Fall, Obsidian Night

Silencing the Moments...

Frail Visions

Deze maand mochten we drie nieuwe uitstekende doom uitgaven van Firebox Records verwelkomen. Eén daarvan komt uit Frankrijk en bestaat uit leden die eerder al actief waren in Lethian Dreams. Hun tweede volledige cd 'Silencing The Moments' – nu onder de naam Remembrance - bezorgde echter kippenvel bij ondergetekende en vandaar dat we even poolshoogte gingen nemen in het noorden van Frankrijk. We kregen een uitgebreide introductie terug van beide leden. Carline Van Roos en Matthieu Sachs hebben het doom-hart op de juiste plaats, zoveel is zeker. Lees even mee hoe 'Silencing The Moments' – een aanrader voor elke doom fanaat - tot stand kwam…

----------------------------------------
Text: Vera
----------------------------------------

First of all, congratulations with 'Silencing The Moments'. It is a record with an amazing atmosphere!

Carline: Thanks! We're really satisfied with this new album! After the release of our first CD 'Frail Visions', we didn't want to start writing new songs immediately. We preferred to take a long break in order to have our ideas renewed. When we felt the time has come to compose new songs, it all has been very fast...the magic of music...

Both of you are also active in Lethian Dreams. But let's go all the way back in time: when and how did you meet each other and decided to join forces in musical adventures?

Carline: We met each other in 2002 and noticed we had a lot in common; we both were obsessed with sad, melancholic music. Back then I wasn't playing keyboards yet. We both were composing with guitars. When we started writing music together in Lethian Dreams, we were surprised how "easy" it was to melt our ideas. Lethian Dreams is still active, even if we are having a break with playing/rehearsing with other members. It now consists of Matthieu, Carlos D'Agua (from the Portuguese band Before The Rain) and me. Our first album is currently being mixed in studio.

Matthieu: One project wasn't enough to put different feelings in it and create music that corresponds to our musical tastes. In Lethian Dreams, we play a more emotional and atmospheric doom, but we also wanted to express sadness in a different way, something colder, that makes you feel utter despair and desolation. That's why we created Remembrance in 2004.

Can you tell a bit more of the musical background of both of you?

Carline: We are both self taught musicians. I started learning the guitar ten years ago with songs from the alternative/rock scene. Then I learned a bit of classical guitar with a friend, but not for very long. I preferred learning by myself rather than with books or musical theory, firstly because musical theory is really annoying, also because I like the freedom of self-teaching. There're no rules, there's only what you feel.

Matthieu: I started playing guitar about fifteen years ago. I never took any lesson either, I mostly learnt by playing songs from Metallica, Guns 'n Roses, Sepultura. Actually, the bands I was listening to by that time. I never learnt to play anything but metal (apart from some acoustic songs), it didn't interest me and I only wanted to play songs from bands I listened to. I would have found it quite boring to learn songs from a band I didn't know just to "improve" my guitar playing. That's certainly not the good way if you want to be damn good in guitar but I actually didn't care playing like a guitar hero. My first real band was Lethian Dreams that we started in 2002. It was with Lethian Dreams that we really started to make serious compositions with more ambition than being the only one to ever listen to them.

In 2004 the idea of Remembrance started to develop. What was the reason of this "side project"? Can we see it as a side project still or will it become your main band?
Carline: On my side I don't see Remembrance as my main band, neither Lethian Dreams nor Aythis. They all are very important for me because they express different feelings. Remembrance is very gloomy, suicidal, this is like expressing my darkest emotions. Lethian Dreams is more atmospheric and Aythis is a mix of both (maybe closer to Remembrance though). Having different bands allow you to put different emotions that wouldn't fit in one project only, so they all are very important to me.

Matthieu: I think people see Remembrance as a side project because we created it after Lethian Dreams and by that time Lethian Dreams was a band with full line-up and better known than Remembrance. So in 2004 Remembrance was indeed a side-project. Now I don't see any of my bands as side projects, as Carline said, they are all very important to me.

The first album you released was 'Frail Visions'. What were the reactions and are you pleased with the things it invoked in the doom metal scene?
Matthieu: To be honest I don't really know what it invoked in the doom metal scene, I only followed the press and read people's reactions when I stumbled across blogs or forums talking about this release. In both cases, the feedbacks were rather good but the opinion somewhat blended. Some people thought we had almost created a "funeral gothic" stream, which was unique and completely original, other people thought that 'Frail Visions' was good but not original. I was very pleased with 'Frail Visions' when reading that some people considered Remembrance had its own style. I also think 'Frail Visions' had something unique and I was glad that some people shared my opinion. In 'Frail Visions' we melt funeral doom influences with doom/death influences, we used both very slow and depressive parts with faster and more aggressive ones. I don't know if other bands were doing the same before 'Frail Visions' but personally I don't know them.

It was released on an Israeli label, this is quite unique. How did you get in contact with them and was it a fine cooperation?
Matthieu : In 2004 we put online the first song we recorded with Remembrance. At the same time, Gad from TotalRust music wanted to create a label dedicated to extreme music and contacted us to feature on the first compilation they wanted to release. After that we recorded a first demo and Gad offered to sign Remembrance.

Carline : It was a fine cooperation, we have been very satisfied with TotalRust. No one had heard about Remembrance and Gad trusted enough in our music to invest on us.

