- "Gekommende Aus Abaddon" (2019)
Sello: St. Shapito, GM-Production.

Social networks:
Twitter: @symphofhorrorof
Bandcampsymphonyofhorror.bandcamp.com/album/gekommende-aus-abaddon

Author of the interview: Antonio Gil.

     We approach to Extreme Metal again, as we like to do as much as our tastes and time allow us to post interviews like this of our partner A. Gil, who happened by chance  with this band of Central Asia that plays a melodious Black Metal loaded with orchestrations that will remember some of the greats of the genre. We bring the interview first in English and next week we will publish it in Spanish. Enjoy it.



1). To begin tell us a little about what your origins were, how was Symphony of Horror born?

At the base of the project which was given the name Symphony Of Horror stood six people. Alexander Timchenko (guitar), Stanislav Natochiev (drums), Grigory Bayboshkin (guitar), Artem Perekupko (bass), Philip Yashchenko (keys), Ivan Yunev (vocals).

The starting point of the project is the day when our first rehearsal took place - December 28, 2008. This day has become the key to what we have today. Before that, there were two different projects, on the one hand, Arsenal of the Souls with the participation of Alexander, Gregory, and Stanislav, and on the other hand the Enclave with the participation of Philip and Artem. Ivan was invited separately by Elizaveta Vituleva. By the way, Elizabeth is our manager at the time. Thanks to her announcement on the music forum, projects managed to establish communication and unite. At first, like most of the young bands, we played songs of our favorite artists, but for our debut performance, we managed to acquire a couple of our own tracks. The main music writer in the team at the time was Philip. He also proposed the name Symphony of Horror, it happened on the eve of our debut performance. By the way, by that time we already had personnel changes in the band. Alexander Lebedev (drums) and Alexey Napryaglo (bass) came to the places of Stanislav and Artyom. We gathered after the rehearsal to discuss the title. The proposed options are Agony and Symphony of Horror did not quite satisfy us, but there was no time, it was necessary to have time to prepare a poster and other moments of the event. In the end, we took the name Symphony of Horror and agreed that after the debut we will change it, but this has not happened to this day. The name is firmly stuck.

2). The essence of Dimmu Borgir, the most baroque Cradle of Filth, the majesty of Emperor and the theatricality of Behemoth. Are these your main influences? What other bands have inspired you?

All the teams you listed are of course on the list of influences on some of us, but that's not all. Each participant has a wide range of musical preferences, and they are not limited to heavy music. To summarize the list of groups that influenced us, here are some of them:
Death, Theory in Practice, Sepultura, Gojira, Animals As Leaders, Devin Townsend, Cannibal Corpse, Slayer, Cannabis Corpse, Necrophagist, Finntroll, Rotting Christ, Deicide, Rammstein, Immortal, Burzum, Summoning, Satyricon, Nattefrost, Shape Of Despair, Paysage d'Hiver, SOAD, Korn, Arch Enemу, Opeth, Born Of Osiris, Martriden, Dream Theater, Meshuggah, Vitalij Kuprij, Derek Sherinian, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Stormlord, Amon Amarth, Septic Flesh,(Legion, The); Marcus Miller, Alain Caron, Michael Manring, Bob Katsionis, Porcupine Tree, Karnivool, Haken, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Scriabin.

This list can be continued for a very long time, and it will include blues performers, rock-n-roll, hard rock, heavy metal first wave, great composers of classical music and so on.

3). In 2012 you launched “The March of the Damned”. What kind of reception did you have?

The reception was pretty good, considering that this was our debut album, we also published it on our own and we practically did not distribute it. Somehow, people found us themselves, distributed to someone not lazy, some music web portals from different countries even wrote reviews. This is quite good for a band like us. Kind of "local band", which knew not many people.
But there were negative reviews, where without them. These are mainly listeners from the CIS countries. Someone didn’t like our too lightweight sound for the declared genre, someone immediately sent us to the trashcan, having learned that the group was not foreign and the lyrics were performed in Russian. There is such a stereotype in people that they cannot do their own good and automatically hang the label “unfit”. Therefore, more often than not, there is always less support from one’s own people than from others, and this psychological factor is probably inherent in any people. We understand this, so we don’t bother much and just continue to do what we like. Or what comes out. But in general, we received more positive reviews than negative ones.

4). You have taken several years to give continuity to the project. What was the reason for that break?

Yes, to admit, we ourselves did not expect that the work on the second album would drag on for a long six years. During this time, two keyboard players managed to leave us: Ilya Livshits and Ildar Abdulvagapov, as well as drummer Vladimir Lobanov. The reasons are valid for all, and therefore we have excellent relations with them. Nikita Pogadaev (drums) and Ekaterina Bayboshkina (keys) took their places. The difficulties were various, mostly domestic, financial, some even had serious health problems. Most of the material was written four years ago, but the events were constantly slowing down the process. As a result, a year before the release we had to set ourselves a hard deadline, get into some debts and donate a lot to finally finish this album. But despite all the difficulties, we were able to complete the work and this is the most important thing.



