From depressive black metal to doom jazz – with this sudden 180-degree turn, which KATHAROS XIII performed on their third album „Palindrome“, the Romanian underground band has succeeded in creating a true masterpiece. Why this stylistic reorientation is actually no a big deal for multi-instrumentalist Fulmineos, how a theremin ened up on the album, and why only very few Romanian metal bands are able to achieve international recognition, you will find out in the following interview with the head of the band.
Greetings! I’m glad you’ve managed to take the time to answer a few questions. How are you doing right now?
Thank you for having us, we are quite busy right now, as we are preparing all the details for our second video for the song “No Sun Swims Thundered“ and we are already working on the follow-up of „Palindrome“, recording guitars and doing all kinds of pre-production with new ideas.
Your cryptic band name KATHAROS XIII will surely puzzle some of your listeners. What is the meaning behind it?
We have a fascination for the Cathars and their weird doctrine about this world, we have read many books about their heretic behavior, and their major development was in the 13th century, so this is the link between the two entities of our name; “katharoi” means “the pure ones” in Greek, so it has this complex approach to find the truth for yourself and your inner self, and this represents the whole idea behind the band very well.
Apart from a few exceptions like Negură Bunget, there are not many metal bands from Romania that have achieved international recognition. What do you think is the reason for this and how do you perceive the Romanian metal scene?
I think it’s about how we are constructed as an ethnic pool and our historical background… Romanians cannot adapt to this nomad life that requires to become „big“ in the scene; we have endured hunger and we lived in poverty in the communist era, because those were the times, and I think for most of my fellow countrymen it is enough; nowadays no one wants to embark in a van and tour all around the globe, making all kinds of sacrifices to get a record deal, promotion and in the end, money to exist. Nowadays it’s all about touring, selling merchandise and business… The music is not selling that much, but everything else, and you have to be present to deliver it all the time. Most of the guys in the Romanian scene that have good bands, are kinda 35+ and have corporate jobs, families, responsibilities, and cannot do it anymore. Yes, we don’t have many new and qualitative bands coming nowadays to give us hopes and this is sad, Negură Bunget is the only good example, but in that band only one man stayed for the entire time, and out of touring life and stress, he is not in this world anymore… I played three years in that band; it’s very stressful if you want to live out of it and still have a decent life… Honestly, I don’t think it’s worth it, that’s why I left at some point, due to burnout and the financial insecurity.
You yourselves used to play relatively typical depressive black metal, however, you recently took a turn towards doom jazz. What made you do it?
One day, I was discussing the boundaries of black metal with our saxophone player, Alex, and what can be done differently but not altering its dark sense, and we imagined this dronish deep sound full of different layers. For my values, the style of the band is the same, of course it evolved, but for me it has the same feeling and dimensions, but expressed with different tools this time.
Some bands like Shining from Norway or White Ward have already tried mixing extreme metal and jazz before. Did you take these bands as a role model for your change of style?
I didn’t know about White Ward until we released „Palindrome“ and people started comparing us… I listened to their album once and it was ok… Shining is something different than what we do, it’s only that they also have saxophone parts, but it is used in a totally different manner, so basically no, our influences come from a different direction: Dead Can Dance, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, Canaan, Dolorian, Björk, Unholy, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Decoryah, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, Madrugada.
Especially compared to Shining your music is much more reduced and less hyperactive. Do you think it would be contrary to your new style to get more explosive?
We don’t have any limitation, we don’t think that much about style, when we listen to our demo pre-productions. The idea is that the music has to have a sense, to communicate something, to be natural and organic, sincere in the end… This is our only trigger.
The line-up of your band has changed a lot since your last album. How did this come about?
It’s like a living thing, it shrinks and expands upon its needs. We have had different problems in the past, maybe the music was a refuge from daily problems, and some of the persons that were in the band at that time were not coping with this; now music is only pure joy, it’s something that fills our souls and helps us relax, so it’s a different vibe, we’ve developed, matured and we look at things differently and with responsibility.
