sábado, 3 de octubre de 2020

OMEGA INFINITY - INTERVIEW

 


1. The fact of coinciding in Aural Music and Code666 I suppose that it was the germ to form the band, tell us a little why you decided to create the group? What does the name of the group refer to? How does that connection Australia, Germany work?

That is indeed correct. Both our main bands have been on Aural Music/ Code666 at that time and at one point we mailed, basically complimenting each other on the other one’s music. We have been staying in contact ever since and when NE OBLIVISCARIS started touring in Europe we were also able to meet several times. Most of our contact goes via the internet – messages, mail and Skype calls, and the same can be said for our work together. Now we both have very specific main bands in terms of what can be done and what not, and the mutual urge to create something aside or main bands resulted in OMEGA INFINITY (whose name loosely refers to the darkness beyond existence, what we call The Void). We share our vision of what we want from OMEGA INFINITY, neither the distance nor our main bands interfere with our work in this project – it is done aside, whenever we have time, and to-the-point without any big diskussions.


2. Does the need to create Omega Infinity respond a bit to creating a band with a proposal and a darker direction with respect to the bands from which you come, maybe you feel more corseted?

We can say from experience that for any creative person being in just one band for a longer time there will come a point when one looks to side projects, to be free of the restraints of having to compromise, as you surmised correctly, with several other persons. That is a natural developent and doesn’t mean that one is tired of his or her main band – just that another means of venting certain ideas needs to be found to explore all ideas one might have, or rather to have an output for everything; one band rarely is enough, no matter how complex and vast the music is. It’s about being able to work in a different way here (no band discussions about any- and everything for example), but it is also true that both our main bands wouldn’t have been a fit for the darker path we are on with OMEGA INFINITY.


3. How has the process of writing and recording this album been? Maybe with Omega Infinity you let your emotions and influences flow more spontaneously than in your mother bands Todtgelichter and Ne Obliviscaris? What brands of instruments do you use for your recordings?

The writing process for TODTGELICHTER has always been very similar to that of NE OBLIVISCARIS, as in the band meets & arranges everything together. It is a very tedious process because everyone has a saying in everything, and the great songwriting success has always been to compromise each and everyones tastes in the music that has been written. Sometimes you write a song within one day but mostly it takes weeks, several rehearsals, re-writes... With OMEGA INFINITY, that is simply not a problem as only one person arranges everything - Tentakel is writing and producing all of the music for OMEGA INFINITY. Of course Xen has a saying in the final arrangements before we finish an album, but so far that has only happened one time and resulted in a slight alteration of the beginning of a song. Luckily we are on the same wavelength most of the time which makes things a lot easier. As for the recordings: Tentakel is a drummer – so the drum parts have of course been played by him, just over an e-drumkit which allows to choose the fitting sound afterwards without any trouble so the brand is not really of relevance here anyway. And as for the rest – OMEGA INFINITY is a very spontaneous thing and we do indeed go with the flow. Any atmosphere that needs to be created, will be created by any means fitting the music. Let us just say that we will not get limits of what is humanly possible in the way of how we want to sound, and we are not even sure if it would would work that way.



4. "Solar Specter" delivers ten themes each one dedicated to a planet in the solar system. Why did you choose this theme and can we talk about a conceptual story or at least a common thread between the themes? What message does "Solar contain? Specter ”, is it just a description of the solar system or is there a deeper message?

Nine themes, and one is about our star. OMEGA INFINITY has a plan set for the next years and spanning more than one album. The first one, ‘Solar Spectre’ was conceptualized as the start of our journey into The Void. It will give the listener a good feeling of what is to come before we embark beyond our solar system and even time and space. The ‘Solar Spectre’ is the looming shadow of the inevitable death of our sun in a few billion years, a reminder that nothing is forever, that the ‘Omega’ is ubiquitous, like a cosmic sword of Damocles. It also serves as a reminder that stagnation equals death. The journey beyond is a necessity. That journey beyond our solar system will start with the next album.


5. On the other hand you are a band concerned about the ecological issue, in fact part of the first 100 presales of the album were donated to the Wildlife Victoria Organization of Australia, how involved are you with ecological causes? What is your opinion about Covid-19?

