One week before the premiere of their second album “Darvo”, IDIOTEQ teams up with Russian experimental, post rockish blackened screamo band TOLUCA for a brief introductory feature, giving you a glance into their new melancholic record, issues covered in their lyrics and touring plans. Watch the band’s new music video for the track “Andras”, directed by Sergey Parshakov and shot by Evgeny Mineev and Sergey Dyachkov, and scroll down to read the full interview.
TOLUCA‘s ‘Darvo’ is coming on May 23 on Tokyo Jupiter Records.
Top photo by Sergey Seregin.
Hey guys! So, 2 years after your highly appreciated full length “Memoria”, you’re back with this new monumental follow up! How do you feel about these new tracks and what does this release mean to you?
Dima: Hi! I think this record in new level for us. New album sounds more diverse musically. We tried to make the sound more interesting, but not too experimental so that people could say “Yes, this is like the first album – but so much better!”
The whole process of making a new album was long-lasting and hard, but we did not have any conflicts about what this record must be. It is great when all members of the band think are looking in one direction. This is very important.
How did you approach composing as opposed to “Memoria”? How do you manage to get such a heavy, atmospheric and dark sound?
Slava: We just try to compose chaotic and emotional pieces of screamo with pushy and enchanting base of post-black. Sometimes, actually, u could hear parts of post-metal and maybe sludge, but mainly we make stake on black, depressive and dark sound. In future, we also won’t depart from this “dark-side”
Artur: Well, the first thing – we recorded guitar double tracks in new album. In “Memoria” we didn’t used that, trying to make not so heavy sound. But we decided to make new album much heavier, but we tried to make not extremely hard and heavy sound (but of course we could make it much more heavy if we wanted to) so a lot of people with different music preferences can listen and enjoy new album. Difference between “Memoria” and “Darvo” is – “Memoria” have sound closer to screamo music, in my opinion. Of course guitar riffs are important thing too. But we don’t want to make only post black songs in wide understanding of that music style. yes, we use blast beats, distorted guitar, screaming.. even growling and harsh vocals, but we trying to make a collaboration of different music styles which we love such as post rock, post metal, post black, screamo, etc
Does your local culture in Moscow influence TOLUCA’s lyrical contents? Tell us a bit about thee lyrical sphere of this record.
Dima: It’s strange question about local culture. If u mean: close to Russian soul things in our lyrics – I need to say “Yes. of course”, but for local culture? I’m think that I didn’t understand way of question.
Some words about concept of new album. Darvo – it’s psychology termin. Short definition Darvo refers to a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. Darvo stands for “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.” The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim – or the whistle blower – into an alleged offender. This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of “falsely accused” and attacks the accuser’s credibility or even blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.
All song names – goes from Ars Goetia (as in past releases: that concept of telling sad stories from demons inside of everyone of us – one of interesting part of band).
But in Darvo every song – talk about life situation, when we wrong by self, but didn’t accept it. We every time change our roles for felling themselve victim for getting compassion, when in really – we didn’t need it.
Humanity destroying themselves and try to shift the blame on God, friends, society, lovers but not on self. And it’s the biggest mistake.
I can explain every song in album if u want, because that what I wrote upper – not explain how deep of lyrics is. Every song – it’s small world with copies of our feelings in different situation.
Yeah man, please drop us a track by track feature, I’d love to have that, but firstly, as I really loved the artwork for “Memoria”, please tell us more about the cover art of the new record and its meaning.
Dima: So, you gave an idea – we’ll put annotations in English language in lyric info at bandcamp page and try do it very close to Russian, because no one auto-translation can’t convey the depth of Russian literary language. And then we all will be in one boat that drifted in searching of lyric meaning for each other.
About cover. The idea for the visual part Darvo appeared in my head for a year before the start of the recording. We’ve try work with a lot of artists, but no one can realize what we planned. And then we decide work again with Christian Brix, who made for us amazing designs of Memoria t-shirts. If u didn’t see his works – check it now here.
Main idea – old photos in collage with maniac art on it. Similar thing I saw in art for Silent Hill videogame (do u know that name of the band and some philosophy for lyric atmosphere we’ve taken from it, huh?). Christian have recognizable distinctive feature – sad kids portraits and that stuff looks fucking great in collaboration with our idea. 2 different styles in one cover, man! When I saw first previews – I get shock, because what I have seen – completely recreate the current image of the cover in my head. Just look at it (photo in attachment). It’s fucking masterpiece!
Cool :) Ok guys, so what’s next? How will you promote this new record. Do you have some live shows lined up for the rest of the year?
Dima: Tonight (I know that interview go out in near future) we shot videoclip for song called “Andras”. It ll be first single from album and when it come out – we’ve open digital pre-order for our album (bandcamp/iTunes/google Music/Spotify). 23th May – release data of “Darvo”. 23th June – we play in Moscow presentation show with really huge set (15-16 songs). After it – I don’t know what happens with us. We didn’t booked any show in Russia, Europe and other world, but we have deal for Asia tour (Taiwan and Japan). I hope that we do it in this year.
And we didn’t find any label for vinyl release yet, only for cd (big thanks to Kimi from Tokyo Jupiter Records). If u read that and u have deal for us (vinyl release/show in your city) – write back on our fb page :))).
Great! Any last words for the readers?
Ruslan: Enjoy the record and please feel free to share your opinion on it!
Dima: I hope that you ‘ll find yourself in that record and that music – ‘ll be your soundtrack of real life for small (or huge; who knows, huh?) period of time.
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tolucaband@gmail.com
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