1.Can you tell us a little bit about the band for those that have never heard of you before?
UNRU is a four-piece from Bielefeld, Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany. We've been active for about one year now as UNRU, but most of us already had projects together before.
2.How would you describe your musical sound?
I guess we would not necessarily say dark, evil and so forth, though associations like these might come to mind. others have said that our sound is unsettleing and anxiety-inducing and so on and without having a strict concept on how to achieve this emphatic perception of what we are creating, it seems it worked out pretty well.
it is also important to us that guitar, vocals, bass and drums add layers to create one sound where at times things aren't distinguishable anymore but a distinct feeling or sound aesthetic emerges. our friend rouven who recorded and did the producing played a big role in that part.
3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?
anxiety, impotence, displacement, escapism, dissociation, catharsis. our lyrics and aesthetic are more influenced by theory and imagery that puts personal and interpersonal conflict into focus rather than looking at society, politics and so on.
Also, we are into misanthropic, nihilistic, morbidity inducing literature, art/music etc.
4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the bands name?
it's a made up word. it can be read as "Unruhe" - "disconcertment" or "Unruh",which is the german word for the "heart" of a watch or clock, a metaphor for being unable to break out of the boundaries of our anxieties, addictions, compulsions and so on, as the "Unruh" is unrelenting going on and on without speeding up or slowing down, unable to abandon its habits.
5.What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and how would you describe your stage performance?
we haven't played that many shows so far but the shows on our small tour with Sun Worship were all very good. live we use lots of fog and very little illumination and everyone of us is kind of in his own world so we can't really describe what our stage performance looks like. we do not play seperated songs but a set of our songs with noise / drone interludes trying to create a trance like state where we and the people attending can get lost in. we've been told that we managed to achieve that. for others it was only blurry and very loud noise.
6.Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?
some of us are pretty busy with other things so we don't tour that much, although we would really love to. maybe there will be a small weekender with deuil from belgium in november and another one with abest, but things aren't settled, yet. Furthermore we are thinking about a longer tour in spring 2014, but our current priorities definitely are recording new stuff an so on.
7.Currently you are unsigned, are you looking for a label or received any interest?
beeing strongly rooted in diy culture we are not really looking for a label to sign us. for the forthcoming release(s) we would love to get help by a diy label or different diy labels to do a co-release. our demo will be re-released on tape by caligari records in north and south america and in germany by our friend Schojo/colossus tapes from Berlin but besides these facts, we didn't recieve any interest, yet.
8.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of black metal and crust?
We got a lot of really nice blog-reviews. All in all there has been more positive feedback than we would have ever expected. Generally, the musical background seems to be really mixed up, just like the people attending our shows.
9.Are there any other musical projects or is this a full time line up?
besides unru some of us play in abest, pttrns and negativvm.
10.What direction do you see your music heading into on future releases?
the songs we are working on right now are more black metal and doom and less crust. and we experiment more with noise and drone - not only as interludes but as part of the songs. we're not heading in some specific direction - couple of next songs could be more crusty or something totally different.
Some further ideas we have are applying spoken-word passages on noise/drone interludes, experimenting a little bit more with vocals in general and doing an art/literature-zine.
11.What are some bands or musical styles that have influenced your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
what influences made us play what we're playing can be heard on the recordings we think. Besides we all have widespread musical preferences and couldn't break it down to some that are more worth than others to be mentioned.
12.Outside of music what are some of your interests?
We're all more or less interested in the whole wide spectrum of left-wing politics and therefore most of us are more or less participating in our local autonomous centre, where we also have our rehearsal-room. Besides that, we are into diy-culture in general and as already mentioned literature, art-stuff, movies and so on... one of us already has a kid and another one is going to become a daddy soon... it's hard to outline this in a satisfying way.
13.Any final words or thoughts before we wrap up this interview?
thank's to you for making this possible and thank's to everyone who supported us and what we do in whatsoever way. we would've never expectet UNRU to become what it is now and we're very grateful for all the encouragement we got until now.
