#existentialists

- greetings, vif and bes, and thank you for taking the time out for this interview with me. first of all congratulations on the new release, “sentimental craving for beauty”. there's an inherent sense of desolation and sadness that is quite obvious in your music, among other nice factors. your songs are full of contrast like life itself: melancholy, pain, anger, joy, dark.... what was your state of mind like while composing your songs? is veiila your way to deal with these feelings? is this a kind of catharsis or has nothing to do with it? didn ́t your soul and heart hurt when you write them?

vif: thanks jose. it was a hard time for us. there was no way to cope with reality anymore and out of this entrapment the album appeared. i think we wanted to capture this pain in its raw state and try to transform it into something beautiful. bring it to a place where beauty has all the meaning in the world and you can look upon it and find something that will help you to go on with your life. definitely, the process of making this album helped us to cope with some of the depressions we had... anyway, music for us was never a place where we just played the instruments or exercised the vocal cords; it has always been something bigger for us. a place where we can be free and open to the extreme. essentially a place where we can find beauty.

bes: by the way, this is an interesting touch, how you list desolation and sadness as “nice” factors. from this statement alone i can say that we're on the same wavelength. i think all art comes as the artist's way of dealing with life (at least art as we see it), so yes, this album for sure was a catharsis in many ways. we never felt adjusted to reality, but in the last several years reality took new, completely absurd shapes and the maladjustment on our part became tenfold more acute. of course it is no secret that these songs are full of pain. i can only hope that this road of pain at least had some destination, that we managed to work out some of those feelings and turn them into something beautiful, as this was always our goal and our striving: to convert pain into beauty. whether we achieve it or not, it is not for us to judge, but for my part i can say that both the process and the result had sense. call it a therapy, a search for enlightenment or an existential journey...

- you had composed some songs that in the end i think you didn't record for this second album, is that right? how do you feel you evolved artistically with your recent songs? i also wanted to ask about another thing, so actually what were these changes that you introduced and how influenced these changes with the songs?

bes: we have quite a few songs that didn't make it into the album and a lot of those songs that are in the album were actually completely re-written and re-recorded during the process. we sort of had the idea of this album for a long time and at some point we even considered it ready, but life was throwing stones at us at the moment, making us jump through hoops, so to speak, and i think it gave us the opportunity to take a step back and detach ourselves from our work for a while. and when we had a more peaceful time, when we could sit back and reflect, it just turned out that we could no longer associate with what we heard in that version of the album. i look at it now, in the retrospective, and i think we grew artistically, emotionally and intellectually during this time (not a modest thing to say, but i hope it won't come out as blatant show off). what i mean is: we went through a phase of change and also a rectification. we rectified our aspirations, our artistic goals and we came back to square one, but in a purer shape. if 18 months ago we still felt some anxious urge to say something socially relevant, later on we came back to the idea of “art for art's sake”. that is: we realized that we just wanted to express our souls in the most basic way, by conveying the human feelings that we felt, not reflecting on social events or the state of the world. what i'm trying to say is this: when the outside world (which we always tried to ignore, to be honest) swept us away, we lost the ability to ignore it for a while, but i am proud to say that we didn't succumb to writing slogans or commenting on the news reports and in the end we pulled ourselves out, took a step aside and just wrote music. i see it as personal growth.

also on the technical side of things (and i think it has the same philosophical undertone of detachment from the “real” world) we reconsidered many things. with this album we focused more on the music (melodies and harmonies), rather than production and sound-design. this is also something that was therapeutic in effect, as we reverted to a more natural way of composing music, oldschool in some way, with less post-production and more actual musicianship. and i hope we'll explore this path further on, because it was very rewarding.

vif: i think we evolved drastically with this album. not in the least because we approached songs in a new and different way. but the most important thing, i think, was that we were able to dissolve in the process and get the best that we had inside of us at the moment. and by the best i mean the strongest feelings and emotions.

- does a sunny day inspire you to create music? are there more gray days than blue days? what motivates you to continue composing?

vif: any day is good for creating music. i don't think that there's ever a question of should i create or not. it's always out there on the table. another question: do i have the motivation to get out of bed or not? if i do, i know what to do, i don't need to wait for inspiration. it's always around in this or that shape.

bes: honestly a sunny day inspires mostly to take a hike. i guess i am more inclined to be inspired by clouds, fog and rain. but i don't think it's a determining factor. it's a hard question to ask, what really motivates us. i think this is just something that is as natural for us as breathing or sleeping. if we can't devote enough time to music for this or that reason – this is when we feel wrong.

