Onlangs bracht Neun Welten het tweede album ‘Destrunken’ uit. Het is rustige muziek die een brug slaat tussen folk en klassieke muziek, doordrongen van een fascinatie voor mythologie. Fans van het akoestische werk van Empyrium en Dornenreich zullen zeker hun gading vinden in de betoverende klanken van dit collectief uit Thüringen. We stuurden dan ook een aantal vragen naar Duitsland en Aline Deinert (zang, viool, piano) was zo vriendelijk om ons uitgebreid antwoord te geven.
When your first album came out, entitled ‘Vergessene Pfade’ I was lucky to see you live during the acoustic afternoon at the celebration of ten years Prophecy Productions (2006). What are your memories on that gig during this exceptional event? Uff that's been a long time...but I remember we have been so lucky to play there and we also came with guest musicians to make that gig special...it was so funny....'cause all in all we came with eight persons in two cars!! For the live gig I remember a very good feeling on stage, the audience has been great and very thankful and we enjoyed the gig so much! But not only our gig...the whole day has been amazing, with the other bands....we have been very proud to be part of that event! And I remember the day did end very late hehe.
Let us start at the beginning. Neun Welten exists of six musicians and the foundation of the band is described as a gathering of congenial souls in the woods of Thüringen, playing music around the camp fire. This is a pretty romantic vision. Is it a suitable explanation of your musical approach or is your rehearsal room indeed far from human hectic and shallow lives? Yes it is a romantic picture...but it happened exactly like that. Even if we don't see the music of our new album anymore that closed to music which has the typical camp fire atmosphere (on ‘Vergessene Pfade’ we partly had more of those songs and atmosphere)....those are the roots of our band and our music. And indeed our rehearsal room (which we unfortunately had to leave now) was located in an old house like an old villa surrounded by a forest. That place has also been the scenery of our clip ‘Heidenach’.
There has been a mythological fascination from the very start, combined with being inspired by nature. Can you go a bit deeper into your views on these aspects and what they mean in your life? It is mostly about the nature, the fascination for nature which has a huge impact in the Nordic mythology or in some other mythologies. Our music isn't so much influenced by the sagas and legends anymore, but mostly by nature or also by feelings, "inner conflicts" in our everyday lives. We like to bring up nature as the scenery for our feelings, a certain atmosphere and so on. And we also like to be in nature...for example going on tours etc.
The name Neun Welten (nine worlds) speaks volumes about that subject (mythology). Can you tell something more about the significance of the name? “Neun Welten “ [nine worlds] refers to the nine worlds of the Nordic mythology. When the band was founded, we did choose that name due to our interest in mythology, legends or sagas of our own and also of the Nordic history. Nowadays we don't have such a strong link between our music concepts and the (Nordic) mythology anymore. But there is still that high value of nature for us and experiences with the nature which are crucial for our music concept and also for the old sagas and legends.
What is the background of the main composers of Neun Welten, for instance, did they study philosophy or mythology or is this fascination reflected in their current lives? We don't have "main" composers...usually composing songs is more a process we are all involved in and we all create together. Thus, sometimes in the end a song can be differ very much from its primordial idea. But nobody of us studied philosophy or mythology and that's also not necessary I think. Everybody can be a "little philosopher" just in thinking about living, struggling with the everyday life...you don't need a degree. We just try to express feelings, moods in our music which matters for us.
In 2007 you did a tour with Tenhi and a bit later you went on the road with Dornenreich. Can you tell about your memories and impressions from these tours? Also great moments of our band history!! The tour with Tenhi has been our first one and it was a really new experience for us. It was so exciting to play gigs every night! One concert of the tour with Tenhi took place at the "Zwischenweltenfestival" and we've also met Dornenreich there. The tour with Elane and Dornenreich also has been fantastic, we played at great places with really nice audience. For one gig, in Essen, we really had such a bad luck, 'cause we were stuck in traffic and arrived at the location only right before our gig should start....so we missed the soundcheck before and everything. It was very stressful but we were lucky that we at least came in time to play there.
Can you give some more details about the non-rock/non-metal instruments you use to relish your music? We're mostly using acoustic instruments, like guitars, flutes, the violin to produce a more natural sound and we think by using those instruments it allows many more options to vary the sound.
