Intervista Område (Arsenic e Bargnatt)
After only two albums, French band Område made more than just a rumor in the panorama of avantgarde metal. After listening new album Nåde, TrueMetal took the chance of having a chat with them.
How did you get to know each other and decide to put together a band? How did you get subsequently in contact with My Kingdom Music?
Arsenic: We were neighbors and became friends; we were playing metal in our own bands and we decided to make a project together; we did a first album Edari” in 2014 and contacted several label to release it. We decided to sign with MyKingdom because it was very motivated by the project.
You are French, yet is easy to see a certain fascination for Nordic world. Therefore, what does the word Område mean? And can you explain why you chose such specific titles for your songs?
Arsenic: we feel near Nordic bands like Ulver, Manes, Nordic Giants etc…It was a way to make a reference to these great bands. It was very interesting to use different language to spread our art everywhere; that’s why we often say we come from nowhere; we just feel we belong to the world
Bargnatt : I like the nordic language and their word sound atmosphere. It’s a call to travel. Område mean different thing : area or neighborhood. We chose different language on our title tracks because it is a travel in the world language. Each sound is a travel invitation to come into our universe.
Have you ever thought of inserting some French lyrics in your songs? (sorry guys, but every time I interview a band from France we end up talking about this + Manes already did + French hip-hop is good and I think it would fit in your music)
Arsenic: well you are the first one who asked us lol! Personally I don’t like French singing very much, but now you say that I have a part of a song coming, I think we can do something special, you are right, it can fit to us!
Bargnatt : French lyrics is an idea, but not our first priority and we don t have a feeling for that. The music guides us for lyrics and at this moment the English is better for us. I like the different part of Pierre Ripka on Manes or Lethe it’s very nice stuff.
I won’t ask about influences, though they are quite clear. But I really would like to know how you write your music.
Arsenic: so many ways…some ideas can come from Bargnatt and I make them different with my inspiration, then Bargnatt compose new atmospheric guitars and lyrics on it; sometimes I compose on my side and Bargnatt comes to add guitars and vocals. We do some arrangements together and we change a lot of things in the studio with Edgard Chevallier who gives us a lot of advices especially in arrangements. We work like that because Bargnatt went live somewhere else so we had to be separate. We will try to change that now and try some new things.
Bargnatt : We talk all the time with Arsenic about music, and we exchange a lot of ideas. We have two sensibilities and it’s a great mix to create a particular music experimentation. We are two pieces of a coin.
Have you ever thought of playing live – despite the fact you are only a duo?
Arsenic: yeah we often speak about that but this project is too ambitious to do something normal; we need to prepare something special, something like Ulver with a visual aspect but with our own world. Long time to prepare, to rehearse and unfortunately lots of money to invest (videos etc..) that we can’t now. Pretty sure we won’t go live before the 3rd album.
Since most of the income, for underground bands, comes from live music, how do you promote yourself otherwise?
Arsenic: MyKingdom has its own promotion circuit and we contact some magazine on our side too. You can see me had a lot of reviews for our first album “Edari” and “Nade” starts very well.
Bargnatt : we have a big support with our label, Francesco did a great promotion and we share a lot our different reviews.
Besides music, what do you do in your life?
Arsenic: I work in a bank as engineer
Bargnatt : I’m an IT project manager
Last words…
Bargnatt : Just want to thank you all for the support and who doesn’t know yet about OMRÅDE universe, feel free to join our page or our Bandcamp to listen to “Nåde” and our previous album “Edari”