INTERVIEW. anasazi. Mathieu Madani: I don t think that the trend is the CD. The trend in France is the Vinyl
Hi Matt, how are you? What are your plans about anasazi? Any new albums?
Will they be different from the previous albums? And by the way, do
you happen to have other projects, if possible - briefly about them?
Hello, i m fine :-)
Thank you for your interest in anasazi s music.
The plans for anasazi in the near weeks is to record a new album. It is all written and I have made the demos of all the songs with vocals line. I just have to write the lyrics but the melodies are composed. It will be more Metal (wow!!! Res.) than Rock (unlike the last 2 records "1000 yard stare" 2014 and "ask the dust" 2018) but always with a bit of Progressive Music.
I guess we ll begin tracking in october.
Beside i have a band called Croak in a Metal and Stoner vibe and we are currently recording an album since june. The band is, anasazi s bass player and guitar player, Christophe and Bruno, a canadian singer Pit and myself on the guitar. We will release our first album in 2020 in june. We have already release 2 Eps https://croakmusic.bandcamp.com/
I m very pleased about this side project because i can unleashed all my anger and Metal side by writing heavier riffs and stronger songs. This is a lot of fun to play. I have composed this album in one month, with all the guitars / bass / drums parts and lyrics. The singer lives in Montreal (Canada). He came to France 3 weeks in june to record the voices. He s a screamer :-)
How is it with your concert activity? When have you played a latest concert,
what is planned in the near future?
Touring in France is difficult with good conditions. For each album we try to select nice concerts to play with good conditions to propose our music to the best audiences as possible. The last show was in the south of France (about 600 kms from home) in a Metal Festival called Metal oc. That was a lot of fun to play with Death Metal or Hard Core, Grunge, Metal prog bands.
The next show will be in Lyon (France) with a tribute cover band of Dream Theater in september. After we ll begin to record our next chapter.
Tell me about your vinyl collection - how much titles are there
approximately? They say it s a bad omen to count to EXACT numbers ...
About 1300 Vinyls and more than 2300 Cds. I m a collector of Music since 1990. I was 13 years old when I bought my first tapes. Iron Maiden "No prayer for the dying" en Judaspriest "Painkiller".
All my Vinyls are registered on discogs https://www.discogs.com/fr/user/anasazi.france/collection in order to know what i have, what pressing, what year, what state and of course what I don t have yet.
I m a bit of control freak with my collection. I love to buy Vinyls and dig in the record stores where i travel.
I m very lucky because my dayjob is : Record seller at O CD www.ocd.net brand new and second hand Vinyls, CD and DVD record store :-)
I see you have completely different styles on various Vinyls. Do you
collect them by styles or by some other principle, which one?
I collect what i like. I m not trying to collect for the collecting purpose. I buy CDS and Vinyls because i m a lover of music, from Jazz to Death Metal. When i listen to a record that i like, i always buy to support the bands or artists. Since i m 13 years old, I have never listened to a record that I like without buying it. If I like it, i always need to have it in my hand. If I don t like it I don t buy it of course...
What are you listening from NON-metal genres? Why?
I love Jazz music (Miles Davis, John Coltrane). I remember when i first heard Miles Davis "Kind of Blue". A new musical universe and journey that opens for me (for a Metal fan).
I really like trumpet and Miles is a God to me.
Otherwise, i very like The Beatles, U2, Peter Gabriel, Sting & Police, Frank Zappa, Eagles, Tori Amos, Jeff Beck, Al Di Meola, Toto, King Crimson, David Bowie, etc...I like so much kind of Music, except Electro and Reggae. Not my cup of tea.
At what age did you start listening to vinyl? Who influenced you in
this? Nowdays the trend is the CDs ...
I m very new in the vinyl world. I started buying CD in 1990 after the vinyl era.
As a professional record seller in store, I don t think that the trend is the CD. The trend in France is the Vinyl. We still sell a lot of CD but the Vinyl has became "hype" since 3 or 4 years.
