Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio: It's necessary to have events such as Porta Nigra!

With Let's Play (Two Girls & A Goat) Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio delivered again a real masterpiece. Singer and mastermind Tomas Petterson even described it as "the final version" of his project.

In a few months they will return to Aarschot, to headline the Porta Nigra festival.

DE: Tomas, it took you six years to write the songs of Let’s Play, in the meantime you’ve released the double album Vision:Libertine. How come the proces took so long? Was it a just a case of perfection?

TP: The process of Let’s Play started immediately after I finished Song 4 Hate & Devotion in 2010, this is how I normally do things. I find myself inside a state of creative high and things just flow, and this time too. Two years after S4H&D we release 4Play to serve as the appetizer for the Let’s Play, we record the video in Russia and the process is moving according to plan. At this point OOL have been informed, the video has been recorded, there are plans for photos, the EP out, and then suddenly, we are pregnant with our second child. So we come to the conclusion that we have two options, either we release the album as planned but without the promotional photos we had in mind at the time, and without supporting concerts, and simply hope that the album doesn’t disappear into a medial and social void. Or we decide that this album is good enough to put on hold and we simply wait and hope its actually good enough to release at another time when the time is right and the stars are aligned. Evidently we decided on option number two. But in the aftermath of this decision I felt frustrated. We no longer had an estimate on when we would release a new album and when people would have a chance to hear some of the best songs we had ever created, so in frustration and delusion I sat down and created Vision:Libertine. But the most unexpected outcome of Vision:Libertine however was that I evolved and improved as producer, as a singer and a as a musician, so the material that I once felt was the best I ever did, didn’t sound as good as I remembered when I finally returned to it, so instead of embracing Let’s Play and unconditionally releasing it a year or two after Vision:Libertine, I decided to deconstruct the album, remix it, re-sing it, and perfect it to the point that it was a worthy successor and as good as always thought it was. And this is why things took more time than expected.

DE: About Let’s Play you’ve said you see it as the final version of ORE, which also sounds a bit alarming as in: I’ve got nothing more to say. Something the fans don’t want to hear, so we hope this is just a wrong interpretation of your words?

 

TP: Whether or not “Let’s Play” will be our final album or not remains to be seen, but I doubt it. I have felt hesitant on more than a few occasions, about whether or not I see the end of Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio. But every time I do, I successively come to the conclusion that it would be absurd to MAKE such a decision. It would be like consciously deciding to cut of both my hands because I don’t want to cook anymore, or both my feet because I’m tired of walking. I can’t deliberately make that decision. ORE is who I am; it’s who Rose and I are. Without it I would become half a person. But at the same time I must consider the possibility. Everything ends, everything more or less, has an expiration date. So what I was trying to say in the press-release is that with Let’s Play, I think I have taken the idea of Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio and the notion apocalyptic pop as far as I can. From here I find it hard to advance further on that particular path without imitating myself, and at length becoming a caricature of ourselves. So what I’m trying to say is that maybe it’s time to reinvent ORE and possibly commence a new journey on a new path where rules can be entirely abolished? To advance into regression and pursue the darkness of the past, as the choice would be deliberate and not a result of not knowing any better? Time will tell, it always does….

DE: It was quite a surprise two years ago when CMI organised the 30th anniversary festival. But even more surprising was the Waves of Darkness on the Baltic Sea event that was happening this year. Although they’ve said the anniversary was a one-time only event, it looks like the legend is coming back to life. Do you think this will go further than just a nostalgic look back in time?

TP: The CMI festival in 2017 was as far as we can tell, a once in a lifetime event. It was a genuine 30-year anniversary. (But on the other hand, CMI turns 3, 40, 45, 50….) And what Death Disco created on the Baltic sea in September was something completely different. It was more willingly a unique opportunity to see all your favorite bands on a cruise to Riga. An up close and personal experience at sea. The first festival was indeed a once in lifetime experience, this will not happen again, but who knows what the Baltic Sea has in store for us?

DE: The concert on the boat must have been a very special experience. How did you experienced it?

TP: To say that the experience onboard M/S Necromantica was special is an understatement. Maybe the experience would have been more normalized if the conditions on Sunday would have been more “normal”, but with the storm that suddenly emerged in time for Of the Wand and the Moon, and which climaxed just in time for ORE and TriORE, and then withstood for most of In Slaughter Natives, I would more willingly like to describe the experience as absurd. It was an altogether fantastic experience in many many ways. Artists and fans coexisting together onboard a ship, one really great stage for everyone, one concert at a time, two days of fun at sea, 1000 people stuck together onboard, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. This was amazing, so thank so Vlad, and thank you Death Disco for making it happen.

 

From an ORE concert point of view however, it was definitely not perfect; quite the contrary. But from what I’ve heard I gather the impression that most people really loved it. They were able to see and understand the absurdity of it all while 6 meter waves hit the body of the boat and caused both equipment, artists, audience and the entre stage to move from side to side. My impressions are therefore somewhat schizophrenic, but it was a very unique and altogether successful experience.

DE: When I combine the aesthetics of ORE and a cruise ship, my thoughts bring me automatically to the Roman Polanski movie Bitter Moon. Do you think this match fit?

TP: Sounds tempting.

DE: The ORE videoclips are always very high profile. Beside Bitter Moon, are there other movies that share your point of view?

TP: The Secretary.

DE: In times were censorship reigns supreme, it’s very surprising the Menage à Trois videoclip is still online. Did you get shocking comments after releasing this clip?

