Posted in Whathaveyou on March 28th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Cheers to Berlin-based (I guess?) heavy thrashers Aptera on getting out. The four-piece released their debut album, You Can’t Bury What Still Burns (review here) last June through Ripple Music and considering the world we live in, eight months after the fact isn’t so bad, especially since they were originally going to go in April 2020 rather than April 2023. I’ll just assume you know the story there in terms of what is at least behind the bulk of that delay, but if not, hit me up direct and we’ll talk about the plague, generational trauma, capitalist exploitation of disaster scenarios, and so on. I’d say it’ll be a fun chat, but yeah, probably not.
Perhaps the better thing to do would just be to dig into the record on the embed below, since Aptera is both more articulate and more concise than I might hope to be in that explanation, and the aggression of their delivery is part of the point it’s underscoring. To be perfectly honest, while I’m glad Aptera are going to tour and I hope this leads to more road-time, and so on, I was just as happy to see them announce the string of shows since it gave me an excuse to post the album again for anyone who might’ve missed it happening by. If that’s you, right on. If not, well, maybe you’ll go to a show. And if that’s not where you’re at either, it’s cool. Always next time.
Dates and whatnot from socials:
APTERA – Spring Tour
Finally!! After waiting for 3 long years… it’s happening!! We are going on tour in 10 days!!!
We started to organize our first tour at the end of 2019 and by February of 2020 we had planned a one-week tour for April of the same year.. then we all know what happened..
But we kept our heads up and here we are!!!
Beyond excited to hit the road soon and play with so many great bands & friends!!!
Thanks to everyone who helped us & booked us so far!
Posted in Questionnaire on October 27th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
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: Sara Neidorf of Sarattma & Aptera
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
As for me: I play drums, whatever the occasion calls for. I don’t feel very bound to style, though metal was such a big part of my upbringing that it finds its way into a lot of what I do. Also music with a lot of pathos and/or a lot of idiosyncrasy. I don’t like music that’s too cool for school. It has to interact with some brooding and possibly also some autistic part of me. I came to drumming when I was around 10 because it helped me to focus and relax, and also because it was a way of connecting with people, and I kept doing it for that reason, as well as because it helps me connect with myself, to feel grounded, to feel like I’m doing something meaningful and honest.
As for Sarattma: We push each other, try to lock in and lock out, try to explore different trajectories, to create some shit that we’d enjoy hearing, but which we don’t feel has been done a bunch already. We came to play together because we came up in the same music community in Philly and had some of the same music mentors. Eventually one of our mutual friends/teachers, Yanni Papadopoulos from Stinking Lizaveta, said he thought it would be rad if we formed a band, and we did, and we’ve been linking up and doing that over the past 10 years whenever I’m Stateside visiting friends and family. (I’ve been based in Berlin since 2012.)
Describe your first musical memory.
I remember singing the song “Breakdown” by Tom Petty with my mom in the car when I was 4 or 5, getting many of the words wrong and coming up with my own lyrics phonetically. Or singing the song “Montana” by Frank Zappa with my dad in the car around that same age, knowing each word by heart. “I don’t care if you think it’s silly, folks. I don’t care if you think it’s silly folks.” Drumming out the fives in that phrase on my lap, enjoying the rhythmic puzzles in the breaks without consciously knowing they were odd. I also knew how to sing every guitar solo on Metallica’s Black Album when I was 5 or 6. Not their hottest album, I know, but luckily you don’t care about such things when you’re on your way to kindergarten.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
This is honestly impossible to answer because there have been so many occasions that felt like pinnacles, from live performances I’ve witnessed, to shows where I performed in front of dancing, hyper-engaged crowds, to recording sessions that felt fluid, free, and perfectly aligned, to albums I blasted and sang along to with my mother in the living room as a teen, to songs shared with my partner in intimate moments, to jam sessions in a basement or rehearsal space where everything just meshed so seamlessly… I really can’t come up with a hierarchy among these moments. Music is consistently bringing me new joys, new highs and groundings, new reasons to keep pushing forward.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
This is a toughie. Perhaps it was when I did my biggest tour to date as a session drummer, that my ideas of success were definitely thrown into question. It was also the best paid gig I’ve ever had. I guess I believed that it would feel like ‘success’ or ‘arrival’ but it actually tore me down in a lot of ways, destroyed my short term memory for a couple of years due to prolonged emotional distress, basically traumatized me. I learned that recognition ain’t worth shit if you’re not happy. Otherwise there have been lots of other times, involving friendships or relationships, where my ideas about love, commitment, and loyalty have been tested and thrown into turmoil.
