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The bottomless depths of German underground spilled out a new beast named HADOPELAGYAL onto the surface. So far they have only one "XXXVI XXXI N XXV XXVIII O" demo from this year, but their cavernous Black / Death Metal has some incredible absorption capabilities for certain fans. Inaccessibility and the most repulsive sound are the basic clues to discourage all potential superficial and simple listeners. The most important thing with such bands is that they have own dark vision which they follows, or vice versa, it follows them. Without that it would be just a soulless chaos that would soon lost. Moreover, this is a band that does not make almost any interviews and this is their first one at all. Hekla (guit, vox) has revealed us more about these visions.




You belong to the new bands that arose last year. How much was it difficult for you to form a band and find the right members to complete line-up?
HADOPELAGYAL converged last year from individual pieces and a train of thought and has by now formed a complete unit, which I still deem extensively formless and which searches for its origin in former times. Since the beginning we’ve been a duo at the core, even though attempts have been made to include a third person as an inherent part. There was no one in our immediate environment who’d be musically and mentally apt to be with us. However, we’ve been working with a session bassist for quite some time now. Although everything has happened naturally and has been in a flow, the process of finding didn’t prove to be easy, which has never been our aspiration anyway. Where we are, there are not many people like us, which might be a blessing and a curse. Furthermore, in my opinion there’s no “right” line-up. It feels different with every person. Sometimes you can achieve productive results with conditions that seem suboptimal or unsuitable… We’d say that we’re moving closely to our visions, which are continuously developing and never finished.



HADOPELAGYAL is band name that sounds very strange or exotic. I have no idea what that might mean. Similarly, it is also with the name of your first demo tape.
In the deepest zone of the deep sea, the hadopelagic zone (“underworld”) with temperatures near freezing point, there’s no sunlight, yet there are living creatures. Unexplored and lightless depths are what drives me, what makes me who I am, what I live off. Furthermore, there’s a strong connection to the sea for me personally and feelings I associate with water – I’m at home in the sea. For us in the band, the magic of natural darkness is an essential hub, which fulfils and guides our being. On the surface, there’s little that excites or moves us. Besides, our rehearsal room is underground as well. The title of our demo indicates the coordinates of an underwater volcano. What would be more fitting than a natural phenomenon with its merciless, brute force to lay everything in ashes, just to lie in wait afterwards. Unpredictable, beautiful and terrifying at the same time. This volcano - Kolumbo - hasn’t been active for almost 400 years. I’m personally fascinated by the sheer imagination that I associate with these forces, I love the eruption and the hot mania. As humans we have absolutely no chance to tower above it and we have to be inferior in awe forever.

Could you tell in which direction are your lyrics going? Are they as important to you as the music?
The concept of art is exalted, formless and vague – at the same time it’s abused and meaningless. Abstraction, invention, contradictions, in which you find while you’re searching and the maximal madness – this above most things. To keep all of this, just to let it go unmentioned afterwards. So, take every word from us with a pinch of salt, carve our names in stone in order to turn your back on them afterwards or in order to let the fog do its work. My lyrics are my music, I see them – in a confused order – reinforcing and comping the created atmosphere like any instrument. Everyone who thinks they want to understand and read them can ask me anytime. However, I don’t see any reason to lay them out without being asked. We have something to say, even though the world has more meaningful concerns than the outpourings of our egos. As artist we don’t owe anything to anyone – neither lyrics nor explanations nor releases. However, it puts me in a positive mood when sympathizers or like-minded persons want to make use of our output. Anyway, what is and remains: it’s about the mission. EVERYTHING FOR THE MADNESS!

Your sound must be very repulsive to most people, as if it was coming from underground abyss or cave cavities, much worse like from hell. Was it your intention to evoke such a morbid feelings in listeners? Do you think your music would sound well also in the church?
I can’t think of any reason for entering a church or playing my music in a church apart from the awesome reverb a church could create. I’m indefinitely fascinated by reverb, absolutely devoted and entirely lost in my underworld, in my soundscapes, which captivate and demand me. What blazes freely in me wants to take possession of its environment, wants to entrance it, wants to break it. In the best case, our tracks suggest feelings of active violence and passive void, give and receive hot and cold energy, in which everything fails and emerges anew. BURN FOR ME!

