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Interview with Adam Berces
Adam Berces is the leader of Hungarian martial/industrial band DURCH HEER UND KRAFT and dark ambient project MORK SKOG.
First of all, tell us when did you form Durch Heer und Kraft, who is now active in the band and what instruments do you use?
I founded Durch Heer und Kraft at the beginning of that year, during a night in January, 2008, when I have recorded my demo EP. I had some ideas in martial music before too, but I usually work quite fast, so when I’ve got the inspiration, I can write all the music for an album in a night. Of course the additional works takes a lot of time…
DHK was originally a simple martial musical project, with no folk elements, but in the song “Quis Contra Nos?” I have decided to use the sound of the recorder for the main tune. When I was a child, in Hungary every children must have been learn to play on the recorder in the primary school and play popular Hungarian folk songs. I have many sweet memories about that, so I have decided to put the melody of these folk songs into my music.
After I have “released” my demo (I’ve uploaded it into MySpace and last.fm J) I received mainly good feedback about my music. Some said, that it has to be released somewhere so I made some promo CDs. It is also a funny story, because I got an e-mail from SkullLine, that they want to release my music on the night, just before the day I wanted to send them my promo material.
After my first CD came out, I have decided to form DHK as a normal band I in order to have live appearances. The members are Anett Perei, she plays the recorder (and I also have an EBM project with her), Zoltán Tonka, he plays the drums (and he leads a underground radio show, where I first met him), János Kiss, he plays the bass guitar (who is a well-known concert organiser in the Hungarian dark/gothic scene) and Ferenc Blaskovits, he plays the acoustic guitar (and also in his one-man neofolk project, Nichtstuer). I was trained also as a classical musician on brass instruments (that is also important in my fascination for military music), so I play my trombone in some songs and I’m doing vocals too, like on the first album.
Why did you choose such name - "Durch Heer und Kraft"? Do you think it sounds better in German?
Our name is taken from the Holy Bible and means “by mind and power”: if you aspire to reach something, you must thrust the power of God, like many kings and leaders did in Europe’s and also Hungary’s history. And why do I chosen German? Yes, definitely it sounds really good. J Usually, when I give a name for a song, album or project the language always has a meaning, but for DHK it is really simple: it sounds good, I think German is the most perfect language for martial music…
You wrote on MySpace that "lyrics are dealing with hungarian history". Could you tell us something more about that?
Like many bands in that scene, DHK is also inspired by the history of its own country. Hungary always played a special role in Europe, in the pre-Christian times everyone feared of us, especially in Germany because of our wanderings. After our first king, Holy Steven adopted Christianity Hungary had good relationship with other nations in Europe and became a strong kingdom (eg. Hungary stopped the Turkish armies), especially in the Austro-Hungarian era under the Habsburg family. Unfortunately after the first World War many of our land where taken, and after the second communism caused many (still irreversible) harms in the country (and in the hearts of our people). Also Hungary was the first nation, who revolted against communism with guns in 1956 for the influence of our Polish brothers J. As you can see, our glorious past was ruined, and because of the government, anyone, who deals with it is called a neo-nazi… That is that melancholic, but also heroic mood in many DHK songs: the glory and perdition, but we still have a hope to rise again! Of course I am not a chauvinist, I just proud to be Hungarian and European. As you can read on the MySpace site: keeping the traditions, the memories of the ancestors is not politics, it’s an obligation of every people on Earth, so I really appreciate every people from any nation, who does that...
You've mentioned (on your MySpace page) Holy Bible as one of your inspirations and christianity as a part of "eternal european soul". What does religion mean to you and other members of DHuKraft?
I don’t want to tell anything on behalf of the other members of DHK, but for me religion (and as an European person – Christianity) is one of the most important things in my life, it encourages me to live for higher standards, eternal values and goals unlike many people does in the modern era L and of course to help these people to do so and my music and art is a perfect tool for that.
Julius Evola seems to be another person popular on the martial/neofolk scene. You've also mentioned him as a source of inspiration. Why he is important for DHuKraft?
Evola is on of my favorite philosophers/writers, he wrote a lot about how the metaphysical traditions and politics can be connected to make Europe a (not just politically, but spiritually) strong collective of countries and nations (not like the way the “European” Union does), especially in his book “Man amongst ruins”. We have also use some quotations of him in some lyrics.
There is a split Vae Victus vs. Durch Heer und Kraft - "Fortes Fortune Adiuvat". Could you tell us more about this material?
That was our first release on SkullLine. I know Peter Iolin (the man behind VV) for a longer time from last.fm and he told me, that he also experiments in that genre, so we decided to make a split together. It was really good, that the label also send Peter an e-mail at the time, when I’ve got mine about releasing the albums, so we asked Harry from SkullLine to make a split instead of two albums. It is a quite interesting split, because VV does more noisy, “communist”-style martial music with Chinese and Russian sound samples – a bit different from the music of DHK, but I really like Peter’s music… It was also goods because we didn’t had too much songs to make two full length albums, so for that split we only had to send 30 minutes of music J.
What about your album with French Front Sonore which was released by Polish netlabel Kaos Ex Machina? Did Front Sonore mixed/transformed your tracks or vice-versa?
Front Sonore (Julian) makes noise/dark ambient influenced martial music and he did many collaborations with other artist in the scene, so we decided to do so, and mix our music and styles together. Since Julian also likes my dark ambient project, Mork Skog we also made three tracks under the name and style of that project. The title means “French-Hungarian Friendship” in Hungarian.
It was quite an interesting work to make a release together with someone thru the internet. Usually he or me made a base song and sent it on Megaupload, than the other one mixed new tracks to that base song. Usually - according to our styles – Julian made the noise and rhythm elements and I made synthesizer tunes. I also did vocals in a Front Sonore vs. Mork Skog song.
Tell us about your side-project Mork Skog.
Mork Skog means Dark Forest in Norwegian. I’ve got familiar with that whole dark/industrial music scene thru extreme/black metal music. I don’t listen to them anymore, only some bands, but my first musical project was a black metal band, and I’ve made some minimalistic (“dark ambient”) synth tunes, like other black metal artists did and decided to release them under an other name. I made two short releases in 2006., but after I decided to finish the project until I had new ideas in music in 2008., so I have released a new album and since that I always make my most weird musical ideas and recording techniques under that name. It is my most personal project, so Mork Skog have releases in many styles, like minimal ambient, harsh noise, industrial, concrete music, etc…
Could you describe us the upcoming album of DHuKraft - "NON POTEST CIVITAS ABSCONDI SUPRA MONTEM POSITA"?
The title means “A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”, which is taken from the book of Matthew, 5:14. The song title and the lyrics for „Lux Mundi” (Light of the world) is also from that verse. That album will show the neoclassical side of DHK (of course with the usual folk tunes), with melanchoic, slower songs and philosophical lyrics dealing with the theme of self-sacrifice. It will be recorded with the new, full band only with live instruments. I hope we can record it January – originally we wanted to do it in December, but the studio is currently occupied. L
Do you know any Polish bands or any people from Poland?
I had a live set with Mork Skog that week, where I played with the polish harsh noise musician Animal Machine, he is a nice guy and makes great music. As a fan of classical music I like the music of the contemporary composer Wojciech Kilar. From martial/neofolk music I like Krepulec, they play really good music.
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Adam Berces...
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