I have pushed back the purchase of a turntable until 2014 because I am a collector freak and when I collect, I buy all the bands that I love in multiple copies and if the vinyls are colored i try to collect all the colors. So I did not want to give in but a good friend of mine offered me his turntable, and i ve opened the pandora box (lol).
But it is so cool. I love buying and listening to Vinyls. It s romantic, it s vintage, it s a pice of history.
Do you have friends from offline who also listen in vinyl?
Yes a lot of my friends listen to vinyls. And a lot of my friend just do streaming.
I think when you listen to vinyl you are committed to your listening.
When you put the needle on the vinyl, you listen to the whole track from beginning to the end of the side A and then you have to turn the vinyl to listen to side B and then again for C and D side...
What is your vinyl player, when have bought it? How much did it cost
you? You purchased it in the store or by mail, ordered it on the
Internet? What speakers do you have, how many watts, which preamp and amplifier?
This is a Pro-jet carbon anniversary bought in 2015. Not an expensive one, about 450 €, it s a very good turntable, very musical. I have purchased it online with a Marantz amplifier, a CD player Marantz again and JBL ES80 speakers.
I have used it for a year and one day i have tried to listen my turntable in my home studio on my Monitor speakers and I really like the sounds that I have so for 3 years now I listen the vinyls in my home studio and the Cd in my living room on the JBL.
Is this your first player? Do you want to buy something of higher level?
Yes and one day I will buy a better one but you know i m a musician and i like to buy gears and guitars so i must be reasonable.
Do you often manage to play Death(band) at a good volume?
Sometimes yes, but i don t like when the music is too loud because I like to hear all the nuances of music. But my neighbours won t be agree with me (lol).
Do your living conditions allow you to listen to music on normal
volume?
Yes, I choose my appartment because of this. I play music and i listen to music all the time.
To which hour of evening one can play music in France?
10 p.m. After that you must lower the volume but as I said : Music don t need to be loud to be good and powerful to listen to.
What is your favorite vinyl?
I have to answer by gender.
For Metal : Dream Theater – "Awake"
For Pop : The Beatles : "Abbey Road"
For Jazz: Miles Davis "Kind of blue"
Do you have vinyl from Russia? For example, funeral doom metal
Who Dies In Siberian Slush?
I ve had a Beatles pressing, not official, from Russia. I m not in Doom Metal.
Not yet. I guess, I will have to listen to Who Dies In Siberian Slush. I m curious now...
Do you have pic-discs, how do you feel about them?
Do not you think that this is exclusively for collectors?
I have Picture-discs but just for the collection. I don t like the sound of pic-dics.
Maybe one day, they will create pic-disc that plays well but for now it s not good sounds.
My "Lateralus" from Tool, in pic-disc is crapy, so much noise when it plays on the pictures. Good looking by the way...
Do you have discs signed by musicians - covers, of course?
In vinyl, just one signed by John Corabi (ex Motley Crue 1994 album singer).
In CD, all my Dream Theater are signed until "Systematic chaos", some Steve Vai album too, Ark and Bad Moon Rising.
Do you exchange with other collectors? Or you take everything solely
for yourself, to put them on a shelf?
No exchange, i keep it on a shelf, and I listen to them.
Do you manage to keep discs in a clean state, what are you using
for this?
I am meticulous and careful, so I take care of my vinyls. I place them vertically in a temperate room
I don t listen to the same album on vinyl. I prefer playing each time a new record. At oposed with a CD I can listen to 30 times the same album. All my vinyls are protected with transparent sleeve to avoid the friction and the dust. When I have to clean one vinyl bought on a fair, I use demineralized water with a very clean cloth.
How do you get discs? Does your city have a record store?
Or do you order by mail in online stores? Which way do you use
more often?
