Interview

with PHRAGMENTS. All questions by Michele Viali New Kings And New Queens arrives five years after your last album Earth Shall Not Cover Their Blood. During this time you published only a split work with Korinth. Why so much time to release a new CD? After finishing the last Phragments full-length album Earth Shall Not Cover Their Blood, I was working on the split with Korinth. That took a year to finalize and after that, I have been working on the New Kings and New Queens album for two years. So after all its not such a long period of time. But the new album did take a little longer to make than usual. The composition technique was very different this time, I wanted to experiment with new approaches. And then there was the mixing and mastering process, that was also complicated. I am very happy that I the album is finally out now. What have you been doing during this period? Were you maybe a bit disaffected with the scene? No no, no disaffection. There are parts of the scene I like, and then there are parts of it I dont. After ten years of this music, there isnt much that can surprise me. But I am happy that more people seem to be affected by dark ambient music than a few years ago. During the last five years I was also working on my professional career, Im an assistant professor at a university here in Bratislava. By the way, can you spend some words as a reflection on the split work you released with Korinth? It was a very good one and your first cooperation with an Italian label too The split with Korinth was a very nice experience for me, although it is a few years back now. I know Robert from Korinth personally, we are friends. I released his first album Sign of Eternal Return on my label. He is a very talented musician. We have decided to make a collaborative album, its not really a split, since we have been working together on all of the tracks. It was my first collaboration and I think we did a really good album. Lately I listened to Mysteries of the Greylands after a longer time and I still like it a lot. Also, the theme was a little different, more mystical and psychological, which was refreshing. Regarding the cooperation with Greytone the label approached me that they wanted to release an album of Phragments. At that time I was looking where to release the coolaboration album with Korinth, so it was a very logical step to make. The cooperation with Greytone was flawless, they are really nice people. What's the meaning behind the title New Kings And New Queens? Who are the kings and the queens? And what can you tell us about the cover artwork? When I was composing the new album, I decided that I would try to make it very open in terms of meaning. The listener gets information through music, the cover and the names of the six chapters of the album. And nothing more. The album functions as a projection screen, where everyone hears and understands things based on their own selves. The music is like landscape art in painting and the names of the tracks function as landmarks they give you a basic orientation of where you are but it is up to you which path you take, what part of the

space you discover. So all I can tell you is that New Kings and New Queens represent us, humans. There is a story behind the chapters, but I like to keep a few blanks spaces for the listeners. Thats one of the really strong aspects of dark ambient in my opinion it leaves some work for the listeners to do and supports their imagination. As for the cover artwork it has been created by my good friend Nenad Brankovi from the projects Metrom and Atranenia. Nenad has his own graphic design studio (www.nenbra.com), he did covers for my releases, Svartsinn, Metrom and others. I love the artwork, its really amazing and adds a lot to the atmosphere of the album. Tell us about the sound and style of the new album, which seems to take quite some distances to your past works which were more into martial sounds. How did you create it? What are the main inspirations for the album? After the release of Earth Shall Not Cover Their Blood and the finishing of the collaborative album with Korinth, I really wanted to experiment with new structures in my music, new approaches to composing and new sound sources. Where the last album was more song based, New Kings and New Queens is one single composition divided into six chapters. There are no vocals and the architecture of the composition is different from my previous albums. In terms of style, I wanted to create a pure dark ambient album. When I started to compose it, I decided for a strictly minimalist aesthetic trying to achieve big things with very little means. I always like to give myself restraints, and in the past I have often complicated my composition process on purpose. New Kings and New Queens is definitely the peak of this achievement. Also, I wanted to focus on this opposition of darkness and light four of the chapters on the album are very dark, and two of them are full of light, almost sacral in a way. During the composing of the album, I have collaborated with Nenad Brankovi on the music as well. We had a few very good improvisation sessions playing on old broken radios. These have created the basic structure of the record. The album is composed of a variety of sounds, including the mentioned broken radios, classical instruments and some field recordings. It might seem that there is not much happening during the 32 minutes of the album, but if you listen carefully, there is a lot of details under the surface. And about the inspiration? I get inspired by a lot of things, I process them and then I get it out through my music. So its not easy to talk about the exact inspirations. But this time it was mainly pure feelings and storytelling through abstract sonic landscapes. How has your music changed from 2002 until today? Are you still interested in that martial- industrial style which was the basic of your work in the first phase of Phragments, or that period is definitely over for you? My music is changing constantly, since I started Phragments. If you take the first album Homo Homini Lvpvs, most of the compositions were orchestral / industrial in style. But there was also a dark ambient track and a more ritual ambient oriented track. Then on The Burning World, everything sounded a little bit more neo-classical I would say this was the peak of the orchestral industrial era of Phragments. I have introduced vocals for the first time and there was practically no dark ambient on that album. Then we have Earth Shall Not Cover Their Blood this album is more song-oriented, but with a lot of dark ambience creeping through the orchestral sound. And finally, New Kings and New Queens, which is pure dark ambient. In terms of music, it is very important for me to do what I like. Theres no pressure for my music