5). You sing in German, but you are from Kazakstan. Is German phonetics the best way to tell your stories?

Why did we record the second album in German? There are three reasons for this! The first reason is that the voice of our vocalist in Russian does not sound the way we would like. Secondly, we wanted to make the listener concentrate more on the music and the overall sound, without diverting his attention to the lyrics and analyzing its meaning in the process of listening. And thirdly, we love to experiment, we like the sound of the German language, and we believe that it is suitable for heavy music like no other language. By the way, it is possible that the next album will be recorded in English. Again, this is due to our desire to experiment.

6). On your facebook page you explain the meaning of your lyrics, something to be thankful for and we will talk about later. How important are social networks to you?

Social networks have become an integral part of our lives. If you are disconnected from the network, then you are cut off from information, communication with people and automatically find yourself almost in the Stone Age. First of all, they accelerate the overall information interaction in the world. Therefore, yes, social networks are very important for us. Moreover, you can even say that we have long and firmly sitting on the network needle. And in the future, this dependence will only strengthen. If we talk about the fact that social networks give the music world, then this has both advantages and disadvantages. The listeners, of course, get more benefits. They have instant access to any music resource they are interested in, from where they can listen online or download their favorite artists for free. If we talk about the authors and performers, then everything is ambiguous. On the one hand, there is the possibility of quick and wide distribution, subject to a good budget or a successful combination of circumstances. On the other hand, the difficulty is in quantitative competition among themselves and in obtaining dividends for their music. This is especially true of young performers who do not have a large audience.
There are more of us than ever, and this amount is growing. We give the listener a huge selection of free music, distributing it through social networks, at the same time, we are investing large amounts of money in it and we get practically nothing from it. If you look at the situation in whole, then today those artists who have managed to achieve popularity at the beginning of the two thousandth, ninetieth and earlier periods are most successful. But whatever the situation, social networks are the only tool for us, as is the web for the spider.


7). Will there be a physical disk? I have seen your profile in Pledge Music and I have thought that you are financing it through that system.

We are now actively working on this issue and are considering various ways to obtain financing in order to make circulation of physical carriers. Pledge Music has not yet brought a cent, because crowdfunding stocks also require financial investments in advertising. Initially, we planned to prepare everything for the release of the album, but unfortunately, it did not work out for various reasons. Therefore, as soon as the financial issue is resolved, we will surely make circulation of disks and t-shirts.

8). You have presented as a single the title track of the album. Why that particular one? Is it all a statement of intent?

If you get into the essence of the lyrics of this track, you can see how all the information revolves around the fact that someone carries some news about important, destructive events for humanity.
And in a sense, our title track and the album as a whole are news for our listeners, at least for those who will hear it and will be able to recognize the message embedded in it. Despite the fact that the author relied on some ideas from Lovecraft, he introduced his vision and his message when writing lyrics for this track.



9). The keyboards are very important in your songs. Ekaterina does a fabulous job. How do you make up the band? What is your way of working?

Actually, the main music writer at the moment is Alexander. First, he writes the basis of the track, this includes all the arrangements, including keys and primary drums programming, everything except vocals. When in his opinion the track looks roughly ready, he throws it off for general viewing. And from this moment begins a general refinement. We offer him our ideas, he tries to implement them, if ideas work then they are included in the arrangement, if it gets worse, then return as it was. Nikita, for example, completely edits his part, he as a drummer makes it more natural, interesting and correct. He has his own views and feelings on how it should sound. But most of the basic bits remain unchanged to save primary integrity of the track. Alexey does the same with the bass guitar. Also, Nikita and Alexey look through the arrangements for the presence of grammatical errors, they are the only ones in the group who have a higher musical education. They can change the chords in some places, make them more interesting, rich, change the color of the sound. All this constitutes, though not the main, but no less important, delicate and painstaking work, which ultimately makes the tracks more interesting and self-sufficient. After the instrumental part is completely ready, Gregory joins the process. He thinks over the arrangement of the vocal part, after which he and Alexander come to the studio and finalize the final stage of recording. As for the writing of the lyrics itself, this is done by a person outside the group and unfortunately, he wished to remain incognito. The only track to which he did not write lyrics is "Durch Die Dunkelheit", the text for this track was written by Ekaterina.

10). It has helped the voices of Alexander Degtyaryov, of SHAHID. Is he an official member of the group?

We would very much like Alexander to be officially in our band. But he has his main project SHAHID. It all depends on him. If he decides that he can pull two projects at the same time, then our doors are always open for him. So far, we are hoping for at least sessional cooperation with Alexander, whether it be recording new tracks or live performances.



11). How is the new album being received by critics?

With the second album, things are almost the same as with the first, only now the percentage of positive reviews has become much more.

12). What plans do you have to present it? Are there closed dates? Any summer festival?

This question is now at the top of our agenda. And we again return to the financial component. We managed to finish all the studio work for the festival season, but we do not have the means to go somewhere. That is why we organized a crowdfunding campaign on "Indiegogo", but so far everything is not going the best way.