TP: I don’t read the comment sections, just as I try to stay clear of reading too many reviews of our albums. It’s ultimately counter productive. And with 1.4M views (which nobody expected, especially not OOL) there must be quite a lot of people who genuinely hate both the song and the video. But as we sent the video to a handful of friends and family before the release, we did get our share of shocking comments before the video went public.

DE: I’ve also asked this question to Coph Nia’s Mikael Alden: how do you look back at the CMI years? Mikael especially remembers the specific familiar feeling. It’s also a fact nowadays we still see CMI acts together sharing one bill, looking back could you say that lifelasting friendship bonds were made in that period?

TP: Of course, in retrospective it was a very special time in our lives that founded many life lasting friendships. Many of us (Mikael, Jouni, Roger and Lina excluded of course) were quite young when it all happened. I was 20 when I started working with CMI for the first Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio contributions, 22 when I recorded Reaping the Fallen. And I was only 18 when we recorded the Archon Satani contributions for Dimensions of a Coffin. So it’s been a while since it all began and even as much as 9 years since it ended. But I still have contact with friends from the CMI days, and as Mikael says, it had a very familiar feeling, like the Manson family.

DE: ORE is one of the few acts in the neofolk genre who made the step to a “big” label, I can only think of Rome who did the same thing (Trisol). Rome made a complete change of style during the years and can’t be hardly called neofolk anymore. ORE instead remains true to their wellknown sound. Not saying that Rome had to change but believing this was a natural proces, was this artistic issue a condition before signing at Out Of Line?

TP: I have had a very open and honest dialogue with Out of Line ever since day one. Maybe it hasn’t been easy all the time with an industrial / apocalyptic folk band becoming part of an electronic mainstream label, and trying to make room for us in an already existing habitat in which we don’t belong, but the dialogue has always been good. OOL has never made any demands on anything. ORE has been allowed to operate freely, do what we desire, sound as we want to, and be ORE in every way without restrictions. The only thing Andre said that we needed to consider; was German law. I’ve been able to say what I want and Andre (Out of Line CEO) has told me what he thinks and so on. I haven’t always been pleased, as for the work that OOL did for Vision:Libertine, but we talked about it and we both decided to do our best with Let’s Play and see where it takes us. And so far so good I’d say. So I see no reason not to keep on working with OOL for a foreseeable future.

DE: A remarkable quality of the albums that were released at Out Of Line is the warmth that goes out of them. It goes also beyond the dark folk genre. ORE shows that this stoic genre, unless what some people think, can be enriched with various elements and even deliver real “hits”. When it comes to recording, what’s the main difference nowadays?

TP: I think this question depends on how far back in time we go when we compare it to nowadays. When I started in 1993 I had a Roland Workstation W30, no real microphones and I did my final recordings in Jouni’s studio on an 8 track. Nowadays I have full home studio, high quality microphones, unlimited recording possibilities and a brand new iMac. So the technical differences are vast. But on a more personal level I think it is also fair to say that today, I know what I’m doing, I create this sort of music because I want to and the results are deliberate. In the beginning it was more an art project where the results were the product of my limitations.

DE: ORE is one of the leading names in the dark folk genre, and is named together with other spearheads as C93 en DI6. When I made my entrance in the so called dark music scene, it was quickly clear that this will be my kind of music. Almost twenty years later it’s sad to see that new acts in the genre are rather exceptional. When I talk to other bands, organisers and label managers they all share the same sad thought: this scene is dying. Happily there are some sparkles to enlighten us every now and then, but this verdict seems inevitable.

The fact that the musical landscape is changing very fast is of course a very important reason, but there will always be some fanatics who keep on supporting the scene. What’s your look at the neofolk scene nowadays?

TP: I never thought I’d live to see the day when Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio was mentioned next to Current 93 and Death in June. I wish I could go back in time and tell 15 year old me that this day would come.

As you say, the scene is dying unless it’s already dead. It’s hard, not to say impossible, to attract people to individual concerts and therefore it necessary to have events such as “Waves of Darkness” or “Porta Nigra” when you invite enough interesting acts to attract a larger number of people who feel they MUST attend. But these are sad times for the scene. I suppose I will know for sure just how sad they actually are in February when we have a German weekend tour together with Triarii. Hopefully not as sad as I think.

DE: Together with Christian Erdmann (Triarii) you formed TriORE 10 years ago. I just saw ORE and Triarii will perform live in Leipzig in the beginning of 2020, are there future plans to also continue with the TriORE collaboration?

TP: We have a second album ready, a truly great album; we are just waiting for the opportunity to release it under the right circumstances.

DE: From the beginning sexuality was a huge angle of approach in your music. All kinds of human fantasies are covered, especially those who are disapproved by the so called “average person”. You also combine this with the typical mark of shame that religion puts on all of this, which in my opinion makes it even more powerful. The question that many people will ask is in which way these fantasies are entwined with your daily life?

TP: The fantasies are always there, but of course it’s a lot easier to have a more active and extrovert lifestyle before you become parents, than it is today. Before parenthood you could decide to go to clubs in the weekend, act out and bring someone with you back home, or simply do whatever you desired whenever you desired. But nowadays everything is more based on tact and seizing the moments. Things are still possible but they are only available in moderation. But on the other hand, it makes it all the more precious and pleasurable when these opportunities do occur.

DE: The song A World Not So Beautiful sadly enough had proved to have profetic visions. Do you think there is a future for Europe as we know it?

TP: I suppose everything depends on which Europe you know.

Constituted borders and countries are illusive and ever changing. What we consider as true today was unimaginable 50 years ago, and will most likely be considered entirely insignificant in 100 years from now. We move in cycles. Kingdoms come and go. So the Europa we know will die like everything else, what we say is “our” culture will become intertwined with new expressions and what we consider progressive today will be conservative and regressive tomorrow. We will naturally feel rootless and disillusioned as our culture crumbles before our eyes, but our children will never understand our grief and our separation.

