Consecration old interview (september 2004)

Consecration
(Danilo Nikodinovski, guitars, vocal)

H&H: What’s new in Consecration? I see you have some new members…

Danilo: Well, yeah, it’s pretty workaholic these days… We’ve finally decided to become serious, haha!


H&H: I’ve noticed that the keyboards are now more in the background than before. The guitar and the voice are the biggest stand-outs.

Danilo: That was the whole idea in the first place, but we had no luck in achieving it before. Now it’s ok.


H&H: Your sound is quite heavier nowadays, there are less technical parts and more depression. I can finally say you are a doom band now!

Danilo: Thank you! I’m glad one can hear what we wanted to achieve. Of course, we don’t want to corner ourselves into a doom territory, but we surely wanted to get away from the technical parts. Yet they are still present, in small bits and pieces...

H&H: You exist for 3,5 years and I am into your work since the Spring 2002. For the time being, with every line-up change I  was always getting the impression that you were becoming a new band. Have you found yourselves finally?

Danilo: Well, honestly, we were finding ourselves with every new line-up, and the search is not over yet! With every new change we become a new band, of course better than the previous one.


H&H: We await the final mix of your second official demo... What took it so long?

Danilo: Took it so long to record or to mix it? We recorded these two songs in two days, but the problem was with our producer, blEQ, who has lots of things to do beside recording and mixing and plus he can be really foolish sometimes. But we cannot do the mix without him. With time I guess we’ll become more confident in mixing our songs ourselves.


H&H: In the versions I heard on the radio there were 5 guitars playing simultaneously.  How to make that sound live, without losing its magic?

Danilo: It’s all in the energy, to make that vibe live, it doesn’t matter if there is a whole symphonic orchestra on the album or just one string of an acoustic guitar. Many people come to me to tell me that it would be great for Consecration if there could be another guitarist for the live shows, but honestly, I haven’t met here anyone yet who could play that guitar properly.

H&H: Does the music you create fulfill you or  make your emotional state more difficult? It is pretty fucked up to trade emotions for concentration during live performances… 

Danilo: It is hard to concentrate on vocals only when the music you create demands high volume, strength and preciseness. These days I’ve been watching the Opeth gig from London and even Mikael, who sings and plays guitar million times better than me, has some difficulties to concentrate on clean vocals while there are 2x200 watts wall-shaking distortions behind him...


H&H: Your songs are pretty original. Sources of inspiration? Music, everyday life, massive hangovers? Absinthe thoughts?

Danilo: Everything that surrounds us. It can be some quote from a movie, or a sentence from a dear person or some other band that I love… Or simply a pure alcohol hehe…


H&H: Influences?

Danilo: Isis, Katatonia, Opeth, Slowdive, Sigur Ros, Anathema, Nick Drake, The Gathering, In The Woods, Neurosis, Radiohead, Block Out, life in Serbia, everyday injustices… The list goes on, and that relates to my previous answer actually.

H&H: Don't get me wrong, but there are less and less people on your concerts (which shows the [bad] taste of the ‘audience’). Do you wait to finish the album and then plan to do a bigger promotion?

Danilo: We won’t wait for anything, the plan is to play live as much as possible. We plan a couple of shows in the future and we won’t leave the stage without at least an hour of playing.


H&H: What is your opinion about domestic bands and ’attempts’ of bands? It seems you’re not too enthusiastic for any co-operation…

Danilo: On the contrary, we are! It is good to have domestic bands, but not too many of them. The quality must prevail. We like Tibia, Draconic, Interfector, I like what is Magma doing, we wait finally to hear new Abonos... I had an opportunity to hear the unmixed version of new E-play, and it sounds very very good.

H&H: You had a couple of gigs out of Belgrade (Ruma, Novi Sad, Obrenovac)... Do you think that this type of music can be accepted in smaller places?

Danilo: The most important thing for us is to play live, the best we can, anywhere they invite us. It’s good for small towns to have any kind of gigs, the only thing is that there are not many people who will come to the show.


H&H: Do you consider your playing of music seriously, or we shall see students looking for jobs on the institutes in five years from now?

Danilo: It is a Don Quixote kind of struggle, but we are enthusiatic. Everything I play, I play seriously. But I doubt I could ever live off that. It remains to be seen, and the most important thing is that more and more people come to the shows, otherwise everything is in vain.

_
Interview by Biljana Zeković
(09.09.2004.)

setlists:
Obrenovac  27.08.2004.

1. Berchek
2. Absinthe Thoughts
3. Christ Goodbye (Saturnus)
4. Passage
5. Shelter (Me)

Filozof, Beograd 25.09.2004.

1. Berchek
2. Absinthe Thoughts
3. Christ Goodbye (Saturnus)
4. Passage
5. Cliffhangers
6. Aimless
7. Forgotten Hopes (Anathema)
8. Destiny Is Dead (Anathema)
9. One Last Goodbye (Anathema)
10. Shelter (Me)
11. Everything Is Coming Up Roses (Black)
12. eMotion