To what extent has it affected your songwriting that new musicians are now involved?
Every person comes with its own baggages of knowledge and influences, so it is quite clear that the current line-up has influenced the whole atmosphere of the new songs a lot.
Both the structure of your music and the instruments you use are very different from your previous output. Did you experience any technical difficulties during this fundamental reinvention of yours?
Not really, because we work in the same studios, with the same persons and Sabat, our drummer, was responsible for the whole production. Of course, talking with him during mixing times, it was a struggle to find a way for all the different layers we put into production. The key is to have an idea about the final production before the recording, and then the process is a little bit easier and it helps that someone from the band is into recording, mixing and mastering the songs.
When such different styles of music are being crossed, there is often the danger of the songs lacking a coherent, comprehensible structure. In which way do you make sure that you don’t lose focus while composing?
We don’t… If it sound dyslectic, well, this is how we were at that time, everything recorded is like a time frame, in most cases we make sure to play it correctly. We have an overview during our demo pre-productions as I said earlier but mainly we like to record and keep (if possible) the first take and be spontaneous about it.
Apart from some screams and occasional rough, albeit rather slow guitars, one can hardly hear your former style anymore. Are you considering to include more black metal into your music again sometime?
For the new album only Manuela is currently working on vocals, so I don’t know, there are some heavier parts but this time I didn’t compose anything, and also the lyrics are not finished.
Your new album is called „Palindrome“. The term refers to a sequence which is the same forwards and backwards. What was the thought behind the choice of this album title?
It’s a message of no limitation in our art, we are ambivalent, we don’t look for a straight line, we go forward but at the same time we return from our returnless path.
What is the lyrical content of the record about?
The themes shifted a little bit this time, from the urban dark city (present on the previous album entitled „Negativity“) into a more introspective dimension about loneliness, phantasms of corrupted dreams, fog upon the morning waters, terrible impulses of self-inflicting metaphorical pain; it is a sociopathic desire with existential questions, primal elements of nature and how are interacting with human behavior…
On the artwork one can see two porous shapes that look like horns. What’s that about and how does it relate to the lyrics?
It illustrates very well the concept of the album, it was done by our good friend Alexandru Das; there are some hidden things that maybe a keen eye will discover… But mostly it has this duality concept of forward and backward imagery.
You even use a theremin on „No Sun Swims Thundered“. How did you get the idea for that and what did you intend with it?
I was hearing a very high pitched sound on that parts in my mind and I tried something on my keyboard but it didn’t sound near to what I was hearing, so I contacted a very skilled local musician, Gabriel Almasi, whom I knew can play theremin, and he gladly came over one day to the studio not only with his instrument but also with a bunch of weird pedals from Earthquaker devices (a company we really love for their cool stuff) and we had one afternoon fun and we recorded almost everything, and then poor Sabat had to listen to all those far out experiments and selected the parts and mixed it together in the song.
In the track there are also several seemingly arbitrary numbers whispered. What’s that all about?
It’s the Fibonacci sequence through the eyes of Cassini’s identity… There are different neurological concepts, and if you search and read about it you can find out many things about how we are constructed and the nature around us.
What are you going to do next with KATHAROS XIII?
We have a plan but it’s nothing defined, merely make the new video for „No Sun Swims Thundered“ and record the new album, that we want to put out maybe next year.
We at Metal1.info usually end our interviews with a short brainstorming. What do you think about when reading the following terms?
Mental health: Not necessary, but can create immortal things.
Mysticism: Find you own path.
Avant-garde: Elend
Politics in music: Two parallel lines never to find one another.
Blast-beats: Over 240 bpm is a blessing.
Female-fronted metal: Sometimes
Finally, a big thank you for this interview. Is there anything else you would like to tell the readers at this point?
Thank you for your interest in KATHAROS XIII!
16. März 2020 Stephan Rajchl