Ekove Efrits Interview w. Lords of Metal Webzine (01/10/2011)
October 1, 2011It's not often that a band is as indefinable as Ekove Efrits was recently on their album ’Conceptual Horizon’. Unique and emotionally engagin, a very interesting album. Lords Of Metal contacted all-rounder Saman N. to get to know the band a bit more.
Text: Roel de Haan
Greetings! How are you doing?
Hey Roel , I'm fine thanks .
Ekove Efrits isn’t exactly a household name yet, so could you introduce Ekove Efrits to our readers? What does Ekove Efrits mean?
If I want to explain the name it's kinda easy, Ekove is the reverse of Evoke and Efrit is a common word used in Persian and Arabic language that means evil soul or demon. As for introducing my music by words this is where things get a bit hard for me. I just try to discover and depict my dark side via Ekove Efrits, to be honest. I never had a definite plan before I go and start to create an album, I just release my self over the waves to see and feel how things will come .
I wanted to congratulate you with your new album ‘Conceptual Horizon’. I enjoyed it quite a bit. How is the general response towards the album? What did you expect?
Thank you Roel, I'm glad to hear that. Well I've gotten some good feedback from people even more than what I expected before. I have received six good reviews from different webzines (including your website too) at this point only after one month of release date and that could be a good sign to me to know what I've done but I think it's a bit soon to judge clearly about ‘Conceptual Horizon’. It still needs more time for the album to spread well and get heard by more people. I hope more people enjoy the album in the future. To be honest each artist likes to see the positive effect of his/her art with audiences no matter if what you create is dark or light, soft or brutal, your creations comes from the inside so it has worth to you because it is a piece of your soul and your emotions.
I had trouble in describing your music since it isn’t like anything I heard before. How would you describe your music?
Honestly I have problem to describe my music too hehehe. The reason is because there is no definite rule to follow for me. A couple years ago I did care more about the style and keeping my self in a main way but now I am mainly focused with opening a way to depict my emotions as clear as I can, and it seems that now the result is something between depressive black metal, doom metal, ambient, classical, trip hop and maybe some gothic atmospheres. However, if you discover one day what my music is exactly, please do me a favour and let me know!
Considering the title of the album, is there a concept to the album?
Good question. Most of my albums have a story, especially my previous album ‘Suicidal Rebirth’ and this new one ‘Conceptual Horizon’. I have heard from many people that they are similar to interconnected soundtracks of a movie, I'm not sure why this would be happen but maybe it is because I'm a huge fan of movie soundtracks. However getting back to the main discussion about ‘Conceptual Horizon’, in my though it's more related to the world inside, somewhere at the end of our dreams and desires. You know we are all dreamers, we sit and start to fly over our dreams land and definitely there should be a horizon, what's going on in the other side? Farther after all of our inner sounds and dialogues, silence stands alone. When you reach inner silence you will connect to a powerful energy, maybe that's why I entitled the last track ‘Dreamy Painting’, a soft and calm instrumental track with piano notes at the end of all of the pain, sorrow and darkness which then shows a clear and mute scene.
Your music has so many influences, ranging from depressive black metal to classical music and ambient. Yet the melancholic atmosphere is very consistent. How do you incorporate all these different ideas and sounds into something that sounds coherent and fluid?
Yes you right. First of all I have to confess that I enjoy many types of music. Definitely there are some types of music that are in my favourite list but I don't focus so much on the genres at all. I am interested and curious in the feelings behind the music and what story is behind them. Music is so similar to our words. Some words aren't worth paying too much attention to, and some of them are the opposite and are worth a lot of our attention. For me I really love emotional and deep music and mostly melancholic and down tempo. Obviously I receive inspiration somehow from them. As an instance this situation looks like you drive in a beautiful and stunning road on the left hand you see an amazing mountains covered with tall green trees and on the right side you have a calm and blue sea with glamorous golden shore, there is no need to mention on the top and over your head you have a cloudy wide sky and wind whispers close to your ears. Well, for me driving on this road is kinda hard, after moving a bit forward I will turn the role left and stop the car to walk into the forest and then I will drive a bit and after that I stop the car again and lie down on the shore for while and the story continue till the end. That's exactly the reason you see so many elements in my music .
What are the things that inspire you to make this kind of music?
One part of it is life and people and the other side of it is nature but when I look closely I get inspiration from many other things too. I'm a sensitive person and my sensors are always active to receive the signals coming from both the outer and the inner world. It's exactly because of this reason that sometimes I lose the meaning of day and night. I remember many nights that I went to bed to sleep but after a while I woke up strangely to play and record a guitar riff or sat behind my keyboard and created a melody.
Since Ekove Efrits only consists of one man, what are the chances of you playing live? Do you have ambitions in this direction?
Sometimes I think about that but I don't think this would be happen for Ekove Efrits. There are many layers in my music, sometimes exceeding up to 40 layers in just one song that need to do many works if I want to play and represent them correctly the same way that you hear from the albums. Many instruments, many effects and maybe most importantly having to spend hours to practice for playing live. Nah, that's out of my mood, but maybe one day I will do this for one of my other projects in a simple way.
How does a band from Iran end up on a label like Hypnotic Dirge?
Hypnotic Dirge Records is one of the best labels that I've seen. Nick is a really good guy and is serious enough in his work and by the way he is also an artist so he can understand perfectly the meaning of my art. Lots of amazing bands from different parts of the world published by his label. I think music is the only important thing and not where you came from because music is an international language. When you make music you create something to talk with people without borderlines. In fact, Iran like most other countries has many good bands in different genres but because of the situation here most of them are unknown to foreign people. Hey guys, please come and discover these bands, I promise with a careful search you will find good things. Last.fm is one of the best source to find them by their tags.
Hopes and dreams; everyone’s got them. What are yours?
Without them I can't say I'm alive, hopes push you forward and dreams make things easier and beautiful. I hope better days for every one, days with less sadness and more happiness, the day with peace and truth when there is more respect within humanity.
Thank you very much for your time and I leave you with the final words for our readers.
Thank you so much for the interview. I just want to give special thanks to every one who has supported my music and I have to mention please listen to the new album and let me know your thoughts. I do care about each comment from you and will be sure I will read them all carefully .
Posted by Nick Skog. Posted In : Interviews