- often i ask musicians about the music they listen to and many times they don’t listen to the genre they play. are you among them? could you tell me about the musical education of people involved in veiila and their background, by the way?

vif: i listen to different genres of music. if music moves me – it's all i need. so it isn't really that important what genre it is.

we are self made musicians. my creative path started with writing poetry and trying some melodies on the old piano that we had in the house. when we met with bes, this was, essentially, the moment of understanding what i wanted to be, and in what direction i wanted to move.

bes: i'm not entirely sure i know what our genre is, this is always a tricky thing to figure out, but i think it's safe to say that what we listen to finds reflection in what we write. we love many different artists in many different genres, from electronica, to jazz, to rock, to classical, and honestly genre is irrelevant. what's important is the feeling and whether the songs speak to you personally.

as for our background, it's actually funny, now when i think about it, that long time ago, back when we only met each other and started our first band, vif played the piano and i played guitar, and now the roles are reversed. but none of us formally studied piano, guitar, production or sound-engineering for that matter. we are strong believers and advocates for self-education.

- the title of “sentimental craving for beauty” is taken from galsworthy's forsyte saga. that trilogy is a magnificent portrait of english society in the last third of the 19th century. what’s so special about this literary work for you? are you guys influenced by poetry, painting or movies?

vif: it is a great trilogy written in a beautiful language. i remember showing some lines out of this book to bes and this line in particular stuck with us for years until the glorious moment came when we were ready to merge those beautiful feelings that these words recalled with our music and to create something new. i think we gravitate to anything beautiful. be it poetry, movies, paintings... i don't think i can live a day without something inspirational of this or that kind. you know, as sensitive souls we need a good bubble to survive in this unfriendly environment which is real life.

bes: honestly it's a line that means something personal for us. even though vif picked it up from this book, the title of the album is self-contained and i would steer away from connecting it to the forsyte saga in any conceptual way. not that there is anything wrong about galsworthy or his work of course. it's just that we don't want our music to be in any way politically or socially connected to anything. and once you start talking about society (and we've done that in some heated emotional moments) everything becomes acutely relevant, meaningful. the last thing we want is for someone to see our songs as some kind of a slice of the time, a snapshot of the current events. no, on the contrary, for us “sentimental craving for beauty” is the most pure aspiration. in this way we are always influenced by art, literature, music, but the most powerful impressions are those left by the works of art that are the least contextualized. and most personal too. i mean, one can talk about the portrait of the english society of a specific era in "forsyte saga". but one doesn't need to be aware, and concerned with it really, to appreciate the beautiful writing and to feel compassion to the basic human drama. the brilliance of the literary, musical or other artistic masterpieces is in their ability to speak directly to the soul in the language of feelings. great art doesn't have to be contemporary, doesn't need the manual to understand it. sure one can appreciate galsworthy deeper if you take the history into account, just like one can appreciate, say, orwell's “burmese days” deeper if one knows the devastating history burma or bulgakov's “the master and margarita”, when knowing the context of soviet oppression of the intellectuals, yet not knowing the context didn't prevent me from being completely taken by “the master and margarita” when i read it for the first time being a teenager or being practically smashed to the ground by “burmese days”, while when i started reading it, i'm not sure i even knew what burma was. and in this regard i just hope that the music that we write can speak to someone just as it is, without one needing to know the context. in this regard the sentimental craving for beauty (the feeling itself) is the driving force behind everything we do.

- it seems that most bands don't want to talk about certain topics. and in this way be politically correct. so it ́s much easier to write about fictitious worlds and empty talk. reality is always harsher than fiction, isn't it? does it bother you that there aren't more bands writing lyrics committed to our society?

vif: in my world art is above news. certainly some events can't be ignored and they get through your system anyway. they hurt you, ruin you, change your entire world – and as this happens your art changes too. but i wouldn't want my art to be a set of slogans – it's already too much shouting everywhere, too loud, from every corner. i think perceptive people need something more mysterious, some place where they can be free for a moment, where they can dive in and dissolve. just for one beautiful moment - this is the kind of art i appreciate. art which is free of logic, gliding on the surface of our dreams.

