Re: Saturnalia Temple Ep Rar
Teodolinda Mattson
We are entering the dark part of the year, especially here in Sweden, and we have done some great festivals during the summer, the Sonnenwende in Abtenau, Navajo Calling in Parma, Metal Magic, Geggan, and Chaos Descends. We played London some weeks ago with Cult of Fire and Skan, which was also amazing. We are not booking any more gigs this autumn really, except possibly one very special night in Sweden with some brothers, check our pages for news about that.
It feels very satisfactory and inspiring. The long process of creating To The Other was more intense than the other recordings. It was even more introverted and apocalyptic than ever before. I did not know in my conscious mind how this album would sound. But there was no question that it would be the most apocalyptic and powerful work that I have ever done. From the point of view of achievements, I think this record was a triumph over many tribulations.
You can still, I believe, come to similar interpretations as I worked with, and you may experience something that is not totally unlike what I did when creating the music and lyrics. Whether this happens or not, I cannot control. Better than understanding is experiencing. I want the listeners to have a strong experience.
The new songs have a pretty crude sound; some of the tracks sound even primordial, primitive. What kind of feelings and ideas did you want to put into the album? How do you see the role of these cyclic hypnotic riffs in your music?
Musically speaking, I want to spread a state of mind and consciousness rather than to entertain. And what we do reflects that. Saturnalia Temple is more about otherworldly aspects, and the music more of a vibration than a product.
By the way, Saturnalia was a celebration in ancient Rome connected mostly with agriculture symbolism. What attracted you to it and how has it been reflected in your songs? Which elements of Saturnalia do you evoke in your music?
The Saturnalia, or the feast of Saturn in ancient Rome, was a very interesting liminal type of ceremony and celebration. Laws were changed to allow things previously banned, masters became slaves, slaves became masters, and so forth. It embodies the concept of upside-downness. This you can find in the Tantra as well as Viparita Karani, which is both a yoga posture and a concept of Left Hand Path initiation. We view the Saturnalia as a LHP concept of spiritual revolution and initiation. Saturnalia Temple is a temple where LHP initiation takes place and where things are turned upside-down.
I know that certain people do get magical or spiritual experiences from listening to our music, and from experiencing us live. I have met several, where this really seems to have taken place. This is highly interesting, and miles from the tepid entertainment industry that we never want to be part of. There are a lot of people who are open, and I think we can be some substance and magical sustenance in a sea of superficial and cynical artists who play their silly games and then when they have some material success despise their audience and finally themselves. Anyone can see that the typical rockstar trip is completely useless. But, on the other hand, the paths of the bard, the poet, and the magician are roads that lead to the palace of wisdom and the house of initiation.
I always prefer the present. The only time to look back is when you have died. But yeah sure, I have been in bands since the late eighties, began with heavy metal, thrash, and then death and black metal. I have always been into the extreme of music, metal, ritual-ambient, industrial, classic, jazz, blues, whatever is powerful and spiritual.
I joined when I was 16, to explore magic and spirituality. This is exactly what you do in Dragon Rouge, so my path has been very successful in that regard. It is tremendously helpful to be a magical or spiritually inclined person when working with music, art, and literature. I mean, your esoteric practice forces you to work with yourself and you gain access to parts of the mind, body, and soul that is impossible to reach otherwise.
I find this whole ego attitude in Satanism, LHP, and magic to be laughable. To be more precise, people who think the map is the place are way misled. You have to separate your lower-self, ego, and use it as a tool. Not allow it to take over. Otherwise you are crossing the Holy Mountain horizontally, haha, to give a nod to ol Jodorowsky. I mention this because the way the occult is presented generally in the music scene is like some fetishistic ego boost.
Serious magical work attracts serious and creative people. I am not surprised that people in Dragon Rouge are expressing themselves so well. I would not view it as a scene, since the types of expression are different.
Thank you for a very well-made interview that forced me to go in depth with a lot of topics. That is rewarding. We have a European tour coming up in late Feb / early March! The tour will be called Black Sea of Power Tour, and a video of that song is currently being created! See you out there!
After you get over the all-pervading smell of incense and the almost near darkness of presence of the band on stage, you get a sense that what they are trying to achieve is more of a sense of atmosphere rather than just pummelling the eardrums of their audience in to submission. Some of the music is downright eerie, a conjuration of Sixties occult fanatics mixed with the ancient ruins of temples. In some respects the riffs are monumental, tapping into something primal from our long-gone esoteric past and dragging it screaming into the twenty-first century.
Saturnalia Temple are much more than just another occult doom band with a few riffs lifted from Black Sabbath or Electric Wizard; they stand out as something that has been brought forth from beyond and lies dormant somewhere, awaiting to devour mankind. The guitar hangs onto notes for what, at times, seems an eternity. The bass and drums busy themselves hammering home everything they have as this power trio drag you into their demonic world.
Saturnalia, the most popular holiday on the ancient Roman calendar, derived from older farming-related rituals of midwinter and the winter solstice, especially the practice of offering gifts or sacrifices to the gods during the winter sowing season.
The pagan celebration of Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and time, began as a single day, but by the late Republic (133-31 B.C.) it had expanded to a weeklong festival beginning December 17. (On the Julian calendar, which the Romans used at the time, the winter solstice fell on December 25.)
People decorated their homes with wreaths and other greenery, and shed their traditional togas in favor of colorful clothes known as synthesis. Even enslaved people did not have to work during Saturnalia, but were allowed to participate in the festivities; in some cases, they sat at the head of the table while their masters served them.
Instead of working, Romans spent Saturnalia gambling, singing, playing music, feasting, socializing and giving each other gifts. Wax taper candles called cerei were common gifts during Saturnalia, to signify light returning after the solstice.
On the last day of Saturnalia celebrations, known as the Sigillaria, many Romans gave their friends and loved ones small terracotta figurines known as signillaria, which may have referred back to older celebrations involving human sacrifice.
Constructed in the fourth century A.D. to replace an earlier temple, the Temple of Saturn in Rome served as the ceremonial center of later Saturnalia celebrations. On the first day of the festivities, a young pig would often be publicly sacrificed at the temple, which was located in the northwest corner of the Roman Forum.
The idea was that he ruled over chaos, rather than the normal Roman order. The common holiday custom of hiding coins or other small objects in cakes is one of many dating back to Saturnalia, as this was a method of choosing the mock king.
But by the fourth century A.D., Western Christian churches settled on celebrating Christmas on December 25, which allowed them to incorporate the holiday with Saturnalia and other popular pagan midwinter traditions.
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