CELESTIA
"Apparitia"
is the first haunting album released by the French mysterious band represented
by the Drakkar Rec. mastermind Noktu, something that have really impressed and
captured my attention, old style Black Metal full of sadness and
necro-melancolic moods, supernatural visions...now let’s go deeper on the
tunnels of this grim labyrinth. (Ild)
I
have to mention how the artwork is superb, connected to necro-romantic and
hallucinated atmosphere of you musical creation…this spirit wandering in dark
scenarios is something decadent and tempting...so different by the typical
over-polluted stereotypes of the actual artwork around...what was the objective
of this artistic work?
We wanted to
illustrate our music like our music deserved it. The result is pleasant. I think
that Celestia is different from all that stereotyped scene, we will never have
any connection with that anyway, we are still pround to say that we are playing
true Black Metal, it is of course our own way of interpretating Black metal, it
will be impossible for us to make a cliché band linked with vulgarity like
almost 99% of the nowadays scene. That scene is really disgusting, only
vulgarity and backstabbing, I have the feeling to see the peoples regressing to
the last days of Death metal(1991) when Death metal was totally corrupted by
shitty money makers bands. Now both scenes are vulgar and uninteresting.
Celestia is undoubtly taking some distances with these individuals. We are
performing Black Metal only for ourselves with any compromises. We are using
themes who are not really common in the typical Black Metal, for us it will have
not interest to copy what has been done one million time before. We are bringing
a new breath, our own breath. We don't have any objectives in fact, for us,
doing that project is not a challenge for releasing one album to sell 10000
copies and have one interview on each national metal mag beside Mayhem and other
kind of shit. No, we are far from that. We use our musical skills to evoke
Celestia, if i will not have the capacity to create music, then i will be
probably in need to create another form of art or expression like writing or
sculting.
Today
the most common thing is the fucking computer-graphic style...totally
inexpressive...what do you think of those band leaving the other to create their
external image?
My
opinion about these bands is really low. They do not present any interest for
me. All the nowadays labels offers the same kind of products, all is
studied to reach the maximum of sales and notoriety, there's also all that metal
business circus with managers, journalists who get extra money from labels to
put their bands on their pages. All of this if far from my conception of
art and Black metal. We don't have any connection with that business, it
seems that the press and big labels are not interested by us, so it's fine coz
Celestia is also not interested by that as well. It seems that we are a band
outside any scene. It will not be possible for Celestia to let someone give his
'touch" on our music, we will always record our albums ourselves, we will
never go to any fancy studio to have the same sound than the last trendy band. That
doesn't interest us. The same will happen with our visual, no one will have the
right to take pictures of us, all the artwork of the CD is done by ourselves,
all the recording too.
The sound in "Apparitia - Sumtuous Spectre" is very researched, like shaded in some moments, what’s behind that choice?
Again something particular to us, the sound can be weird for some peoples who likes the swedish polished sound but that's our own sound. Like I said on the previous question, we don't want to work with any other producers, we wish to keep a certain control on our music. All has to be "home-made" by ourselves. We need to work in our own elements, I don't think that we will be able to take a plane and go to record something on a foreign country in one studio who will said us 'dudes you have to speed up to record", no really few for me, I prefer to record everything on calm on our own recording studio, anyway, we have the same equipment than a professional studio, so we have that chance and it's the best thing than a band can have. So we are quite satisfied by that opportunity.
For
what I can ear is like if you’re searching to keep the grim harshness of
traditional Black Metal in a dimension of dark dreams, done in solitude…do you
think solitude to be an important thing to find the right inspiration?
I think that
solitude is the best way to create music and lyrics, I am not able to create
music when I am with the other members, when I compose, I just take my guitar
and some riffs appears, then we are recording them with Fureiss and we are
rehearsing them with our drummer until we are all satisfied, Fureiss also
compose on the same manner on his side. We are not the kind of band who rehearse
in a garage each week end to practice their instruments. We reached the
point where we don't need that anymore, we write music and then record it and
eventually perform it on stage, it depend.
I
really enjoy solitude, it's on these moments that I feel the energy to create, i
feel isolated from that society and I am able to enter into a kind of spiritual
meditation. Under that intellectual trance, feelings are able to go outside my
person. I can recall some emotions and frustrations from the deep of myself.
Almost everything in Celestia is really personal, deals with past experiences
who leaded me to suffer deeply, I expose that in my music on a really personal
way, most of the black metal heads of today are of course not able to feel any
cold atmospheres in our music, they often call us gay coz they are not able to
understand us. That is more than fine coz our music is not for peoples who think
that Black metal is Blasphemy or Antaeus.