bes: it is a strange time we live in. from some point, as we mentioned, we try to avoid direct social references, but for the reasons personal and artistic, not for the sake of being politically correct. i think it is a very bad tendency that people need to self-censor. don't get me wrong, i don't see anything bad in phrasing yourself the way that you would avoid offending someone or hurting someone's feelings. tact and ethics are the most important factors, as i see it, in human communication, and i for my part, don't like to allow myself unfiltered emotional outbursts (and yes, it happens from time to time). but restricting oneself from expressing one's opinion is not a solution. unfortunately i think we live in a world dominated by lesser minds and the lesser minds are prone to shouting, blaming and throwing stones. either internet bullying or “canceling culture” are equal symptoms of intellectual decay. and when i see intelligent people falling into these traps, saying things that the lowest common denominator wants to hear, or silencing themselves in order not to hurt the feelings of “the stupid multitude” (it's actually the term that i picked up from the 18th century poetess mary alcock), that is when my heart really bleeds. to put it short, for me the only thing worth saying is the truth. the truth is absolute and universal. of course the truth isn't always known and in search of it we will make mistakes. but when we start avoiding or silencing truth – this is the beginning of the end.

- i think people don't think much now. everything is just a click away. every day that passes we have less to think about because everything is given to us. the science fiction of the 1960s where machines ruled over humans seems a little closer now, isn't it? are we condemned to be slaves or is there still a chance to get out of this?

bes: you're preaching to the choir, my friend! we spend hours talking, discussing and heatedly agreeing with each other on this subject on a daily basis. i don't even know if there is any way for us to get out of this sticky situation that we call progress. i mean, you can't stop it. you can't stop people from asking google every silly question, instead of using their own brains to answer it, because it is there, it's available and it's easy. everything we have now, that is everything the progress gave us, is designed to relieve us from thinking, deciding, choosing. if it goes this way we'll just turn into some creatures, no better than pigs raised for slaughter. in fact, open the news, see the war reports, brain-washing propaganda that gets less and less inventive, and it seems that the majority are already there. i hope i'm wrong, i really do hope it's just an anxious pessimist talking inside of me. but everything seems wrong. i read “the glass bead game” admiring this version of the future and i ask myself: what went wrong? weren't we supposed to develop the intellect? weren't we supposed to grow, to become smarter, wiser, more aware, more compassionate, more humane? why does it seem that we only become angrier, shallower, sillier, less inclined to analyze and quicker to judge? i can only blame progress. sometimes i think the renaissance ended with industrial revolution, with equalization of society. alas, now we have it: shut up, consume and serve the algorithm. it looks even worse than what vonnegut described in the “player piano”.

vif: i also don't have a very optimistic outlook on life in this regard. but i know for sure that there are people who resist drowning in this virtual madness. who share the same views on art and life, the same “slow” appreciation of the world, if you will. they are not many, but it makes them precious even more. everyone shouts that you have to get millions of likes here or millions of views there and if you don't then you're some kind of a loser. but i think that a few real like-minded human beings who can feel our music can make us much happier than millions of faceless accounts, by-passers who don't really care.

- i don’t want to get into your personal life, of course, but i know that you have and are still suffering from the effects of russia's war against ukraine. how’s your life nowadays? do you prefer the isolation, avoiding contact with others or you like to be surrounded by people?

vif: well, it depends on the mood and chance pretty much these days. the war doesn't stop. apparently, no one can do anything to stop it otherwise it would stop already. thus on my part there's not much belief in humanity... but we had a few concerts in december and it felt wonderful meeting like-minded people.

bes: to be honest, we always preferred isolation. nothing changed in this regard. like any proper introverts we can be carried away in conversation with one like-minded person (this interview is the proof of it), but when we are surrounded by the crowd of people, we inevitably start calculating the escape path. as for the effects of war – it is still extremely painful and mentally devastating. but i think the capacity for suffering is finite after all and i notice that we start drifting into neverland again. i mean we check the news less often, what happens with society in russia feels now more distant, less acute, less surprising. of course the whole thing is utterly horrible, but after almost two years of it you start realizing that you can't change anything, that people don't want to listen to the voices of reason, that hatred prevails and at this point it all looks like some alien life from another planet. or maybe it's we who are from another planet.

- what is your environment like?? how can this affect your music? do you think that you're based in other city or country your music would sound different? why/why not?

vif: we live high in the mountains now. it's so beautiful here that i can sit in front of the window and dive into this beauty and melt down in these mysterious fogs. some days it's so quiet that it doesn't leave any options but to dive into creativity. on the other hand with our impulsive natures some days it drives us nuts and we want to move, to play, to manifest all the energy that we've collected. i don't know what our music would be like if we were in a different location but sometimes you don't have that much of a choice and you just take what is there for you... and there's always some light to be found...

bes: yes, the mountains and forests here are beautiful and serene. and i do believe that it affects us in a good way. sometimes we walk in the mountains and looking around it seems fascinating and astonishing that nature can exist in such serenity and peacefulness for centuries. it puts our ridiculous human life into perspective. a day doesn't go by without some human calamity, drama, disaster, tragedy or something else. yet a tree in the forest can grow for hundreds of years in perfect harmony with other trees, the moss, the grass, the birds and insects. this is something worth thinking about.

