Dawn Of A Dark Age (Italy) 10/03/2015

Eurynomos: Hails Demon and Orthodox Black Metal, we’re very pleased to talk about our project for your webzine. Dawn Of A Dark Age is a duo composed by me (Vittorio Sabelli ‘Eurynomos’) and the vocalist Buran; for the second album we added the violist/violinist P-Kast. We were born on January 2014 in Agnone, a small town on Molise region’s mountains. We’re totally busy with the ambitious project ‘The Six Elements’, a new kind of saga never seen before in the black metal scene about the Five Elements plus an additional one.

Eurynomos: We’re very satisfied about ‘Water’: the sound is more mature and dark compared with the previous release and the songs more complex and articulated. The debut-album ‘Earth’ was an experiment for what was to be the project as a whole, and it was necessary to clarify the ideas about the potential of our band.

Eurynomos: The number six is everywhere! Six albums, each one made of six tracks, all of them lasting 36 minutes per each. Inspired as a concept-project to Stephen King’s 'The Dark Tower', Richard Wagner's 'The Nibelung Ring' and the 'Six Suites for Cello' and 'Brandeburgos Concerts' by J.S. Bach, each of the six discs has a different line-up around the duo, and musically follows a particular pattern and its own distinct path, still connected to the previous disc and to the next one.

Eurynomos: Our music and lyrics are inspired at first to the nature and regarding the composition I live in a place that is located 10 minutes from dark woods, and in 20 minutes I can reach the sea or the banks of a stream. As you can imagine it would be a sacrilege not to find inspiration from places like that! The song 'Mouettes Midi sur la Mer Adriatique' was recorded really next to the sea, and if you listen carefully you can hear the seagulls dialogging with saxophone and clarinet. The creative process is never the same, sometimes the song begins with a riff, a more melodic phrase played in a wind or often the lyrics come before the music. The only constant is that once I have taken the first step I insert the drums, and then I begin to assemble the various instruments and the voice of Buran. Finally I add my winds and the strings.

Eurynomos: Dawn Of A Dark Age doesn’t exist to emulate the Scandinavians' scene, but to explore new ways and new sounds about the black metal and mix them up with new elements. I played for 20 years in a Classical Orchestra and in jazz group, and I’m trying to discover new sounds and compositional approaches to insert clarinet, saxophone, viola and violins ... in the next chapters there will be further expansion of organic. The fact to include classical, contemporary, folk and free-jazz and composers such as Bartok, Debussy and Penderecki makes the speech always varied, never predictable and exciting in my way of thinking.

Eurynomos: Band like Shining, Marduk, Taake and Windir have many interesting elements from which they can start to send us into unknown territories and never predictable or already heard sounds. It’s very difficult to identify our music in a word, maybe 'total music' is the best way to describe the whole project.

Eurynomos: In the last year I worked 300 days for this project, and I’m totally absorbed by it. I can record every idea comes out in a moment and work on it. Since I am personally making the whole process to realize each album, from the creative moment to the mastering, I can work for 7-8 hours a day. Then once you have clear ideas the path of the music in the six albums comes out in a natural way, spontaneously and the jazz approach also is very important for this project. The most part of the riffs are registered only once without being touched again or repeated. This makes the actual speech warmer and real.

Eurynomos: I was surprised by the reaction in the world of metal and underground to our first album ‘Earth’. I know by personal experience that if you propose new ideas and different compositions there are always people not able to see beyond the old-school of black metal. Our project is extreme and uncompromising; if you think to find in our music stuff already heard, you can’t understand 'The Six Elements' project. The fan reaction to our music was amazing, we did not expect to receive a lot of enthusiasm. We are thinking about the possibility to involve our fan in a more direct way, for example sending them directly demos of new songs during the recordings, to let them to be more close to the evolution of our music.

Eurynomos: Good question! The world is full of black metal record labels, but we decided to self-produce the entire project. Unless some record labels are interested in our global concept without hindering us in any way, we’ll continue self-producing our music. It’s a project that requires enormous efforts for its realization and a record label not willing to believe and promote our project completely, would only hinder our work. Many record labels don’t support the bands they produce, and in this way hinder limit my creativity and the global project!

Eurynomos: Actually I am very busy working on new stuff for the next album, but of course we want to propose Dawn Of A Dark Age live. Probably when the whole saga will be completed, with a great idea... I just hope to realize it. It will be the pinnacle of the saga and something never seen before!

Eurynomos: Reading, walking in the nature, my family and teaching music.

Eurynomos: The Italian scene is very interesting; there are many bands producing good stuff. Unfortunately our project is unique and it is difficult to split it with other bands, but it can be possible that in the next disc there will be some musician from other band.

Eurynomos: I’m recording new stuff for the third chapter ‘Fire’, that will be release next july, 1st, and working on a new side project called Suici.De.Pression that it will be released next December. We hope to be able to involve more people ready to go beyond the usual styles and standards that invade the scene from twenty years. If you want to support our project, the only way to do it is to follow the link: https://www.facebook.com/dawnofadarkage Thank you again Orthodox Black Metal. V