13). Let's talk about songs on the album. It opens spectacularly and portentously with "Könisgreich der Spiegel" What can you tell us about the mirrors?

This track was written the very first to this album and is a kind of transition bridge. This is felt in the music itself, as it is more similar to what we did in the first album. That's why we put this track at number one. Also, the essence of the lyrics corresponds to this position. We are immersed in some kind of fantasy, intermediate dimension "splitter" with mirrors, where all existing worlds are reflected, and from there you go at once to "Dunkle Stadt (Dark City)" based on the Lovecraft universe.



14). "Dunke Stadt" is influenced by the writings of HP Lovecraft. It has a kinematic air. Certain passages remind me  “Down of Victory” ´s Rhapsody album, but it is a personal appreciation. What can you tell about it?

We think that every person always has his own associations with something. None of us have ever heard Rhapsody of the Down of Victory. Perhaps this is true.
Nowadays, it is already quite difficult to come up with something musically, so as not to remind anyone. There are only seven notes, and millions of songs have already been written.

15). "Gekommende Aus Abbadon" is the first song we know. It is inspired by the Necronomicon, written by the fictional character of Lovecraft Abdul Alhazred. It's funny how a book that does not exist has given so much to horror or fiction literature and other arts. Besides Lovecraft, what other writers has influenced you? Poe, Borges, maybe? The Argentine has used the mirrors in his works as a recurring symbol.

Lovecraft is truly a unique writer. There are many different mystical rumors around him, some even believe that the book was actually real, and Abdul Alhazred is not a fictional character. A lost city in the ruins of Babylon, which was discovered by Abdul himself, where the knowledge of ancient civilization is preserved, perhaps about secret technologies, weapons, for which the strongest of this world are now striving, arranging wars for the right to find these technologies first, or to destroy the remnants of the existence of this civilization. Returning to the question, the author of the lyrics was influenced by Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Poe, Vladimir Odoyevsky, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Bentley Little, and others.




16). The history of "Gekommende Aus Abbadon" continues in "Der Bote Von Igigu". It is more dense and darker than the previous one. Can we talk about a conceptual album or are these songs only united?

The album is not conceptual if we consider it as a complete story. But all his paintings are connected by the author’s worldview and represent one single universe.

17)."Inferno" is the following. Do you think that hell is on earth? Is technology also a consequence of suffering?

The earth in its essence resembles an intermediate level between something more negative and more favorable in human understanding; more simply, it is between hell and heaven, if we use the usual terms. This is the central place where the interaction of the fundamental foundations of creation and chaos takes place. And here they are intertwined and work as a single mechanism, reflected in everything that we see around. All living things that are there, constantly destroy and create at the same time. This is manifested in the plant world, animal and human. All create offspring and absorb others. There is a multi-level struggle for survival. And there is some suspicion that a person here is far from the top of the food chain, and over humanity, too, someone is more intellectually advanced.
This someone contains us as a farm and the goals may be very different. From mining to generating bioenergy. In general, he takes from us everything that he needs, just like a man takes what he needs from animals and plants. And since we are suffering the world around us, this process is also accompanied by suffering for us. And in order to alleviate the level of this suffering for ourselves, we create technologies.



The last album. Pure Armageddon !

18)."Durch Die Dunkelheit" is thunderous. Will you play it in your live shows?

We will definitely play all the songs from this album at concerts.

19)."Der Tote" it's my favorite song on the album. What story is there in your lyrics?

Incidentally, this track was written last and is a kind of experiment for the author. The fact is that the guitar riffs were invented in not typical guitar tuning. And at the moment there is a desire to continue moving in this direction, because we believe that the experiment was successful. The lyrics of this text are based on esoteric information from various sources. It tells of the cycle of human nature between incarnation and death. The idea is that after the death of the body, the spirit comes out of it, and it has the task to get to where it came from. This is a place in the universe, which can be defined as the house of the soul, or the source of all entities. And this is not so easy to do, because it needs a certain charge of energy in order to be able to complete this migration. This charge depends on how a person lived his life. If he has acquired high energies of sufficient power, then he manages to do this, and if heavy energies prevail, then the gravity of our world immediately delays
essence back to the new incarnation. The lyrics of the track "Der Tote" about such a soul, it is already on Earth for many thousands of incarnations and still can not get out of here.


Total revelry, SoF show!

20). Can you tell us about any anecdote that happened to you during the recording of the album?

For six years, there were a lot of different jokes, it's hard to remember at least one of them. But the main fun occurred when, while recording songs, the vocalist struggled with the pronunciation of a non-native language.

21). How is the day to day of the group members? How do you combine your lives with music?

Some of us are inextricably linked with music. For example, Nikita and Alexei teach with their musical instruments, Alexander works in a music rehearsal studio, and Gregory and Ekaterina work in companies that are not related to music. But still, despite the fact that three of us are constantly in the music field, it is not every day that we manage to devote time to our project. Basically everyone is busy making a living.



22). Please, say goodbye to the interview. A few words for our Metal Splinters?

Thanks for the interview, you are doing an excellent job for metalheads. Do not stop!

Antonio Gil.

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