Do you think Metal in general serves to escape from reality, or vice versa, that it returns listener more to reality?
With our work and our art, we try more or less to break the chains of existence, of course. Real is what happens in front of our eyes – it’s up to us to close them. What metal or music does to each individual I can’t and don’t want to tell. I only know what it does to me. For HADOPELAGYAL a truthfulness without art is inconceivable since we regard the work of consciousness as a high good and serve that which guides us. The eruption or the flight is a mechanism which suggests that there’s an unbearable condition which you feel trapped in. Everyone creates their own reality. I don’t know any reason to break free from mine as long as I want to feel my organs and the daily night. I think and form my own truth if it wants to take on form.

Are the art and entertainment connected to each other, or each element is independent? And at all, can we talk about entertainment in case of Death and Black Metal or these styles serve something different?
Simply put, we express ourselves to be entertained and/or to entertain others. Without doubt, there is an immediate connection which can only be cut off when you move on the surface. All those short types of entertainment like television and all the other modern era that are the malady of our time. Art rarely or never gets lost there or it gets suffocated by the surroundings. Art itself, however, might not always want to come to the surface and from time to time manifests itself in any way without a breath, which doesn’t do harm to its spiritedness. When pop musicians, gossipers and sensationalist monstrosities stray into the realm of Black or Death Metal and try to make this realm socially acceptable, that’s a vileness that we strongly oppose and that has to be smothered in the cradle.

Which first Metal record made you so impressed you often return to?
My first contact to congeners, which I still live off today, was NIRVANA and QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE. With regards to Black Metal, it was the tracks ‘Under a Funeral Moon’ and ‘Jesu Dod’. The feelings which these evoked are impossible to put into words. Every attempt to describe it would fail.

What is your attitude to the trend in extreme Metal when the atmosphere is getting fading away for speed and technique?
Speed and technique possess an atmosphere as well. A naked, dead room possesses atmosphere as well. Nowadays the term ‘atmosphere’ is mistakenly equated with the creation of a heavy, serious, lethargic and/or pitch-black mood. Our personal musical preferences within the band are very similar and so we don’t care about modern-sounding releases, easy-listening or technical-oriented stuff. Eventually, every sound in every being creates some sort of atmosphere and even blunt noise without any pretensions or ambitions of poetry can be extremely awesome and aesthetic. Overall, it’s very idle and futile to pick apart this topic though. Especially as we’re not even in the slightest on the same level as the modern era rubbish, so that’s also why we don’t need to judge it.

No music style can develop indefinitely, so the Metal scene is increasingly infected by the plague in the form of cloning each other. How do you deal with this negative phenomenon?
We’re all clones and copies even though we persuade ourselves to be something special of particular value. Everyone that has a belly button descended from something else which it cannot renounce. And concerning our deeds on earth: every so often a peak emerges until it is covered again by another. The reproach to others of not doing their own (music) is a waste of breath. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll find that you aren’t doing anything else other than emulating (own) ideas and figures. There’s nothing reprehensible about this. We pass on our impressions that confide in us to our environment – in the best case with a personal note. We’re all meticulously searching or waiting lethargically, we all want to stand out or ride along, we’re all lonely/alone together.

Every band tries to achieve something else in the writing process. What aspects are the most important for you and what is the most difficult to you? How much do you try to make your music deep?

HADOPELAGYAL regards itself in a state of mad flow. As deep as possible, as deep as necessary. The search for substance and everything connected to it is important for the output, important for the work or creation. You don’t have to ponder over everything. Some things come naturally in such a deep and relentless way that you don’t know what hit you. That’s why we take these conditions as they come and let them go without raising any claims. I love this challenge so much that I’ve discarded the claim of simplicity. And yet, with all the pain and the difficulties in the endless chaos, I feel a wonderful lightness that gives me peace. It’s certain that great things only originate from fever, there, where the scourges are without end and where you sink to ashes in purgatory, ashes that don’t wear out as long as something pulsates in you.





https://hadopelagyal.bandcamp.com/





Hekla                                                       
6. 10. 2018  Storm
 
interview
Craving in Infinite Void