2016-06 metalitalia.com
http://metalitalia.com/intervista/aluk-todolo-spiritualita-primordiale/
Metal Italia Interview.
-Who are Aluk Todolo? I mean, it remains very difficult to understand what represents your music, what is its meaning. You have a strong identity, but we are quite unable to arrive to the core of your music. It’s fascinating, every time we listen your music there is something unpredictable that comes out, even if we know the track. Can you explain us how has the “Aluk Todolo idea” born and evolved from the beginning to 2016?
Antoine Hadjioannou : I would not say that Aluk Todolo is an idea that evolved, but more an immutable principle toward which we are heading. Aluk Todolo is the name of an animist Indonesian cult, brought back by Matthieu Canaguier from his trip, a few days before the band was formed, in 2004. Actually It is the name which gave birth to the band. Aluk Todolo means "the way of the Ancestors". Primordial spirituality is this: a process of re-formation, to recover the original shape of man, the image of god. And this is what our band is about, and our quest as musicians. We named our music occult rock, for the very meaning of these two words, beyond any stylistic considerations, to state that we use classic rock instruments and that our music deals, through all its aspects, with the hidden powers of cosmos and mind. So, we are working on encapturing the occult within the music, in an entheogenic process. Hence, the elusive, unpredictable and uncanny properties you've mentioned.
-“Occult Rock” had a long duration, quite one hour and half, but for “Voix” you released an album of less than forty-five minutes. Did you need to dry your music and to be less difficult to listen?
AH : No, we didn't do that. We do not proceed that way. We would never do any compromise to please any audience. Aluk Todolo is our own esoteric tool, that we build for us in the first place. As servants of the music, we do what the music requires, and that would be the only reason why the duration of our albums are different. Anyhow, Occult Rock was a double album, Voix is a single one, both are parts of our discography in which nothing happens twice. Occult Rock was indeed longer, but clearly divided in 8 individual tracks, while Voix is one piece, so I'm not sure it is less difficult to listen to, even though I don't see what could be so difficult in listening to music... Why would we need to simplify something that is as simple as it can be?
-What are the principle changes you made at your sound between the last two releases? Why do you continue to not give titles to the different tracks?
AH : Between the last two releases, our sound didn't change much from an outside point of view, as we basically used the same gear, and the same recording technics in the same studio. But from the inside, i.e.in the listening, a drastic change occurred : we certainly paid more attention to some specific details on Voix, because of the nature of the composition in which sound textures, timbres and resonances, as well as the interaction of the three instruments in the very instant, have a different importance. Why would you say there is no title to the different tracks? Here is the track list : 8:18, 7:54, 5:01, 7:01, 5:34, 9:29. The song titles are indeed their length, but it doesn’t mean that they have no signification. There is obviously a numerological correspondence in between the song titles, inducing a fake symmetry, evoking the image of the labyrinth, thus mimicking the essence of the composition. Or maybe are they gospel chapters? Signifier and signified are one, just as in our music, which is both the invocation and the manifestation.
-“Voix” in my opinion could be listened as an only one, long track, but also lived as a succession of composition with a specific nature. Something violent, something psychedelic, every time in a form of a strange, alien flow of quite intangible music. How did you construct the track-list? What type of narration you wanted to obtain?
AH : Voix is indeed one piece, formed of different movements. The division is 6 parts doesn't mean that one is allowed to listen to it as different tracks in random order. This division isn't the most obvious one for who analyses the composition in a rational way, in the sense that some themes continue through different tracks. But it has indeed a narrative purpose, as it is done from a wider point of view, to trace the ever changing map of the multidirectional labyrinth that is Voix, which leads us back to your previous question: the tracklist was constructed in a way to obtain the specific duration of each track, i.e. it's title, which, as I said, is meaningful.
-You combine the nature of seventies jam session with black metal, noise, post-rock, psychedelic rock, composing music where dangerous calmness moments alternate with chaotic explosions. How much improvisation is there in your music? How much does your style depend from “crazy moments” of inspiration, and how much from a conscious work?
AH : This blend of different genres is certainly not a concept. It is something one says when analyzing the music from a cultural , rational point of view. In any case that is not the way we proceed when we compose. We need a feeling of absolute necessity. It's neither "conscious" or "crazy", in or out, head or tails... It is the edge, another position of the assemblage point. It is the non-dualist way, induced by the way we envision our music: something that preexists us, something archetypal, something spiritual that we must incarnate into matter. So it is all about emptying our minds to let the forces come in. In this sense I'm not sure we can talk of improvisation : it's more mediumnic, as in the peculiar context of our band, which is instrumental and has hypnotic and entrancing intentions, and entheogenicity as ultimate goal, interpretation is improvisation, since we we aim to perform our music by putting attention and intention in every note, in the very fraction of the moment. In this context, microcosmos mirrors macrocosmos and discipline becomes freedom.
