The winter is over, I know. Nevertheless, you’ll have to bear even more melancholic post rock and sludge vibes that will take you to another dimension. Belgium’s THE TRAGEDY WE LIVE IN is a brilliant clash between instrumental post rock and sludge, noisy drone metal. Their breathtaking soundscapes are filling up their self-titled debut album, which will make addicts of some of you, believe me.
I have arranged the following interview with the band to discuss their epic new outing, their approach to music and their local scene. Lots of exclusive information about the band – check it out below!
Launch the player below and jump in to explore their atmospheric beauty of doom.
Damn, guys.. there are tons of great reviews of your new album. Is this a natural buzz, or a result of your aggressive promotional campaign?
Mathlovsky:
When we put out our album on bandcamp with the free of charge option, it really started to spread like wildfire. We sent some to our favorite blogs and from there it really started to spread. We’re really happy that it has been getting positive comments, getting a nice view on what the next album will be like.
Onbeschaafd:
We are a DIY band so promoting the album is more on a small rate,we are glad to see that several blogs and website’s are picking it up and giving some really nice reviews.
Have you reached the limit of downloads yet? [smiles]
Onbeschaafd:
Yeah, last month all 200 downloads on bandcamp were gone but several torrent and download site’s and blog’s have picked it up to.
Mathlovsky:
The limit was reached pretty fast yeah.
How did you make the decision to release it for free?
Mathlovsky:
We also sell it on vinyl and in the future it will be released on tape. We understand that in this day and age, you’re gonna get ripped and put up on the internet for free anyways so we want to give it from us to the fans ourselves. We don’t mind it anyway, the vinyl has been selling nice even tho it’s out there for free on the Internet.
Onbeschaafd:
I have bin downloading music for free since i had a computer, but I always buy the record on vinyl or tape if i liked it. So in any way you can still support the artist by buying a vinyl or a tshirt.
Do you all agree with this approach? Or did you have some disagreement on the issue “how to release it”?
We are pretty much on the same line when it comes to politics, musical influences and such so we all think alike when it comes to this band.
So how did all start for you guys? Tell me more about how your formed.
Onbeschaafd:
It all started out when i quit my job in 2011, I hated my job and my life was going nowhere at that point.
So I woke up early every day to make live demo’s with my looper and putted them up on Soundcloud. It caught Mathlovsky’s attention and in the late 2011 we started jamming with the demo’s i made. Soon afterwards in may 2012 our bassist joined the band and since then we where a full band with our own sound and thoughts about music.
Mathlovsky:
I really wanted to drum in a band, so when i knew my friend here started a new project I immediatly wanted in on the whole thing. I know these guys for a very long time so it all felt very natural making music together.
Are you all native Belgians?
Mathlovsky:
We really don’t feel any connection with the land we’re born in. No borders, no masters is how we like to think.
Yeah, that’s the opinion I share, too, but were you raise and grow up in the same area?
Mathlovsky:
We all grew up in the same town yeah so we knew eachother since our teens.
Onbeschaafd:
We are all raised in a small town near Ghent!
Do you have a local punk scene there? Or is it Ghent that concentrates it all?
Mathlovsky:
You have many organisations, squats, youth houses that keep it true, Ghent is a great place for this kind of music but it is situated pretty much over whole of Belgium. Small country so many events, thats always a good thing.
Onbeschaafd:
You have some really cool place’s in Ghent that do alot of cool show’s like Bakunin’s Pogo Bar, The Kinky Star, De Charlatan…
How were you first introduced to the genre? How did you fall into heavy music?
Mathlovsky:
When I was 10 I first saw the band KORN on MTV and i was struck by the heavy guitars. As time went on I discovered death metal, grindcore and crust punk. So while listening to this kind of heavy music I discovered so many more different kinds of guitar music like PINK FLOYD and many more bands that are ‘softer’. Meeting people that were like minded it didn’t take long before I started going to awesome venues across the country to discover the local scenes.