to progress, its a natural process. But I think even with the new approach and compositional techniques on the New Kings and New Queens, it still sounds like Phragments to me, the feeling stays the same and thats whats important. And regarding the martial-industrial, as I have already said a couple of times in the past, I never liked my music to be called that. Firstly, I enjoy darkness, not uniforms. Secondly, I am a deeply liberal and anti-totalitarian, so most of what is happening in the martial-industrial genre pisses me off, because I have never flirted with totalitarial ideologies and I dont like it. And thirdly, I always thought martial-industrial was a too narrow description for my work. I call the genre of Phragments orchestral industrial, apocalyptic electronics, maybe orchestral dark ambient. New Kings and New Queens is an experiment in form and although my future work will definitely be more dark ambient oriented, this is not the end of my evolution I am sure there will be compositions with more structure and there will be ones with less. I know your attention is reserved to video creations also. How do you assemble them? How do you choose them? The videos of Phragments are always created by my wife Sonia and I use them when playing live. They are an important part of my live performances, they complete the experience. In the period around the first album, she was using these crazy old communist propaganda documentaries, combining them with her own original shots. The later videos were more abstract, with a lot of decaying nature, the clash of the natural and the concrete world. The last video she did was called Micropolis and its a beautiful 45 minute journey of amazing autumn landscapes. I will be using that one in my future live performances for sure. What are Phragments forthcoming projects? Are you also a live act? Any side-project we should know about? Last year I did a project with my friends Metrom, a dark ambient / orchestral / drone band from Slovakia. We did a collaboration project called Machines of both Wires and Flesh a live improvisation. We played the project twice and a recording of one of the concerts is available on youtube. It was a good experience, I felt the need to improvise and play live with friends. The future of Phragments looks bright, I feel very inspired in the last months. I have been doing a lot of compilation tracks and collaborations in the last few years (Metrom, Atranenia, Rasalhague, Shock Frontier) and since they are really good in my opinion, I have a plan to release an album of these tracks in the future. There is also a new album in the works, but this will definitely take some time, since me and Sonia are to become parents this autumn. I have been playing live since 2005, I played several concerts in Switzerland, France, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Playing live is nice and I get to meet the fans, which is always a great experience. I will be playing live in the future, but right now I want to focus on my family, so this will have to be put on hold for some time. I dont have any side-projects. If I want to do something different, I usually get it out of my system through collaborations with other artists. What about the Slovakian scene? We know some bands, mostly related to the label Aliens Production (Disharmony, Oxyd), but dont know much about the dark ambient and industrial scene there..

 There is a small scene in Slovakia, but it is getting bigger with every year. The artists you have mentioned come originally more from an EBM background, whereas I come from a metal and industrial background. I recommend everyone to check out the projects Metrom, Atranenia and Korinth, these are really close to my heart, both in terms of sound and philosophy. Also, theres a new-ish project called BIOS that has caught my attention. For people into noise, make sure you check out the legendary project Einleitungszeit, if you havent already. Thank you very much for your availability. Last words at your disposal Thank you very much for the nice interview. For anyone who wants to check out my music, I have a Bandcamp profile with most of my catalogue available for listening or buying online (phragments.bandcamp.com). Phragments has also a Facebook profile (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Phragments/45150080350), where I post the most up-to- date news and infos on albums and live performances. If you want to buy my albums or Phragments T-shirts, you can do so through Bandcamp, or drop me a message through the Facebook profile. Thank you again and remember, there is no light without darkness!