The Obelisk Questionnaire: Adriaan De Raymaeker of Dorre

Posted in Questionnaire on October 28th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

dorre adriaan de raymaeker

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Adriaan De Raymaeker of Dorre

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I just mess around with guitars and amplifiers. I wouldn’t call myself a musician, because that would imply that I know what I’m doing or have a formal background in music theory/practice. I basically just started to fiddle around on cheapo gear when I was 15-16 or so and grew into heavier experimental music by jamming with friends. From there it kind of grew into fixed formation bands, where I ended up sticking with one dedicated project, Dorre.

Describe your first musical memory.

This is a tough one, I think my first real musical memory is a festival my parents took me to when I was five years old? I remember being lifted up on a chair by a very friendly woman and Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers playing, it was loads of fun. The festival was Couleur Café in Brussels, my parents took me to all kinds of cultural events but I think this was the first full-on festival. There were a bunch of other bands playing but I only remember Ziggy Marley to be honest.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Again, a tough one, because there are so many. But I’d have to say it’s probably the first concert me and my partner went to together, The Mars Volta in de Vooruit in Ghent. She’d never heard of the band and I’d been a longtime fan, so I dragged her along to it and she absolutely loved it. I just remember looking at her while Cedric unleashed his voice on the crowd from about a meter away of his microphone and her eyes going wide in surprise and delight.

I’ll add a second one, because I could list a bunch of memories of gigs and festivals I’ve played myself, but I think the main one there would be Desertfest Belgium as it was and still is the biggest show we’ve ever played with Dorre. The feeling of playing for a full concert hall, even being the first band on the lineup for the last day of the fest, was amazing.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

I’ve lost quite a few friends to suicide. I used to think that suicide was a cop-out, the easy way, a belief I no longer hold due to the struggles I’ve seen in many of my friends.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

A more focused view on what you want to achieve as an artist. Again, I don’t really want to describe myself as a musician, or artist, I just play music or a semblance of music, and when I move ahead in that, be it on a technical or a personal level, it just makes it more clear where I want to end up or what I actually want to be doing.

How do you define success?

Success, in the context of this questionnaire, is keeping a group of friends together while having output that everybody involved is happy with. Success, in general, to me, is what I already have. A loving partner, an inquisitive and kind child, a job that gives me fulfillment and freedom, a band that I can create with, friends that I can relate to and open up to.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

I don’t think there’s anything I would wish to unsee or unknow. I can’t say I’ve seen many terrible things in person.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I’m in the process of creating a first version of it, but I would very much like to build my own full-scale recording studio.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

For the person consuming art: inspiration, relaxation and an escape from reality.

For the person creating art: an outlet for creativity and emotion and a platform to tell a story.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

In the last year, me and my partner have been working towards a more ecological and generally sustainable life. End of this year our cargo bike is set to arrive, which will replace about 80% of my car travel, I’m very much looking forward to zipping around with the kid in the cargo bike.

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Dorre, Fall River (2019)

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Quarterly Review: Horisont, Ahab, Rrrags, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Earthbong, Rito Verdugo, Death the Leveller, Marrowfields, Dätcha Mandala, Numidia

Posted in Reviews on July 7th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

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Well, I’m starting an hour later than I did yesterday, so that’s maybe not the most encouraging beginning I could think of, but screw it, I’m here, got music on, got fingers on keys, so I guess we’re underway. Yesterday was remarkably easy, even by Quarterly Review standards. I’ve been doing this long enough at this point — five-plus years — that I approach it with a reasonable amount of confidence it’ll get done barring some unforeseen disaster.

But yesterday was a breeze. What does today hold? In the words of Mrs. Wagner from fourth grade homeroom, “see me after.”