Onbeschaafd:
By going to a squat not far from our hometown called “Idem squat” on a early age.
A lot of grindcore/crust/punk-bands played there from al over the world. Also going to the punk rock festival in Belgium called Groezrock.
But we are really open-minded when it comes to “genre’s” my musical taste goes from grindcore to punk rock, emo, hardcore, breakcore, experimental music etc.
Oh.. the Groezrock. I really need to check it out finally. What about Ieperfest? Are you attending the festival this year?
Onbeschaafd:
There are coming some really great bands this year like AMENRA, DRI, FACE TO FACE, HORSE THE BAND, MAGRUDERGRIND, NAPALM DEATH, ORANGE GOBLIN, REPROACH, XERXES, so there is a possibility that I will go!
Mathlovsky:
Yeah Ieperfest is great, I try to at least to go one day, and I will see if I can go all days this year. Busy times ahead!
Alright, guys. Let’s go back to your new album. When and how did you start writing it? Tell us about the birth of “The Tragedy We Live In”.
Mathlovsky:
Onbeschaafd came up with the basic demo ideas of these track when me and Sam added our stuff to it so after a small year of playing these songs live and adjusting them in the rehearsal space, we decided it’s time to go record. We recorded all the songs live in GAM studios in the Ardennes, Belgium. Quite satisfied with how raw the songs felt like, we released it as soon the matching artwork was done.
Onbeschaafd:
It’s our first album so we started the writing process when the band started. There were many songs over the past year but in total 8 songs made it on the album and we are proud of every 8 that’s on “The Tragedy We Live In”. It was a very emotional and hard year for all of us and when we were at GAM studio it all came together perfectly. Recording it live in one room all three together was the best decision we could make to record this record. We just let go of all our problems in the past in the studio.
In terms of the obtained sound, did you have a certain goal with this recording?
Mathlovsky:
To stay raw, like a wall of noise. It isn’t about perfection, just raw emotion going through your speakers. For us, this was the sound we were looking for. Some people get it, some people don’t but we don’t mind. We are doing things the way we like it and it will remain that way.
Onbeschaafd:
We recorded it all live so we can be as honest as possible with our sound. Many bands record their music the other way an in that way a lot of emotion goes lost because its “studio” made.
Mathlovsky:
Yeah I don’t think an overproduced sound would work for this album we made. It does for certain styles of music but for this it needs to be raw.
Alright, so what about the distribution of the album? When are you signing with Neurot Recordings? [laughs]
Mathlovsky:
Well through bandcamp alone already the album has been doing real good and certainly with the many blogs and sites posting it. We mail our vinyl also to people who want to order and on our shows we always have vinyls with us. For like signing with a label, it’s not our first priority right now but if we would find a label that shares our views and feels good to work with we wouldn’t pass it up.
Onbeschaafd:
Neurot Recordings is a great label with great bands on it, it would be an honour ! We are already working on new songs for the next album…
How’s it going?
Onbeschaafd:
We are taking our time for it, but expect some hard hitting tribal noise violence with some melancholic post rock and sludge vibes.
Mathlovsky:
We are looking on to our strong points and developing the sounds we like the most of the first album. It’s really exciting on what we’re working on already, real tribalistic drums with very strong emotion heavy riffs on top of it all. Hopefully we’ll be in the studio at the end of the year but for now we are promoting the first album off course.
Yup. You’ve released it on tape, right? What’s up with this format, I don’t get it. As far as I am a big fan of vinyl, I don’t think MCs are even close to this legendary format. How did you decide to use cassettes? Do you really believe people still own cassette players? [laughs]
Mathlovsky:
The tapes aren’t out yet. Waiting on them to arrive so in the future we’ll have them for the real old-school fans I guess [smiles].
