Korovakill
Wywiad przeprowadził Bartosz Donarski
It was like three years ago when a previous album of Korova was deceptively put upon me with its magical fusion of ferocious black metal aggressiveness and enchanting electronic soundscapes. The art of work was called "Dead Like an Angel" and, frankly spoken, opened my eyes to yet undiscovered regions of metal music first class vanguard. A new millennium brought to the band some worth mentioning changes. Firstly, the name has altered (or rather modified) to Korovakill, secondly, they signed on to American Red Stream. Oh, and most importantly, another record has become a reality. "WaterHell" is an awesome, made by fiendish intelligence masterpiece, fluent as water, scorching as flames of hell, unavailable to the narrow-minded as always. Christof - unquestionable leader of Austrian trio again ensured me that what he creates is far beyond triteness. Vortex has started spinning around and on one is able to slack its velocity. If you haven't got the album yet just make the feathers fly to get is for it is something what proofs that metal music has got to offer a lot more then you may presume.
Fist question is obvious I guess. Why have you changed the name of your band? Was the previous one too shot J?
Christof: "Yes it was too short, because incomplete. Maybe you know about the Significance of the Word "Korova" in Russian Language. It means "Cow" and stands for all the Herd-Rubbish, that is euphemized with the Word "Social". Korova reigns everywhere, where People crowd together in collective Masses to substitute their very own Individuality with a fabricated and manipulated Common-Identity. Wherever the Flocks gather cowardly to castrate the Rights of an Individual, wherever Mediocrities unite to torture the Outstandings Korova leaves its Cow-Pats. "Together we are strong!" says the stupid Herd. Individuality, Originality and Out-of-Norm is like a Red Cloth to the Bulls of Korova.
Therefore we had to create KorovaKill, the mighty Beast of Prey, the Lion King and Golden Dragon in the War against the cruel Collectives of the Marsupial-State, the modern SS of the Mass Industries, that smothers all Forms of Life into the Norms of mechanical Numbers and Products."
You have to know that I'm still very impressed by former album of yours. "Dead Like an Angel" is one of the most extraordinary release I own in my CDs' collection. After initial hearing of the new one I state that you continue the sophisticate mood what I treat as a very reasonable decision. You are recognisable as hell and this is what I appreciate most of all. Are you aware of the unique style you create? Man, I love it!
"Thanks very much for this big Compliment, but it's really impossible for us to have an Opinion about that. It's not that we say to ourselves: "Now we have to be very unique." or "Let's do something innovative." We even don't want to make Music at all, because it's always a Megaton of Work, but somehow we are forced to do that. I do nothing special, just going around, driving with the Bus, doing my Job or writing a scientific Essay and normal Stuff like that and after a While my Head is so overcrowded with Ideas that I would explode like an Atom Bomb if there wouldn't be Music as an Emergency-Valve.
I am forced to articulate all these strange Pictures than ascend out of my inner Stream, otherwise I had to rape little Children, kill my Neighbour or put my Brain under heavy Drugs."
As I recollect "Dead Like an Angle" was released via native to you Napalm Records. Now you are on Red Stream's roster. What did cause the replacement?
"Napalm Records was the first Record Company that supported Austrian Bands many Years ago and have been the only Platform for Bands like us for a long Time, so we don't want to go into embarrassing Details. All Things change and a little, idealistic Label has turned into a Moloch of Mammon. They did change their Path into a Direction where we didn't want to take Part anymore. Angizia did the same.
We contacted pretty many Labels after the Separation, but the Offer of Red Stream has been definitely far the best. They grant us a Maximum of artistic Freedom and a great, very engaged Support. You can count on the Word of Patrick 100%, and this Honesty and Reliability is most important for us."
As far as "Waterhells" is concerned there is one most weighty thing - diversity of the musical expressions. One friend of mine could not believe that "The Bleeding Lap of Undines" and "The Shadowhordes" (the tracks I airplayed on my radioshow lately) have been made by the same band. The guy was very confused, I couldn't slam his wide open mouth for 15 minutes, really! How are you able to combine all the seemingly opposite elements into one totality? This is incomparable to any other within metal scene.