-It’s quite peculiar the method you cross bass, guitar and drums: the guideline is not ever fixed by one well determined instrument, sometime it’ guitar, sometime bass or also drums. The role of every instrument is tumultuously changing during entire “Voix”, how did you work in the interrelation between instruments?
AH : As I said, Aluk Todolo is our own esoteric tool, and we envision things from a vibratory point of view, as our aim is to gain access to the energy of the absolute, by embodying it through our ritual. Energy is infinite, only our access to it fluctuates. The forces we manipulate go through the different members of the band and are passed to each other. In this context, even a supposedly rhythmic instrument like drums is allowed to become harmonic or melodic. So most of the time one instrument "carries" it while, the two other support it, and when the power is passed, the balance is changed but the energy isn't lost. These variations are induced by the essence of the music, that we must channel and transmit, like antennas, in a mediumnic way.
-Your music is a long, dark, chopped and whirling trip. How do you live emotionally your music? What are your feelings playing and listening Aluk Todolo composition?
AH : We try not to fall in the realm of emotions, but to focus on sensation. It is important to keep it impersonal, if not, the ego, the thinking, the personality, etc... kick back in, and we fail. The five senses are part of the soul, thus, in our system, synesthesia leads to the mastery of consciousness. Its a kundalini process, in which the shape of our bodies as an impact, but that's as much as personal as we allow things to go.
-What is the meaning of the symbol that identifies the band? What does it mean for you occultism?
AH : Our "cross" is the first letter, the A, of the Enochian alphabet, rediscovered in the 16th century by John Dee and Edward Kelley. Occultism means to us the same as to anybody, it is the knowledge of the hidden, isn't it?
-Did you ever wonder to use, occasionally, voice in your albums? Do you think you will experiment in this way in the future?
AH : We actually did it on almost all our records. On our debut 7 inch ep, there was a sample of Aleister Crowley's voice, on Descension, on the track Disease, you can hear a brief yet very loud chant. On Finsternis, in Premier Contact, there is a quiet, yet easily perceptible mantra psalmody. On the opening of Ordre, there is a short, chanted invocation, and in the Collaboration with Der Blutharsch, there are chants, voice samples and whisperings on almost every song. I think that's enough voices for an instrumental band, so in the future, we will stay instrumental. It is true that we've never, and never will use voice as a proper instrument, for the good reason that we want to play a music that is a hundred per cent esoteric, and since vocals, in rock music, are somehow always exoteric, they do no fit in our formula. But there are some voices in our music, that's why our last album is called Voix : they are hidden in the folds of the audible, like a residual chant, an undercurrent flowing in between the notes and beats, and they belong to who is able to hear them.
-Watching on your site the next live programs, it seems you love to take your music on-stage. What does your music earn in atmosphere and impact during a live exhibition?
AH : Playing live is where and when the magic happens, for it is walking a tightrope, without a net. There is no time for anything but energy. If you think, it is too late : on stage what matters is the instant, and its fractions, and it leaves us no choice. Our music lives on stage, it is where it belongs.
-Are there bands you feel similar to Aluk Todolo in the sound or in the approach?
AH : Not so many in the sound, and only a few in the approach: those who envision music as a religion and a proper way of enlightenment to attain self-realization. I'm obsessed with the band Magma, and I consider Christian Vander as my master. I'm listening to him all the time, so I'm learning drums, but not only, as it goes hand-in-hand with a spiritual initiation, for it is a vibratory approach : a way to envision reality and consciousness.
-In extreme metal France has become one of the most interesting country in the world, with very experimental groups and with the more important European metal festival, Hellfest. What is your judgment on this situation? Do you collaborate often with other bands of your country?
AH : I'm afraid I can't answer your question, I don't listen to extreme metal.
-I saw from some pictures on your official website you played in a church this year, the photos are quite impressive, with you playing under a crucifix in a sacral, dense atmosphere around you. Where were you? What type of event has been and who organized it?
AH : The pictures you've seen were taken in Saint Merry church in Paris on the 7th of april, during the Sonic Protest Festival, where we shared the bill with Joachim Montessuis and AMM. That was the second time we've played in a church, first time was in St John Green church in London on the 11th of april in 2014, with Stephen O'Malley. Playing in a sacred place gives a special feel, that is both what we seek and what we need as musicians, to become a link between the invisible and material worlds.
-Can you imagine the way you will expand your style in the future? Are there other artistic project where you are involved?
AH : I used to play drums in 5 different bands at one point, and I left them all but Aluk Todolo. It is the only project I'm involved in for now. At some point I felt the need to focus on some specific aspects my musical quest, and it gos the same way with Aluk Todolo's style. I mean I'm not sure we will expand it, it's more about radicalizing it, as our approach is traditionalist in the sense that we do not ramify things or dilute them, but move closer to a primordial principle. Anyway it's a bit too early to talk about a future album, even though we are already working on new material.
Thanks for the time you spend to answer to our questions!
AH : Thank you!
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