Line Up:Unknown
Well,Friends Of Aristocracy!
We speak again of our newsroom, where in a little while, we will have in all its emotions, the interview 183 of the Aristocracy.This time, we talked to a band that we don't know who are the people who answer for the group. But, regardless of that, we see a Death Metal band that makes a totally dissonant sound.Another very interesting detail of the band is that you feel claustrophobic listening to the band. In addition to musical angles that are completely different from what we are used to, allied to dark places and distortions and unexpected perspectives.We're talking about the band Clades, we just know that the band presented us with their debut entitled Absumptus. We want to thank those people that we swear we don't know who they are, but who answer for the band by answering our humble but important questions and also the producer Imperative for letting us know. introduce this band. Let's go to one of their songs to get this interview started.
A1:Who´s who on band?
Clades:Clades is an entity that exists independently from its creators. Clades was formed in 2012 but was birthed stillborn in a sense. Every member but one founding member went on to walk a different path, but it was always the intention to have it be a band. Lack of experience, skill, resources, and most importantly, time, lead to Absumptus being delayed nearly a decade later. As a result, only one member did all instruments and engineering for this album.
A2:Talking about the composition work in Absumptus?
Clades:Composition for Clades took place over a large span of years and continuously evolved. The oldest songs on the record are the title track,Sombre Manifestation and Projection. It existed for years as sheet music along with a few other tracks that didn’t make it, but production remained a consistent issue along with the situation very early on.In a sense, each instrument has a motif that defines a passage and what takes the lead to drive into the overall completion of a song. Outside of this, everything else was free and left to the connection of each instrument to actualize what the song will sound like. Neither tempo nor time signature has any deciding rule over a song.
A3:Why do you say you are on the edge of reality?
Clades:Almost every second on the record was a vision at some point. Something that was not physical or tangible, or even expressed on an instrument. It existed firsthand as a feeling. This, in part, contributed to the long production time. This feeling manifested itself in the form of dreams and personal discovery that shaped the sound and compositional elements of the music. The reality was more of a matter of will. Beyond that, you can say the music was less and less of a reality when Absumptus was being written and became reality when everything aligned just right. What was happening in the world at the time of recording and production, and what is still going on now as far as human suffering is concerned, also aligned. Through that intuition, everything happened at the right time in a way.
A4:What are the dissonances that the band brings to this album?
Clades:Dissonance is a very interesting concept. It implies a lack of cohesion in something, but, when used musically, it is virtually no different from universally acceptable qualities in theory like “harmony” or “melody”. It’s the perfect compliment to death metal and how it has progressed. Only the surface has been scratched when it comes to the potential dissonant chords and intervals have in music.
A5:Some literature or film inspire the band?
Clades:The moral angles in the lyrics follow a similar approach to the works of Albert Camus, which was very much accidental. The ultimatum proposed in the music has a similar basis to Camus’ Absurdity. Mark Twain played a strong inspirational role, particularly with “The Mysterious Stranger” in the Adventures Of Mark Twain. God and Satan are very much nexus points in the overall story in Absumptus, but like many things, are merely symbolic of man’s swing towards good and evil, obscuring the roles of each to see the placement humanity has in this.
A6:Why the band have this name?
Clades:A clade is a group of organisms that evolved from a common ancestor.This was a fitting name for a group that, at the time, saw themselves as heavily inspired by so many bands, who all have a common artistic ancestor in metal. There was always an emphasis on dissonance and composition,but this was a byproduct that has its origins elsewhere. The irony of the name ties a bit to the past all the way to 2012.So much evolved and changed in 10 years up until release. In a way, it was a premonition.
A7:How are progressions made in your songs?
Clades:
Luc Lemay from Gorguts explained it the best in an interview with guitar.com. “Music is a speech. But if everybody and every band uses the same words, it gets boring after a while. We were looking for our own dialect.”That summarizes the process pretty well. The composition was the hardest part because it was something Clades’ contributors at the time cared the least about. That lack of maturity lead to many songs being “redesigned” entirely and their original forms were sort of amorphous. Approaching this in a very logical and templated manner wasn’t good enough for what was intended from the beginning. It required relearning how to play an instrument almost!Eventually, the process became very free and natural. The “what” was decided in the beginning, but the “how” took the longest time to get right. Classical music played a role in inspiring the more “progressive” qualities in the music. In fact, much of the record was practiced acoustically. Distortion was a production element, not a defining trait of the music.
A8:How to impart impartiality to an intricate but intense work just like what they did?
Clades:Well, that makes you ask what is truly impartial. Is impartiality a willingness to concede an inability to remove something that may be incorrect for the music, or building on your personal strengths and desires and making something you may not like but is the best performance that can be done?Technical death metal bands played an inspirational role, but technicality became more of an after-effect rather than an intended dynamic when deciding what was wanted from the music. Looking within and feeling the music was the goal. In a sense, faith.