DE: The first album ORE made for Out Of Line, Songs 4 Hate & Devotion, which also features some of your keytracks is not for sale anymore for a longtime. Did you already get the question considering a reissue of this masterpiece?

TP: People are asking about this album quite regularly, and I did in fact speak to OOL about the possibility to rerelease it in combination with Let’s Play in September. But even though I see the potential of rereleasing it, I also understand the record label perspective on reissues, quantities and the record selling climate 2019/20, and I understand their skepticism of bringing the dead back to life. The album however, will be rereleased in 2020, maybe not by OOL, but there will be physical “Songs 4 Hate & Devotion” album for sale again.

DE: Nicolas van Meirhaeghe (Empusae) who also works with Triarii seems to be a full time member since 2014. Are you familiar with other Belgian artists?

TP: Belgium for me is Electronic & EBM, that’s your legacy. Front 242, The Klinik, Dive, Split Second, Vomito Negro; Play it Again Sam Records.

I’m a long time fan of The Klinik. Dirk still does great things with Dive, but none of them quite as great as he and Marc Verhagen did with Klinik. I still have a special place for that 3 LP Box in my record collection.

DE: In the special edition of Let’s Play you’ll find a toy and a pair of stockings. The nylon fetish is a recurrent theme, so maybe it’s time to tell us which is the best hosery to fullfill your desires?

TP: Rose and I have the same preference when it comes to this topic, so we are both wholehearted admirers of the hold up stocking; it’s genuinely hard to compete with that particular item. But a classical seamed stocking attached to a 10-strap garter-belt is also a real turn on. And lately both of us have come to relish overt pantyhose, fishnet in particular. So there’s a selection to choose from.

DE: ORE will play the Porta Nigra festival again, and as I am playing the afterparty, do you have a request to hear?

TP: No matter how much we’d like to, I’m not really sure how much time we will have to attend that afterparty on March 6^th, considering that we will perform in Mannheim the night after, but here are my requests, take your pick.

Haus Arafna – No Right to Live - 7” version

The Klinik – Black Leather

Skinny Puppy – Tin Omen

Christian Death –Romeo’s Distress

Lee Hazelwood – Summer Wine

DE: Than can be arranged! See you there!

Pictures: 1, 2, 4 & 5: Marquis(pi)X, 3. Benny Serneels

Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio

Trouwfest #3: Art Abscons

The first name that was announced for the third edition of Trouwfe(e)st was German act Art Abscons. A mysterious masked man whose music we’ve been following from the beginning. He invited us for a private concert, “Art Abscons in the Green”, at his homeplace in Duisburg last summer. It was a unique experience, after which our decision was made to let this nice man make his debut in Belgium. An offer he accepted very gratefully even though performing on stage is not his favorite part of being a musician.

DE: Art Abscons: an artist with a mask. Logical first question: why? What’s the story behind the mask?

AA: I believe that there are two kinds of artists. Firstly, there are those who do their art mainly for personal fulfilment. They are usually proud of their own accomplishments and enjoy whatever appreciation, recognition or fame – huge or small – they receive from their audience. In most cases, they enjoy what they are doing, and this is also the reason why they are doing what they are doing. They are expressing themselves through their art. They simply do what they want and, often, what they think their audience wants. A very healthy approach. Secondly, however, there are those artists who are forced to do what they are doing, no matter if they want to or not. Their urge to create art is compulsory. Art is like a spirit on its own that haunts them and that forces them to do whatever art wants – neither what the artist wants nor what they believe their audience wants. These artists do not express themselves; they express something more universal, something that is merely speaking through them. Art is like a Higher Will from a realm beyond that is forced onto these artists, and they are merely artisans who use their craft and their tools to create what this Will commands. For this reason, artists belonging to this second category do not feel personally responsible for what they are doing, and, hence, they are not proud of their works and do not feel that they, as a person, deserve the applause or recognition they receive. I have always felt that I belong to this second category. I have chosen a mask to show that the art I deliver does not belong to me. I am nothing but a tool.

DE: The mask is also quite contrary: the scary mask and the lovely music you play. Just like the picture where you're posing with the mask next to children, which I think is a very strong image.  

AA: When the Grandmaster came to me for the first time some ten years ago, he communicated the following formula to me: "Good + Evil = Beauty". The world is torn into a thousand shreds by the force of contradiciton. Nothing makes sense by itself, except for beauty – because beauty resolves all contradiction. This is why we need beauty, desperately. Most people do not fathom the abysmal quality of true beauty. They confuse beauty with the nice and pleasant and do not realise how shallow this is. They are numbing their minds and their senses with cheap pleasures. However, you do not heal the pain of existence by distracting yourself from it. You have to face it, immerse yourself in it, analyse its nature and resolve it from deep inside. Beauty is the product of knowledge and understanding. The process is painful – but the more painful it is, the greater is the consolation awarded by understanding. You can see the traces of this process in the Grandmaster's countenance. He has suffered, he has seen life's universal ugliness and yet there is something triumphant in his features, a stange and knowing smile. He has mastered the universal challenge of transforming pain into beauty by means of knowledge. He has eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  

Children usually love the Grandmaster at first sight even though he looks ugly. I guess that is because children understand complex things more easily and intuitively than we grown-ups do. They instictively know that the Grandmaster is safe and instantly integrate him into their cosmos. I have never seen a child that was scared by him – even if parents were sometimes sceptical in the beginning, especially if they know that their child is usually afraid of masks or easily scared in general. Maybe you will remember five-year-old Vincent who was also at the small gig out in the green last year. When his parents asked him if he had not been afraid of the mask, he replied, "Why should I? Superheroes also wear masks." And I could add that superheroes usually know a lot about suffering, too. 

