LITHAM
From the 1001 nights of Chalima
till nowadays, the Eastern civilization always attracted the western people
who in their attempt to absord some of its elements, several times tried
to conquer it, either with the crusades or with others ways. Litham belong
to this oriental civilization, which is more than obvious in their compostions,
so what else could they achieve rather than attract and magnetize us? Let's
see what Redouane (bass and vocals) and Yacine (guitar) told us...
1. HELLO! I HAVE TO SAY THAT YOUR
ALBUM "DHAL ENNAR" IS GREAT. I WANT YOU TO TELL ME HOW LONG IT TOOK YOU
TO COMPOSE IT AND UNDER WHICH CIRCUMSTANCES.
Y: Hi and thanks a lot Nick, we
began composing the tracks for the album "Dhal ennar" since creation of
the band in 96 with the instrumental until the recording period in 99 with
"el kahf", so it took a long time because we were looking for the right
direction to take and in that purpose many tracks were left aside.
2. I THINK THAT "DHAL ENNAR" WILL BE
RE-RELEASED FROM OBSCURUS ANGELUS RECORDS FROM U.S.A. HOW DID A BAND FROM
ALGERIA ATTRACT THE INTEREST OF THIS LABEL? WHAT NEW THINGS AND IMPROVEMENTS
WILL THIS RELEASE HAVE?
R: Hi Nick, first of all I’m running
a website called LELAHEL METAL: http://www.lelahelmetal.com , this website
has 2 main sections. The first is a promo zone for all underground bands
in the world. The second is a promotion of the entire Arabian metal scene.
The label discovered our band through this website, and they asked us to
send our promo material for a possible deal. So when they received it,
they were really impressed and said that LITHAM had a really different
conception of music than other metal bands. The improvements of the re
release are the new artwork and the re mastering that will be done in the
Massive Attack Studio in USA (reference: Manowar).
3. EXCEPT FOR RE-RELEASING "DHAL ENNAR"
DO YOU HAVE PLANS FOR A NEW RELEASE? DO YOU HAVE ANY NEW SONGS READY? WHEN
SHOULD WE EXPECT A NEW ALBUM FROM YOU?
Y: Yes, at this moment we have
enough songs ready for a new release, and the new album should be recorded
under our label after re releasing "Dhal Ennar".
4. YOUR NAME IS LITHAM WHICH IS THE
VEIL USED BY THE NOMADS IN SAHARA DESERT TO COVER THEIR FACES, IN YOUR
MOTHER TONGUE. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS NAME? WHY DO YOU WEAR "YOUR LITHAM"?
IS IT BECAUSE YOU WANT TO HIDE SOMETHING OR BECAUSE YOU WANT TO BE PROTECTED?
Y: We chose that name because we
try to find combination between words and melodies with a hidden sense,
but also we found that "litham" is something from our desert "sahara" so
it's from our culture.
5. I READ IN MANY OF YOUR REVIEWS THAT
YOUR MUSIC IS CLOSE TO BAND'S LIKE ORPHANED LAND, CYNIC AND MEZARKABUL.
DO YOU AGREE? ARE YOU AWARE OF THESE BANDS AND THEIR MUSIC? WHICH OTHER
ARTISTS INFLUENCED YOU WITH THEIR ART?
Y: We have a lot of respect for
these bands, we appreciate their work .We can say that our musical approach
is the same (that means that we mix the traditional music with metal),
but the ingredients are different.
R: the main difference with those
bands is that Litham mix Algerian music with metal and it is really different
that the Israeli or the Turkish traditional music in the atmosphere and
rhythms. The artists that influenced us are the old school death metal
bands (death, morbid angel, carcass...) and our national patrimony.
6. SINCE I HAVE THE CD WITHOUT THE
LYRICS CAN YOU TELL ME A FEW THINGS ABOUT THEM? DOES THE HISTORY AND THE
TRADITION OF YOUR COUNTRY REFLECT ON THEM?