People giving me what I felt I always needed most, turning out to be manipulative and abusive, people I thought I’d have forever dying or leaving me in different ways, not knowing at first if I could live without these people, but then finding my way through it. I think the pandemic has also taught me a lot about how to slow down, especially about accomplishment-based things — to not put a ton of importance or emphasis on something and to think that something has to be perfect or has to happen in a certain way or within a certain timeframe. It all might be called off at any moment. Just do what you can; appreciate the present more.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I hope it just continuously leads to new places you can’t anticipate or know until you’re there. It’s exciting to me that this really doesn’t have a destination, just further journey, travel, discovery. New ways of articulating. It also fosters connections with new people and places, and also more pathways within.
How do you define success?
I’m still figuring that one out. For sure it involves making work that feels true to me. Releasing that work and having that work recognized and enjoyed (and yes, paid for) by others is also still important to me, though I aim for that to be less of a priority. Of course, it’s not about quantity; it’s about the quality of the interaction. My general experience is that a show in front of 50 really tuned-in people is way more fulfilling than a super distant-feeling one in front of 2,000. Sharing your life with people who are good to you and who understand you, and vice versa, is also a big part of success. A mindset of abundance, generosity, freedom, ease, and exchange.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I wish I hadn’t seen my mother in so much pain in her final year of life. I am still haunted by some images I will not recount here. It’s a relief to know that she isn’t suffering anymore, but I miss her every minute of every day.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I’d like to collaborate on creating the soundtrack to a film. I’d like to start by doing some live scoring for some silent horror films, which I’m beginning to do with a new project I’ve started playing with in Berlin, Pausa a Pausa. I’m excited to explore combining my love of music with my love of cinema. I’d also like to eventually write a sort of memoir, a collection of short stories or essays.
Other than that, also looking forward to recording and releasing more work with my projects Mellowdeath, Choral Hearse, and Aptera.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
It needs to keep pushing us to new places, presenting us with new images that test our imaginations, lead us to question systems of power, push us to feel uncomfortable sometimes but with an intentionally devised frame to make that discomfort productive, and to create affective environments in which we can reflect and experience things in personal ways.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to visiting my grandmother for her 95th birthday this September. I’m excited to attend Fantasia Film Fest in Montreal next summer, which I’m currently sad to be missing. I’m stoked for the next edition of the feminist horror film fest I co-organize each February, Final Girls Berlin Film Fest, which is just a lovely community of artists and film nerds. Lots of little things too — I’m excited to meet an old friend for dinner later.
We are now less than a month out from the June 17 release date of Aptera‘s debut album, You Can’t Bury What Still Burns (review here), and the new single from the record is “When the Police Murder.” Fair enough and timely. Certainly there’s no shortage of audio-visual evidence to back up the Berlin-and-then-some-based four-piece’s central thesis, between body cameras, bystander cellphones, closed circuit footage, etc., and we’ve all seen those clips, usually of some Black or Brown person scuffling, running away, and being cut down, shot in the back. They go viral, like fucking cat videos.
In the wake of the racist, terrorist Buffalo, New York, shooting this weekend, the president of my country yesterday referred to white supremacy as a “poison.” He’s not wrong in terms of general destructive force, but as is his wont, he’s also playing it safe. The truth of white supremacy in America is that it’s more than a poison — something introduced from outside to do harm — it is the very marrow in the bones of the US as a nation, embedded since the land I’m sitting on right now, which I ostensibly own, was stolen from the original inhabitants. The fucking White House, first, is called the “White House,” and second, was built by slaves. Jesus Christ, knock it down already and build something else. I don’t care if it looks exactly the same, just make the god damn gesture. Systemic change will take centuries, but every bit counts.