DE: You use an alter ego you named Grandmaster Abscon. What’s the story behind this character?

AA: To me, Grandmaster Art Abscon is a personification of art itself – of the ART that haunts ME. I do not know exactly where it comes from. The orders I receive come at night, when I am sleeping. Their source is hidden to me. I call this source "Abscondinium". It is a realm I know to exist. I can see and hear it constantly weaving behind all phenomena of the physical world. I believe that many have tried to describe it. It could be the "Realm of Ideas" in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, it could be the Gnostics' "Pleroma", it could be Rudolf Steiner's "Devachan" or Philip K Dick's "Republic", or, it could be C.G. Jung's "Collective Unconscious". It is all true, I guess, and at the same time, it is not. This realm is unknowable. There are moments, however, in which our material world is drenched in it. This is when magic happens. I love it when that happens. 

Art's last name is Abscon for a reason. My family has roots in the north of France, in a small town called Abscon. I always loved this word, especially when I learned that, in modern French, "abscons" means something like "difficult to understand". The word is derived from Latin, of course, "absconditus" meaning "hidden". When the Romans invaded Gaul and came to the place that today is called Abscon, it was deserted and hidden deep in the woods. They used it as a secret hide-out and called it "Abscondinium". 

DE: Last year you released under your own name Tellbach a minimal synth album. Did you feel the time was right to do something else?

AA: Yes, I needed a change. I had been working on ART ABSCONs' "The Separate Republic" for five years. This work had been very exhausting. I needed something lighter and easier to recover and to distract myself for a while. I did in fact use Tellbach to narrate some personal stories and to get them off of my chest. I needed it as a kind of psychological compensation, a holiday from my serious work, so to say. But I also used it to learn new things about music production, like dabbling in analogue synthesizers and recording on all forms of magnetic tape. It was... fun. Some of the things I learned from it are coming in handy now that I have started to work on the next ART ABSCONs album, "Nach allen Regeln der Kunst". Art has started to contact me again during my sleep, and I know that the work on this new album will be very exhausting again. I am sure that I will need another Tellbach album to recover from it when it is accomplished. 

DE: Alongside the Tellbach you also released the Misty Bywater album on your own Opus Abscondi label. What will be next on OA?

AA: I have the very great privilege to release the next Kinit Her album, "Fire Returns to Heaven". I have always loved their music, and this just feels right. This new album is a very good one, maybe even their best so far. I am currently waiting for the final audio master, and then the album will probably be released in April – the CD version on Opus Abscondi, and the cassette version on Brave Mysteries. 

DE: I just want to show my respect for this. Nowadays you have to be an idealist to release music and me as a music lover are very grateful for people like you. As a musician, what’s your opinion about the future?

AA: Thank you. There are many reasons why I stick to releasing physical albums on vinyl, CDs and cassettes even though there are only very few people left who are still listening to physical sound carriers and even though you spend more money than you earn if you release music on physical mediums. Not only do I believe that the latter sound better and that the poor audio quality of music streams is damaging to our physical and mental health, I also know from first hand experience that music streams are virtually killing music and artists. It is not only the financial aspect, but money is an important factor, of course, that can either make art possible or impossible. Recording a good album properly takes a lot of time and energy, but it also requires expensive equipment and other resources. If you only have the sparetime that your day job leaves you to work on your art, you cannot accomplish that much, and if you earn nothing with your art, it will be very difficult to finance all the things that are required to produce it with the money your day job provides you. Music streams have made it impossible to earn any money with music. Either your music is on YouTube or bandcamp, where people are listening to it for free, or they pay for an account in a digital music store. While the latter is very noble, the artists they are listening to will actually only get a ridiculously tiny fraction of the money. ART ABSCONs, for example, is available in various digital music stores, and I can see that my music has ten thousands of streams per month, and yet I only earn about three or four US Dollars per month. I can buy two bottles of beer from a kiosk for this – for albums that have cost thousands of euros in production. All this leaves me very little time and resources for my art. I am not complaining because I know that every aspiring musician today is facing the same problem. The good thing about the internet is that it makes your music available to many people and that it can have great exposure. However, people will have to understand that, if they are no longer willing to properly pay for music, new music will gradually get worse, and good music will become less and less and eventually disappear, simply because gifted artists neither have the time nor the money to create beautiful things – and those who will struggle on anyway will be sacrificing their entire lives and energies for this until they collapse. It is only the big music industry that profits from music streams while minor artists are being eliminated. The conditions for producing and promoting good underground music are getting worse and worse. Everyone who is still investing their energies in it deserves praise and is a hero – and I am not taking about myself – I am talking about people who organise underground concerts, write reviews about obscure artists or host alternative radio stations, I am talking about DJs, but also about those people who will still buy a vinyl record or a CD from an independent artist. I am talking about people like you, in short. Thank you for existing. 

DE: Am I the first to say this or did you heard this before: your voice reminds me a lot of Alexander Velljanov. Deine Lakaien is very successful, also because of this specific voice. I would feel very frustrated in this case. How difficult is it to promote your music, because I know you've started your own label because you weren't happy with the labels you worked with in the past?

