record everything yourself, except for guest musicians on drums and keyboards.Are you still proud of this album? Definitely.I have to correct you,though: Ness was not a guest musician, but a band member in Ahráyeph’s last live line up. It’s too bad she, too, had to give priority to her job, because she was without a doubt theAhráyeph bandmember whomeant the most tome,both on a personal and a musical level.I still miss working with her. 2016: You release the'Desert Songs'-E.P., building on the work of Robin Proper-Sheppard -a man who you happen to knowpersonally-and his band The God Machine. Can you elaborate on the inspiration behind the ep? I wouldn’t say I was building on Robin and his previous band’s work necessarily with this E.P. The God Machine are, as you know, a big influence of mine, but I’ve only borrowed that title, because when I was writing the songs, they evoked a desert like atmosphere in me. My mother, who is by no means a fan, observed a couple of times that I ‘write cinematic music’and when it comes to ‘Desert Songs’ in particular,I do agree with that assessment.While I was composing,I kept envisioning scenes of big sand dunes, red evening skies with a sun setting on a horizon trembling from the heat, caravans ploughing through the sands, trying to reach an oasis and nightly desert skies lit up by stars and planets. 2018: You release the ‘Heavy like the ancient sun’ album, an homage to your deceased friend James Blaast!™.What was your motivation behind that? James was,without exaggeration,mybest friend.Our friendship was completely mutual, something I can’t say of many other people. It’s hard to explain why our friendship was so special… It just clicked from the first moment we met.James wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with. He was very outspoken and didn’t mince words to the point where if his words had actually been meat, he could provide the whole of Scotland with prime, unminced beef for years.But contrary to where he’d stick to his guns with other people, he’d alwaysmake the effort tomake amends and respectmyboundaries. On the other hand, James was the most loyal friend a person could’ve had. He never thought twice about giving me a Facetime call and if I took too long to do so myself, I’d get a good natured ‘ERSE!’ in my mailbox, signalling it was high time for me to return the favour. Those calls turned into one- or two-hour conversations, sometimes twice that. 2018: You release a reworked version of‘Marooned on Samsara’ digitally. All songs were re-recorded. Were you that dissatisfied with the original recordings? I was,actually.In the interim,myknowledge ofmusic production had improved exponentially, and I also had better tools to implement them.I’mspeaking in particular of the speakers I was using,the right studio speakers,which are different fromhi fi speakers,make a huge difference. It’s something I learned empirically. All of a sudden, I didn’t have toworkas hard to get a goodmix,because I had a clearer sonic picture to work from.Additionally,the CD version of the album was sold out and no longer available.This made me feel it was the right time to re-record it and right a fewwrongs.On top of that,I had a run in on Youtube with an American publishing company who, as part of my deal with D-Monic, had gotten their hands on the rights to my songs for the duration of the contract. I was warned I had no - 27 - right to publish my own songs on the platform. Even though the rights reverted back to me after three years and I once again retained full ownership to the songs,I felt it prudent to re-record the album and re-register the songs, so I would keep the author- and publishing rights, so things like that would never happen to me again. 2020: You announce the‘Heaven No. 7’-E.P. as an inbetween release tomake up for the longwait for the next album. I do like it, andwas especiallyimpressed bythe profound lyrics.Can you tell me howyou handlewriting lyrics forAhráyeph? Ooff, that’s a question that often gets asked, just like ‘how do you write your songs?’, and for which there is no simple answer, really. As I’ve alreadymentioned,my lyrics deal with my own experiences and observations. I would,however, like to write something from a different perspective down the line,even something fictional and I alreadyhave come upwith a fewideas,whichmayeven be used for TransWorld Tribe,but inAhráyeph,I mainly am addressing my own life and emotions, not least because, as I mentioned before, Ahráyeph is my outlet and therapy. 2021: The ‘XXV’-E.P. is supposed to celebrate 25 years of Ahráyeph. It contains three songs, a DepecheMode cover among them.Howimportantwas it foryou to celebrate this symbolicanniversary? Alittle,haha.Twenty-five years is amilestone,and it doesn’t suck to emphasise that,does it? It doesn’t really feel like twenty-five years to me and to be honest,it’s not as if I’ve had it on mymind for this entire year.It’s just that by the end of last Summer,I looked back on my career and realised it’s been twenty-five years since Jo, Peter, David, Raf, Geert and I got together in that rehearsal shack to become a band and work on songs together.That made it easy for me to couple the release of the ‘XXV’E.P.with it.Also gave me an easy title,haha. (Read more on wwww.peek-a-boo-magazine.be) Xavier KRUTH bandcamp: ahrayeph.be/music / facebook.com/ahrayephofficial www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be
28 Publizr Home