Interview taken from Psycho
 

Tharen, when did you decide to work on this new project called Dargaard?
Tharen: After my split with Abigor as a singer I did some keyboard intros/outros for them, Heidenreich and my own Black Metal band Amestigon.
It was in the year of 1997 I decided to start my own band, because I felt that I could do much more out of my ideas and visions as only as a metal keyboarder.
I simply wanted to create my own realm and not adding to someone elses any more. This was the hour of birth for Dargaard. After I had recorded the music for the first album I thought of a singer the first time. I knew Elisabeth from her appereance on Abigor´s Nachthymnen and from a local demoband, so I decided to ask her. It was a wise decision I must say for myself, because everything went the way I hoped -She brought her own ideas into Dargaard`s realm and gave “Eternity Rites” a special touch. With the finished Cd we contacted Napalm Rec., I know them for a long time since Abigor started, and they signed us nearly the same moment they listened to the Cd. With “Eternity Rites” we had really good responses from the public, so we went back into the studio with a greater budget…”In Nomine Aeternitatis” is the result.

'In Nomine Aeternitatis' sounds very gothic/neoclassic: did you want to step away from black metal? Are you tired of it?
Tharen: At the moment I´m a little bit pissed on, to be correct. There happens so much shit in the scene nowadays. I hate the whole vampire-gothic-blackmetal-slush-mixture with naked woman on Covers, T-shirts and so on…I think, the mystic of Black Metal has gone if I listen to much of the newer stuff. Anyway, with Amestigon I´m still busy in the Black Metal scene!

Your music seems to be as awesome as the ancient monuments: so what's your point of view about the relationship between music and art?
Tharen: Thank you for this comparison! In fact I want to create landscapes and even the images of ancient castles/monuments in the listener´s brain.
Personally I´m very interested in ancient cultures-and so I´m in their art.
Elisabeth: It´s a typical thing about Dargaard that there are always pictures in ones head when listening to the music… I am imagining landscapes, more or less surreal; and I try to create the beings, that crowd these scenes with my voice. On this album, there even was a cooperation of another kind besides the music; Tharen and I worked together on the artwork. I designed it by hand and Tharen overworked it digitally. We tried to transport the main features of Dargaard´s music by it - which means the mystical, pure, rather dark and ageless atmosphere.

What is the difference between 'Eternity Rites' and the new album?
Tharen: We progressed much in the time between the release of both CD´s, I spent much more time on the songwriting with more complex structures and so on, Elisabeth had better room to unfold her voice, and due to my studies as an audio engineer and our greater budget I had more possibilties in the studio to give a better sound to the Cd. I´m much more satisfied with “In nomine..” now. But let´s see how it is in 1 year. I´m sure I´ll find something I want to improve.
Anyway, I think it´s an evolution in the right direction.
Elisabeth: Well, I´m happy to say that my voice and my possibilities are still developing. But the main difference for me between our 1. and our 2. album is the fact, that I knew the music for “I.N.A” from the beginning and as result I was more into the atmosphere of Dargaard - which made it much easier to find convenient vocal lines.

You've worked with Abigor, Amestigon, Heidenreich, dominion; by the way, actually what's your opinion about that experiences?
Tharen: To work with Abigor was -due to Thomas´ dominance and fast and a little bit strenuous kind of working- a little bit hard, but of course very interesting and everytime very determined. Amestigon was -and is again- my main Black Metal band, I fully stand behind it. I´ts more rough and original, in the direction of earl darkthrone and burzum. Now we are reformed with a new lineup as there are: Silenius: vocals, Tharen: drums, vocals, keys, Herr Wolf: Guitars, Jörg Lanz: Guitars. In Heidenreich I only played some keyboard parts, so I was never a real fulltime member. With dominion we just signed to Napalm Rec., our debut Cd “the hand and the sword” will be released in may I think.
In dominion I´m again responsible for the music and the voice, that is rather distorted this time. It´s a kind of industrial/electronic/ritual/ambient-I just call it “apocalyptic electronic music”.
Elisabeth: I am also involved in dominion, I did some vocals on “the hand and the sword”. But of course, Dargaard is my main band as a singer. At the moment dominion is the only project of a “harder” kind of music I´m taking part in; sometimes I really miss the “double-bass-kick”.