"Well, as I told you this is nothing that we are willing to do, it just happens to us. The Matrix of "WaterHells" did start 3 Years ago, when suddenly this Picture did arise in my Head of a Man awaking in the Middle of the Sea without knowing his Name, his Past, nothing. He was just thrown there into the endless Monotony of the Waves. There he did drift for a long Time, and after a While, when I already was wondering what this was supposed to be, Voices arose from all around and nowhere. The Man in the Picture in my Head was very surprised, looked all around, but no Ships or Islands where there to be the Source of this weird Murmur. Then he realised that these Voices call his Name from deep below...and there he sinks and sinks.
For many Months I had all these Pictures in my Head like a dismembered Movie never stopping, of bleeding Undines, of the tower-horned SkullPalace down there, of a pale-white Hall with sleeping Marble-Statues and of the blazing Heart of the Sun, buried deep underneath this all. I nearly got insane, because these Pictures began to live and to talk to me. And the less I wanted to see them the angrier they got. So I had to investigate this strange Fragments and draw them down in Maps.
In the End I had 12 Maps, which all together formed the Map of the Great Sea. So the Pictures did calm a bit, but not for long. The ShadowHordes started to haunt me once more, so I was forced to catch the Tunes and Melodies, that flew out of these 12 Pictures, into 12 Songs.
Every Part of the Great Sea had its very own Atmosphere, and all those varied Moods did softly flow into each other like a Drop of Water, that rains down from Heaven onto the Leaves of a Tree, wanders to the Roots of a Flower and then sinks down through the Ground. Deep in the Earth the Drop meets a River and melts into the fluid Unity with some of his Brothers, until, a lot of Time later, this River ends in the Ocean, from where it gets evaporized by the Sun to rain down onto Earth once more...and the Cycle starts again.
This Drop would have been very insulted if we just had written some ordinary Metal Songs about his Journey, because the furious Tempest, which throws him down to Earth has a completely different Atmosphere than the Moment when he touches the beautiful Flower or when he passes the Poisons of a Chemical Factory or when he returns to the Great Sea in the End. So you see, all these stylistic Elements are, like you said yourself, just seemingly opposite."
As we can hear, you have never been afraid of using electronic equipment to creating own music. Nevertheless I suppose you want to keep some kind of equilibrium between typically metallic sound and the modern one. Am I mistaken?
"KorovaKill is mainly distributed in the Metal-Scene and contains Distorted Guitars and DoubleBass-Drums to a certain Degree therefore. What will happen tomorrow or if we'll break this Balance one Day nobody can tell. I also like this calm, fragile Atmosphere of "The bleeding Lap of Undines" or the bombastic Orchestra-Songs "Blue thrones..." and "Through Neptune's broken Nets", which have no Metal-Drums or E-Guitars at all. But I think for the next Years KorovaKill will continue to base on metallic Elements."
Have you ever been told that you have quite similar voice to Garm of Arcturus / Ulver? Your 'clean vocal' imposed on me really, really toughly!
"Thanks for the Roses! I've practised a lot especially those deep Vocals always while Driving my Car. I don't know Arcturus that well, but since also some other Magazines have made this Comparison I guess that there are some Similarities. I was singing like that already on our Debut "A Kiss in the Charnel Fields" from 1994, but "WaterHells" is the first Album where we had Time enough in the Studio to record the Vocals well. And Markus Stock (Empyrium) of the Klangschmiede Studio also did a great Job in embedding them perfectly in the Production."
As I presume "Waterhells" has a very profound lyrical background based on particular well-structured concept (just as it was before). Unfortunately I have no opportunity of reading the lyrics (as I have no booklet, merely promo-CD). Owing to this, could you tell me what do the lyrics deal with this time. I believe it has to be very interesting?
