- Posted By: Dark Emperor
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Infernal Masquerade: Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. Let’s get started with them:
Infernal Masquerade: The band’s latest release “Insects” has recently come out via Prophecy Productions, can you tell us a bit more about the concept and ideas behind such interesting release?
10.XIXt: The lyrical concept deals with challenging man and the human condition. It pulls crushing comparisons between the behaviour of man and insect and was inspired by writings of Gass, Brown, Herbert or Kafka among others. The lyrics will face you with abysmal questions such as “In what way are you an insect?“, “Isn´t it true, that you degrade yourself to a vermin by your behaviour?“, “Are you really the self-proclaimed top of the mountain?“, “Isn´t the insect the much stronger subject in the fight for survival?“ By this confrontation you have to accept that you are one of us and we will fail together. Compared with the insects our behaviour patterns are furthermore quite similar. We are also following this one special “king” without any shade of individualism and intellect. Mankind´s leader is simply called “money” – the reason for the early departure of the human being.
Infernal Masquerade: Four years gives passed since “IIII”, can you tell us how much do you think the band’s sound has evolved since then?
10.XIXt: We needed this time to deliberate how to continue after the release of our Debut. We all knew that we didn´t want to write a sequel to “IIII” but to follow the path on which we started to walk. Well, every serious musician is ever trying to grow with his music and to widen his technical skills. We file-tuned our sound to reach our own imagination of a perfect sound for “Insects” as well as for farsot. Besides that our private musical interests are really open-minded. So every single-member brings his musical influences from different music-style into farsot., which is also a great factor for shaping and developing the band´s sound.
Infernal Masquerade: What do you consider are the strongest ‘selling points’ of “Insects”?
10.XIXt: To wake the interest in farsot. and especially in “Insects” I could tell you, that we spent much heart´s blood into this release. “Insects” is a sinister melange between intense and catchy mid-tempo Black Metal parts and dark, atmospheric, progressive yet psychedelic parts, which both developed the farsot-typical sound onto a higher level.
Infernal Masquerade: The artwork and design behind this release seems very carefully crafted, can you tell us a little bit more about what did you guys wanted to represent or transmit with this?
10.XIXt: We simply wanted to complete the concept “Insects”. The essence of the cover is to convey the basic statements and the musical tenor of the release. It should express the earthy, sinister but aesthetic paint of the music and tries to combine them with the lyrical concept. We think it was a very successful attempt. The illustrations were done by Gerard De Lairesse in 1685 for the anatomic atlas “Ontleding des menschlyken lichaams“ by Govard Bidloo. They fitted really well with our plans to embed the insect-theme by manipulating the graphics.
Infernal Masquerade: While everybody plays your run-of-the-mill Black Metal, or any other genre, how do you think that Farsot contributes in a different way when compared to such bands?
10.XIXt: There are many open-minded listeners out there, which like the cold and rawness as the essence of Black Metal but which are always interested in different sounding outputs which (re-)interpret the term Black Metal by their own. You could hear it if an album was done with heart´s blood or not. You will also recognize if an album is a reverent homage to Black Metal or just a plagiarism of the band “X”. We don´t really search a different way. We ever search our own way. Other bands or comparisons to other bands are for not relevant farsot´s belongings.
Infernal Masquerade: Why do you guys think there is a need to ‘mask’ yourselves behind your stage/band names, versus using your real ones?
10.XIXt: The band is the best possibility for us to escape from the daily routine. Its a kind of valve for our inner unrest. Through the band we´re able to forget the “normal life” for a moment. It don´t asks for names – it only needs the power and soul coming from by each member. We want to draw clear frontiers between our arts and creations in farsot and the so-called reality. Besides this, the pseudonyms could also be seen as the completion of our overall-concept.
Infernal Masquerade: In terms of creativity Farsot and only a few band want to innovate and create interesting music, what other bands do you follow that have inspired you for this?
10.XIXt: It is impossible to enumerate all the bands which are decisive influential for our sound. Firstly we have to name the whole bunch of northern Black Metal bands (the second wave) which were and are always a great influence for our musical work. Besides the Black Metal roots there are many other artists which could be mentioned as influential for us such as Ulver, Portishead, Massive Attack and even the Seattle based Grunge initiators ...
Infernal Masquerade: We see a few tour dates in the Farsot, are there any plans for a larger tour? Maybe some North American dates?
10.XIXt: It would be great to play a tour with a strong line-up to promote „Insects“ in Europe. We want to play more gigs abroad but I don´t think, that we´re already in the position to play gigs in North America - but you never know. It would be an unforgettable journey, for sure. Some gigs here in Germany are already booked but there are no further plans up to now.
Infernal Masquerade: What are the band’s plans for the future? Already started thinking about the next release?
10.XIXt: No. We´re glad, that we currently have a bit more time for different things in life, he he. We gradually rehearsing again to work on new ideas. Keep your ears open...
Read our review of "Insects" here.
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