I
appreciate that your songs have also some interesting melodies but played with a
very grim and cold attitude is the mood an important thing in your music?
Our
music is the reflect of our personalities, maybe our vision of seeing life is
grim and cold, so that appears also in our music. I am not someone who is a able
to feel a certain satisfaction on the nowadays society, so, I prefer to escape
in my own world, Celestia is an alternative of that.
Sometimes
living some experiences is something surreal…have you ever experienced the
hypnotic journey that you present in you lyrics?
Of
course yes. All the lyrics are the poetical conclusion of some of my personal
experiences. I will not be able to write about fictive subject without having
experienced myself that. It is not possible to talk about about a good italian
wine without having tasting it before, don't you think ? same happens with my
lyrics.
I
feel Celestia like a very gloomy and dark Black Metal band that have the best
elements of its tradition, but together with a not-conformist kind of
felling…today if the abhorred religion of Christ is not so strong as in the
past new kind of "religion" are appearing, like modernism, visual
stereotypes, but as usual the dark side is always banned, do you think that
Black Metal is something that have kept, notwithstanding those changes, its
reason to remain and if yes why?
Black
metal on a certain way has following the decline of humanity, each years many
peoples are appearing on that kind of music, labelled themselves, lord dark
forest and count euronymous. that is sad to see that decline, I am someone who
comes from the roots of heavy metal and I followed the evolution and the decline
of that kind of music, I was able to understand Black metal at it very beginning
state of development, my best years on the scene were from 1991 to 1995 after
that I was able to see all the peoples I was in touch disappear and changing
their opinion about music. I also evolved and my evolution has lead me to take
some distances from that scene, I think that my interest for it ended in 1995,
today, there's very few bands who really attract my interest, most all the bands
are playing like their gods, there's thousand clones of Marduk and Dark Funeral,
every single kid worship Darkthrone. It piss me off. Peoples are talking on the
net about their tastes, making some critics and talking about their pathetic
life, I think that the internet created another kind of sub-developed scene, a
third world mongoloized scene where everything 14 years old kid can have his
importance. Black Metal is still for me a way of life and a way of thinking, but
not what's the black metal has became today, no, the influence of Black metal
that forged my person and leaded me to that need of creating Celestia. Celestia
is not a joke for me, even if my developed sense of aestheticism has push me to
lead my band not understandable for the metal limited mind. I am just myself,
hated or worshiped, that has no importance for me. I am not sensible to the
opinion of others. To finish that, I think that I don't contribute to the
expansion of the society of today, I consider the nowaday black metal as a
phenomena of society so I don't feel any interest for that kind of thing
anymore.
Necrophilia
is a theme that very few bands seem to deal with or worse death mindless idiots
use to talk about that with a tasteless ignorance...what’s the connection
between that thing and Celestia?
Necrophilia is an art for me. A delicate bewitching wine. I used to drink some glasses
of that wine by the past, experiencing some forbidden necro-erotic performances.
I was fascinated by Death and Dormant death ladies. I pushed that admiration far
away the limits of reasonable, I've reached what I wanted to reach, it seems
that Death will remain death and death do not shine like it used to be in the
past, I've buried these feelings into some Celestia lyrics. I am now exploring
something different. I also think that this fascination to Death leaded me to
evolve since the destruction of a part of myself.
You
have used some very inspiring images for the artwork, as I said, are you
interested in decadentism art or photography and do you consider them as a
source of inspiration?
I
am always deeply touched by visual things. photography really attract me when
photography really mean something, i think that it is again a personal feeling,
some peoples will not be able to feel what we wanted with the global artwork of
our album other not.
What
do you think of self-destructive acts like Craft, Shining, Forgotten Tomb,
aren’t they bringing back some feeling that were a bit left apart by the rock
and thrash contaminations of those last years?
I really appreciate Selbtvmord services, the person behind that label know
what's Black metal is and how it should be performed. Fortunately few labels
still exists.
What
are the bands that you think to be the more
important in the Black Metal history and in the actual scene?
I was really under admiration of Xasthur from california. Beside that, I
really appreciate, Satanic Warmaster, Leviathan, Abyssic hate,
Shining, Warloghe, Watain and few others.
Your
cult label Drakkar have produced some incredible acts like Torgeist and Vlad
Tepes splits…what do you remember of the Black Legion, are they still active
or what’s going on?
Yes, the cult is still alive. But i will not be able to comment about
that