"Okay, I've already told you a bit about that. "WaterHells" is about the eternal Cycle of the Great Sea. The Great Sea is the total Sum of all Atoms, Waves, Things, Movements and Stimuli in all Scales and Zooms of all Times, Places and Ages all around in all Directions together in one Entity, the World of Worlds...the All. The Great Sea is where all comes from and where all will end."
"A Thunder explodes and a little Drop is born into the visible Part of this World-Work, out of the Invisible. The Man awakes drifting aimless and nameless in the Sea. After Untimes of drifting without ever stranding he recognizes, that all Directions are meaningless except the Way down to the Ground. He drowns beyond the final Frontier and enters the Realms of the Underwhirls. At the Bottom of the Sea stands the Skull Palace, a Castle built of Bones with the Shape of the Devils Head. Mermaids and Undines wait in the beautiful Gardens before the Castle and try to decoy him away from this awful Place with their hypnotic Song. Heavy and dowsy he gets from the Honey and Opium of their enchanting Voices, but in the End he decides not to follow them into their delusive Paradise of eternal Dreams.
He has to enter the Skull Palace of painful Conclusion, the ulcerous Skeleton-Brain of hollow Models and dead Images, the drunken Shadows of his Imagination. Inside there is a pale-white Hall, filled with a Myriad of Marble Statues. All Time is frozen, all Feelings are stunned in there. All Unredeemed stand there, frozen in Stone and just waiting for one Drop of his Blood to come to Life. In the Middle of this Marble Hall there's an Altar with a voluminous Book. Into the Cover his Name is carved. He opens it and in there 3-dimensional, moving Pictures, Shapes and Figures are printed and Words which he doesn't understand. as he leafs through these living Pages he cuts his Finger on the Edge of one Page. It falls down on the Ground and all Statues leave their Stones. They come to life and turn into a raving Storm of ShadowHordes. With ripping Swords and bestial Screams all silent Devils awake from their Sleep. Red sparkle their Stallions Eyes on their furious Ride through every Pore of his Body. They guard the Gate to the final Secret, but all their Threats are just a Game, a Mirror Play of powerful Nothings. It's just a Fool's World. In the Black of the Void waits the Gold of the All. An all-coloured, golden Kaleidoscope of Pictures, Tones, Smells and Sentiments overflows him. He crosses the last Bridge, and at the End of the Tunnel he reaches the Heart of the Sun. All the Waters melt and he sees lucid and clear through Neptune's broken Nets.
The last Chord of the last Song is a Cluster of all 12 half-Tones, each one standing for one of the 12 Songs. So the whole Album is united and gets one in it's End.
As you see the whole Concept just consists of Pictures and Symbols and builds an archetypical Landscape, into which every Listener can project his own Interpretations. Our own, personal Interpretation of this Journey is irrelevant."
Had any line-up replacements been occurring to Korovakill during the course between tow latest albums of yours?
"Around one Year ago Moritz and I decided to break with the other 4 Band Members and to turn the Korova-Herd into a new Trinity together with Renaud, our Live-Keyboarder. We had to mutate beyond all Walls and Prisons of the Past and burned all Bridges behind to realize our new Vision. Too many grapping Hands just make the Water dull and cloudy. We wanted to angle the Great Sea into the Crystal Dams of this CD like a clear Mirror and not like a crippled Wickerwork of hundred different Puzzles."
NEW LINE-UP:
Christof Niederwieser - all Voices, Guitars, Bass & Keyboards
Renaud Tschirner - Keyboards & Sound Editing
Moritz Neuner - Drums
What do the symbols and graphics on the album mean? As I remember "Dead Like an Angle" teemed with such ones as well?
"The Booklet-Layout is a visual Interpretation of the Map of the Great Sea, which we've done together with our Layouter Andreas Seebacher.