AA: To be honest, you are indeed the first to compare my voice to Alexander Velljanov's! I must admit that I was never really interested in Deine Lakaien, even if I think that they are quite good and that I would probably like their music if I gave it a proper listen, so at least I can claim that I am not trying to imitate Alexander Velljanov. But, why should it be frustrating to me that they are successful? They were lucky enough to get a proper record contract at a time when there was no internet and when the music industry was still functioning and took the fact into consideration that artists also need money to be able to produce art. Musicians who had some success back then will even nowadays enjoy a better status and better conditions than those who have started out to try their luck in the days of the internet, but I know that things have also gotten a lot harder for the older heroes. So, no, I do not envy them at all. I suppose that all times have their own particular challenges, and I am ready to face the challenges of today. I enjoy the fact of being truly independent now with my own label, Opus Abscondi. I can make all decisions for myself – and even if I am not super-famous, my music has a few very dedicated listeners. I am generally more interested in quality than in quantity, also when it comes to the nature of my listeners.

DE: You’ve worked with Osewoudt on a track for their first album. Willem Witte, at that time still in Osewoudt, will also perform at Trouwfest with his EBM project Pantser Fabriek. Are you familiar with this project?

AA: You know what? I think it has been eight years since I last saw Willem. I look very much forward seeing him again. It was always a very great pleasure to meet him. Of course, I have been aware of Pantser Fabriek. I love it. 

DE: Which act at Trouwfest you don’t want to miss?

AA: First of all, let me thank you sincerely for inviting me to play there. 

As for the other acts, since I will be there, I will want to miss none of them, and I am sure I will enjoy all concerts a lot – provided that I will not be too nervous about my own performance. I must admit that, apart from Pantser Fabriek, I did not know any of the other acts until I looked them up. I am not a great scenester and usually so busy with my own music that I am hardly aware of what is happing around me. It is not out of arrogance or ignorance, though. It is especially during my creative episodes that I can hardly listen to anyone else's music because any foreign input will distract me from what I hear inside. But I have looked into all the projects that will perform at Trouwfest, and can say that I look forward to all of them.  

DE: Last summer you invited 20 friends for a private concert in the green in Duisburg, the place where you rehearse. Thanks again for sharing this magical moment. Is it harder to do a concert like this, or just the oppossite?

AA: The worst thing that can happen to me is to get on a stage and sing into a microphone. Technology hates me. It usually all goes wrong. When I wear that mask, I am virtually blind because I cannot wear my glasses under it. I do not see where things are. Damn, it is so dark. I am night-blind on top of it all. I stumble over cables. I might even tip over and fall from the stage. I cannot see which foot pedal I need to hit or what the tiny red lamps on it say. I am drenched in sweat. It is too hot under this mask. Those stage lights are killing me. My left cheek is itching and I cannot scratch it. It drives me insane. Oh no, the microphone stand just collapsed. I hope it did not hit anyone down there and that no one got injured. There is a humming noise from a broken cable. Damn, why does it have to happen now? The battery for the active pickup of my guitar is suddenly empty, too. Damn, it was brand-new. I need to replace it before the next song. That will not look very grandmasterly. Why am I doing this? This is hell. Why the hell did I agree to play on a stage again? I must have been out of my mind when I said yes. I have no idea how many people are out there in the audience. I cannot see a damn thing. Are they all filming this to later expose my misery on YouTube? I think I actually prefer unplugged concerts. Yes, I do. Small, unplugged concerts. Without technology. By daylight. Without cables on the ground. Without a microphone stand before me. You have no idea what you have done to me. 

DE: Art Abscons is always placed in the neofolk corner, but your style goes further than that. You’ve already worked together with some big names of the neofolk genre (Luftwaffe, Gnomonclast). Do you feel comfortable with this neofolk label?

AA: I don't know. I always did what I did and never really cared how to call it or what the genre was. It was mainly others who have put me into this corner. I am both grateful and annoyed by it. I am grateful because neofolk has been a genre that permits many artistic liberties, offers a very interesting framework and because it is a highly intellectual scene that has been very faithful and loyal to its values and to its artists. Without it, I would most probably be nothing. Or at least, hardly anyone would care for what I am doing. However, at the same time, I am sometimes annoyed by the artistic restrictions and the very narrow expectations that such a categorisation can impose on you. Some people will hear strummed acoustic guitars and windchimes in my music and see runes all over my artworks even if there are none while others will comdemn my music especially if there are no strummed acoustic guitars and windchimes or runes all over my artworks. Yes, my music is different from what is generally referred to as neofolk. As I have said earlier, I do not do what I believe a specific audience expects. I do what I have to do. If this mainly appeals to neofolkers, I am okay with it.  

DE: When I published the flyer for Trouwfest you’ve said it looked very ‘German’, of course because it’s in the style of our headliner Wappenbund. Do you feel you have to compete with the prejudices that are related with the neofolk genre?

AA: What is traditionally referred to as neofolk often purposefully polarises by treating a specific part of German history in a highly artistic and ambivalent manner. This approach is often highly intelligent, and I find it very intriguing and thought-provoking if it has great artistic quality and does not follow a one-sided political scheme. All of it just does not happen to be my topic. Everything that characterises ART ABSCONs lies beyond everything else: beyond space and time, and most certainly beyond politics, or, history. ART ABSCONs is all about magic and the quest for knowledge. 

The impression that most people outside of the scene have is that neofolk is nothing but a glorification of fascist ideals – which is, of course, even true to a certain degree. There have been several people thoughout the years who have personally accused me of being a right-wing extremist, just because they have googled my music project, stumbled across a term called "neofolk" and let their fancy guide them. I am not interested in strengthening this connotation with my music since it is not a part of it. 

DE: I remember on Facebook you’ve participated in some kind of ‘book-challenge’. As holidays are coming closer, which book do you recommend to put in our luggage?