A9:What contradictions did you want to bring to this album?
Clades:Duality exists throughout the album. It was there from the very beginning lyrically and later musically. Perspective is the difference maker in death metal as a whole. Depending on how you look at it, death metal can be extremely positive music with a very positive message. It can also be sinister and ruthless in how it achieves serenity. The contradiction was never a concern. Balancing contradiction and incorporating dynamics into portraying humanity, vocally and instrumentally, was more of a question of “how”.
A10:How Clades different from your previous bands?
Clades:Clades is dehumanized at the core.There’s no personal ownership of what’s made under that name, as a principle and governing rule.A piece must stand on its own “feet” and live and breathe as its own manifestation.Music is the perfect medium for this kind of sensibility. It is experiential, diverse in emotional conveyance and becomes itself. Interpersonal connection is left to the listener and the record alone.
A11:How band know about The Imperative PR?
Clades:That relationship was made through InViMa Records.
A12:Can we say that the band addresses the apocalypse or has it already happened we just don't realize it?
Clades:It depends on the perspective you look at it from. Fantasy has its own depictions of what an apocalypse would look like, what people will think and how they will act, but in the end, reality is much more subtle and terrifying. To what extent do people acknowledge the mistakes and folly of mankind? If the apocalypse happened, would we know? You can prepare, but the evidence may show a different picture of how everything will come to be. The lyrics very intentionally disassociate from a clear picture of an “apocalypse”. It’s more introspective and anthropomorphized. Something within that is reflected outside in the tangible world. What will happen isn’t because of something else. It will happen because of us.
A13:How band arrive to InViMa Records?
Clades:Clades itself predates the founding of InViMa Records. But InViMa Records was a necessary factor for presenting the “external” qualities of the music. In a sense, Clades is a pillar that presents an aspect of the label’s ideologies and approaches toward music. The entire roster of InViMa Records is more of a collective rather than a collection. Separate entities working to enact a physical manifestation of a common principle that makes music prosper.
A14:What´s the idea behind artwork´s album?
Clades:The artwork’s design came later during the writing process when only the sound elements were envisioned. It came in a dream, along with musical pieces that would later become the final versions of the songs “Absumptus”, “Destined In Passing”, and “Projection”. Meditation and dreams were heavily used in the creative process of the album. The “Metatron's cube” that’s present in the artwork was taken from one of these dreams. After a long bit of research, it was shown this element tied perfectly with the lyrics. It was the only fitting explanation for the perspective the earth should be seen through in the album's lyrical setting.
A15:What kind of paradoxes are brought out in this album?
Clades:Choice. Or I guess you could say “free will. How do you approach being a human being, seeking your own prosperity and propagation when it comes at the cost of everything around you? Food, in principle, is consuming life. Plant, animal, music, it makes no difference. How does life perpetuate the destruction of something else? Is there a model that indeed creates the most life for what it takes? How well does humanity fit in this equation through the eyes of God in godless subjects?These, I guess you could say, are paradoxes.
A16:This album is conceptual?
Clades:From top to bottom, Absumptus explores the creation of the universe and man’s influence over this natural process to achieve dominion over the earth and all aspects encompassing what is humanity’s “right” to control and preserve outside of any moral conscience. Selfish indulgence and propagation to further an individual's life.This perspective is explored from a first-person perspective of a person who is not in control of history and inherits the sins of humanity’s doings and is forced to choose whether they will accept being a crusader and conquerer of the earth, at the cost of the life the earth provides, or to embrace the universal principle that all things end, including humanity. A betrayal against the prosperity of humanity. The lyrics follow through to a death under this ultimatum.The use of Latin in the album comes from the imperialistic qualities the United States has in general. The fall of the Roman Empire was, in many ways, the spark of a template for the fate of many countries and people to be. In the context of a modern man, this should be what leaves us “consumed”.
A17:It is clear that InViMa has the merits of discovering the otherness of the band, but do you believe that this already existed in these first ten years of the band?
Clades:As mentioned before, Clades is a foundational pillar of InViMa Records and predates its founding. The yin and yang that balances the conceptual and physical.When Clades first came into existence there wasn’t enough maturity or preparedness to make the music in a way that was appropriate. Originally the album was going to have 12 songs but it became apparent this would be a bit overbearing and self-cannibalizing if the album was too long. Eventually, it was decided that 8 songs and 48 minutes overall would be perfectly sufficient. Other instruments were going to be used as well but these instruments will be left for something else. Nothing can ever be so perfect that it has everything you’d like to touch on. After all, if this were the case, there would be no reason to make more music.