Credit to Aptera for calling out injustice, and since the lineup of the band is multinational, it’s crucial to remember this isn’t just about the US, even if proliferation of guns here aids in making America such a stark example. But if you’re looking to finish the sentence “When the Police Murder,” the rest might be, “they usually get away with it.” Or “maybe they lose their pension.” And even if the video isn’t brazenly political, the song is and is given due urgency in its crunch despite a slower tempo than some of the more heavy thrash-informed material on You Can’t Bury What Still Burns. I suppose you could listen to the track and not think about this stuff, if you’re really committed, but even if you don’t engage with the subject matter directly in the way the band seems to want you to do, perhaps then at least step back and ask yourself why not.
Here’s the track, followed by more from the PR wire:
Aptera, “When the Police Murder” visualizer
Sara Neidorf on “When the Police Murder”:
“We’re so bombarded with images and video of police brutality that we don’t particularly want to reproduce or sensationalize it in a video montage. So we hope that we can catch people’s attention with the song, its lyrics, the urgency and ongoing relevancy of its message.”
With members hailing from Brazil, Italy, Belgium and the US, APTERA joined forces in Berlin in 2018 to deliver their merciless and fist-raising blend of classic heavy, thrash, doom and punk metal chock-full of epic multi-layered guitars, shapeshifting tempos and fierce vocals. Their upcoming debut “You Can’t Bury What Still Burns” reframes timeless feminist struggles through mythology while deconstructing established ideals of women’s roles in modern society.
New single “When The Police Murder” unfolds a politically-charged topic, and while the vocal duo of Michela Albizzati and Celia Paul creates a haunting spiral that matches perfectly their pounding sludgy riffs, the songwriting on display is nothing short of epic.
APTERA is Michela Albizzati – guitar, vocals Celia Paul – bass, vocals Renata Helm – guitar Sara Neidorf – drums
Heavy-hitting multinational conglomerate Aptera release their debut album, You Can’t Bury What Still Burns, June 17 on Ripple Music. There is no time for screwing around as the ostensibly-Berlin-based four-piece crash into what turns out to be a mid-paced groove on opening cut “Voice of Thunder,” soon enough shifting into a speedier verse topped with echo-laced barking vocals of bassist Celia Paul, which along with the sharpness in the guitar tones of Michela Albizzati (also vocals) and Renata Helm, are early clues to the metallic foundation from which Aptera are working. Oh, and when drummer Sara Neidorf blasts out the d-beat on “Unbearable Stain” — that’s another big clue. But really, Aptera aren’t shooting so much for subtlety as for give-yourself-a-concussion-headbanging, so take that as you will. Their sound across the eight songs and 40 minutes of this first full-length is an aggressive amalgam of thrash, classic doom, classic metal with just an edge of heavy rock groove worked in. They effectively shift between one side or another of their approach, varying their angle of attack more than the overall, more encompassing mission, and bring to mind at points earliest Trouble — looking at you, “Days of Void” — Slayer, Kreator and others from the sphere of ’80s thrash, be it the rawer Californian style or more Teutonic precision.
Primarily, You Can’t Bury What Still Burns is a heavy metal razor slice, second cut “Selkies” following “Voice of Thunder” with nod and gallop in kind, a sense of pushing itself toward what “Mercury” and “Unbearable Stain” will shortly reveal was a false edge of extremity while still managing a vital hook. Slow-Slayer vibes and vaguely Eastern guitar howls persist, resolving in a riff that tells me someone in the band has an affinity for the first couple Death records — no argument on taste — and “Selkies” is emblematic of the apparent ease with which Aptera bring together these seemingly divergent impulses into a vigorous whole. “Mercury” (premiering below) is gruffer vocally and a bit more methodical in its pace, but holds its tension well at the start and when the double-kick drumming and fret-runs start in the second half, that underlying sense of composition serves the proceedings well, with each song on side A serving as a point in the build en route to the relative onslaught of “Unbearable Stain.” The side A apex works not entirely dissimilar from “Mercury” just before, but pushes further, is madder, and lets the comparatively serene “Cosmosis” — like some of High on Fire‘s triumphant instrumentals earlier on, but less raw, with just a hint of Sabbath — cap the album’s first half with its own rousing but not overblown finish, setting up the more atmospheric turn side B will soon enough take.