Did you ever play live or are there plans now to expand the band in order to play some gigs?
Carline: Right now we have no plans for playing live. We would need to search for members to complete the line-up. I like the idea of playing live with Remembrance even though this type of music is hard to be shared live, we won't be able to recreate all the ambiences, it would sound more rough..

Matthieu : We never played live with Remembrance. At first that's something we wanted to do, but thinking twice about it, I don't think that would be a good idea. The problem is that the compositions require a lot of tracks. For instance, when I compose the guitar I usually play 3 or 4 different guitars, sometimes even more and each guitar track is important. So, if we wanted the songs to sound good live, we would need at least 3 guitars. That's the same with Carline's keyboards, so finally we would need some ten people to play live which is completely impossible.

What were the main influences when you started making music?
Matthieu : Metallica is my first influence, because it was with their songs that I learnt playing the guitar. Two years later, I discovered Paradise Lost when they released 'Draconian Times' and they became my main influence. Before I discovered Paradise Lost, I was always looking for "sad metal" (I didn't know gothic metal by that time), always listening to the sad songs from Metallica like 'The Unforgiven' or 'Fade To Black' (actually these are two of my favourite Metallica tracks too – Vera). I didn't know if "sad metal" actually existed, so that was a shock when I first heard 'Draconian Times' because it was exactly the music I had been looking for.

Carline, women in heavy doom are quite unique, so my deep respect! What about the things you prefer to listen to?
Thank you! My tastes in music are very diverse. My play-list keeps changing with the mood I'm in. I listen to some doom metal of course, bands like Mourning Beloveth, Saturnus, Worship, Katatonia but nowadays I listen to less doom metal than I used to. I like neo-classical bands like Elend or the early Dark Sanctuary's albums, some neo-folk, for instance 'Confessions d'un voleur d'âmes' from Rome is a beautiful CD. I enjoy listening some post rock too, A Silver Mt Zion, some black metal, like Drudkh, Wyrd and the early Tori Amos' albums have been very inspiring for me since more than ten years.
So you see it's pretty diverse…

Is there a lyrical concept on 'Silencing The Moments'? Or anyway a few contemplations about lyrics would be fine…
Carline: There's not really a define concept. The lyrics mostly deal with death, the loss of someone and desolation. I don't write these lyrics to "fit in the doom scene" though. I write them for myself, to express my emotions. I always feel better when I could express what I wanted to. For example 'Death Diaries' describes the burial of someone, my father in this case. 'Thief Of Light' is more about hatred against your own feelings, the negativity which never leaves you.

Where was the album recorded and what about this experience?
Carline: It has been recorded in Lille, in our home studio. Like I said above, the writing process has been really fast and easy, we didn't even make a demo version for each song!

It was mixed and mastered at Walnut Groove Studios. Where is it?
Carline: Walnut Groove Studios is located in Amiens, in the north of France. It is actually very close to Lille. It has been mixed by Axel Wursthorn, from Carnival In Coal (an extreme metal/avant-garde metal band from France)

Can you tell a bit more about the artwork?
Matthieu : Artworks are very important to me, I sometimes buy albums only because I like the artwork, so I wanted it to completely fit our music so that people know what they can expect from Remembrance when they see the front cover. The artwork was done by Robert from At the Ends of the Earth Design. It was great to have him working on this artwork. He always put the perfect feeling into his artwork that corresponds with the feeling in the music. We only told him that we wanted something that expresses desolation and despair (in fact the feelings that you find in our music) and he made a front cover that expresses exactly those feelings. Strangely, the artwork reminds me of the title 'Thief Of Light' while Robert didn't even know the song titles when he did the front cover.
Now you inked a deal with famous Finnish Firedoom Records. How did you get in contact with them?
Carline: When we finished our recordings we sent our promo album to Firebox. They contacted us few weeks later and offered us a deal for the new album. We were very honoured, there're so many great bands on Firebox. It's a fantastic label for doom metal.

Why only a deal for one record, this one?
Matthieu : I don't know, Firebox made a deal proposal and they offered to release this album which was what we were looking for, especially on Firebox. I don't know if labels usually offer to release more than one album, I would have thought that they offer to release one album first to keep the choice to release another one later or not.

What are the biggest differences between 'Frail Visions' and 'Silencing The Moments' in your opinion?
Carline: Musically, I would say that 'Silencing The Moments' has much more harmonies than 'Frail Visions', both regarding keyboards and guitars. The production is also much better. I still like 'Frail Visions' a lot, but I think everything has a bit improved on 'Silencing The Moments'.

Matthieu: The feeling between the albums is also a little different. I think 'Frail Visions' expressed total despair while this despair starts to turn into hate on 'Silencing The Moments'. Musically, this difference can be heard in the vocals for instance, the vocals in 'Frail Visions' were low while I howled a lot more in 'Silencing The Moments'. Carline sings more on 'Silencing The Moments', it brings calm and quiet moments between hateful despaired heavy passages.

You are from Lille (France). Is there a lively metal scene and do you have contact with many bands?
Matthieu: Not really, we do not attend many concerts here and so we have no contact with bands from our area. I've heard that northern France is mostly the place for death metal fans (we have Loudblast here), apparently there's a lot of death metal bands in our area, but that's not really my cup of tea.

What are the plans for the near future?
Matthieu: I think we will do as usual, wait a little to get fresh ideas and then work on a third album. In the meantime we will work on our different projects. At the moment we just finished recording a new album for Lethian Dreams, so this will keep us busy for another few months. Carline is also working on a second album for Aythis and I just started a new project called "Perdition Valley" for which I'm currently recording a first demo.