I work in a record store, it helps, and I buy on the other stores of my city (Гренобль, Res.), on the internet (discogs, Fnac, Amazon, Ebay). I prefer buying old stuff in store where i can dig and check the state of the vinyls. For the brand new stuffs, on the internet and shops in my city. I live in city where there are only 3 seconds hands store (one is the one where i work) and everywhere i travel for work or vacation, I check the google maps for records stores. I have bought Vinyls in London, Lisbon and Paris for the big cities. I wish i will go to New York one day and Los Angeles in Amoeba. Maybe Moscow too, is there a lot of record shops?
(Moscow? I do not know... )) )
How the disks are packed in the store, or in France the packages all arrive
in perfect condition?
The problem is the shipping, not only the packing. The post office don t care about the safety of our vinyls. They are just here to ship. This make me crazy but what can we do ?
Do you buy used discs? Why?
Yes of course. The pleasure to feel and breathe the vintage vibe, and for the Jazz and 80 s Hard Rock Metal I prefer older vinyls.
How much do you spend in a month on vinyl? If you do not mind
answering this question.
According to my wife : too much (lol). It depends, sometimes 400 or 600 €, sometimes just 100€.
According to my bank accounter: too much. I have no kids. I don t travel very often. So what the fuck : let s buy vinyls :-)
Is anasazi going to release a vinyl? Or maybe it already has?
No we don t have release a vinyl yet. Maybe one day. The day where we record a 45 minutes long album, because a double vinyl is very expensive for us and the lenght of our record is more 65/75 minutes than 40. We have pressed our 4 last records in CD.
Do you have any CDs or tapes in your collection? How many?
More than 2300 CD and 3 tapes only.
I was into mix tape when i was a kid or a young teenager.
I loved making mix tape for my girlfriends. I was doing the one for the day with Metal and Rock stuffs and for the night, more quiet songs. It was necessary to calculate the lengths of the songs to spoil as little tape as possible. This was a really good era !!
Thanks for the answers, it was very interesting to talk with a keen person.
Thank you, i really appreciate speaking of my passion. I m a vinyl junkie....
Спасибо вам и вашему интересу к anasazi:-)
Best regards.
Good luck to you and your band!
INTERVIEW. Cedric Seyssiecq (Grey November, Grlscz): ... is the introspection of modern loneliness, a current and urban vision of pain
Недавно провел опрос насчет того, сколько металлистов СНГ может прочитать интервью на английском языке - получилось около 36 процентов. Это нормально.
Сегодня уважаемые меломаны будем практиковаться в английском, поможет нам в этом камрад Виталий (он будет переводить мои вопросы на инглиш). А поговорим сегодня с французским музыкантом Cedric Seyssiecq. У него два основных проекта Grlscz (Gothic, Doom) и Grey November (Funeral Doom Metal/Gothic/Darkwave). Он занимается музлом с 1998 года, далеко не новичок и потому вопросы к нему есть, конечно...
Так как Седрик пропустил мои вопросы про коронавирус, то начал так.
First of all, I would like to thank you very much for this interview. It is always a pleasure to be able to express myself in front of my Russian friends, whose I have always admired the flamboyant culture.
Now let's move on to the music. How did you come to metal? What was the starting point in your choice of musical development?
My story certainly looks like many others, I think :-). I was starting to tune into music a little darker than the ones we heard on radio and TV. And one day, by chance, I found myself attending the rehearsal of a small metal band. When I heard what the guitarist was doing, when I heard the sound of the instrument, I immediately thought that I wanted to do the same thing. This seemed to me to be the best way to express myself that I would ever have. A few days later, I got an old classical guitar and started.
Do you have a musical background? What kind of conservatory is this?
I started playing guitar very late, I was almost 18. No one in my family had ever played an instrument, so I had to find out on my own, and also with some friends. At the time, there was no internet, we managed as we could :-)
It wasn’t always easy to find scores or tablatures, so I quickly started composing, and it was a revelation. A real happiness.
Then, I played in many bands, which allowed me to discover how the other instruments worked, and also to realize that I did not like to play live; from there, I tried to master the different instruments to be able to do everything myself. I followed the evolution of technology for recording and MAO and from a moment I was ready to embark on my solo projects.
