Sombre Arcanec

Real Good moments with Karl Sanders. I won’t bother saying much here, if you want to know more things about the big Saurian Exorcisms or to get some exclusive information about the Upcoming Nile…read this!

Goebbels: Hi Karl!First of all, how are you doing ?

Aasalaamu Aleikum . Qwayyis - Kayf Halak? I am Fine sadiki Jihad. Thank you . May God reward you well .

Goebbels: You are in studio now! So, before talking about your Ambient project, how things are going with the upcoming Nile record ?

Very Exhausting . We have been working on the record since May – full time , every day. It is now end of July , and we still have probably 3 weeks at least left .

The results in the new album are very amazing - the level of meticulous care and sheer amount of energy and soul poured into this recording will devastate people when they hear the new songs .

Goebbels: A new Karl Sanders masterpiece and yet another surprising shift in style ! So, congratulations on Saurian Exorcisms, but what intrigues me most is what inspired the shift in this outlandish way ?

Thank you for your kind words . Why the difference ? Who knows. Perhaps the music I have been listening to a lot of CD’slately that an Iranian Friend had sent me . I was quite intrigued by a particular cd of some music from the Northern Khorasan region of Iran .The CD featured a musician named Ostad Mohammad Hoseyn Yeganeh . He sings and plays an instrument called the Dotar , a two stringed Persian Lute of ancient Origin. Amazing stuff.

Also, I had some yearning to express myself on the Glissentar - which is a kind of a cross between a Guitar and an Oud . It is fretless and has 11 strings .I love the instrument , it makes getting oud-like sounds achievable for a guitarist . Its lots of fun . Another factor was probably I wanted to once and for all demonstrate some of my acoustic playing ; It is one thing to shred on electric guitar , and yet another challenge to play fast , yet tasteful and tuneful evil music armed only with acoustic instruments .

Goebbels: The title seems to refer to another Saurian’s door? True? If not, what does it refer to?

“Saurian Exorcisms” refers to how music can help us purge the inner demons – the mundane weariness, self doubts , depressions and stresses of life that can overwhelm us . These negative forces can sometimes “possess” us , in a metaphorical way . When one can just embrace the music , it can free up one’s mind and soul –much like casting off imaginary demons – or as represented in some old mythology’s , dragons and reptiles or snakes . I had been reading some obscure philosophy that was proposing the idea that the Demon spirits of the modern world were actually the long dead , disembodied shades of the now extinct great reptiles . These Saurian spirits (or demons , if you will) utterly hate humankind , as the dominion of the earth is now ours; and they seek to insidiously enter human minds, hearts and souls to prey upon a person’s weakened distracted spiritual soul . All this may sound a bit whacked ,and not necessarily very realistic, so
I take it all “with a grain of salt” and some humor .
but I for one know that I can feel a lot better when I listen to music .

Goebbels: You putted Saurian Exorcisms after 5 years of pure absence but why did it takes so long for your debut to be released? I think that Nile takes all your time…

Yes my friend , Nile is a very demanding master. It requires constant time and energy .
Aside from the touring and recording , just being able to play well the very demanding music of Nile requires many sacrifices and dedication to the guitar .

For many years also I had been a single parent – which of course being a parent alone takes a lot of time to do right . Being a Father is my most important job , and that can be very difficult when one has a music career.

Goebbels: How would you compare the two albums ? Which aspects show similarities and what are the differences ?

Saurian meditations had a lot of “experimentalism” and even electric guitars , whereas Exorcisms is completely acoustic oriented . I wanted a purer , cleaner , more organic sound to hearken back to the time of the ancients – before electricity, modern instruments and modern life . My idea is that Modern so-called evil music uses amplification and distortion to achieve a good deal of its “force” –so how on earth did people play dark and evil music before electricity was invented ? It comes to down to the purity of the music itself , rather than external modern electric instrumentational treatments. It is VERY easy to sound evil with a Marshall stack – but not so easy armed with a mere acoustic guitar . I also wanted to express emotions that struck straight to the primal and primitive human soul , and that necessitated a more archaic approach to the whole album .

Goebbels: It seems the cover art on SE is, indeed, a dramatic reflection on the material presented on the enclosed CD. Could you express some of your thoughts on how that came about and its connection to the tracks it represents? What is the link between all these snakes and this woman?

Well more or less, the snake bitten young girl surrounded by the lair of living snakes as well as the hordes of spiritual reptiles and dangerous saurian demonia represents a young ( nearly innocent) person in obvious desperate need of spiritual guidance – of protection from forces she doesn’t understand and are obviously beyond her control . The “light of salvation” effect of the aura of light shining down from the album title suggests that if she would just listen to the record , she could drive away these dangerous spiritual beasts and find some safety . Its not really to be taken that seriously though , its really just music to relax to , unwind in the evening and forget the troubles of the work day . Kind of like New Age meditation music from the Underworld .

Goebbels: There have been some musical changes as well. Especially in the vocal department, concerning this Arabic tone in Rapture of the Empty Spaces and Dying Embers Of The Aga Mass (lili ya lili, haha). After I got used to it, I liked it very much indeed. How would you typify this strange style of singing and why there is no trace for this Arabic voice in Saurian Meditation ?