AA: All of them. I am currently reading a book by Maria Renold that is called "Intervals, Scales, Tones and the Concert Pitch C = 128 Hz". I can recommend it if you want to be totally confused and then wish turn the world upside down by means of music. 

Thank you very much for the interview.

Credits pictures: picture 1: Pantalaimon Fotografie , foto 4: Sebastian Pichard

Art Abscons

Trouwfest #3: with Art Abscons, Riotmiloo, Ashtoreth, For Greater Good, Panster Fabriek and Wappenbund: June 15th at JH Wommel (Wommelgem).

Sistema bezopasnosti: In periods of trouble, appealing to eternal values as traditions, love, art, brotherhood and friendship always had a positive result

Neofolk from Russia. As fans of both neofolk and everything Russian, it had to attract our attention. When we were confronted with the eclectic oeuvre Sistema Bezopasnosti - or ‘Safety system’ - we felt like we discovered something special. When we found out that the man behind this project - Vladimir Doronin, also known as VlaD or Letzte Soldat Nord - also taught published on philosophy, we crawled into our pen to ask him a few sharp questions. And of course we got as many sharp answers back on subjects like neofolk in Russia, Siberian punk, esotericism, spirituality, rebellion and the relations between East and West.

Hi VlaD. Sistema Bezopasnosti was created in 1993 as a rock band. From 1993 to 2000, you enjoyed considerable success, toured Russia and even had a deal to record with the famous Russian rock band DDT. Can you tell us more about the forming of the band and the beginning years?

Yes, of course! I founded the rock band in 1991, under another name at first. It is called Sistema Bezopasnosti - System of Safety - since 1993. It was a chaotic but very interesting period. Big changes happened in our country, society and in people’s life. Crisis in one sphere was compensated by rise and development in other ones, including in the arts. For us, the 90s of the 20^th century became a time of searching for ourselves and our creative way and style.

We made a few demos and recorded our first official album in 1994. There were a lot of underground concerts and festivals that gathered many, many people. By the middle of 90s, Sistema Bezopasnosti became very well known in some circles and we ranked as a leader of the Siberian Punk movement. Siberian Punk has a special place in general Punk with its geographical facilities - basically it’s three cities: Tyumen, Omsk and Novosibirsk - and because we didn’t put the accent on the image and music, but on our intellectual-poetical side.

Siberian Punk differed with its harshness and rigidity. It was never orientated towards the western analogies. It often had a folk base with a ‘raw garage sound’. We did everything ourselves, in line with the ‘Do it yourself’-principle: self-made instruments and equipment, soldered strings, self-made drums, percussions, hand-painted posters… Even the records were duplicated and distributed by ourselves. We still use this principle and all of our experience in this field. Slowly, our albums on compact-cassettes were distributed around our country.

Yuri Shevchuk of DDT learned about us in 1996 and invited us to perform with DDT. So we performed on the big stage of a stadium for the first time. We have a warm relationship with DDT. We used their recommendations and made our own home studio. We started to perform outside of Siberia, in the Ural, then in Moscow and since 2000 also in Saint Petersburg.

You took a turn towards neofolk around the beginning of the new millennium. Why did you decide to turn to neofolk? Did it affect the position of Sistema Bezopasnosti in terms of success?

I am a music lover since a long time. I try not to miss new records and I have a huge interest in different music styles ranging from classical to avant-garde and experimental; from folk, reggae and jazz of the 20s and 30s to brutal directions: metal, noise, industrial, electronic. So I don’t stay within one musical genre.

The style changes became an eye-opener for our label back then, but also for the public and even for the musicians with whom I played apocalyptical folk or dark folk. It wasn’t so popular in Russia, only in circles of big music lovers. I also didn’t know about this kind of rock music. We called the style which we played ‘experimental psychedelic punk rock’, close to the band Swans. One day, when we started playing ritual music, the drummer of band Grazhdanskaya Oborona

(Citizen Defense) - who took part in the recording of our albums - told us about a band called ‘Current 93’. He said that we sounded almost the same.

I’ve found a record of this band, listened to it and understood that it was really close to what we were doing. We never were orientated on someone. We played what we liked. Sometimes we supposed that we were the only ones who played this music, and even now I think that not many bands play like that. But we hoped that there would be someone else playing this unique music somewhere. It’s interesting that in my opinion, Current 93 are now playing psychedelic rock with a ‘dirty garage sound’, which reminds me of our sound in the end of 90th. As for me, I want to have a clean transparent sound.

My education and self-education played a big role in the style’s changing. My first education is classical guitar and folk vocal. I went on folk expeditions around Siberia and the Ural when I was a student. I was in remote villages, gathered folk songs, epos and etc. My second education is culturologist and my third one philosopher. This all and my enthusiasm in the esoteric slowly lead me to the changing of my worldview. I increased the circles of my interests; I started to change the songs’ subjects and musical priorities.

So, our transition to the dark folk did not happen like in other bands, where the performer chooses a style that is close to his soul. We have come to this in a natural way, the way of progress and creative development. The changing of musical style didn’t impact the band’s success in a negative or positive way. I felt like I started all over again, but I just had some experience. I like the Norway band Ulver who started as black metal band and then did some experiments and became ambient and eclectic.

In fact, the cd’s I hear from Sistema Bezopasnosti are all very different. It’s amazing how many different things you make. What moves you towards making such varied things?

I am moved firstly by the wish of telling this world a lot of things, by my creative passion, my searching for meaning… It’s a kind of wish to resist the injustice of the material world. As I sing in one of my songs from the album “Martian Dust” “I want to win very much, but if I have to lose, I want to do it worthily”.