Ready, set, go.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Horisont, Sudden Death

horisont sudden death

With a hefty dose of piano up front and keys throughout, Gothenburg traditionalist heavy rockers Horisont push retro-ism into full-on arena status. Moving past some of the sci-fi aspects of 2017’s About Time, Sudden Death comprises 13 tracks and an hour’s runtime, so rest assured, there’s room for everything, including the sax on “Into the Night,” the circa-’77 rock drama in the midsection of the eight-minute “Archeopteryx in Flight,” and the comparatively straightforward seeming bounce of “Sail On.” With cocaine-era production style, Sudden Death is beyond the earlier-’70s vintage mindset of the band’s earliest work, and songs like “Standing Here” and the penultimate proto-metaller “Reign of Madness” stake a claim on the later era, but the post-Queen melody of “Revolution” at the outset and the acoustic swing in “Free Riding” that follows set a lighthearted tone, and as always seems to be the case with Horisont, there’s nothing that comes across as more important than the songwriting.

Horisont on Thee Facebooks

Century Media website

 

Ahab, Live Prey

ahab live prey

Scourge of the seven seas that German nautically-themed funeral doomers Ahab are, Live Prey is their first live album and it finds them some five years removed from their last studio LP, The Boats of the Glen Carrig (review here). For a band who in the past has worked at a steady three-year pace, maybe it was time for something, anything to make its way to public ears. Fair enough, and in five tracks and 63 minutes, Live Prey spans all the way back to 2006’s Call of the Wretched Sea with “Ahab’s Oath” and presents all but two of that debut’s songs, beginning with the trilogy “Below the Sun,” “The Pacific” and “Old Thunder” and switching the order of “Ahab’s Oath” and “The Hunt” from how they originally appeared on the first record to end with the foreboding sounds of waves rolling accompanied by minimal keyboards. It’s massively heavy, of course — so was Call of the Wretched Sea — and whatever their reason for not including any other album’s material, at least they’ve included anything.

Ahab on Thee Facebooks

Napalm Records website

 

Rrrags, High Protein

rrrags high protein

Let’s assume the title High Protein might refer to the fact that Dutch/Belgian power trio Rrrags have ‘trimmed the fat’ from the eight songs that comprise their 33-minute sophomore LP. It’s easy enough to believe listening to a cut like “Messin'” or the subsequent “Sad Sanity,” which between the two of them are about as long as the 5:14 opener “The Fridge” just before. But while High Protein has movers and groovers galore in those tracks and the fuzzier “Sugarcube” — the tone of which might remind that guitarist Ron Van Herpen is in Astrosoniq — the stomping “Demons Dancing” and the strutter “Hellfire,” there’s live-DeepPurple-style breadth on the eight-minute “Dark is the Day” and closer “Window” bookends “The Fridge” in length while mellowing out and giving drummer/vocalist Rob Martin a rest (he’s earned it by then) while bassist Rob Zim and Van Herpen carry the finale. If thinking of it as a sleeper hit helps you get on board, so be it, but Rrrags‘ second album is of unmitigated class and straight-up killer performance. It is not one to be overlooked.

Rrrags on Thee Facebooks

Lay Bare Recordings website

 

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Viscerals

pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs viscerals

There’s stoner roll and doomed crash in “New Body,” drone-laced spoken-word experimentalism in “Blood and Butter,” and post-punk angular whathaveyou as “Halloween Bolson” plays out its nine-minute stretch, but Viscerals — the third or fourth Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs album, depending on what you count — seems to be at its most satisfying in blowout freak-psych moments like opener “Reducer” and “Rubbernecker,” which follows, while the kinda-metal of “World Crust”‘s central riff stumbles willfully and teases coming apart before circling back, and “Crazy in Blood” and closer “Hell’s Teeth” are more straight-up heavy rock. It’s a fairly wide arc the UK outfit spread from one end of the record to the other — and they’re brash enough to pull it off, to be sure — but with the hype machine so fervently behind them, I have a hard time knowing whether I’m actually just left flat by the record itself or all the hyperbole-set-on-fire that’s surrounded the band for the last couple years. Viscerals gets to the heart of the matter, sure enough, but then what?

