SPOILED started in Limassol, Cyprus, but are now based in Berlin, where the thriving DIY hardcore and screamo scene feeds their hungry souls and will hopefully help them gain more recognition.
Members of the band have been IDIOTEQ readers since they kicked off in 2015, so it’s with even more pleasure to present their profile and give you a special feature for their impressive debut EP called “AV_Syndrome_0.1”, which is a wild amalgam of chaotic hardcore, mathcore infuse punk and emoviolent screamo that explodes, gives you some time to rest and then rips you apart. Listen.
The band
We all knew eachother for some years before starting the band from playing games online together. We started as a 4 piece band in Limassol, Cyprus in the summer of 2015 playing covers of just our favorite music. We were around 14-15 years old. We enjoyed bands like Basement, Title fight, Fugazi and we were ethically inspired by Minor Threat and the work ethic of Black Flag. We were trying to avoid whatever paths our piers were getting into and I think to a degree that still remains to be the case for me personally.
Cyprus can be a very dead place for the kind of music we were into. Most of the what we were listening to, we discovered on the internet. We we’re seeing these DIY show videos online of Basement and Title Fight playing small places and we wanted a taste of that world for ourselves, so we just started setting up shows locally, writing songs and sharing them with whoever cared to come to our shows. Starting the band allowed us to experience that type of music on a personal level. As far as other musical projects go we’ve never really had any. I make some noise music but I don’t really post it anywhere, me and our guitar player Alex have some small visual art outlets on Instagram but that’s about it.
The new EP
The recording of this release happened back in November of 2018 in Laval France with Amaury Sauvé, we’d just moved to Berlin and we were probably not ready to record at the time that’d we’d scheduled our session. We took a 22 hour bus ride there. I remember leaving the session thinking that’d we’d never release the songs.
I was having ocd and anxiety and was unhappy with everything we we’re playing. If it weren’t for Amaury and his patience with us I don’t think we would’ve made it out with any songs. Working with him was a big learning experience for us, he’s the best and taught us a lot.
Track-by-track commentary
夢 (Yume): The title means dream in Japanese. It’s based on a dream that I had woken up feeling heavy grief from / dealing with loss of someone you couldn’t imagine not having in your life. When we recorded the vocals for the this run of songs, I didn’t have any set lyrics but more just notes in front of me with themes I wanted to express. It mainly deals with loss of someone that means a huge deal to me and has sacrificed a lot for my life, a sacrifice I hope to return one day. The title is in Japanese because this person has strong ties with Japan.
Desolation, Joi: Some lyrics in this song deal with themes of utter annihilation of one’s self and contemplation of suicide. How a persons life, all their memories and joyful moments, all are lost in time once their life is over, a perspective never to be lived through again or experienced by anyone. Realizing this and finding some sense of joy, euphoria even ecstasy in the midst of chaos, at the end of the day life’s impermanence fragility drives people to have purpose.
11111: This song was just a field recording I’d saved from this garden I really like going to and I laid down some asynchonized midi piano over it, inspired by some minimalist ambient music that I often listen to.
胸騒ぎ(Premonition): This song’s lyrics follow the theme of it’s title. The feeling that something horrible and irrecoverable is about to happen, knowing there’s nothing you can do in your power to change the result and finally coming to terms and embracing it and again is in Japanese as it was influenced by the aforementioned person/entity.
Skins: Skins deals with blatant self hatred. It was the first song we’d written out of all of these and I think it shows as it’s not as chaotic and complicated as all the others but we chose to keep it as it adds variation.
At the time of writing these songs we were listening to Converge, Drive Like Jehu and Deerhoof. Besides us trying to write straight out of emotion and discard anything that didn’t sound like what we wanted the song to feel like, those were the bands that had most influence.
Relocation – moving from Cyprus to Berlin
Education really. Our drummer first moved to Berlin in the fall of 2018 for a course in Sound Engineering and I followed in order to keep the band going. When we’d moved here our bass player was still in Cyprus and our other guitar player was doing his obligatory army service in Cypurs as well, but now we’re all re grouped again here.
Cyprus and Berlin Screamo / Hardcore scenes
As far as Cyprus goes I can only speak for the southern part of the Island (the island is divided in two and we’re not really in communication with the northern side). There’s not really a screamo or hardcore scene at all and understandably so as I think there was like only one hardcore band back in the 90s and now days there’s another hardcore band called ΕΝ ΨΥΧΡΩ but they rarely play live. For screamo we’re probably the only local band to play screamo/post hardcore there to my knowledge.
We’d always just setup our own shows at pubs or basements usually either in Limassol or Nicosia and promote them ourselves with flyers on the street and just invite another young local band to play with us that didn’t sound anything like us musically. We’ve never felt at home or as a part of a scene as a band.
Best thing that’s happened in the Cyprus music scene in my opinion is that we help setup a show for Hexis in Limassol last summer as a part of their gigantic tour and people came out. Props to them for flying in to play a show, it was really nice to see people support them.
Berlin has a pretty thriving scene I think. Lots of bands here like Neska Lagun, 70cm3 of your chest, Watching Tides and Choir Boys are all notable and worth checking out. Also with Miss The Stars fest we get to see lot’s of amazing bands and this years line up is looking unbelievable. There’s also this awesome record store really close to where I live called Bis Aufs Messer and they bring lots of DIY records, you’re always guaranteed to find gems there. We feel really grateful to be here and have the chance to travel to other places in Europe as a band as well due to Berlin’s geographical position.
Plans for 2020
I’m currently in the process of booking shows for this year, I can’t really announce anything yet as the shows we’re on haven’t been made public by the promoters, but starting in April we’ll be playing around Europe, first up is a show in Bucharest called Good but not the best FEST. We’re currently writing new material as well. I don’t think we’ll be able to have something out by the end of the year but we’ll definitely record ! We’re not trying to rush a release.
Other bands worth a check
As far as new screamo goes there’s so many cool releases lately, I encourage anyone to just go to bandcamp and browse the emoviolence section: I’ve been listening to Sano Ex Machina (JP) a lot and this single out of Florida came out recently called Flesh Saw and it rips. The new thisishowitendedintokyo is also really sick.
Usually my go to screamo is Lord Snow, Foxtails, Massa Nera, Blind Girls and Sans Visage so I’d keep an eye out for those bands. I really hope they release something this year.
If you’re looking for something more ambient Puce Mary is really sick, been listening to The Drought a lot recently! Also there’s this compilation of Japanese ambient that I love called Kankyo Ongaku and it’s a great entry for anyone looking to get into the genre. Also check out ENDON they rule !