To use Hinduism’s terminology, I am moved by “raga” and “dvesha”. In other words – love for the things which I want close to me (raga), and hatred for the things that my soul can’t accept (dvesha); two eternal determining bases that are expressed in the philosophical law of unity and struggle of opposites.

I am impressed by a manifold of creative thoughts, magic and art celebrating the spirit’s victory, which were made by interesting talented and brave people – people-creators, demiurges, romantics and heroes who continue to fight, despite everything. Other loners as me also impress me. They are unnoticeable but always believe in what they do and in its rightness.

The latest cd ‘Antidote’ contains covers from different artists. We’re acquainted to neofolk bands as Current 93, Death In June and Sol Invictus, but the Russian bands on the record are unknown here. They seem to be mainly Siberian bands. You were part of the Siberian scene and had good relations with several of the bands. Can you tell us more about this?

Yes, we were the part of Siberian underground stage. In the 90s, Sistema bezopasnosti entered the so-called Moscow rock laboratory, but that was mostly formal. Despite the fact that we are far removed from Siberian punk at this moment, it cannot be denied that it had a big impact on us, just as we brought a lot of new things to the Siberian punk scene. This is why I respect most of the old Siberian bands. Additionally – maybe someone won’t agree with me – I think that the best Russian rock bands were from Siberia.

The album ‘Antidote’ is the tribute to the talent of the authors of the songs and in memory of those who have already left us. Some of them are well known in Russia, and some of them stay unrecognized. I tried to represent my vision of other people’s tracks, at the same time singing them like if I wrote them myself. The Russian authors, whose songs I performed, are people whom I knew. We performed on the same stages, or met along the way. As for the foreign authors, I chose mostly performers I feel close to, who I collaborated with.

I wanted to show a kind of symbolic connection, to represent the analogy between the different musical traditions. I wanted to demonstrate the fact that creative ways can be different, but the meanings and goals can be common. As someone wrote in comment: ‘For me these songs became an antidote and healing from the abominations of life. They set the bar for creative exorbitant heights, and most importantly, they left a brightest and an indelible mark on my life.’

Some of these bands - and especially Instruktsiya po vyzhivaniyu (Instructions on Survival), who you have worked with intensively - have been accused of anti-semitism. Instruktsiya po vyzhivaniyu wrote an infamous song titled ‘Kill a Kike’ or ‘Kill a Jew’. Were these charges justified, was it provocation, or misunderstanding?

I am not the author of the song that you talk about, so I can’t give you an objective answer. It was written a long time ago, in the 80s, and I think most of the people got it wrong. I think it wasn’t a call or a signal to act, but it just stated some phenomenon of that moment and it talked about a strong problem in our society. This song is the link to the track ‘Kill the Poor’ of the band Dead Kennedys, which we drew a parallel with. 

VlaD, you also teach philosophy at the State University of Tyumen. How does that influence your work with Sistema Bezopasnosti?

My base activity is creativity, but science is closely connected with it. Indeed I teach in the University and taught in the Institute of Culture. Thanks to science, I managed to get a lot of knowledge, to systematize it, to raise my erudition. It helped me a lot in my creativity. It learned me to work conceptually, holistically and with a specific methodology.

My second education of culturologist helped me become a specialist in the sphere of culture and postmodernism, and the presentation of my research work “Rock Culture as a modern embodiment of heroes’ traditions” gave me the chance to get a philosophical base of this knowledge. By the way, in this work I consider problems of postmodernism and traditions, and the main chapter deals with dark folk. So, incompatible things unite inside of me – scientific academic knowledge and esoteric knowledge. Although I have mostly mystical-mythological worldview, I manage to evaluate critically and look at a lot of things objectively thanks to science.

You criticize the loss of idealism and spirituality in modern society. Can you tell us more about your analysis?

These themes did not appear in my songs immediately and certainly not by chance.  Forming such a worldview happened gradually. It started on the level of general feelings and empirical observations. Later, when science taught me how to analyze, I have read works by Lyotard, Toynbee, Marcuse, Heidegger, Sprengler, Fukuyama and others. I compared, drew parallels, noted general laws. So, individual elements began to take shape in a certain system of views. Discussions about the degradation of modern civilization and the loss of spiritual ideals in society were underway for a long time, and not just in scientific circles. It’s not local; it’s a widespread tendency. And this is a most important question that I see. What we can do with it? How we can correct it? Is spiritual progress of humanity possible?

Your plea for ‘dreams, traditions, love and art’ can be seen as appeal for more eschatology. Isn’t it also important to face the real world with all its problems?

Is it possible to look at this world this way? Well, that’s the way I’m looking at it! Traditions, love, art, brotherhood and friendship are Eternal values, and dreams about them are so natural… In our pre-sacral epoch this theme is more actual as ever. Appeals to them are more then a call. It’s an alternative. It’s the base. It’s one of the variants, the possibilities of choice in what’s correct and what’s easier. Maybe it’s the way to the next development of a modern person. I think these values don’t lead to destruction, but to creation. In all times, appealing to eternal values had a positive result and helped in periods of trouble. Of course it’s an idealistic approach and I always have to resist the materialistic world. But I also know that I am not alone on this way.

Your music is full of esoteric references: to the occult theories of Aleister Crowley, the Jewish kabala or the northern mythology of the Ragnarok. Why do you choose to sing about these? Can you draw a red line between all these different subjects or currents?

My songs are full of esoteric links, to literature and other things, first of all because I am interested in esotericism. It reflects my worldview. Its language is close to me. As I said before, I have a mystic mentality. Esotericism made me stronger and gave me a rich soil for my creativity; it’s an inexhaustible topic. If I agree or disagree with something, I have to learn more about it. There are some common things and also differences between different kinds of esotericism. To mix them all would be top of un-education.