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs on Thee Facebooks

Rocket Recordings on Bandcamp

 

Earthbong, Bong Rites

Earthbong Bong Rites

Kiel, Germany’s Earthbong answer the stoner-sludge extremity of their 2018 debut, One Earth One Bong (review here), with, well, more stoner-sludge extremity. What, you thought they’d go prog? Forget it. You get three songs. Opener “Goddamn High” and “Weedcult Today” top 15 minutes each, and closer “Monk’s Blood” hits half an hour. Do the quick math yourself on that and you’ll understand just how much Earthbong have been looking forward to bashing you over the head with riffs. “Weedcult Today” is more agonizingly slow than “Goddamn High,” at least at the beginning, but it builds up and rolls into a pace that, come to think of it, is still probably slower than most, and of course “Monk’s Blood” is an epic undertaking right up to its last five minutes of noise. It could’ve been an album on its own. But seriously, if you think Earthbong give a shit, you’re way off base. This is tone, riff and weed worship and everything else is at best a secondary concern. Spend an hour at mass and see if you don’t come out converted.

Earthbong on Thee Facebooks

Earthbong on Bandcamp

 

Rito Verdugo, Post-Primatus

rito verdugo post-primatus

No doubt that at some future time shortly after the entire world has moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be a glut of releases comprised of material written during the lockdown. Peruvian four-piece Rito Verdugo are ahead of the game, then, with their Post-Primatus four-song EP. Issued digitally as the name-your-price follow-up to their also-name-your-price 2018 debut, Cosmos, it sets a 14-minute run from its shortest cut to its longest, shifting from the trippy “Misterio” into fuzz rockers “Monte Gorila” (which distills Earthless vibes to just over three minutes) and “Lo Subnormal” en route to the rawer garage psychedelia of “Inhumación,” which replaces its vocals with stretches of lead guitar that do more than just fill the spaces verses might otherwise be and instead add to the breadth of the release as a whole. Safe to assume Rito Verdugo didn’t plan on spending any amount of time this year staying home to avoid getting a plague, but at least they were able to use the time productively to give listeners a quick sample of where they’re at sound-wise coming off the first album. Whenever and however it shows up, I’ll look forward to what they do next.

Rito Verdugo on Thee Facebooks

Rito Verdugo on Bandcamp

 

Death the Leveller, II

Death the Leveller II

Signed to Cruz Del Sur Music as part of that label’s expanding foray into traditionalist doom (see also: Pale Divine, The Wizar’d, Apostle of Solitude, etc.), Dublin’s Death the Leveller present an emotionally driven four tracks on their 38-minute label debut, the counterintuitively titled II. Listed as their first full-length, it’s about the same length as their debut “EP,” 2017’s I, but more important is the comfort and patience the band shows with working in longer-form material, opener “The Hunt Eternal,” “The Golden Bough” and closer “The Crossing” making an impression at over nine minutes apiece — “The Golden Bough” tops 12 — while “So They May Face the Sun” runs a mere 7:37 and is perhaps the most unhurried of the bunch, playing out with a cinematic sweep of guitar melody and another showcase for the significant presence of frontman Denis Dowling, who’s high in the mix at times but earns that forward position with a suitably standout performance across the record’s span.

Death the Leveller on Thee Facebooks

Cruz Del Sur Music website

 

Marrowfields, Metamorphoses

marrowfields metamorphoses

It isn’t surprising to learn that the members of Fall River, Massachusetts, five-piece Marrowfields come from something of an array of underground styles, some of them pushing into more extreme terrain, because the five songs of their debut full-length, Metamorphoses, do likewise. With founding guitarist/main-songwriter Brandon Green at the helm as producer as well, there’s a suitably inward-looking feel to the material, but coinciding with its rich atmospheres are flashes of blastbeats, death metal chug, double-kick and backing growls behind the cleaner melodic vocals that keep Marrowfields distinct from entirely traditionalist doom. It is a niche into which they fit well on this first long-player, and across the five songs/52 minutes of Metamorphoses, they indeed shapeshift between genre elements in order to best serve the purposes of the material, calling to mind Argus in the progressive early stretch of centerpiece “Birth of the Liberator” while tapping Paradise Lost chug and ambience before the blasts kick in on closer “Dragged to the World Below.” Will be interesting to see which way their — or Green‘s, as it were — focus ultimately lies, but there isn’t one aesthetic nuance misused here.

