Published: September 23, 2013

Hello. Life over here is good but busy. We all have to work or study and we try to play as many shows as possible so we don’t have many holidays left.

It is always difficult for us to describe our style. Especially on our new album Wind many different influences converge. The atmosphere is inspired by Black Metal but on the musical level we use a lot of elements which are more likely for Doom Metal or Post Rock. We melt it all down in our description as Melodic Black Metal.

So if you like Black Metal atmosphere in an untypical musical way you should risk an ear.

Winter is a very thoughtful and lonely season in my feelings and so opens various possibilities of inspiration. Although the melancholy I try to catch in the music is more inspired by other factors, winter is a topic worth considering.

Well the first big change in our line-up was in 2009 while our first attempt of recording our debut album “Nach dem Krieg...”. While the complexity and difficulty of the songs grew with the time the abilities of the other founding members did not and so I came to a point where I had to decide between making serious music with new musicians or stay with the founding members and do music just for fun in the rehearsal room. Due to the fact that the new material at that point already contained parts that came deep from my heart the choice was not too difficult.

All other changes had different personal reasons just as that someone had not enough time left for the band etc.

We started to search for a label that could release “Wind” in the mid of 2012 and during this process we found Misanthropic Art Productions. After listening to some of their earlier releases we decided to send them a promo and they made the best offer for us. The cooperation with Hypnotic Dirge Records was the idea of MAP. Both labels released our album for a better and broader distribution and advertisement so in practice we have two equal value labels that released “Wind”.

We are very happy with the work of both of them. Although both labels are not too big we got a worldwide promotion due to this cooperation and a very close communication. Especially HDR does very much for us besides releasing the album and Nick is really interested about everything we do and want. All in all this was the best possible outcome for us, especially it was surprising for us to get two good labels overseas and not one good offer from Europe.

Thank you very much! We took a lot of time to create “Wind” compared to our previous releases. The first fragments already existed in early 2010 even before the release of “Nach dem Krieg…”. A first version from early 2011 was totally reworked again before we were ready to enter the studio in April 2012 and then it still took a year to find a label and to release the album. So in total we nearly spent 3 years just on this album but this great effort is justified if you consider the great result and the fact that it marks a turning point in our history.

We are very satisfied with “Wind” even now, more than a year after receiving the mastered version of it. Of course there is always a little something you want to change but all in all the album is very self-contained.

The artwork was created by a young artist (Memento Mori Art) from Halle (Saale) in Germany. He is a good friend of us and we worked with him before in concerns of flyer designs etc.

I discussed a few ideas for the artwork with him but when I saw that result I directly felt that this was perfectly fitting for the album. He captured the atmosphere of “Wind” in a single picture and to be honest I was aiming for a slightly different direction and so I’m very happy that he took his own way of interpreting the album.

I think our music is very warm and melancholic and the picture represents the same. Also the reference to wind (meaning the actual element) in the picture feels the same as in the album – not as the centre of interest but a broad feeling combing everything. At least I feel that way.

Well the album title has different meanings for me. The lyrics on “Wind” are – broadly said - about human emotions, feelings, development and coexistence. This is packed in abstract situations often related to nature. Wind as an element is a repeating symbol that appears in most of the songs in that way and stands for different aspects just as wind is multilateral and not really concrete.

For me another aspect of the title is that “Wind” is some kind of a new start for us and literally the wind brings everything new and washes the old away.

Although I might have concrete interpretations of the album title and the lyrics for myself I used very abstract settings and words on purpose. I want the listener to think about the lyrics and maybe come to a different conclusion than I do, as long as it touches you and maybe helps you to find your way in this cruel world.

It is a great honor for me that the music I write is so often compared to the great Agalloch. The atmosphere they create is – in my opinion – the perfection of what is possible and of course I try to reach a similar result although I use different musical elements for that.

There are not many bands that stayed with me for the long time as Agalloch did. To mention the most important: Nagelfar, Alcest and Der Weg einer Freiheit. Every of this four bands influenced my life in some way and so a bit of their heart also flows into our music- or at least the bizare version of them I carry around. ;)

Well…this is very different and depends a lot on the time I have as well as on my mood. The process takes a lot of steps and sometimes I have an idea and make a rough song out of it in just one day and another time just this step takes a few months. What all songs have in common in their process is that I need to lay them aside for quite a while and if I still like it then it is worth to be really worked out.

I think the longest time I took for a song was 2 years but even after recording a song it evolves further. We rework some parts for the live show or change a melody slightly because it catches the atmosphere a bit better.

At some point you have to make a cut and call the versions final – at least for the album – and go into a studio. We do so as much prepared as possible but it wouldn’t be worth all the effort and money for a professional studio if you are not open for other ideas or slight changes. For example we have not much experience in the point of “special effects” that have nothing to do with the music itself but the production and so we need a person that knows what is possible and fitting to the songs. I think Martin did a great job at Gernhart studio and I can just recommend his work.

Yes we play live shows and we would like to play a lot more shows than we could now. At the moment our setlist consist mostly out of songs from “Wind” with selected tracks from “Nach dem Krieg…”. This is because we want to represent our “new” style of music. Our first album has a total different atmosphere and attitude than “Wind” and we try to choose a consistent setlist to draw the listener into our world.

Due to this wish of us we are also working on a concept of a show that has no pauses in it so we can build up an atmosphere and hold it for the whole show but our technic possibilities currently are limited so there is still a way to go until we reach that goal.

Regarding costumes or stage theatrics I can just say that we don’t think much of them. When we enter the stage everything we do is honest and spontaneous, not planned. As we want to draw the listener into our world we also want to fall into this abyss and forget everything around us. To reach this you need to feel comfortable and every bit of stage acting that is planned beforehand would just disturb.

I would like to play a good organized tour in the near future.

The work on new material already started and the goal at the moment is to have a first rough version at the end of the year. The release of “Wind” took us three years and I would really like to be a bit faster with the next release.

Thank you very much for your very interesting questions!