Kestmorg
Black metal, be it atmospheric
or extreme, is always woven with mysticism and an eerie aura. This is definitely
an improtant ingredient in Kestmorg's music as well. However, nothing is
factual or stable, cause the band members want to evolve and experiment
with their music. If you want to read about this and about a variety of
other stuff, you only have to check this interview out!
1. Hi Sheidraam! "Kestmorg" is the name
of your band. Tell me few things about it… I found it too "mystical".
(Sheidraam - keys) We spent a lot of time
looking for a name that would describe us in a good way. We didn’t want
to fall into banality; we searched a particular assonance that does not
identify us with a known musical genre. “Kestmorg” hasn’t a specific meaning,
simply it satisfies us.
2. You are the founding member of this band. So,
what did you want to do with this group and you decided to form Kestmorg?
(Saycorax - drums) I started this band with
Sheidraam to express the feelings that we heard inside, to materialize
our idea of metal music. We’ve an open view and you can ear it in our music:
music always in evolution. I think we will experiment a lot.
3. Even if the band exists from 1999, your
first demo came four years later. Why you make so many years to release
something?
(Saycorax) The band was not born over other
musical experiences, so Sheidraam and I had to start from the beginning.
As many young groups do, we played a lot of covers; in my opinion this
is important to know oneself as a musician, to grow technically and to
understand the musical direction to follow. After this we begin to write
material but you know that it takes time to learn the composition’s art;
it is what we’ve done in these years. Our first demo “Light devourers”
(released under the name “Unorthodox”) is the gift of what we’ve learned.
Note that we were not a complete band as we are nowadays. We started in
two, then Keershalt (guitars) joined us but after some year he left us.
Lonely again, we wrote the EP “Infective Vultures Receptacle”. Also for
this fact two years have passed but now we’re an almost complete band,
we feel more expert and so we’ll release our next album faster.
4. During last year, you released your debut
EP. Can you tell me what you remember from the recording sessions?
(Saycorax) Well, first of all we recorded
drums. Then we changed studio and we searched for some guest guitarist
that helped us, one of this in Jack Denis who have now joined the band.
Now we have a bass player, but during the recordings Sheidraam made the
bass lines. Further the vocal patterns were done but there wasn’t
the singer, so Luciano Lorusso from Ephel Duath suggested himself to us,
and now also he’s a member of the band. This recordings lasted a lot because
we haven’t all the members that now we have. We gave much importance to
the mixing stage, even if in my opinion in the next release we have to
work further in this phase.
5. If someone hasn't heard your music, how
could you describe it to him in order to give him a clue of your direction?
(Sheidraam) The main characteristics of our
music are dark atmosphere and heaviness, melody and incisiveness, refinement
but also simpleness when needed; different elements join in the music and
they show our personality.
(Saycorax) We come from melodic black metal,
but then inside our music there are many elements that push our songs far
away from this genre: death or thrashy riffs, keyboards and programming,
female vocals, dark and gothic atmospheres... all things that we like,
without any limit.
6. Your newest release comes in a digi pack
edition and actually is a professional pressed CD. You sell it for only
4 euros. Did you do that in order to make more people to buy and to know
about you?
(Saycorax) Yes! It's important to introduce
most possible our band, above all in the beginning. For the moment however
we tried to attract the attention of webzines and labels. Talking about
the digi pack, I like this package! We worked a lot to realize a
product that is considered over the average level of the underground bands,
so we wanted to complete the product with an artwork at the same level.
We pay attention to every aspect of our music. The price is more than honest:
only printing costs are included while recording cost are not! Otherwise
the price of the CD would be higher… too much!
7. What are your future plans in order to support
it?
(Saycorax) We have released this CD in order
to find a good deal. Now we haven't planned any concert to support the
EP: instead we're concentrating in writing the best full-length that we
can. When the new compositions will be over, before entering in study,
we will make some live date.
8. Which is the procedure when you write new
songs?
(Sheidraam) A song of Kestmorg comes from
personal visions and inspirations, into a complex process that completes
whit the alchemy and the synergy that ties us. It's also a mutable process
that does not follow a standard scheme. I can say that I try to write and
to experiment much material (that is many expressions of myself), taking
advantage whit the irrational association of different ideas to find new
solutions.
(Saycorax) In most cases we start from a draft
or a text concept and then, with the feelings that arise, we write and
arrenge all the riffs. For us it's important to make expressive music that
reflects what we talk about into the lyrics.
9. Tell me your influences as a musician.
(Sheidraam) My roots, like those of Saycorax,
sink into black metal (melodic and not); but from many years I'm influenced
by gothic, thrash, death and industrial. Every genre gives some element
to expand my musical view; this helps me to show what I've inside in more
particular way.
10. Thank you for your time and close the interview
as you want.
(Saycorax)... Enraptured sorceries crush the
weak rational wall / Excited and satisfied we contemplate in front of the
Black Altar / He kisses nature in the mystic spirituality [Enraptured Sorceries
– Kestmorg]
Visit: www.kestmorg.com!
Antonis Maglaras
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