Marrowfields on Thee Facebooks

Black Lion Records on Bandcamp

 

Dätcha Mandala, Hara

datcha mandala hara

Dätcha Mandala present a strong opening salvo of rockers on Hara, their second album for MRS Red Sound, before turning over to all-out tambourine-and-harp blues on “Missing Blues.” From there, they could go basically anywhere they want, and they do, leading with piano on “Morning Song,” doing wrist-cramp-chug-into-disco-hop in “Sick Machine” and meeting hand-percussion with space rocking vibes on “Moha.” They’ve already come a long way from the somewhat misleading ’70s heavy of opener “Stick it Out,” “Mother God” and “Who You Are,” but the sonic turns that continue with the harder-edged “Eht Bup,” the ’70s balladry of “Tit’s,” an unabashed bit o’ twang on “On the Road” and full-on fuzz into a noise freakout on closer “Pavot.” Just what the hell is going on with Hara? Anything Dätcha Mandala so desire, it would seem. They have the energy to back it up, but if you see them labeled as any one microgenre or another, keep in mind that inevitably that’s only part of the story and the whole thing is much weirder than they might be letting on. No complaints with that.

Dätcha Mandala on Thee Facebooks

MRS Red Sound

 

Numidia, Numidia

Numidia Numidia

If you’ve got voices in your band that can harmonize like guitarists James Draper, Shane Linfoot and Mike Zoias, I’m not entirely sure what would lead you to start your debut record with a four-minute instrumental, but one way or another, Sydney, Australia’s Numidia — completed by bassist/keyboardist Alex Raffaelli and drummer Nathan McMahon — find worthy manners in which to spend their time. Their first collection takes an exploratory approach to progressive heavy rock, seeming to feel its way through components strung together effectively while staying centered around the guitars. Yes, three of them. Psychedelia plays a strong role in later pieces “Red Hymn” and the folky “Te Waka,” but if the eponymous “Numidia” is a mission statement on the part of the five-piece, it’s one cast in a prog mentality pushed forward with poise to suit. Side A capper “A Million Martyrs” would seem to draw the different sides together, but it’s no minor task for it to do so, and there’s little sign in these songs that Numidia won’t grow more expansive as time goes on.

Numidia on Thee Facebooks

Nasoni Records website

 

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Dorre Premiere “Extracted at the Moment of Death”; Fall River out Feb. 1

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on January 9th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

dorre

Belgian usually-instrumentalists Dorre are set to play a release show Jan. 30 for their debut album, Fall River, at Het Depot in Leuven. The official release date is Feb. 1, and a lot of what the record titled after the Massachusetts town where the Lizzie Borden murders took place has to offer you can hear immediately in the first 10 seconds of opener “Satisfying Sadistic Urges.” It begins with sharply-toned, intense fits of starts and stops, metallic in their aggression, but with a tonal presence that speaks to what’s to come as a heavy work all the same.

They’re quickly under way in “Satisfying Sadistic Urges” — which, somewhat amazingly, is not also the title of a Cannibal Corpse song — and they maintain the directed sensibility through about the first two minutes before breaking to silence and minimalist blues licks, then crash back in and make their way back from whence they came with surprising fluidity given how far out they go. The four-piece of guitarists Etherik Heyns and Adriaan De Raymaeker, bassist Andrew Hockley and drummer Wolf Overloop don’t shy away from the violence of their subject matter on the six-song/33-minute self-released outing, but neither are they neglecting a sense of atmosphere in order to convey the more physical side of the music. As they pull back on the tempo with “Force the Victims,” they’re finding a balance between the sides — the airy guitar lead atop the slamming march in the second half of “Force the Victims,” for example — and it’s in toying with that balance that Fall River makes its encouraging impression.

