interviews

Interview with Metal Hammer Poland

  1. Not a long time ago you performed at Summer Dying Loud festival in Poland. How did you like that particular show?

This show was a kind of release party for us, so it has a particular feeling. It was great to finally present our new album to the crowd.
The line-up was cool (Mutterlein ! Old Tower !) and the fest crew was professional and friendly. A cool night for us ! Playing Poland is always something special and intense. We didn't play that often in your country but many people form Poland are traveling abroad just for the show, for example in London last time we played.

  1. Excuse what might seem as a naive question but does Shantidas often play with the entire pedal board (hand-held, not under his feet)?

Oh, yes! Oftenly. But it is not the weirdest stuff that he did. He surprised us many times over the years : strange dancing, total disappearing, psychic occult stripping, unexpected blinding lights, new guitar parts…

  1. I’m under the impression that your concerts are significantly more than a presentation of songs in a live setting. If studio versions are taken as a point of comparison, your shows may be seen as an extension of the creative process or, perhaps, even a separate creation conceived in parallel to the recordings. Of course I do realize you do not rely on pure improvisation yet I’m curious what your take on my intuitive hypothesis is.

The music we play is in constant evolution. There is no improvisation, but the interpretation can be different. We can find new angles to play a composition for exemple. While touring new ideas emerge, so we can experiment on stage. Since we recorded Lux some parts have already changed. And it was the same with Voix and Occult Rock.

The studio recording is just one step, one possible crystallization of our music.

  1. It was four years between Occult Rock and Voix and the wait for Lux was twice longer. Does it mean that the longer the band exists, the higher your quality standard goes and, therefore, completion of each record turns out to be more challenging?

Well, it's a combination of different reasons. First, after the recording of Voix we have been touring a lot. And then, our drummer go to live in another town, so it was more difficult to practice oftenly. In consequence, it takes more time to achieve an album.

But in addition to that, for Lux, we had to reach another level in our musicianship. It is a complex, weird album. It take us time to learn to play it and to be able to record it in live condition, all together in the room, in one take (for each track).

  1. How different is Aluk Todolo of 2024 from the band that released Voix in 2016?

We are older, our daily lives have changed, work, family, etc. It is not the same, more responsibilities, blablabla.
But as musicians, we stayed that kind of experimental freaks, trying to reach the Absolute in the weirdest way possible.
Our band exist for 20 years now. And we are still happy to play together and to do it for good reasons : for the music sake, for the spirit.

  1. Instead of conventional song titles, on Lux you used sequences of graphic symbols. It’s obviously my loose interpretation but it reminds me of the art movement of the early 20th century known as suprematism. Its most famous painting is Black Square by Kazimir Malevich who claimed that the art should be free of the constraints of the outside world and, as a consequence, impact similarly to religious work. Interestingly enough, the press release about Lux mentions Sacred Geometry. Are there any links between one and another?

The song titles are clues to understand the mathematical aspects of the compositions. I won't give more details, but it is a kind of a partition.

I'm not very familiar with Malevitch art. But I will investigate this, thanks for the reference ! Suprematism is a badass name for a movement. Well, I don't have a theoretical answer to give to you. But some other references maybe : John Coltrane, A Love Supreme ! Out of this world ! That's what came to my mind when I read your words.

  1. Would you go as far as to say that the act of creating music – and perhaps also the act of perceiving it – might be an experience of religious connotations?

Yes, it can be for sure. Aluk Todolo is the vessel of our spiritual quest. And, I hope, we offer the audience a transcendental experience.

  1. Of course that’s a vast oversimplification but Sacred Geometry is based upon the concept that the Divine Geometer / Creator built the universe according to geometric rules and proportions. It can be reflected through architecture, for instance. Do you think music can serve a similar purpose?

Yes, it is what I think and believe. There is many way to express that. One is my sensation and vision of our music. When I close my eyes and think of Lux. What I see is an architecture. Not like a house but like a structure in space, made from the rhythmic structure and the texture of the album. A secret architecture give the album its coherence. It's a palindrome. Every rhythm we play is also played in reverse. And as I said before, the song titles are a clue to understand that.

We often referred to the Quadrivium, during our composition process... This book deals with “the most revered subject that the human mind can approach – Numbers. The first of the disciplines is Arithmetic, the second, Geometry (number in Space), the third, Harmony (number in Time) and Astronomy (number in Space and Time).”

  1. Voix means voice, Lux is light. Is it a mere coincidence that both titles are closely connected to our senses?

There is no coincidence with Aluk Todolo, but alignment and synchronicity. Even if we didn't explains to ourselves those album titles like you do (for us Voix was a research of the voices singing in our sound and Lux is based on a construction of lights and shadows, lines and inversions) it is a very interesting and cool point of view. Our music is conceptual, esoteric, some says abstract and austere, but it is also connected to our senses and can be very physical. Especially during our live shows.

  1. I guess we all realize who The Lightbringer is. Would it make any sense at all to consider Lux as a tribute of sorts? Tribute for The Lightbringer, that is.

As an answer, I would like to quote Eliphas Levi (from the introduction of the Rituel de la Haute Magie) :

« La lumière incréée, qui est le verbe divin, rayonne parce qu'elle veut être vue ; et lorsqu'elle dit : « que la lumière soit ! » elle commande à des yeux de s'ouvrir ; elle créé des intelligences.

