1.Can you give us an update on what is going on with the band these days?
We're rehearsing some pieces that will be recorded into the next months for a three-way split album with italian hordes Infamous and Solitvdo. Then I've started to work on the next full-length which will be a challenging opus for Warnungstraum, surely its most laboured release.
2.In December you had released a new album, how would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the recording and also how does it differ from the stuff you have released in the past?
I think that is hard to describe "Mirror Waters" precisely. It's music that make me think to a journey between surreal landscapes, supernatural visions, painful emotions, melancholy and moments of deep calm and contemplation. The black metal songs are very much doomish like our first album, but this time I used the keys together with the guitars so in many moments the sound is more majestic and near to some old symphonic black metal bands like early Gehenna, or early Dimmu Borgir. The sound of our previous albums was raw and morbid, the structures where simple and minimalistic, and the music was a direct expression of negativity and pain. The latest album is a step ahead of all this, we take the direction of a more mature, narrative approach to extreme music.
3.According to the fb page you label your music as 'Introspective Visionaire Black metal', can you tell us a little bit more about this term?
I try with Warnungstraum to express some of my deepest thoughts, visions, pleasant and unpleasant obessions. Black metal music is usually associated with the devilish, the sinister, the horrid, the tragic.. I think that the first place where you could find all these elements is into yourself, during your moments of paranoid and your introspections, and I think it's a really visionaire experience to face your own dark thoughts, because you can't define them "clearly", you can't put them into an organized structure or ideology, the force of fantasy is bigger than every limit you could impose to your thoughts. They are like an ever-changing fluid, made by images that tremble in a water mirror. So I could say that my music is dealing with that kind of introspective and visionaire experience.
4.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the newer music?
This time I explored two topics: the first is that of some oriental views about post-mortem experience and reincarnation, in fact "Antarabhava" is a term that indicates the intermediate state between one existence and another. I don't believe in such views but I like the idea of a dreadful journey for the coscience of a dying individual, starting from the separation with the body and ending in a painful re-birth into a new carnal body. Is something like a "catharian", pessimistic vision of earthly life with which I don't agree, but anyway I found the topic much suggestive for a black metal piece. The second topic was taken by the myth of Narkissos, that for me is a tale with great symbolic, spiritual and psychological meanings. In the whole of my life I was (and still I am) obsessed by the reflection of myself into my mind; sometimes I'm really fascinated by this alter-ego while in some other moments I feel it like my biggest enemy, a sort of illusion that enslaves me and prevent myself from becoming what I really am, inducing me to pursue false ideals. I tried to express this deep level of signification with the lyrics.
5.On the album cover you quoted Ovid, can you tell us a little bit more about your interest in this author?
Ovid is the latin source I used for the Narkissos topic. His opus "Metamorphosys" is one of the biggest source for greek-roman mythology, religion and spirituality of the imperial age. I'm always been very much into this things, is like "daily bread" for me. The quote into the album cover is a reference to the symbolical meaning of the myth.
6.Has the band done any any live shows or has this been strictly a studio project so far?
Warnungstraum is strictly a studio project. Never say no, but I think that it will remain as this.
7.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of black metal?
The distribution of our works was always very much underground and limited to the circuit of small black metal labels, with promotion near to the zero. I received very few feedback, but maybe the people who appreciate and know Warnungstraum's music is more than I could imagine.
8.What is going on with some of the other musical projects or bands these days that some of the band members are a part off?
The new album of Obscure Devotion is ready to be released and I hope that into the next months it will be out for a good label. It's really a masterpiece of black metal art, the song writing is on a very high level and inspiration was deep and intense. I'm waiting also for the release of the new Aryan Art album of my friend Alexander Ivanov, in which I played all the guitars and acoustics part. Then from my side I'm working on the first full-length of Flamen, my extreme epic metal project.
9.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
I could anticipate that the next Warnungstraum full-length will be a very rich work, with a strong narrative and conceptual vein, with various musical elements that will go from the melodic black to the death doom, passing through atmospheric moments, ambient, symphonic neoclassical parts. I will try to gather all the past experience into one musical opus dealing with a specific theme, trying to give to the music and to the lyrics a precise structure like in a progressive concept-album. The theme will be obviously based on my own interior experience, but this time I will deal with a specific spiritual/psychological topic.
10.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your newer music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
The influence for our newer music is coming maybe from bands like italian Tronus Abyss, early norwegian melodic bands like Gehenna, Limbonic Art, first Dimmu Borgir, some classic doom like Katatonia, plus some ambient and psychedelic music like Tangerine Dream, Coil, Popol Vuh. I always listen to tons of music of various kind so is something difficult to quote the influences.. nowadays I'm listening very much classical music like that of Arrigo Boito, Giuseppe Verdi, Igor Stravinsky, plus some old rare heavy metal classics and the latest Laibach works. Extreme metal near to zero.
11.Does Paganism or Occultism play any role in your music?
In past times I was very interested into such things, but into the last years I've changed my mind and now I could say that I don't see paganism or occultism as good things. I will always be interested in true spirituality, and my own inner research will always go on, but I think that some things are a great obstacle for a real spiritual growth. Actually Paganism is a false tradition: is only an ideology, a mask for a materialistic vision of life and if you analyse the neo-pagan visions and ideas you will find only a different way of expression of such concepts that are derivated by the modern science that is materialistic, the modern philosophy that is nihilistic and the modern anthropology-sociology that are a sum of the previous disciplines. It has nothing to do with the true ancient spiritual Traditions. Occultism is much more dangerous: usually when you go into occultism you're driven by the desires of your ego, by a long list of false ideals that are covering your lowest impulses, that have nothing to do with your true personality and self, because they are only a transitory "reflection" of your coscience into the organic, biological plane. So it's obvious that your individual ego, that is a transitory illusion, will never be able to dominate the invisible forces and the errant psychic entities that are active on the intermediate level which is the operative field of occultism. Occultism promises powers and exaltation to the ego, and liberation from an earthly life that one can't accept because it seems without sense. There is no benefit for me into all of this.
12.What are some of your non musical interests?
When I'm not operating with music usually I read and study a certain kind of books, or I do some manual labour or sportive activities that helps me to be not too much "intellectual" and philosopher, that is not a good thing... especially for my body! I like also to walk in natural places, exploring mountain paths and woods.
13.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
To all black metal people: don't lie down on your illusions. Extreme music means independence, autarchy. Reject the cliches and the ideological dogmas if you want to fight really against this world. If not, be calm and patient, the end will come anyway. All the best!
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