Thee Maldoror Kollective

 

Thee Maldoror Kollective’s Interview: Kundhali

Tonyevol: So Kundhali, let’s start talking about the end of Maldoror (or about its mutation if we prefer) and about the birth of the Kollective which with "New Era Viral Order" take with it the infection that was brooded behind your previous album (In Saturne Mystique) and that finally have come out with this new opus, spreading its poisonous essence. An essence which is expressed in three different moments: Analysis, Synthesis and Thesis.
K: "The Kollective is the same essence of MaldoroR, revised and corrected through our changes and through a disillusion for the world and people around us. After In Saturne Mystique was out we were conscious that couldn’t be possible to pubblish a new album as the same: to go on the same way, to search simple solutions could be the ideal thing for people who isn’t able to move their own hinges on other things, new goals, something different and unknown. This one is our way, I like every time to have a different sound on a new album even if this choice could be dangerous regarding selling statistics. This is a statement on our mutation hide in ourselves second after second."

 

T: Which are elements that caracterized every "moment" of this album? And which one indeed the elements that distinguish it? Infact if we listen carefully to your album we can feel how in the last part of it there’s the esoteric-industrial part which get the upper on the metal one.
K: "I think that fusion between the metal elements and the synthetic ones is the album leitmotiv, a rythmic "ascesi" which use different languages to spread its essence through different structures respect our past, maybe too slow. The third part of the album is a place where all what we did in the previous album collapse in fractures of a world without the redention of any god, in a world where tecnology takes place on the religious ideals."

 

T: How did you live the months passed during componing New Era...? I know you had some line-up problems and changes...what’s happened? And could you present us the new Kollective members?
K: "They weren’t difficult moments, we have set aside definitely the idea to have a line-up (in the classical way it should be), and we prefer to have some sessions...a choice which give us freedom from all problems which a band can have and which in fact was a peculiar part of the MaldoroR project. Actually L.V.X.ifer, X-Trinity and Sein are no longer MaldoroR members, but the new songs and different material which we are componing now for the next and fourth chapter of MaldoroR don’t need a line-up of six members. It’s really interesting the way used by bands as Today is the Day: recruiting for every album different people on the grounds of which should be the album co-ordinates. I don’t care no more about time spent to search serious people involved in our project also in an ideological way: above because everything composed from the collective is a work done by Evanghelia, Drakon and myself. This one is the reason why in all this years we encountered some problems which now we have put apart completely. The lyrical aspect of MaldoroR is not present on the album’s booklet, and this one is not a simple choice. I’ve prefered to take the kollective meaning in this way, choosing every time some people with working, linked by the same purpose but not the same means. In fact in this way is born the collaboration with Mz412 presents on this album."

 

T: And how began the concept man/machine present on this work? And what do you think about the external work done for New Era? (I mean in a particular way time spent during the recording...)
K: "Even if the concept of New Era Viral Order is based on the Liber Al Vel Legis (a fundamental opera from Crowley which express his Ego and an immaginific state of grace) I think that the progress of the "concpetual materia" and its bringing up to date in a non-religious contest is extremely far away from the actual thelemic order. And I think this is one of strong point of this opera: New Era Viral Order gives answers to questions which aren’t born yet, and make it with the consciouness to be only one of the miriads of thruth existing. I’ve seen man as an intelligent machine, a gear of a cosmos where the chaos sciences are the only god existing. I think that production ... which was handled by Danny Giordana of One Voice Studio ... is more than a simple registration of a product on a CD, as indeed a new additional instrument. Danny is really a great professional man and he has a huge musical passion: and this aspect of himself let him to contribute to create this album."

 

T: During our last meeting and to be exactly after In Saturne Mystique was out, I tried in any way to know which one should be your new label. Today we know it…but you are satisfied about this choice?
K: "Code666 is a lable able to become one of most important europian metal lable, we don’t regret anything about our choice, indeed we appreciate every day more the work done by Emi, Michele and all the other guys of Code666. This collaboration is working really well and we are negotiating some deals in the USA, Russia and Japan for the limited vynil version of the album, and I did more interviews in the last months than in a year with Northern Darkness Rcs. We were free to do what we want for every aspect of the album, about the musical, the grafical or the ideological one. And this one is what means for me a deal with a lable, not the royalties which a band should have or the lable’s behavious which should be linked to some true & evil cliches. As every project out of the same schemes, also Code666 have its enemys, the same which will hate "New Era Viral Order" and which will talk about betrayment and about lost black metal attitude...But fortunately they can’t comprehend this ideas."

 

T: And which was the response from your lable’s boss after hearing the master of New Era Viral Order?
K: "They were enthusiastic about it. Emy (our boss manager) and our band pay the same attention on musical quality and not on the same sound which characterize the 90% of actual releases."

 

T: Someone charged your band to risk on sound experiments. Do you think you were limited during the composition of tracks present on New Era?
K: "I read only in a review this "accusation", when all the others were really different opinion. Of course is always a personal opinion, because every reviewer put his own point of view during listening the album giving his own interpretation of it. But my position regarding experimentation is one time again really different. I think that the approach actually used when talking about "experimentation" or "avanguardia" (two terms decisively different from each other and of which I prefery surely the first one, because avanguardia is a term which often indicate a lack of accessibility for not open mind) is self-conceited: putting together some different elements borrow by different musical languages is simple if you have the experience to do it, more difficult indeed to make something which have not experimentation as means, but as a simple instrument of knowledge and searching. Music which consider experimentation as its only aim is sterile: during the rehearsal of "New Era Viral Order" we don’t give us any creative limit, neither to be experimental at any costs. We simply focalized some ideas and targets in a contest which use different instruments for different aims. There’s around a globalization which want that everything could be fixed under some schemes only usefull to can explain better a band’s sound or style. It’s more reassuring and I think it’s useless to say that we don’t agree at all with this."

 

T: For this album you had also an important collaboration with an artist well know in the extreme scene: MZ412. How began it? And do you think will be some other surprises of this kind in your future?
K: "I’ve always appreciated the Mz412 project and all the other side-projects which during years have follow the main one, and Nordvargr liked our previous work...so the idea to make something together was really spontaneous. Evanghelya and I worked on some drones and rythmic basys ‘till we had seven minutes of material. Nordvargr make all the rest, deviating and mutating the "Epidemic Noise Age" structure ‘till reaching the song you can listen on the album. This one is a collaboration which will have a new interesting sequel."