The recent 10inch release of Dawn & Dusk Entwined on Eternal Soul ‘The Hikimori Songs’ prompted me to finally work on this so long expected interview with David Sabre.
For more than 10 years now, David maintains Dawn & Dusk Entwined as one of the most interesting projects of the ‘Industrial’ scene.
One of the most important references of what is now called the martial industrial is back again with an outstanding edition.
Rui Carvalheira: Why ‘Dawn & Dusk Entwined’? It really sounds more than a simple name.
David Sabre: I was searching for a name that would create a powerful evocation when hearing it, and the image of both a dawn (as birth) and a dusk (as end of something), that form the everlasting circle of life (being entwined) pleased me a lot.
This heathen image of a celebration of this powerful symbols was perfect for me.
A short while after deciding it would be the name, I discovered that this idea was in fact the essence of the rune Dagaz, so I like the idea it was a sign of the Gods!
Now it is even embodied on all the D&DE releases under the form of a particuliar sun.
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Rui Carvalheira: Dawn & Dusk Entwined is a one man project. Everything is done by you. Do you think that it should be a solitary work?
David Sabre: As far as it concerns D&DE, yes it should be. I think it’s the best way to maintain its identity. I am almost sure the addition of another person would bother me at final.
That doesn’t mean I couldn’t work with anyone, but it would be another project.
In this concern, things are taking slowly form with a friend of mine to build something, let’s time make its work and we’ll see …
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Rui Carvalheira: The first Dawn & Dusk Entwined CD was released only in 1999, but with recordings from 1995 to 1997. Why did you take so long to release it?
David Sabre: In fact, I had not thought to a CD release at the beginning, I was only making demo tapes and did not see further than these tape releases, these were still other times …
It is after quite some time, that friends encouraged me to send them to labels, that I took the thing more seriously.
WSD offered me a deal for at least one CD, and I finally opted for a kind of compilation of the first songs, because as time passing by, I was afraid they should sound too ‘old’ after some time. It would fix a first landmark, and in some way, also turn a page.
That wasn’t maybe not the best thing to do for a first release, but it’s done now, and from ‘Remergence’, the ‘real’ D&DE showed its face.
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Rui Carvalheira: In 2000, still on World Serpent, you released your second full length ‘Forever War’. This became quite a political release with all the texts inside about the decline of Europe Identity. Five years later, how do you see those statements?
David Sabre: This second CD sounds a bit harsher than the first one, due in part to its thematic content.
It was in the period when the USA bombed Serbia with the applauses of our western goverments, so I couldn’t remain insensitive to these events within Europe.
Honestly things are not going better in Europe, for the unity is still far from being complete, the European commission prefering to try to make enter a non-european country like Turkey for sheer economic reasons, than fellow people like serbs, croats or russians .
This European community based on liberal principles goes straight to its fate, forgetting willingly a Europe of the peoples that is the only valuable basis for anything.
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Rui Carvalheira: From ‘Forever War’ to ‘Remergence’ three years went by. In 2003 you re-emerge with quite softer sonorities. Why that rather long stop?
David Sabre: I haven’t been inactive for less, since I worked on some compilations like the Codreanu tribute, or the Breker’s one. But I didn’t want to fasten on the new tracks, and take time enough to think about the best way for them to sound. I think the result is quite valuable, with only a few ‘mistakes’ …
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Rui Carvalheira: Again with ‘A Harvest Of Winds’ the new Dawn & Dusk Entwined sonorities stand out. Here even more influenced by some 80’s. What changed in your way to see music that made you modify to render your sound more consensual?
David Sabre: I didn’t think it could be found consensual to be frank, and I think it is not. The songs that form this 10inch were in fact written during the same period, more or less, that the CD, so I consider the 10inch as the little brother of the CD.
It is true you can hear some 80’s references in the track ‘She came from the east’, but no more, and it has not to be taken as a leading trend for the future.
I just think D&DE has not to be closed up in a particuliar definite style and should never step aside, I make the tracks from an idea to the best result I think it should be.
Consensual would be to make like everyone does today, to put big sampled drums forward, 3 notes melodies, german speeches, and runes on the cover .
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Rui Carvalheira: Still in 2004 you changed label again, this time to Eternal Soul. With World Serpent, it is more or less public that they were put out the market. Did anything go wrong with Athanor, or was it a natural change?