I’d say not the ‘band’ is concerned about such issues, as the entity known as OMEGA INFINITY is just a neutral watcher of cosmic events, so to speak. But as we are - though the band needs us mainly as heralds of The Void and the cosmic chasms in our existence - real persons behind it, as such we have our stances and concerns of course, yes. And as those two persons we felt strongly about this tragedy and the repercussions on the wildlife, mostly how man brought this upon the innocent. You could say we are not too fond of our own kind as we are both appalled by the studpidity, greed and and sheer recklessness with which humanity powers the engine that sets us all towards a course to extinction, and we’re not only talking climate change, exploitation of planetary ressources or cruelty towards the weaker entities on the planet we are supposed to share it with. So you can say we are both involved in ecological causes – as everyone should be. We are not talking dogmatic views here but it should be a thing of common sense not to cut the branch you are sitting on and last time we counted, we only had this one planet. 

As for your last question – what do you mean with “opinion”? What should our opinion be, or rather what point is there in having one? It is a virus, now classified as a global pandemic (which, quite frankly, we believe would not care if any of us has an opinion on it). As such, it is something to be taken with the due precautions, respect and seriousness if we want to get over this. That is all there is to it. Now, you could talk in length about the ways mankind deals with it, that is another, quite interesting sociological aspect; and we have do have opinions on that, you can check out episode #35 of “Into The Necrosphere” on youtube for a quite in-depth discussion on that.


6. Unlike many other bands that focus their music on a black theme centered on space and the universe that limit themselves to offering an atmospheric cut black where emptiness is presented as a reference; Omega Infinity does retain that ambient tone, but his music is much more visceral, with interesting changes of rhythm, different styles and preserving a dark tone that adapts to the characteristics of the planets that are present on the album. How do you describe your music? And where have you been inspired both for the texts and for the musical section?

The basic inspiration is Space – and we think the reason why we do not only cover the black ambient tones is because the universe is all but empty and bleak. It is a place of wonders, of multitude, of overwhelming beauty – and at the same time of non-judgemental, cold, apathetic cruelty. For example – all our human bickering and problems is completely void should one of our neighbour stars within a few lightyears of proximity go supernova. We’d all be killed by the Gamma radiation – no escape, and yet it might be the most beautiful sight before we die. The dimensions in which to grasp the universe, be it space or time, are totally unfathomable to the feeble human mind. We are nothing to the universe and yet, it provides us some space to exist in and we should be thankful that it lets us be – for now. That, at the core essence, is the inspiration for the pictures that we paint with OMEGA INFINITY.


7. The album cover shows a kind of connection between the human being and an astral plane, who was in charge of the cover design? And how does it relate to the content of the album?

Due to his work for NE OBLIVISCARIS and a lot of other bands the logical choice for the cover art was of course Xenoyr. Tentakel contributed the planet and space elements through a program called Space Engine (very recommended for meditative trips through the known and unknown universe). The person on the cover is an anthropomorphisation of the “Solar Spectre” – the spectre in this case is the inevitable fact that our sun will perish one day, a foreshadowing of her demise if you will.


8. Both Ne Obliviscaris and Todtgelichter have been around for a few years if releasing new albums, has this made it easier for you to create Omega Infinity? And with regard to these bands, do you already have something recorded for future editions for Ne Obliviscaris, is there a possibility that Todtgelichter will regain activity?

OMEGA INFINITY would not exist if not for our other bands. Basically everything that we learned about being in a band - songwriting, production, label work, promotion and everything else that comes with relasing music – finds its amalgamation in OMEGA INFINITY. This project is kind of “what if we could start a band fresh but with all the knowledge and experience we aquired through learning everything the hard way over several years”. So this makes it incredibly easy for both of us. Xen’s main band is still NE OBLIVISCARIS and a new album is nearly finished, and TODTGELICHTER came together again earlier this year to play a full “Schemen” set, the momentum of those shows and the renewed rehearsing routine to be used for probably another, new full length. And then came the pandemic and fucked everything up. NE OBLIVISCARIS will finish their next album eventually, but we can only see if TODTGELICHTER will find the energy to get into some kind of band groove again which might be a bit more improbable – dont forget they paused for over three years now and right after they wanted to get moving again, Corona hit the world. It’s harder to start after that. We’ll see.


9. Season of Mist has taken care of the edition of “Solar Specter”, how did the possibility of publishing the album through Season of Mist come about? Are you satisfied with the repercussion reached by the album?