Onbeschaafd:
There is a friend of us called Sebastien Noisemachine Dessauvage that has got a tape label that’s is called Sewertrench, he wanted to release us on a limited amount of 100 tapes. I do like tape’s I own about 30 tapes of other bands and I listen to them with a cassette player, I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Alright alright, I was just playin’, guys. I love tapes, too! [smiles]
You played quite a lot of shows this year, huh? How were they?
Mathlovsky:
Intense ! We always give it our all at the expense of bruised knuckles and cymbal cuts. It’s what I live for you know, those 40 minutes of pure anger and frustration release. It keeps me sane to be hitting those drums as hard as I can. Lots of cool places like a squatted monastery, real eerie vibe! Met lots of cool people and bands so that’s always nice to experience, I love meeting new people.
Onbeschaafd:
We played a lot of shows last month and the month’s before and there are more to come. In may we are going to Germany as well. Every show is a smash against the head, it’s the only 40 minutes a day that keeps us out of the reality of daily habits, work etc. . We love to play, and as much as possible.
Do you have any visual addons to your music? What’s your opinion on flavoring live appearances with visuals or unconventional stage settings?
Mathlovsky:
We don’t use visuals because we want to engage the crowd in making their own movie in their heads. Like we are the soundtrack to a movie of their lives, adventures, letdowns and such. We prefer that our stage is really dark because it isn’t about us as people, it’s all about the music and the impact we want to make on people’s head movies. I believe visuals for our set would distract people from their own story and would be focusing on our visuals too much. That’s why we don’t use vocals on the album, you would be listening to the singers tales and wouldn’t be thinking about your own anymore. At least that’s how we see it.
I guess that’s why NEUROSIS decided to fire their VJ and let the music speak for itself [smiles].
What about your upcoming shows? Any festivals or farther directions to mark with a checkmark?
Mathlovsky:
We look forward to every show and treat every show the same, give it all I have. Big stage, small stage, no stage, we will always try to keep the energy up.
Onbeschaafd:
We are playing our first headline show next week with some cool other bands like CHARNIA and SUNBOURNE. Recording our second album at the end of the year will be awesome as well.
Mathlovsky:
There are some really cool shows coming up after the summer but we don’t know if we can talk about it yet.
Ok, I understand. Let me know as soon as you out it all together.
Guys, would you consider adding vocals to your music in order to beat our asses up even harder than you already do?
Onbeschaafd:
We don’t know what the future will bring, we try to evolve and push everything forward in a new way, but adding vocals is not a priority at the moment.
You’ve created a really heavy atmosphere on the record. What makes you so sad? [smiles] What inspires you to compose such ghostly tunes?
Mathlovsky:
The fact how harsh reality can be sometimes. I have just gotten out of a long relationship at the time we got in the studio so my mind was out of control. For me it’s about reaching deep down inside and getting your nasty demons out and releasing them, like therapy but more effective. I know for Sam and Onbeschaafd it must feel the same. I have other music projects as well that convey other emotions but for TTWLI it’s all about the heavy things that weigh on my shoulder that I need to get rid of. That’s what makes it so heavy I guess.
Onbeschaafd:
Everything that’s happened in the past 10 years. From discovering thousands of bands to ex-girlfriends and fucked up work experiences. But that doesn’t makes us sad people [laughs]. It’s all about fighting of your demons. Everybody has trouble’s in live and everybody has a different way to get through it. Inspiration comes from many bands, the key is just to stay open for every style or genre of music.
What tragedy do we live in? I know it was born out of a movie, but do you assign a special meaning to this name?
Mathlovsky:
It is how it is. About the tragedies we encounter in our lives, to get from those negative situations and make into music we get something positive out of.
Alright, boys. Did I miss something? Anything you’d like to add before we wrap it up?
Mathlovsky:
I want to give a shout out to all the people that support us in any way by booking us, buying our music, downloading our music, buying a shirt and coming to our shows. Thanks for banging your heads and opening your minds !
Onbeschaafd:
Thank you Karol for the interview! We hope to play in Poland as soon as possible.
Sic Transit Gloria…Glory Fades.
Thanks! Take care, guys!
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