They cap side A with the more progressively-styled “Maximum State of Emotional Arousal,” which feels loosened up and boasts some subtle but choice snare from Overloop that carries the band from the early meanderings into a more fervent and insistent chug, some more winding and toward a particularly noisy wash of guitar soloing. As they began side A with “Satisfying Sadistic Urges” on high-go, they do the same via the two-minute “The Greatest Amount of Life Force” on side B, which stops just short of leading directly into dorre fall river“Extracted at the Moment of Death,” on which Dorre welcome vocalist Laura Donnelly of Edinburgh, Scotland’s King Witch.

If you’re going to have a guest vocalist, Donnelly is an absolute powerhouse, and she brings a classic metal declarative sense to “Extracted at the Moment of Death,” tapping into Sabbathian patterning with the same penchant for melodies she showed early last year on her own band’s debut, Under the Mountain (review here). As they approach the midsection, a layer of lead guitar smoothly makes its way in and adds flourish, then the band breaks into a quieter midsection, that warmer lead tone gradually emerging again before they charge back with the nodding riff and the band’s well-earned big finish. It’s worth pointing out how well Donnelly fits with Dorre. In some cases with instrumental bands bringing in a guest vocalist, there’s almost a sense of their doing it begrudgingly, and so it doesn’t always mesh, but Donnelly sounds equal parts natural and righteous on the seven-minute track, and one hopes it’s not the last time these two parties collaborate.

In part because the album is short, the closing title-track — which is also the longest at 7:33 — is inherently more than an afterthought after the surge of energy that is “Extracted at the Moment of Death,” and it ends Fall River with a suitably creeping, moody malevolence, finding its footing early in a mostly-linear build that plays out across its span until wind-ish swirling noise brings it to a conclusion. It will be interesting over time to hear if one side or the other in Dorre‘s sound wins out, but the way they draw from their influences across Fall River, their steadiness of theme and their efficient delivery all come together to make the release function as ably as it does. There may be growing still to do, but the band already have a clear sense of where they’re headed, and I wouldn’t be surprised either if they continued to find their way in darker storytelling.

It’s my pleasure today to host the premiere of “Extracted at the Moment of Death.” Obviously it’s something of a standout, being the only song with vocals, but I think it still represents the album well, and basically any chance you get to hear Donnelly sing, you should take it.

Some comment from the band follows the track below. Please enjoy:

Adriaan De Raymaeker on “Extracted at the Moment of Death”:

This one started out based on an older track that had started to grate on us, we completely reworked it keeping only parts of the riffs. We did a couple of preproductions of it and while listening all of us just thought “this needs vocals”. We had played some shows in the UK and Scotland, King Witch opened for us in London and I knew I wanted to do something with Laura [Donnelly], their vocalist, in the future as soon as I heard her sing. So we got in touch, sent her the best pre-production we had and told her to go to town on it, giving her only the basic background story of what we wanted to be portrayed in the song. She killed it from the get go. We recorded the instrumental in Belgium, which was pretty tricky, I slammed my guitar through an organ simulator pedal, we dropped cases of metal scrap on the floor for snare accents, all kinds of crazy stuff that you probably don’t really hear in the recordings but made us very happy. Laura recorded with her partner Jamie [Gilchrist] based on our ProTools session and again, killed it. It was a great experience and something we’ll definitely be doing again in the future!

I especially like the very funky, groovy middle part of the song instrumental wise, it’s so different from our other stuff and it breaks the song very nicely.

After a two year journey of writing, rewriting, sound-searching, recording and collaborating with profoundly talented artists and partners we can finally say it’s here. We are very proud to be able to present our upcoming full album: a dark and murky sensory undertaking, wandering through the alluring town of Fall River.

The album will be released on the 1st of February on high quality, 180gr vinyl. The first pressing will get a limited edition, consisting of 100 coloured albums, as well as 200 black slabs of wax.

Dorre on Thee Facebooks

Dorre Fall River release show event page

Dorre on Bandcamp

Dorre on Instagram

Dorre website

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