Your music is a blend of folk, classical music and rock. Does it mean that some of you are classical trained musicians? Yes, everybody of us had more or less lessons in playing their instruments. Anja also played some times in orchestras before Neun Welten was found, like me (Aline) and I am sometimes still playing in an orchestra.
I think vocals are mainly used as complementary instrument, or am I wrong? Yes, you're right. Vocals for us are more an element to bring up another acoustic colour in our songs. They don't have the meaning to convey our thoughts and atmosphere literally ... the decision to integrate vocals are mostly done into our process of composing.
‘Destrunken’ appears to be an imaginary word to inspire associations and emotions. That might be a kind of guidance for personal interpretation, but it would be nice if you can say a few words more about this mystical hint… “Destrunken” as a word doesn't have a literally meaning. For us “Destrunken” conveys a certain atmosphere which might be melancholic, dark and shows also a link to very intimate perceptions, say in nature.
The artwork looks like a painting. Do you have more information about the artwork? The artwork was made by Fursy Tessier (Les Discretes, Alcest, Amesoeurs). He liked our music and we asked him to do the artwork for our new album. It was a very cool process and he did the paintings and everything by himself...we just told him very little about our ideas and we let him quite much space. It was amazing to see how his impressions of our music went along with our ambitions!! We are very happy that we did work together with such a great artist who expresses our moods and visions in such a brilliant way.
Your music is often compared with the acoustic era of Empyrium. I guess it must have been amazing to work with Markus Stock at Studio E to record your own records then… The recordings of ‘Destrunken’ has been our third time in Studio E and we went there for app. two weeks. This time it was even more complex for us, 'cause we had more instruments to record and it wasn't so easy to coordinate everything in the best way. But recording at Studio E with Markus Stock has been always a very nice time and we liked to work in such a supportive atmosphere.
The videoclip of ‘Heidenacht’ has a great atmosphere. Can you tell us about the making of this clip? Yes I remember freezing hehe. The scenery for that clip has been around our rehearsal room we had during that time (see above) and a friend of us did the shots. Another friend "Skoll von Kallenheim" participated in the song and lends us his voice (you also see him at the clip). After we made the camp fire, were drinking some Met and warmed up our hands, we played the song several times while sitting around the fire.To gain a better sound we later recorded the instruments via microphone also separately, but still in the same place.
‘Destrunken’ is a song made up of two parts and you played it live for a long time. Can you tell something more about this beautiful double track? ‘Destrunken’ was the first song idea of the new album and combined in the beginning the main part of ‘Destrunken II’ and the quieter part of ‘Destrunken I’. On the base of the guitars the violin added this defining melody of today’s ‘Destrunken II’ and the clarinet also added influencing melodies of today’s ‘Destrunken I’. In this time we were very productive and developed the one song further and further but we somehow crashed the feeling borders of the "quiet Destrunken athmosphere" with developing also the fast tremolo part from the violin. Due to this, we decided to split ‘Destrunken’ into two songs which almost have the same chords but different tempi and feelings. Although we split it the new songs belong together, because they induce the same impressions to us. In the prearrangements for the tours with Tenhi and Dornenreich, we had the idea to form the "Destrunken Zyklus" to communicate our idea to the listeners. So we performed ‘Destrunken I’ and ‘Destrunken II’ one after another and introduced them as Destrunken Zyklus. At the rehearsals for the studio takes we decided to make a further step to improve the Destrunken Zyklus and I (Aline) composed a part in between which expresses and combines both atmospheres, the quiet and careful one of ‘Destrunken I’ and also the restless and harsh mood of ‘Destrunken II’. From the first pickings until the complete Destrunken Zyklus it took nearly two years.
Are there plans to play some gigs or tour, now that the new album is released? Yes, we really planning and thinking about presenting our album on tour, but there are no plans fixed yet.
What are the plans for the near future? Nothing defined yet...but we of course want to play more live gigs again after that long break and we already are working on new song-ideas.
Thanks a lot in advance for this interview. Your music is a source of peace and tranquillity in modern life! Thank you so much for those kind words, your interest in our music and the interesting questions!
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