NE OBLIVISCARIS are already on SEASON OF MIST and Tentakel has a lot of contact through his job, and then of course the most important thing – Season Of Mist have released a LOT of bands that helped shape both our musical identity. MAYHEM most and foremost, but also bands like ...AND OCEANS, GREEN CARNATION, CARPATHIAN FOREST (the first two with excellent comeback albums and we have high hopes for CARPATHIAN FOREST as well later this year!). Many of the old Norwegian Black Metal heroes but SOM have been opening up a lot to other styles over the course of their history. It is for sure one of the most intriguing rosters of any Metal label out there. We haven’t offered to that many labels, mostly to people we know and respect personally, but you could say that SOM was our favourite and we’re glad to work with them. They do a great job, even in or despite the pandemic, and you can definitely say we are also very happy with the repercussion for a project that came just out of the blue. There have been many reviews, most of them quite positive, and the fans seem to enjoy as well. A good foundation for the next step we are going to take very soon.



10. Coming from Germany and Australia, what can you tell us about the extreme scene in two cities like Hamburg and Melbourne? What was the hardest thing to fit in between you coming from two such distant places in the whole process of creating the band and recording the album?

We’re both not exactly the extoverted scene participants to be honest, and you rarely find us in clubs or pubs from the scene as well. Most of our friends, or our “scene”, are musicians from all over the world, which comes naturally when you are a touring musician – mostly you hang backstage with other musicians waiting for, or celebrating a successful gig. You stay in contact afterwards, check up on each other every so often. And in the internet age this has become pretty easy, which is also why we didn’t really encounter any problems with creating something even with the distance between us. We write, we face time, and we send files, no problems at all.


11. How were your beginnings in music: first albums you bought, first concerts you attended? Why did you decide to dedicate yourself to music?

We started somewhere in the mid nineties with Metal and we wanted the Extremes, so naturally we both were drawn to the Black Metal scene pretty fast. The norwegian classics, DARKTHRONE, MAYHEM, IMMORTAL, EMPEROR and so on... However if you look earlier than that, you can say that we both have been looking for the darker vibes in music from the very beginnings. The eighties have been full of stuff that was even played in the radio, early Dark Wave but also some Pop songs have been pretty dark, so any dark vibe is what we both want. In regards to the dedication: Definitely the Norwegian mid nineties as mentioned above. There is so much raw energy contained within the early stuff that sparked the second and the third wave, so there’s obviously something that connects on a spiritual level and apparently we were not the only ones as the plethora of bands out there prove. 


12. Do you keep up to date with the news that are being released in terms of black metal? What latest albums have you bought?

We do indeed. We can both recommend the latest PANZERFAUST for example and there have been quite a few noteworthy releases this year, then a bit earlier came ORANSSI PAZUZU, and we also loved the NIGHT CROWNED. And one of the latest aquisitions – though just a preorder yet – will be the new ENSLAVED, a band we also both hold dear. 


13. I suppose that Omega Infinity will have continuity in time. Does the possibility of one day offering a concert enter into your plans? Are you already working on new songs?

As much as The Omega is infinite we are also there to stay, don’t worry. Live gigs is not something that we plan. The reason for this band to exist is to be an outlet for our darker side, for us both. Playing live means to plan differently – we would need to rehearse, train stamina and also find suitable live members. All things that are familiar for us due to our main bands but for OMEGA INFINITY it means we’d have to focus on all those things beside our main bands (at least Xen, as TODTGELICHTER are back on ice again after 3 gigs earlier this year – the first coming together for them since 2017) and this would take up too much of our time right now. Then of course there is the logistics involved, as we live on two different sides of the globe obviously. Never say never, but while it is not impossible, at this point in time it is highly improbable. The logistics are not worth it at the moment, and that would even be true without COVID-19 which further complicates things. We rather focus on arranging new tracks and producing them. This is why you will hear about the second album very soon, all that is missing are Xen’s vocals. And, while we can’t disclose too much yet, it is safe to say you don’t need to worry about the next albums and years either. 


14. Thank you very much for taking the time to Black Metal Spirit, if you want to add something for the followers of Omega Infinity, this is the place. I hope the questions are to your liking.

Thank you for an interesting interview! To your readers: If you want to stay informed, visit our facebook page: . We will see you in The Void!


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