Northern landscapes, autumn and farmakon
Formed in 1991, Finnish funeral doom metal Skepticism is regarded as one of the pioneers of the genre. Combining painfully slow death doom metal styled riffs, bringing together beautiful and dark atmospheres, sparse percussion with deep growling. Creating music that is both within the range of contemporary doom metal in terms of heaviness and slowness, yet far beyond the range of others where atmosphere and sound are considered. Skepticism purposefully creates a mysterious and abstract atmosphere, in terms of lyrics, artwork, contact with the outside world, and live performances.
HMA: Welcome Skepticism to Heavy Music Artwork. What is the ‘Ordeal’?
Matti Tilaeus: Thank you. Ordeal is more or less everyday life basically. As for the album ‘Ordeal’ it represents struggle to write new material and balance each day in normal life. An ordeal is present everyone in some point of life.
HMA: Can you tell us about the new record?
MT: New album was recorded in front of live audience and therefore it is rough around the edges, but the overall result is what we looked for. Ordeal Is album which has atmospheres, feelings and beauty.
HMA: The high and low on releasing new music?
MT: I cannot say is there high or low points in our case. We work always long time with new material and try to make them as good as possible for us. Of course, it is nice to get an album out and see the response to it. Mainly we do music to ourselves and if it generates feeling and emotions in our listeners then we feel privileged and proud of our work.
HMA: ‘Ordeal’ follows the same abstract look and feel present on most of your releases. Would you say that the music mirror the same emotions?
MT: Absolutely. Emotions are always present in our songs. We try to make artwork as part of the listening experience. So yes artwork mirrors the music.
HMA: Which artist/s have had the task to represent this and did were you involved during the process?
MT: We haven’t used outsiders. All the artwork and music is our own handwriting.
HMA: For newbies and old listeners, what make this record unique? And any highlight and best tune if feel most proud of?
MT: Only thing that comes to mind is the way this is done. Live with the audience and also with video cameras. Album is available with CD/DVD or VINYL/DVD. Making this life with the audience was challenging, but we manage to pull it off fairly good. It is hard for an artist to choose between songs, but the final track ‘Closing Music’ has something that makes me proud.
HMA: Lastly on your site, we read “Skepticism is a group bringing together beautiful and dark atmospheres. These atmospheres consist of northern landscapes, autumn and farmakon. Can you elaborate more on these topics? And what is a “farmakon”?
MT: Our music represents Finnish nature, melancholy, long winters, etc. Finnish evergreen forests are really good places to go and you can almost hear tunes in forest trees and landscapes. Dark and long winters also help us to set up the mood for our music. Finnish melancholy is present always and therefore it is a good setup for dark and beautiful music.
www.facebook.com/officialskepticism
Interview by Alex Milazzo – Copyright 2016 © Heavy Music Artwork. All rights reserved.