Y: Our lyrics talk mostly about
social problems concerning our youth like "el djemra" where we talk about
expense of life in those last years, some of them talk about personal experiences.
7. I THINK THAT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT
METAL MUSIC WE ALSO HAVE TO TALK ABOUT RELIGION. IT IS TRUE THAT THE FANATIC
FUNDAMENTALIST MUSLIMS HAVE ZERO TOLERANCE TO THIS SOUND, CAUSE THEY THINK
IT WAS CREATED BY THE DEVIL. DO YOU FACE ANY PROBLEMS WITH THEM? WHAT DO
YOU THINK IN GENERAL ABOUT RELIGIOUS FANATISM?
Y: I think that religious fanatics
give bad image to their religion which is basically a peaceful religion,
they do not accept difference and as you say they have no tolerance, but
I think that is caused by their ignorance, we did not face problems with
them for the moment and we try to avoid that, but we can say that in Algeria
and specially in these last years, things are getting better and the fundamentalist
are much less active.
8. I THINK THAT ALGERIA AND GREECE
GAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON AD THIS IS THE PIRATE BROTHERS BARBAROSSA. ONE
OF THEM (AROUZ) IS CONSIDERED TO BE THE ESTABLISHER OF YOUR COUNTRY. WHAT
DO YOU KNOW ON THIS SUBJECT?
Y: In fact, our country has been
established long time before the Turks, the brothers Barbarossa came to
Algeria in order to propagate the Othoman Empire and to give protection
to our country.
9. WHICH IS THE BEST AND WHICH IS THE
WORST REVIEW YOU HAVE RECEIVED? ARE YOU SATISFIED BY THE FEEDBACK YOU RECEIVED
THIS FAR? IS THERE A COMMON STATEMENT YOU SEE REPEATED IN ALMOST ALL THE
REVIEW YOU RECEIVE?
R: We received 3 excellent reviews
with full note, one from rock express magazine in Yugoslavia (10/10), the
second from Metal Revolution Zine in Denmark (6/) and the third with music
extreme webzine from Argentina (one of the best albums of the month).The
worst was from Guts of Darkness webzine in France (2/6). The common statements
repeated in the reviews are the origin of the band and that is the first
time that they heard from an Algerian metal band. We are really satisfied
by the feed back, we sent more than 300 copies for promo in all over the
world and got a lot of contacts: we signed 2 deals one with obscurus angelus
records and the second with rock express to re release dhal ennar in cassette
format, we toured in Belgium in January 2004, and more to come in the future.
10. ARE THERE ANY OTHER METAL BANDS
IN ALGERIA? IF YES, COULD YOU NAME THEM FOR US?
R: There are some metal bands,
and most of them play for 2 or 3 years and they stop. Some of the still
active bands are: meltdown, atakor and entropy.
11. IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION,
WHAT WOULD IT BE? IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
Y: if our music were an emotion
it would be ‘melancholy’, if it were a painting it would show blood over
desert.
12.WHICH IS, ACCORDING TO YOU, YOUR
BEST AND WHICH YOUR WORST PART IN YOUR MUSIC? WHICH DO YOU THINK IS YOUR
TRADEMARK?
Y: I think the best part in our
music is the researched melody which is inspired from our classical and
traditional music, the worst part is the deficiency of power, and we try
to work on it for the following songs. Our trademark is maybe the way of
making suite of riffs with many breaks.
13.WHICH WORDS DO YOU THINK COULD BEST
DESCRIBE YOUR NEW ALBUM AND YOUR MUSIC IN GENERAL?
R: Brutality through melody.
14.WHICH ARE, ACCORDING TO YOU, THE
MOST IMPORTANT WOMEN IN THE ROCK/METAL SCENE?
R: hahaha, it depends what you
mean by important!!! (Big ass?? Big tits??!)
15.THANK YOU! HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK
YOU ANYTHING AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?
Nick "William_Kidd"
Parastatidis
|