The Relationship of most Pictures to the Concept should be clear, so I just tell you a few Words about those six Signs. The first Row is the Trinity of Water. The neptunic Water of the Fishes is the Great Sea itself. The lunar Water of the Cancer, symbolized by the Snail-Shell, is the Great Sea like it wells out through the Brooklet of your own, subjective Feelings, your Impressions. The plutonic Water of the Scorpio, symbolized by the Pentagram-Starfish, is the Great Sea like it ascends in your Imagination, like it is conserved in Thoughts and catched into Forms. The Water is the invisible Part of the Great Sea.
The second Row is the Trinity of Fire. The Fire is the visible Part of the Great Sea. The martial Fire of the Aries, the Explosion, is the first Flash of the invisible Great Sea out of the dead Angles into the Visible. The solar Fire of the Lion, the gleaming Sun, is the subjective Expression and the individualistic Power of Creation, your active Life. The versatile Fire of Jupiter finally, the Lava of the Archer, is the Search for Insight beyond the Horizons of our Imagination's Limits.
I don't want to go into more Details and reveal too much about for what all those other Symbols stand...who knows will understand."
Have any young and interesting Austrian bands come forth out of your native waterhells? Have you got any favourites?
"Our Country is famous for it's innovative Outputs indeed. The Austrian Avantgarde covers a wide Horizon of very different Styles, that find their Focus Point in the Metal Area. There are the bizarre Classic-Folk-Metal-Theatre-Landscapes of ANGIZIA, kidnapping the Listener into Realms not of this World. There is the great Debut-Album "Cybionic Black Art" of the Satanic Science-Fiction Biomechanics SPRAWL with outstanding Concept and incredible Techno-Jazz-BlackMetal, and there is also HOLLENTHON, the new Band of Martin Schirenc (Ex-Pungent Stench), a really original Output which I like very much.
But the best Band always has been GRADE A FANCY, an atmospheric ProgressiveMetal-Band, of whom most Bands in Tyrol did steal "their" Ideas. They never got a Record Contract and did split some Years ago."
What can you say about apart-from-band guests who appeared on the new accomplishment? I can hear some female one? Is she a human or siren? Enchanting voice she has? Am I right that she also contributed to "Dead Like an Angel"?
"The Song of the bleeding Mermaids was born through the Voice of Laura Angelmayer. She surprized us totally with her cool and spontaneous Ideas. We haven't met a female Singer like her before, creative, crazy and no stupid Girlie at all. I met her the first Time when I was wandering through the Forests in the Mountains near my House. Suddenly I heard this Siren-Voice singing out from nowhere. I ran into the Direction of this wonderful Song and came to a Place, where a little Brooklet ripples through a little Pond. Laura was sitting there with a Book and an Apple in her Hands, singing and reading. Just one Day later all her Vocal Parts for "WaterHells" were recorded in the Home-Studio of Renaud. I still cannot believe this great Luck we had.
Martina from the "Dead like an Angel"-Album I haven't seen anymore since two Years, for she did just bring me some stupid and unnecessary Troubles with the Police. On some Parts of "Into the UnderWhirls" you can also hear a Classical Choir."
Do you play live shows in general? Frankly spoken I haven't heard of any.
"Our last Live-Show did take Place in January 2000. We haven't decided yet if we are going to rehearsal for "WaterHells"-Concerts, since Renaud and I have too many other Things to do, but who knows..."
Reveal me now what did take you so long to accomplish "Waterhells"? I do not even remember when exactly the previous one was registered.
""Dead like an Angel" was released in May 1998. After that we spent some Time with Rehearsals for the "Katalypse2025"-Album and played a few Concerts in Austria and Switzerland. Around Spring 1999 the Major Parts of "WaterHells" had been finished. The Rest of the Time we had to solve the Record-Company-Problem...thank you Max for Causing that important Mutation (without even wanting that...)!"
Before we put the interview to an end, could you say a few words especially to your fans all over in Poland?
"Okay Bart, we thank you for the profound and very pleasant Interview! We love our Polish Fans and want to visit your beautiful Country soon!"