Your new stuff also reminds me another Napalm Records' great band: Die Verbannten Kinder Evas. So, by your opinion, Could we talk about a "Napalm's style"?
Tharen: I really don’t like to hear such statements!!!! I like their music, but I cannot hear any similarities between D.V.K.E. and us of course.
Elisabeth: I think the main reason why we are often compared to D.V.K.E. is that there are not so many bands playing that kind of music because it is just now developing. We were also compared to Dead Can Dance and I believe this is rather unfitting; it was the same case when the Gothic-Metal-Scene developed and everybody compared the bands to Paradise Lost, (although there is even less possibility of variation of style in Gothic Metal than in ours). Nevertheless we both like D.V.K.E. and Dead Can Dance very much; but the only parallels I can identify ly in the instrumentation.

Could you write me down anything more about Elisabeth Toriser and her band called Antichrisis?
Elisabeth: Antichrisis belongs to my past, because we splitted a year ago; they are now working with another female vocalist. They are playing Metal Music with strong Folk influences; one of the reasons why I left the band is that I have another opinion about romanticism (I don´t connect it with love but with mysticism of nature) and prefer a darker style of music, besides I had no time for touring then. I was busily studying at that time and now I´m really happy with the music of Dargaard and dominion.

Can you tell me anything about the lyrics and the structure of 'In Nomine...'?
Tharen: In the lyrics I follow the path I started with “Eternity Rites”. The main theme is-what a surprise- eternity. I´m not the kind of poet that thinks of his lyrics the whole time. At first I´m musician. But the lyrics have an important part in Dargaard of course. Inspiration I take from my dreams and “visions” of other realms and dimensions. In my dreams I´m in trapped in my own realm, I simply want to transport the feelings I have when I´m there. Besides that I´m very interested in occultism in any form, ancient cultures and their myths, mysticism and so on. The lyrics are simply a mixture of all that interests me.
Elisabeth: 3 of the lyrics on the album are taken from other poets, 2 of them are antique texts, one written in Latin by Ovid and one written in ancient Greek. The latter one is my personal favourite - I searched for fitting contents according to the music: It is about a ship that gets caught in a storm. It has a special attraction to me to sing something that has been dead and conserved only in letters for such a long time, to duplicate the thoughts and emotions of a person who has been dead for thousands of years… Alkaios from Mytilene has written this text 2400 ago. Also Latin and ancient Greek were the languages in which knowledge (and also secret and occult knowledge) was delivered for hundreds of years…


Do you play live as Dargaard and, if yes, what kind of live-show are you planning for the future?
Tharen: We will play live for one concert, namely the Wave/Gothic.meeting in Leipzig Germany. The reasons for our stage-absence are that I´m studying while Elisabeth is working and my hate towards concerts. For me it´s always the same as I read a book and see the movie afterwards it´s almost ever a disappointment.
Elisabeth: We had to engage two other female singers, because I am always composing two or three different vocal lines for a song and this is the only possibility to realize the arrangements on a live concert. That means that I have to work a lot with the two other singers before but I´m really looking forward to it.

Now in Austria there are a lot of good bands, both gothic and electronic...What's your opinion?
Tharen: I don’t really know many Gothic/Electro bands from our country, but most of them are based on band-incest. I hope there will be some more “really new” bands.

PS:: Thanks for the interview and your interest, Fabio. We would appreciate it, if you could send us a copy of your magazine!
Tharen.
PPSs.:Elisabeth:I answered for myself; we both answer all interviews, but there are always misinterpretations about that

back