Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Sieta Interview

 

1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the band?


Sieta is a Slavic folk metal project. It is the second project made as a part of Skyglow Productions, which is basically music composed by me, Aleksandr Mokin.


2.You have an album coming out in June, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style that you went for on the recording?


Temnozor was more an inspiration in terms of idea, while Nokturnal Mortum and Moonsorrow were the ones who influenced the sound. It is still very different from them and features a lot of death metal-ish stuff.


3.All of the band members are also involved with other bands or projects, that is it that you bring into the music of 'Sieta', that you are not able to do with your other groups?


All music is written by me. I had an idea of making an album about Novgorod while making "Thousand Years of Terror" for my main project Skyglow. The title song was 10 minutes long and it was about the coming of Christianity to Russia. I wanted to elaborate on this topic a little more, and I decided it was a good theme for the next album. But as I wanted it to be folk metal, I chose to create a separate project for this album.


4.Your lyrics also cover the contrast between Christianity and Paganism in the ancient city of Novogrod, can you tell us a little bit more about the songwriting process?


The plot behind the album is the uprising of Novgorodian people against the Kievan knyaz who wanted to subordinate all of the ancient Rus' regions and force them into christianity. The idea was to make a "metal opera" about these events. I first came up with the concept and a plot. I had in mind what mood each song should have and what its lyrics should be about. Then I wrote all the music and then the lyrics. I had to study two languages during the process by reading linguistic textbooks and historical sources.


5.Your lyrics are also written in a mixture of Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic, what was the decision behind using both languages in the songs?


Old Russian was the people's language of that time, while Old Church Slavonic was the church's language. It was obtained by word-by-word translation of the Bible to Bulgarian. So the novgorodians' parts are in Old Russian, and the knyaz and his minions' parts are in Old Church Slavonic. This was also done to further express the confrontation between the two sides.


6.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Sieta'?


The name “Sieta” means “sorrow” in old Russian, it represents sorrow for what our nation has endured through the centuries.


7.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?


The cover art was made by Vsevolod Ivanov, an author of a series of gorgeous slavic folk fiction paintings. The building in the center is an abandoned pagan shrine. It also has two versions: day and night – to represent the two forces.


8.Once the pandemic end, does the band have any live shows planned?


I don’t think so, as it requires twice as much time. The only possibility for it to happen is that we’d become famous enough for me to quit my job and make money on concerts.


9.On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of black, pagan and folk metal?


The album is not out yet by the time I am writing this. We have two singles, but we promoted them mainly in Russia. We did send out the album exclusively to some bloggers and I can see some good reviews, but it's too early to draw conclusions for now. I hope that the album will achieve some appreciation among the black/folk metal audience, as I am very proud of the work done.


10.What is going on with some of the other bands or musical projects these days that some of the band members are a part of?


Sergey's band Excruciation by Silence has recently released their first full length album and are touring with it now together with Viktor. I recommend fans of prog-thrash to follow this band, as they prepare a lot of new material.

I am writing a new Skyglow album which will be Progressive MDM.

Critical Extravasation is in the process of recording a full length album in the style similar to their first EP, namely technical death metal. It is sick material, but the recording is going slow. I’ll try my best to help it see the light as soon as possible, but there is still a lot to do before we can release it.


11.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?


For now I want to focus on writing new material for Skyglow. Then I'll maybe make something for Sieta, but I always try to come up with something new for each album. I have some ideas of what the theme of the album can be, but I did not come up with a musical vision yet.


12.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?


My favorite music style is old school MDM, like "Skydancer" of "Dark Tranquillity", "Voice Of Harmony" of "Excretion", "The Sentencing" by "Estuary of Calamity" and so on.

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