1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the musical project?
1 - Batrakos is a black metal/noise project hailing from Italy and formed at the end of 2015. We are quite active, we have already eight releases under our belt and recently our lineup has been solidified thanks to the addition of Stilgar (we were a duo before). We are constantly experimenting and trying to put ourselves between the traditions of black metal and the avantgarde qualities of noise and industrial music.
2.How would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the recordings?
2 - We played a lot of styles so far: we have done works that are 100% black metal, others that are full on noise and others that are a balance of the two. Our last work, the split with Aisna, reflects all of our styles since the first is an industrial/noise influenced black metal, while the second is noise/ambient.
3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?
3 - We owe a lot to contemporary art, Futurism and the Dada movement for their strong conceptual meaning. We also often focused on the philosophical concept of ugliness and the bizarre. These themes can be found mainly on our first three demos, that have been put together in a compilation issued by the English label Order of Theta last year.
4.I know that the bands name means 'frog' in Greek, how does this name fit in with the musical style you play?
4 - "Batrakos" means "frog" in Greek indeed, but our monicker is actually a reference to "Oi Batrakoi" ("The frogs", "Batrakos" in singular), a work by the Greek comedy writer Aristophanes. We chose that name because our band is like a Greek comedy: there are many ironic elements in our music, but there's also exploration, experimentation and inspiration for thinking. We owe a lot to Aritophanes, so we decided to pay homage to him this way.
5.In the last couple of years you have released a great amount of music, do you spend a great amount of time writing and creating music?
5 - That's true, we released a lot of music, especially during last year. This year we slowed down a bit, our latest releases have been recorded in 2016, but we have recently finished writing our first full length album, which we'd like to begin recording soon. There will be a couple of releases before that though, like a split with Vashna in 2018.
6.Has the band done any live shows or is this strictly a studio project?
6 - We are currently a studio project, but in the future it would be great playing some live gigs!
7.Recently you where a part of a split with 'Aisna', what are your thoughts on the other band that had participated on the recording?
7 - Aisna is a really promising and interesting one man band, it has a great melodic taste for the riffing, reminding some bands from the Greek scene like Uranus and Agatus. We wanted to do a split featuring themes dealing with the past and the present, the Aisna guy is a friend of ours so we thought the split would be a good solution to promote both bands. Follow his project, because it's really interesting.
8.The split was released on 'Xenoglossy Productions', can you tell us a little bit more about this label?
8 - Of course. Xenoglossy Productions is more of a collective than an actual label, and it's run by the same Batrakos members and a couple of other guys. We focus on experimental black metal and noise, thus far we have released projects all featuring our members, but we want to expand towards other experimental genres and feature international bands in the near future. We have many good surprises in store but I can't say anything more right now, just: follow us!
https://www.facebook.com/XenoglossyProductions/
https://xenoglossyproductions.bandcamp.com/
9.On a worldwide elvel how has the feedback been to your music by fans of black metal and noise?
9 - We are quite satisfied because we have received praise from important underground metal labels and websites. Indeed the split has been premiered by two well known extreme metal websites, and for a very underground project like ours, with music completely recorded at home, is a great accomplishment. We don't want to stop here though, so we hope to get noticed furtherly when our first full length will be out, we are really looking forward to it.
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?
10 - All of us are busy with other projects, we dedicate a lot of our time because it's our main passion. Things are going great and soon there will be news for two projects in particular: Veia and Thecodontion. Soon our label Xenoglossy Productions will release the second demo from Framheim and a new work from Deathvoid, a Swiss project in which Stilgar is also involved.
11.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
11 - We don't know! We let ourselves be guided by our inspiration so it's hard to make predictions. As I said before, the full length will be a crucial point for us and perhaps with it we will be able to understand how far we can get with this project. We worked a lot on the songwriting and there are many innovative solutions musically, but we don't want to disclose anything. We hope we will be able to give value to our sound properly.
12.What are some of the bands or musicla styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
12 - We have many influences, it's not easy to sum up all of them. A large influence for our music is Australian black/death metal like Portal and Impetuous ritual, also industrial, power electronics and noise rock bands like Sonic Youth.
13.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
13 - Thank you for the interview, we invite you and your readers to follow us on our social pages. UGLY MUSIC FOR UGLY PEOPLE!
https://batrakos.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/batrakos.uglymusic/
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