You are a multi-instrumentalist. Very tricky word. What instruments do you own besides guitar and keyboards? Do you think brass in metal is promising?
Guitars, bass, and keyboards. That’s it… No, I’m sorry, but I don’t like brass at all :-). I have in mind some incursions of brass into metal, but that’s not conclusive for me. But this is just my personal vision.
What kind of music do you listen to from metal and not metal styles? Is there a place for pop music in your playlist?
I love all the music that is melancholic and/ or passionate. I always listen to my old doom and metal records, the classic rock (Ramones, Stooges), garage rock. And the discographies of my favorite artists: Type O Negative, Royal Blood, Lana Del Rey… but not really pop music...
And now separately for projects
Grlscz.
https://gsproduction.bandcamp.com/album/--2
"The keys enter the brain like a snake, a rough-drawn guitar structure and varnished barbed wire — a creaky, colorful vocals that sing half and whisper half, somewhere in the middle".
What does this word mean, I did some research in my response https://resurgam.ucoz.ru/blog/grlscz_france_2017_gs_productions_gsp_182/2020-01-16-964
but not sure at 101 percent.
The name Grlscz is taken from the character of one of my favorite movies... A man who is a victim of his immortal condition, of his needs, and who feeds his boredom with the soul of his conquests and his various abilities to art. It’s a mysterious, untraceable name. It’s a risky choice for a band name, but it was obvious to me. This name perfectly corresponds to the very essence of the project.
How many albums under this name came out, is it a solo project and how many musicians have you invited for all these albums?
2 albums were released, «Ak spleen» and «spade». There is also a mini CD, which was never released, my first steps on the project. And a complete album of unreleased songs recorded during the session «spade». These songs were never heard by anyone but me!
And I would like to correct you: apart from an intervention by Marieke singing on one track in «Ak Spleen», there was no intervention of other musicians on the albums of Grlscz released so far!
What feelings, circumstances, landscapes inspire you to write music for Grlscz?
Grlscz is the introspection of modern loneliness, a current and urban vision of pain.
rock corresponds to this modernity, as does my voice, which is raw, deliberately mixed hard, and the keyboards and pianos are designed to soften the whole, and bring the approach to an experience of beauty too. This is important in my music, this approach to beauty that justifies the artistic dimension.
Next to Grey November, which is a Gothic project, I needed to give my vision of the world today, and this was going through a new style.
How do you determine the style of your albums? And so ... how has your attitude to musical material that may come out under this name changed over time?
Grlscz has often been presented as doom, but this is a real misunderstanding. For me it is simply rock, I had even qualified the style of suicide rock at the beginning of the project.
I think this name fits perfectly – laughs
On the Ace of Spades album, did you make The Stooges cover, did it happen by any chance or is The Stooges your favorite band?
I love The Stooges, even if it’s not my favorite band... For me it is the parents of this slightly virile and skinned rock that inspired later punk and grunge. I always have with me their first album. It contains a violent and at the same time metaphysical energy, it is a real act of revolt!
I always liked the song «I want to be your Dog», it was in a TV commercial when I was young. I naturally wanted to make it a cover, adapting it of course. I wanted to keep the words of the second part, to make it a more contrasted approach, in which the feeling of submission is more marked…
In which studio do you record material?
I record everything at home, alone. For financial reasons obviously, reasons of efficiency and time optimization, and also in relation to the creative aspect. For me, all the stages of the production belong to the creative process, the way to record a guitar, mixing, etc. I have the impression that no one else could do it for me....
When do we expect the next Grlscz album? Who will you invite this time?
The next album of Grlscz is 90% ready. It is quite different from the previous ones, it is garage rock, very intense, with very melancholic and sad breaks, a general atmosphere a little less dark perhaps, and much more up tempo. My friend Mike sings and plays guitar on most songs.
The Ace of Spades album was released on the GS Productions Russian label, how did you find his contact, how did you get in touch with the label owner? Are you satisfied with the cooperation?
I was in contact with Vitaly of GS Productions because of our collaboration on Grey November., and I was happy to continue the adventure with him. GS Productions is always the promise of great visuals and beautiful objects. And Vitaly is the best boss in the world!
