Friday, July 5, 2019

Tableau Mort Interview

For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the band?
Tableau Mort started in 2017, initially as a solo project. In November 2017 two other members joined and we started to rehearse the songs in the shape you can here on the album.
Tableau Mort current line-up is:
James Andrews – vocals
Cristian Giurgiu – guitars
George Topor – guitars, keys, backing vocals
Radu Vulpe - guitars
Marek Basista – bass
George Bratosin – Drums, backing vocals

Recently you have released your first full length, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style you went for on the recording?
It’s difficult to talk about the musical style as we can’t be 100% objective. Most of the times the listeners hear other things and influences in the music than the artists themselves. In our opinion, our style is primarily black metal with touches and flavours from other sub-genres. Most of the riffs are tremolo picking black metal chord, some death and doom metal riffs here and there, deathcore-like bass drops, some progressive odd time signature parts… so, a bit of everything but still black metal.

The lyrics cover 'Romanian Orthodoxy' themes, can you tell us a little bit more about your interest in that topic?
We find orthodoxy and everything related to it in general very sombre, gloomy and spiritual at the same time. Orthodox music is literally darker than most of metal and it is absolutely fascinating.

What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Tableau Mort'?

Long story. In 2002, our guitarist, George, got as a present from his friends, Paul and Ana Maria Balan, one of their paintings. As a child, George’s son was terrified by that painting and he named it “the dead painting” (Tablou Mort, in Romanian). We French’d it a little bit to make it sound more exotic and we ended up with “Tableau Mort”

Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?
After we finished recording the album, we started to look around for artists for the album cover, and one day we found this page “Nether Temple Design” belonging to Alex Shadrin and we fell in love with all his work. We picked a few artworks initially and finally we stopped at the original version of this one as we thought it was reflecting our music. We contacted Alex and he volunteered to add a few more touches to the original artwork so it suits our music better.
Our T-shirts are also designed by Alex

The pictures I have seen of the live performances look more like a ritual, can you tell us a little bit more about your stage performance?
It took us almost two years to go out and play live. We discussed a lot about the live show and we invested a lot of money, time and energy to make sure our stage presence matches the music. To us, the visuals are as important as the music itself, we like to offer people a show, not just another average performance.

Do you have any touring or show plans for the new album cover?
We are currently discussing with a few promoters and festival organizers but we will only be seen live where we can bring our full production. We won’t compromise just for the sake of playing a lot of shows and tick boxes.

On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of black metal?
The reaction was 100% positive so far and that is really rewarding as we have put a lot of effort in this project and motivates us to go on.

Most of the band members also have experience playing in other bands, what is it that you are able to being into the music of 'Tableau Mort' that you were not allowed to do with your previous groups?
We all have played in different bands previously but not necessarily in a black metal one. Black metal is more creative, allows you to experiment more musically, lyrically and visually, gives you more freedom to express yourself.

Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
Hard to tell, we really don’t know. We write the music the way we feel, not necessarily having genres and templates in mind so we don’t really know how we will feel in 5 years’ time.

What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
Not sure if any bands had a direct influence on us but there are a few bands that everyone in our band likes: Der Weg Einer Freiheit, Batushka, Uada.

Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Listen to our album as it’s fresh and different. Some said it’s addictive too, haha!


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