Rockezine.com interview with Enslaved on Nov 11, 2001

with Grutle Kjelsson on Nov 11, 2001

After many years of awkwardly holding my tape-recorder to the receiver of my phone and asking my interviewees to shout as loud as possible in order to get a phone-interview on tape, I recently discovered modern technology.. It appeared that all those years I could have also used some sort of phone-adapter which can be easily plugged into a tape-recorder. And for this interview with Enslaved’s Grutle Kjelsson I tried to do it the modern way but I guess being naturally blond has it’s particular consequences. I forgot to plug the whole device into my recorder and that meant absolutely nothing on tape! Brilliant! But anyway it all worked out pretty well and the result you can read below!
		Congratulations with the new album Monumension. My first obvious question is of course: are you satisfied with the endresult? We can truly say that we are 100% satisfied with both concept and music as well as the lyrics. Of course you always discover these little things that perhaps you would like to change and could have been better after having recorded the whole thing but on the whole the new album worked out really satisfying!
		This is the first time you have actually done a real complete concept album. It must be very satisfying to accomplish that goal? I have always been fond of this concept album thing and I always thought that it must be fascinating to do. And no that we have completed the Monumension album I can actually say that it truly was a fascinating experience. We did do what you could call ‘loose’ conceptalbums with Mardraum and Eld but nothing compared to this. This time music/lyrics/artwork/effects etc integrated into this one big whole. It’s a very rewarding feeling when you look back at the endresult.
		For the recording of Monumension Enslaved opted for the Grieghallen again. I thought that with your previous album Mardraum you had really accomplished the best production up till then. Why did you decide to return to the Grieghallen again? We checked with Peter (Tägtgren) if we could book Abyss studio, but that was not possible. That’s when we started thinking about what we wanted to accomplish, what studio would be best suitable for that goal, what kind if sound we wanted, all these kind of things. We really wanted to integrate these old progressive rock influences into our own music and found a solution close to our homes, the Grieghallen. Another thing that influenced this decision was the availability of analogue recording equipment and various really freaky/spacy instruments (which we of course all tried, and of which we used the Hammond organ on this album). These things were all available at Grieghallen. It would have impossible to record the way we did in Abyss Studios as we would have to carry things like the Hammond Organ all the way through the fucking middle of nowhere to bring them over. We also worked with this well-know Bergen character: Dennis Reksten. He is like a really strange man but it was great to work with him, we were very honored as he is quite famous in the Bergen music scene.
		Progression and innovation have always been keywords in the band’s development. In what way do you think this particular aspect is most reflected on the new album? If you put all our albums aside you can hear the changes from album to album so indeed progression and innovation have always been important. The most obvious difference with our new album is that the songs sound looser, perhaps you could even call it unfinished or unstructured. This is kind of paradoxical cause we really worked very hard on the songs themselves and also took a lot of time to rehearse. The endresult shows a kind of movement in the music as we continuously worked on the songs. You could say that for each of the songs we were jamming towards the end but always kept an eye on whole structure of the song itself. I would also emphasize that Monumension is a real band effort. We pushed each other further and further in a positive way of course and I think album also shows we have grown closer as a band. In the past Enslaved used to be more a 2-man thing: Ivar & myself but as we are now also living in the same area the companionship among bandmembers has definitely grown stronger.
		The psychedelic / 70’s influences have always been present in your music. I think that on this new album you have integrated even more of these elements, and in a more obvious way.
		Where do these influences originate from and would you say that this integration was a natural development or was this something the band choose to do? Everything you do is based on your history. Looking at ourselves were are very interested in the creation of hardrock, as done in the Seventies and early Eighties. You might not have expected it but we have been listening to a lot of progressive bands like King Crimson and Yes. And the various interesting elements in this type of music have been the subject of many conversations and discussions. I think this ‘history’ is what you unconsciously creeps into your own music. Not on purpose but it’s a natural process.
		It’s a rather strange thing being labeled blackmetal music but many of your influences come from the folk tradition and progressive music? How do you feel about this sometimes rigid division between various genres? Many people nowadays don’t listen to music it all began with (Led fuckin’ who??, Grutle cynically laughs). They don’t really know these bands, let alone their musicianship. In 70’s only the really special and most outstanding bands (with experienced and skilled musicians) could put out a record. In the current days it appears as if almost every band, no matter how lousy they are, seems to be able to get a contract and that is at the expense of quality of music and quality bands. This is something I truly regret. So to all those out there that aren’t familiar with e.g. Yes, Led Zeppelin etc I’d like to say: “Give these old guys some credit!”
		Monumension is a concept album in which you describe 12 steps men should/could follow to reach their innerself. Also each song is represented by a different rune. Can you expand a little about this concept? Actually is only 8 steps and these are definitely steps one could, not should follow. See it more as an advise in which we hand you a couple of keys. The central theme on the new Enslaved album concerns an 8-step ritual symbolized by the following elements: Vision, Disillusion, Isolation, Deconstruction, Reconstruction, Laughter, Discipline, Initiation. The 8 songs on the new album are linked to an element. Going through these different steps is some sort of transformation process that leads to the 9th step which ultimately leads to the Final Judgement or in Norse Mythology Ragnarok!
		This concept is not only integrated in music and lyrics but also in the artwork. When you do a concept album you have to do it the right way! For instance all songs are also connected to a rune and in the booklet you will find a rune-magic diagram. But people just have to interpret this whole concept for themselves. One of our goals is raising awareness of people for something we like to do. It’ s not like this or that you have to do or follow is more like a guideline when you’re interested. So do check out the lyrics and booklet as well
		What role does the cover and the artwork play in this concept? In what way for instance does the cover represent this concept? When Ivar came up with this concept, the 8 step ritual, we were looking for ways to also express this concept not only musical-wise but in the artwork as well. I am very satisfied with the way in which the cover for Monumension turned out. It symbolizes these fore-mentioned 8 elements: the shattered earth represents Deconstruction and the intact globe Reconstruction; the river in which the lower man is standing represents Vision and the mirror he’s holding stands for Disillusion. His sown eyes and mouth reflect Discipline. The man hanging upside down stands for Laughter. The mask symbolizes Isolation and finally the key on the right-hand side of the cover symbolizes Initiation!
		As for a future plans for Enslaved I heard that you’re planning to perform the complete Monumension album live? Unfortunately it’s not possible to perform the complete album live as on 2 songs on the album the cooperation with Trygve Mathiesen (which is a Norse Folksinger) is vital and if we want to do these songs live we have to bring him along and that’s not possible. We will perhaps do ‘Hollow’ Inside live but ‘Sigmundskvadet’ will be very difficult to perform because it’s some kind of Faroer’ dialect (mixture of old Norse and modern day Norwegian) and unfortunately I don’t have sufficient command of this particular language!
		(Maura Kampstra)