>>Interview for Labirinto

1)Welcome to System failure. How did you guys all come together as a band?

Hello! Thank you very much for this interview. Well, we all played in other bands before (shoegaze, metal, hardcore..) and when we started Labirinto we wanted to have a band that allowed us to play instrumental/experimental music, not being stuck to a music style in particular and neither limited by vocals prevalence. Me (Erick) and Muriel were already playing together and we’re the only members in the band since that time, in 2005.. Nowadays there is Luis, who plays the synths/guitar and has been in Labirinto for over 5 years now, Kiko just joined us recently playing guitar and Ricardo has been playing the bass for a while also.

2)Can you tell me something about your musical background? Your models?

We’ve got many references that goes from metal to classical orchestral music, film soundtrack, post-metal… So we don’t really define one specific music style to our music. There are tracks that we write that are mainly filled with heavy and loud guitars; others are softer with synths and strings. But whenever we’re asked, we say its post-metal/rock, or alternative metal, so people will know what we’re talking about. We could mention many many bands that we like, our models… but we’d be here writing for a while. lol.

3)What are your favourite genres of music?

As mentioned on the previous question, we listen to many music styles, and that’s something that definitely contribute as references when we’re writing new tracks. We listen to metal, progressive rock, classical music, post-rock, shoegaze…

3)How born “Gehenna”?

We tend to create concepts to our albums. Gehenna is our second full album, it’s part of a tetralogy that started in Anatema (2010) – with a few eps, splits and a single released between these two albums (but the next full album won’t take that long! lol). So, we started to write Gehenna tracks around 2 years ago and the whole recording process started one year ago. Our goals were to make a heavy and dense album. Therefore, we considered inviting an audio engineer from abroad to work with us on the recordings, and the guy was definitely Billy Anderson, who liked the idea of coming to Brazil and track with us. He recorded many albums that we liked a lot, like the Neurosis “Through Silver in Blood”, the Amenra “Mass V” (which Mathieu, from Amenra, recommended Billy also). We tracked everything here in São Paulo at a studio that me and Muriel are partners, and mixed part here and part at Billy’s studio in Portland. We spent a lot of energy, time and dedication to write, rehearse and record Gehenna, and we’re glad that the final result is as good as we expected.

4)Your dark sound impressed me a lot. Where born the inspiration for your music?

Many thanks. Well, I guess everything that we feel and live daily is an influence; the environment where we live in, films we watch, books we read, all artistic creations by which we’re surrounded in our lives contribute to develop concepts to albums and elements ideas to use on the musics.

5)When listening to your music I feel a lot of energy. How important it is to transmit energy to your audience?

We fell exactly that as we’re playing. We’re deeply involved and immerse in the music. So we try to pass this feeling on to the audience also when we play live, its always a main concern whenever we’re practicing to a show or defining the set list. And we always finish the shows exhausted but absolutely satisfied because we really give ourselves when playing. Along to our musical performances there are the visuals that complements the music, and we play the set as a whole thing, without any pauses. In this in between moments, we usually experiment noises, textures and ambiences that connects the tracks when playing live. Kind of what we recorded for the album, which has the same concept of no pauses between tracks.

6)Which one of your song are you most proud of?

We liked all tracks we wrote so far, but I believe that in Gehenna we reached something that we’ve been wanting to do for a long time.

7)Your music seems to express a living hell. Is it true or not?

Yes, but a metaphoric hell, filled with anguishes and contradictions. A personal hell; a journey in search of resignation and self-knowledge in this crazy world we live in.

8)Can you tell me something about your album’s cover?

We wanted that Gehenna artwork would be created according to the concept that we had for the album. So we invited a Brazilian artist (Manuel Dischinger) to interpret and materialize this concept. We sent him ideas and references, and left him free to create the illustrations. We already knew and admired his work, but we were amazed when he showed us the first sketches; it was perfect for Gehenna.

9)What are your plans for the future?

We have just released Gehenna in CD and digital, and we’re playing a couple shows in Brazil. A couple weeks ago we released a videoclip from one of the tracks (Enoch – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_9asK5MhTM) and along the next weeks a second videoclip will also be released. For 2017, we’re working on a new European tour alongside with Gehenna vinyl release for the same period. And we’re studying the possibility of touring again North America. More news yet to come for 2017! We update our social medias often with the news.

10)Finally…why should anybody listen to Labirinto?

We strive much care and dedication in our compositions, with fury and sincerity. I believe our songs are heavy and chaotic, but also beautiful and dense, with quite a lot dynamic and rhythms changes. We seek to tell a story in all the compositions we work on. If someone identifies with such ideas, he/she should definitely check it out. 😉