For me, it’s the force of opposition against the aggression and the material world. In other words it is a way to resist its negative manifestations; the method to preserve the independence and the relationship with the primordial tradition in culture.

Once, this esoteric hobby helped me get out of a creative crisis. Sistema Bezopasnosti is freedom-loving art, it is music of rebellion, rebellion against injustice, tyranny, against alien values, against all enslaving systems imposed on the people. Therefore, I accept only one system - security against aggression and the limitations of the material world.

But gradually the rebellion began to bring me to a standstill. I was in despair. I realized that I couldn’t change the world in this way. Confronting it alone was almost impossible. One day, my strength wouldn’t be enough if I would continue to do so in a straightforward manner. As Joe Strummer, the leader of the group The Clash, said: ‘I once thought that music can change the world, now I understand that this is not so, but I still continue to do it.’

Something like that happened to me. I discovered the esoteric. I thought that I needed to change my strategy and correct the topics and focus of my art, to make it safer for myself but also more effective. The same rebellion remained, but instead of struggling head-on with the negative manifestations of the world, I am now consciously striking them, ignoring the alien system de-sacral values that prevailed at the time in the real world. Therefore, I choose the position of the trickster, trying to ignore all that is foreign to me, or sneer at it, playing by the rules of translating everything in the language of symbols, signs, hints of ‘sleeping’ meanings and allegories.

In other words, I try to play it safe, describing their space, which is a place of power, shrouded in gloom gothic, ark romance, and full of energy. I feel like a part of this force, of this space I own where I have friends and allies. Through self-awareness on the subtle plans, one becomes aware of his role, his purpose and his way in the real world. So I'm becoming more like a kind of bodhisattva.

The tomb of the philosopher and poet Skovoroda carries the words: ‘The world tried to catch me, but never managed to.’ I hope that won’t happen to me either. Once I was singing about things that bothered me; things I didn’t like. Now, on the contrary, I am singing of what I like, what I believe in, the things that help me to live, to fight, to develop, to move forward. I'm glad that it is in tune and close to other people too.

What is the status of religion in Russia today? I have the feeling that it is hard to criticize orthodox religion nowadays, and especially to strive for LGBT rights. This is surprising for a country that has known 70 years of communist rule, in which religion was sidetracked.

I think people in other countries have a wrong image about Russia. It’s far from reality and not always objective. Most of all it’s a stereotype. I can understand it, because everything that is unusual can cause alertness and hostility. But you need to understand that Russia is a huge country with a rich history and an individual national culture. As any great country Russia’s way wasn’t so unequivocal and smooth. Big milestones have always required great effort and even sacrifice.

70 years of communism were an exceptional period in the global scale, a huge experiment. During this time, many tragic things happened, but there was also a lot of good. At that moment the role of religion was nihil. Now this situation changed a lot. The status of religion is very strong, its role became active and notable, but now we have other problems. Relations and differences of people on religious grounds strained, and sometimes have become aggressive, especially with organizations representing orthodox Christianity and Islam. There were different precedents and provocations: prohibitions of alternative concerts, pogroms on exhibitions of avant-garde artists and others. It is certainly an alarming progress in a part of society.

Many musicians in Russia seem to be attracted by ideological movements as

the national-bolsheviks or the euraziatic movement. What are your thoughts about that?

Maybe it’s because a lot of creative people are appealed by broad gestures, like patriotism and other emotional outbursts. I can say that Sistema bezopasnosti always was and remains out of politics and never took parts in any political action. We never were members of any political party. Some political organizations have tried to put us on their side, but we always said that we’re not like that. We even did some concert programs with the name ‘Against all’ and ‘Forours’, which demonstrated our unpolitical position.

I think that musicians always have a big impact on people. They listen to them; trust their creativity… A musician is like a tribune, and everything that musician says can be understood in different ways. So the author needs to be impartial in a lot of questions. Actually I think that politics is a dirty thing. It’s not my world, so I do not have any business with it.

On ‘The Magical Lamp Of Osama Bin Laden’ (2004) and ‘Nina, Wendy, Ann…’ (2005), you respectively sung about the east and the west, meanwhile claiming that both belong together. We are now witnessing new tensions between the west and Russia, fuelled by leaders on both sides. It sometimes feels as if a new cold war broke out. What are your opinions on these tensions?

This question is very actual. Yes, we have such problem. Relationship between Russia and the West became much colder and it’s not good. We live in the so-called epoch of postmodernism, which is defined by deconstruction, division, fragmentation, lack of integrity and common structures. We can see how countries and unities are destroyed. People become more aggressive, they are enemies, they live in huge and small megacities.

We can notice it even in art. When rock music was dominant – it was united. It was impossible to play it all alone. It could only be played in a band. So we had a rock bands. Dark folk is music for single individuals. I also had a band before, now I do everything by myself, alone. Of course I have experience; technical progress increased our chances and potential. But it can’t solve the problem of loneliness on a local and a large scale. So I think that musicians, poets and other artists have a great opportunity to show through their creativity that art hasn’t national or linguistic limits.

Thanks to creative people, we can find understanding. Folk national base of cultures is not a base for division, but to find something in common, to have a dialog. These are important things in my publications and in my research. We all are in the same boat, and it’s important where we sail. Problems of one can touch problems of others. And even the fact that I am far from you now, but I give an interview for your magazine says that my supporters can find each other and have something to discuss. So thank you for the chance to tell you my point in important questions. I wish everyone the best of luck and a success on the way of transcendent experience!

Interview: Xavier Kruth