With just three songs to side A’s five, the balance is on time as “Days of Void” (3:46) is shorter than anything on side A and both the penultimate “When the Police Murder” (5:45) and closer “Nepenthes” (8:20) are longer. All three are album highlights, and like “Mercury” and “Unbearable Stain” before them, they readily lay claim to a swath of microgenre aspects while bringing them together in their songwriting rather than simply resting them alongside each other — “this is a doom part, this is a thrash part,” etc. — in a more engaging an individualized take. “Days of Void” and “When the Police Murder” — more political commentary in heavy underground music, please — are dark and gritty in a way that feels wholly modern despite their pointedly classic influence, and “When the Police Murder” hints at melodic complexity that answers back to some of the guitar work on “Cosmosis” while holding firm to the abiding crunch throughout You Can’t Bury What Still Burns. That is, you’d still be right to call it metal. Very metal. Heavy metal. Like all of a sudden you’re wearing a spiked armband and you don’t even know where it came from. Watch out for nail pokes with that thing, by the way.
The real-world placement of “When the Police Murder” — because yes, they do — isn’t to be understated. More than “Mercury” or “Selkies” or even “Voice of Thunder,” it puts the listener in the here and now in a way that feels particularly bold so late in the record, and one can only hope it’s a model Aptera will continue to develop as they move forward. Same applies to “Nepenthes,” which across its eight minutes — slower in parts, faster in others, as you’d hope — offers both a more atmospheric approach even in its early going and circle-pit run even before it hits the halfway point. Backing vocals integrate smoothly, solos are shredded, and they bring it all down around a final twisting chug that only brings to mind how far they just ranged into noise and chaos, echoing almost-chants and layers of melody topping wailing guitars and crashing drums, still a slow march into that cold finish which, like the start of “Voice of Thunder” has no time either for its own bullshit or yours.
You Can’t Bury What Still Burns is righteous metallurgy for modern heads. It’ll fit well alongside the classic metal-worship of Haunt or whoever else, but demonstrates as well a complexity that goes beyond sore-neck fodder and a cohesion that speaks both to their high level of craft and their potential to progress from here.
Enjoy “Mercury” on the player below, followed by a band quote about the song, preorder link and PR wire info:
Aptera, “Mercury” premiere
Aptera on “Mercury”:
“Mercury is about pain as an inevitable part of life and the fact that we have to accept it and let it go through our bodies and souls instead of spending our lives trying to escape from it. The topic of communication breakdowns / difficulties are also central in the song. Hence the reference to Mercury retrograde: according to modern astrology when the planet of communication, Mercury is in (apparent) retrograde motion from the Earth’s perspective, we experience confusion, misunderstanding, and communication issues. It’s easy to get stuck in a negative vortex or rut, but we have to learn to live with things that are out of our control. “The pain you feel is just part of the deal.”
In Greek mythology, APTERA was the site of the battle between the Sirens and the Muses, where the Sirens lost their wings and were cast into the sea — the Greek word “aptera” literally means “wingless”. The incarnation of Aptera is not one of defeat, but rather a cry of rebellion and of challenging establishments, taking flight and pushing forward despite opposing forces. But this Berlin-based foursome (with members hailing from Italy, Belgium, the US, and Brazil) is less of a contest and more of a raucous party. APTERA sonically revamps this clash with a tasty tornado of doom, sludge, psych, thrash, and classic metal blended with punk. Joining the sirens and muses at the table are a coven of reanimated witch spirits and a gang of man-eating mermaids with a healthy appetite for destruction.
With Michela Albizzati on guitars and vocals, Celia Paul (Arde) on bass and vocals, Sara Neidorf (ex-Brian Jonestown Massacre, Mellowdeath) on drums, and Renata Helm on guitar, APTERA’s lashing riffs and propulsive rhythms evoke elements of Mastodon, Windhand, Neurosis or Black Sabbath. Weaving together contemporary and mythological tales of rebellion, revenge, and rising from the ashes, Aptera is a guttural cry, a battle call, a resurrection with wings of fire.
After their self-titled EP (2019), they will release their debut LP “You Can’t Bury What Still Burns” via Ripple Music in June 2022. It was recorded, mixed and mastered by Jan Oberg at Hidden Planet Studio in June 2021, with an artwork designed by Brokesia Studio.
APTERA is Michela Albizzati – guitar, vocals Celia Paul – bass, vocals Renata Helm – guitar Sara Neidorf – drums