« et lorsque Dieu a dit : « Que la lumière soit ! » l'intelligence a été faite et la lumière a paru.

« Or l'intelligence que Dieu avait épanché du souffle de sa bouche comme une étoile détachée du soleil, prit la forme d'un ange splendide et le Ciel le salua du nom de Lucifer.

« l'Intelligence s'éveilla et se comprit tout entière en entendant cette parole du Verbe divin : Que la lumière soit ! »

« Elle se sentit libre, parce que Dieu lui avait commandé d'être ; et elle répondit, en relevant la tête et en étendant ses ailes :

« - Je ne serais pas la servitude !

« - Tu seras donc la douleur ? Lui dit la voix incréée.

« - Je serai la Liberté ! Répondit la lumière.

« -L’orgueil te séduira, reprit la voix suprême, et tu enfanteras la mort.

« - J'ai besoin de lutter contre la mort pour conquérir la vie, dit encore la lumière créée.

« Dieu alors détacha de son sein le fil de splendeur qui retenait l'ange superbe, et en le regardant s'élancer dans la nuit qu'il sillonnait de gloire, il aima l'enfant de son sa pensée, et souriant d'un ineffable sourire, il se à lui-même « Que la lumière était belle ! »

Dieu n'a pas créé la douleur ; c'est l'Intelligence qui l'a acceptée pour être libre.

That could be translated like this :

"The uncreated light, which is the divine Word, shines because it wants to be seen ; and when it says: "Let there be light!" it commands eyes to open ; it creates intelligences.

"And when God said: "Let there be light!" Intelligence was made and light appeared.

"Now the intelligence that God had poured out of the breath of his mouth like a star detached from the sun, took the form of a splendid angel and Heaven greeted him with the name of Lucifer. "Intelligence awoke and understood itself entirely on hearing this word of the divine Word: “Let there be light!"

"He felt free, because God had commanded him to be ; and he answered, raising his head and spreading his wings :

"- I will not be servitude !

"- Then, you will be pain ? Said the uncreated voice to him.

"- I will be Liberty ! replied the Angel of Light.

"- Pride will seduce you ! replied the supreme voice, and you will give birth to death.

"- I need to fight against death to conquer life, said again the created light.

"God then detached from his breast the thread of splendor that held the superb angel, and watching him rush into the night that he furrowed with glory, he loved the child of his thought, and smiling with an ineffable smile, he said to himself : "How beautiful the light was!"

God did not create pain; it is Intelligence that accepted it to be free.

  1. Even though Aluk Todolo is not only accepted but also admired by (at least some) metalheads, metal is definitely just one of the ingredients of your sound. Do you recall who was the very first musician that inspired you to create outside of the stylistic frame of metal music ?

Black Metal is our background in music : our first bands, first demos tapes, first gigs. But when we created, all together, the band Aluk Todolo, it was one of our aims to get out of the metal aesthetic and habits. And the three of us have been deeply influenced by artists like Tony Conrad & Faust, Ash Ra Tempel, The Psychic Paramount, early Tangerine Dream, Magma, etc. And if I speak for myself, as I was discovering bass again when Aluk Todolo was founded (after a long time playing guitar in black metal bands), I was listening to a lot of soul music. Stuff like Otis Redding, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, the Motown bands. Soul Music is the best for bass ! I was also discovering Mego, and all that electronic noise scene, and diving into that pure sonic energy. Music is a great learning. Always.

  1. How much of Aluk Todolo audience do you think are metalheads?

I really don't know. I never think like that. I think people can have any musical background and be moved by our music. You can be a metalhead, a jazz lover, a psych rock digger or a noise freak and be touched by what we do.

  1. I read in one of the interviews that you played at… surf rock festival once. How did that actually come about and how did people react to your music?

Ahaha. Yes it was in Spain, in San Sebastian, 2010. Weird night. We were not supposed to play there. We had a gig in another town that has been canceled : the club owner was not there, missing, lost, maybe dead... After some phone calls, another promoter offered us to play the same night in another town at that Surf Music festival. For sure it was where we had to be : a speedfreak evening. But you know, we all love surf music in the band. There is some Surf elements in Aluk Todolo's sound and compositions. On our last album, the third and the fourth tracks have a very obvious Surf vibe.

  1. Are any of the bands and / or projects you are involved in in parallel to Aluk Todolo currently working on new music?

Yes, our drummer play in a weird blues band called Papa : https://papa73.bandcamp.com/album/non-si-sevizia-un-paperino

Shantidas and I, have solo projects of experimental music. And we both have released our solo LP this year too, two albums based on guitar explorations. :

Shantidas, Musique our ombres mécanique : https://shantidas.bandcamp.com/album/musique-pour-ombres-m-caniques

Inselberg, Voyage d'hiver : https://inselberg1.bandcamp.com/album/voyage-dhiver

  1. Thank you for taking time to answer my question but much more importantly thank you for yet another fantastic record. If you’d like to add anything, please feel free to do so.

Thanks for your words and thanks for the interview !

We are coming back to Poland in December 2024, supporting Furia and Gaahls Wyrd. See you there !