David Sabre: There is no problem with Athanor. Simply, the 10inch ‘A harvest of winds’ was being worked out, with some delays, and obviously couldn’t take the charge to release the forthcoming projects without more and serious delays .
I had been in contact with Volker for some time, and he gave me this opportunity to release first a 7inch, then the 10inch, for things went very well with the 7inch.
Many bands release their discs on various labels without having particuliar problems with the previous, and I have never thought Athanor were making bad work, at the contrary, for I know it will always be well done .
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Rui Carvalheira: Your first release on Eternal Soul, the 7 inch ‘Scherzo’, was again a new face of ‘Dawn & Dusk Entwined’. More calm and dense sonorities. Weren’t you happy with the final sound of the Athanor releases?
David Sabre: The Athanor releases have the best sound I ever had, but it is the consequences of the change, make something else somewhere else, a new experience in some way.
I think these new songs had the appropriate sound to appear on ES, relating to what ES had released before.
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Rui Carvalheira: Just out now is your new release; the 10 inch ‘The Hikimori Songs’. In some ways it sounds like a return to the oldest sonorities, with fewer drums but with the tension of the old songs. How do you present these new recordings?
David Sabre: I didn’t see it as a return to some past things, for I always try to look before me, but you are right saying there is a bit the same tension .
Nevertheless, the similarities stop here, for the new ones have a more ‘dark-ambiant’ approach, with different sonorities that were not found on the first recordings. The thematics also move from a ‘traditional’ point of view to focus on more actual problematic, as the Hikimori is a product of a maddening society he wants to quit, and don’t want to be a part of anymore .
This 10inch, as well as the 7inch, are quite special works in the D&DE discography, and will remain as so. This will not a new direction either.
After the ‘Remergence’ CD, I wanted to go on with something different, maybe by fear of being categorized too fast, or not become acustomed to habits .
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Rui Carvalheira: On this recording you mention two names that make me wonder; the musician Graeme Revel and the filmmaker John Carpenter. Why those mentions?
David Sabre: It refers to the composers from who I have ‘borrowed’ the themes I have reworked. John Carpenter is also the composer of many soundtracks of his movies (whom I am not a great fan !) .
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Rui Carvalheira: It looks that now vinyl becomes your favourite release support. Is it an intentional exchange?
David Sabre: It was a very long time I wished to release vynils. One picture 7inch should have been released on WSD in 2001, you know what followed …
Vynils offer more than a MCD, for you can have a real beautiful object with the cover, inserts, etc … It allows you to develop ideas, often different, that you don’t want to make on the full length of a CD, it’s for me another approach of a musical project, as interesting as a whole album.
Of course it doesn’t mean D&DE will only release vynils from now on, the CD support allows maybe more people to easily listen to the music, as vynils are quite expensive to press, and so made in (too ?) small quantities .
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Rui Carvalheira: What about a new full length, are you working on it?
David Sabre: Yes, things work quite well, I have all the tracks selected, lyrics written, demos made …
I will be working soon again on the structures and arrangements, and that’s what remains the most difficult, for I have precise idea of the sound and atmosphere, and it will still take time to achieve this the more perfectly possible .
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Rui Carvalheira: Just out of curiosity, what kind of music (bands or projects) are you listening to lately?
David Sabre: In the stereo recently played Yes ‘Close to the edge’, ELP ‘Pictures at an exhibition’,Japan ‘Gentlemen take polaroids’, or old David Bowie .
Out of the newcomers, only HERR aroused my interest by its originality and skillfullness …
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Rui Carvalheira: And readings?
David Sabre: I don’t read as much as in the past anymore, but I have begun ‘L’arc et la massue’ (‘The bow and the bludgeon’) by Julius Evola, one of his last book.
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Rui Carvalheira: This one may sound like a cliché but I am quite interested to know if you are already thinking of making Dawn & Dusk Entwined on stage. For sure, lack of invitations is not the reason not to do it…
David Sabre: Many have already asked this question, and the answer is always the same, to know I would need motivated people to rehearse and try making something valuable.
I still don’t want to come with a DAT and hide the void behind a wall of smoke or whatever …
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download interview in pdf >
HERE
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