Gray november
https://gsproduction.bandcamp.com/album/l-autre-mort
The project has been playing music since 1998. Funeral Doom Metal / Gothic / Darkwave - this is how the metal archives define the style. Three full-lengths, the last one - 120118 (this is a typo, but it looks cool, in realily it's 2018), 2018 was also released on GS Productions.
Allow me to correct;-): 5 albums: Grey November, Solitude, D'automne, La chute de la maison Usher and L'autre mort. Note that the first four onde were grouped in a magnificent box set edited by GS productions.
What kind of name is this, isn't it a name of a maniac by chance?
Not at all:-) The name Grey November os linked to a very difficult moment in my life, during which was born the need to create this project, to relieve me of dangerous emotions. A matter of life or death, in a distant month of November, cold and foggy. It’s just that. The name of the project was naturally established.
Is this your personal project? How many musicians participated in the creation of music, which instruments did they play?
Yeah, it’s really a personal project. I assure the whole concept, all the music, I just collaborate with different vocalists according to the albums...
Here we see the Funeral Doom Metal style. What bands inspired you?
When i created Grey November, funeral doom wasn’t arrived to me. The only doom i knowed a-t-il the time was My Dying Bride one’s. And it’s obvious that GN doesn’t have much to do with this band, even though I love some of their albums.In fact, I find that even today, no band really sounds like Grey November.
Is there a special mood on your albums? What is the trigger for writing such music?
GN is oriented solely towards melancholy, voluptuous sadness, and the beauty that can emerge from it is his only vocation. Sadness and its comfort, like a snake bites its tail.
Do you often listen to classical music to catch something for your works?
Unfortunately, not really. It’s not in my culture, and I often regret that I don’t have the keys to get into this world. I appreciate some known pieces, but it seems to me that the works lack of passion, that the ones that have passed through the centuries are the most aseptic. But be careful, once again, I am not an expert.
Who is now in the line-up of Gray November?
Currently, and for two albums, I work with Marieke, and it is a fruitful collaboration, she has the perfect voice, the technicality and the sensitivity that best suits the project. She has an immense emotional intelligence, she always manages to understand what I wish for, it’s wonderful.
Is the 2020 album already being prepared?
No, not really. There are a lot of pieces in the works, but nothing that can get done for a while....
Because of my current personal life (two babies at home), I can no longer really register as I wish. It’s a small parenthesis of a few years. However, I do not stop composing, and I am currently focusing on a new ambient project, more conducive to the constraints of my current life. The name of the project is Venoir, you can find out at https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Musician-Band/Venoir-412419036267934/ .
General questions about music.
What is your attitude to black metal?
The BM is a very important part of my musical background. By the time I woke up to the dark music, I was listening to a lot of BM. But apart from these old classics that I still sometimes listen to with pleasure, I no longer listen to new stuff , and I have not followed the evolution of this current for years.
What equipment do you listen to music on? Do you listen to mp3 music?
My professional life and my personnal life as a twin baby daddy means that I listen to music mostly on headphones, in mp3 on my phone… This suits me rather well, even if I am a fan of vinyl, and I have a good and beautiful collection.
I also love the sound of the tapes, but Alas I’m not equipped. This is a medium on which I would really like to be able to propose some of my works!
Which French metal bands would you recommend to our readers?
Dark Sanctuary is a band whose music meant a lot to me. This is not a metal band but fans of melancholic music must absolutely discover it.
Forbidden site, an unknown band, which only made two albums: flamboyant and refined dark metal, to discover absolutely, even if I think that the albums are now difficult to find...
Porn, a group I discovered quite recently… Their first album 'The Ogre inside' is a pure masterpiece, with an impressive production.
Спасибо за уделенное время.
Again, i wish to thank you very Much for this interview.
https://web.facebook.com/Grlscz.fr/
https://web.facebook.com/greynovember
Фото с сайтов Cedric Seyssiecq