The voice is actually a computer manipulation of a Syrian Girl doing some chanting . I arranged her vocal phrases to make the melody , then I got Mike - the guy who sings with me – to sing along in harmony with her . For those songs , I felt what was needed was a vocal style that was not quite human –something very surreal and evocative . As necessity is the mother of invention, I just kept experimenting until I got her voice to do what I wanted for the track.

Goebbels: Are you keen on Arabic music ? Do you know some names ?

Well, as an american guy who is primarily a metal musician , my exposure to Arabic music is probably very arbitrary and incomplete . I just buy whatever happens to be in the International section of my local CD shop .Sometimes I get lucky and see some great music on You-Tube , and occasionally Nile fans in the Middle East send me some cd’s of interest . In any case , who can deny Nusrat Ali Khan ? or Mohammed Abdel Wahab ? or , or even the delightful Ilham Al Madfai ?

Goebbels: Coming back to SE ! I’m also really curious about the strange song ‘Shira Gula Pazu’ ! Tell us a bit more about it, please ? What is the meaning of all its tortured screams ?

Well, many of those screams come from the movie “The Exorcist II” , which has many amazing scenes of Exorcism in Tribal North Africa . Some of the other screams I decoded from the Video game Pain killer .What do those screams mean ? Uh … well who knows really . “It is not necessary to understand, only to submit”That song I have had around for many years , in differing demo forms. At one point the Nile guys wanted to use it for a Nile song –so there was a demo with big electric guitars and death vocals . But I just really preferred the baglama saz version a lot more ; there was a mystical quality about that riff when played on the Saz .

Goebbels: On a musical level SE is a combination of Nile, when we talk about its warlike atmosphere, and the more Ambient and Middle-Eastern sound since ‘Saurian Meditation’. In my opinion you have found the perfect balance between the two opposite worlds…but why songs here are shorter than your previous releases ?

I don’t know. In a perverse way , S.E. is more song oriented . Maybe I just wanted more radio airplay time – hahahah as if anybody but college radio would ever play anything off of S.E.

Goebbels: Again on the musical level of the new full-length; particularly, the last and longest song, ‘Dying Embers Of The Aga Mass’…when I first heard it I was going nuts…what a crazy song ! A real session of exorcism! How did you do this ?

Many dark late nights of quiet perverse insight. I actually prefer working on music very late ; after the family has gone to bed and are safely asleep . In the still of the night , when the noise of humanity and civilization is at rest , you can hear the night voices whispering , and the Metal Gods giving gifts of musical inspiration .

Goebbels: Another outstanding track is ‘Curse the sun’. Does this refer to the Egyptian God of Sun Re and his conflict with the snake Apopis or is it a chapter from another myth ?

Well, I never thought of that actually – Apophis cursing the Sun God Ra. Haha Jihad! You have just given me an idea for a future Nile song Curse the Sun used to have lyrics – and the chorus was “We are they who live in Shadow , join us to curse the Sun” – that’s the melodic recurring bit , if you want a giggle you can sing along with it next time you listen , and you will get the idea. It was really just TOO catchy and radio –friendly hit-song-esque with the vocals in , so I opted for the darker instrumental version . It was inspired by a very old , old black and white sci-fi film called “the Mole People” from 1956 , in which a party of archaeologists discovers the remnants of a mutant 5000 year old Sumerian civilization living beneath a glacier atop a mountain in Mesopatamia.

Goebbels: How Nile’s band members’ feelings about this release are : is it a surprise or is it, in all honesty, a thing of which you had thought at forehand (before the release of the album) ?

The other Nile guys don’t seem to mind the Saurian Project . Maybe because it is not metal , and does not compete with Nile . I always let them know what I am doing , and even discuss parts of the project with them for advice and so forth . And Saurian definitely gets second priority – Dallas and George know that Nile comes first .

Goebbels: You follow your own musical path which is clearer after the stylistic evolution over your last few albums. Could you already shed some light on the sound of the next Karl Sanders release ?

I have no idea what the next K.S. will exactly be yet … I have been so busy the last few months on the Nile record that I have little time to plan future musiques .
It is safe to say though,– I am having much fun with the Saurian Project , and I will probably start working on it again once the Nile album is out . 

Goebbels: Oh, yeah, any gift for Sombre Arcane readers…I don’t know…emmm something like private and special news about the upcoming Nile ?

Look out for the blasphemous new Nile track “Kafir” . A full on blasting , warp speed , Jehovah crushing , invititaion to the Fire , fastest-nile-ever tune – with equally potentially provocative historical lyrics concerning the infamous Kafiristan . It’s all in good clean metal fun though. “There is no God But God” Familiar words for any devout person , but guarranteed to scare the pants off any white skinned blue eyed american kid . “Kafir” goes along with one my ideas that the world would certainly be a better place if we would just give everyone air conditioning , and agree not to argue about religion anymore. “Whether Thou Warn them or Warn them Not Is All One for Them . They Believe Not And Theirs is an Awful Doom “

The New Nile album is called “Those Whom the Gods Detest” and is due out around November .If God wills it , of course . Ma'a Salaama sadiki.