- as soon as “sentimental craving for beauty” was released projekt records also made it available as free download on your homepage. why do you share it for free? aren't downloads killing music in some way? do you think that the real devotion for the music is about the content and the feeling, and not the format? it becomes harder and harder to sell music in physical format.

vif: well, the thing is that music is already practically free for everyone. it's not that important. it's just a matter of convenience for some people. and the physical format is more of the elitist or collector's format, even though i still fondly remember the times when it was so enjoyable to pick a cd at a store. to touch it, to enjoy the artwork, to give yourself space to hear the whole album.

bes: but we agreed to accept the world as it is and to move on. because, yes, everything is free anyway. you can listen to any album for free on spotify or youtube, but at least we can hope that if one downloaded the album from bandcamp they will listen to it in the best quality and the least disruptive way, without being lured into the matrix by “suggested content” and all that. as for the physical format being less popular, that's only logical, not many people have the equipment to play cds or vinyls. it's all in the cell phone now. i think we are going through a transitional phase and i hope that the real art appreciators and the real artists will stick with each other in real life, while the rest, for whom music is just some background ambiance, will surf through streams of generated “content” and never notice anything. good riddance if you ask me.

- i really like your "dive" ep but it sounded more optimistic, at least musically. am i wrong? for example the wonderful song "set me on fire" is a very danceable track, although the lyrics are quite uneasy. can you tell me about that particular song, please? thanks.

vif: well, you got that right. we were completely different people at the time. people who didn't touch yet the darkest fabrics of profound depressions. i feel quite disconnected from that ep. it was transitional in many ways and i would say juvenile. but i still like the song dive...

bes: huh, maybe it is more optimistic... i too really feel so disconnected from those songs that it's like some other band to me. “set me on fire”.... yes, we were into dance music. it's funny, it just feels like not us at all. frankly speaking we don't play any of those songs anymore. i can't even judge if they are good or bad.

- close your eyes and tell me... a)what animal do you imagine? d) a toy of your childhood. c) a film soundtrack which strikes a nerve. d) a place you have never been to before and would like to visit.

vif: a) eagle d) hippopotamus and a stamp album c) schindler's list d) any new place would do

bes: a) cat b) strangely, can't remember any particular toy c) max richter “on the nature of daylight” from arrival d) grand canyon

- i’ve read that the band's name is a reference to a demon (or a siren?) that lures men into its cave by singing and then devours them. i love it!!! throughout history, magic has played a primordial role, both to dominate and surprise as well as to deceive, trick and bend wills. in the field of personal relationships, especially in love, numerous characters played the role of witches, soothsayers and counselors, influencing interpersonal relationships, both with the use of aphrodisiacs and spells, poisons and black magic ceremonies, aimed at obtaining the love of disdainful lovers, innocent young people. do you think witches and love/hate spells still exist? if so, how do you think they work today?

vif: i like the idea of magic. some days are filled with it and it feels wonderful. and if witches are there they work as they should in mysterious obscure ways which you can only feel but not fully understand.

bes: that's interesting. i'm a bit of a rationalist, my brain tends to be mathematical. so it is unnatural for me to state anything that i can't provide an obvious evidence to. that being said, i want to believe, with all my heart, that magic exists. wouldn't this make this world a little bit more fun?

- almost all the covers of your releases are photos of vif. is there a specific reason for this? they are really beautiful.

bes: thank you very much. i believe that art and the artist's personality aren't separable and that a human connection only strengthens the connection with the art. this way when someone sees a person on the artwork, and then listens to this person's voice this makes one listen more attentively, more personally. maybe it's not like this for everyone, but it is so for me.

- vif, bes, what are you afraid of?

vif: some things. but i strongly believe that speaking about one's fears doesn't help anything and only makes fears bigger and uglier.

bes: i was brought up with the notion that fear is unworthy of a man and even if some think this idea is outdated today, i think that fear is something one must conquer in one's personal inner battle.

- ok. i would like to thank you for your willingness to answer my questions. wish you lots of health. do you have any last words for our readers? and for the human race?

vif: thank you, it was our pleasure. i'd wish for all peace and beauty.

bes: it would be nice if people took more time to reflect and think for themselves. the rest will fix itself!

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