Interview: Aborym

Industrial metal act, Aborym, have released a new album entitled as Shifting.Negative.
About the new album and other stuffs related to Aborym, here is an interview I had with Fabban, mastermind of Aborym.

Nice talking with you again Fabban! Here is Aborym with a new release under the name of ‘’Shifting Negative’’ and as I’ve listened to it, I realized it is more dark. How was the writing process of the album?
The main purpose was to create textures and spaces that had some sort of acoustic element that could be mixed with more synthetic sounds. I loved morphing the two worlds together and tried to create these sonic environments. Which I call Industrial music. I grew up in the era of digital recording and I started making records in the early ’90s. Basically, Pro Tools had just come out, and the early generations of recording software were available. And they were affordable to me in a way that analog technology was not affordable to me. So, I learned my trade, so to speak, in the digital domain. And I think I got pretty skilled at making records sound good within that domain. If you put me in an analog recording studio, I wouldn’t have a clue of what to do, and that’s the truth. And I do go into analog studios with almost all my records to do the main performances. But I always hire an engineer who knows exactly what they’re doing. That’s why I’ve hired guys like Guido Elmi, Emiliano Natali and Marc Urselli, who did the latest records and is John Zorn’s sound engineer, among the others. That’s what I know, and that’s what I’ve grown up with. Apart from the set of basic work ethic of saying ok I’m going to go to my studio today and I’m going to try writing some music. Apart from That I do not know where the music comes from and I do not know why sometimes it does and sometimes it does not come as. I have days where, I have weeks, months I have, where I try to write music and nothing comes. And all I just write is complete garbage. Or I write Stuff that sounds like stuff I’ve written before Already Which is something I do not like to do. I like to know I’m always moving forward so I have given it a time When I can not find any inspiration at all and I do not really understand what it is That makes the difference. I think for me, part of being creative is about being curious about the world. Curious about what’s going on in the news, curious about what’s going on in your life, curious about other music, about movies, about literature, about other artistic media. I think remaining very curious and very open about things is imp to me. And I think the other thing is that’s always very important to me is I do not like the idea of writing generic music. I’m always looking for music That would be beyond That Kind of generic classification. I know I’m not interested in writing pop music or metal music or progressive rock or jazz or ambient music. What I’m interested in is mixing them all up together and finding something unique, you know Which is uniquely mine, to my musical personality and my musical voice. So I think that’s the important part of the process, but That took a long time. It took 3 years or so of writing music and some of it not very good to find my own musical personality. I approached this record the way I approach all my records, so I start to write music and I make demos that communicated to the other members what I wanted the band to do.. The difference this time is that I allowed a lot more space for accidents and I used to disassemble and assemble the songs many times.. I created the music of this record combining different machines, playing modular synthesizers, custom hand-made instruments, softwares, VSTs, plugins, some old analogue synthesizers and drum machines..for example a TR-808 and a TB-303 or an ARP 2600. I did 90% of everything based on the combinations and the physical interactiion of the instruments: so playing them, shaping them, changing parameters, patching. It’s an entirely different therapeutic experience you have with this instruments, like playing a guitar, or something that is emotionally connected to your brain and your hands. It’s similar to painting or drawing for me… So the music comes out with different moods through different layers. It’s a mixture of what we learned with the electronics, with modular synthesizers, sampling and HD recording and of course everything is mixed with a metal, rock, alternative and punk hidden soul.

Does SN lyrics have a story?
I just wrote my thoughts on some pieces of paper in the last 4 years. Some lyrics are parts of my deep thoughts, they are excerpts of my life.. very bad periods I was trying to survive surrounded by lots of problems, alcohol, seclusion and a very bad mood. “Precarious” is one of those… I also wrote about the feelings like missing something you once cherrished, the dreams fade away into nothingness, leaving only a faint memory of what once was considered perfection. But every so often, they come back, without warning. I wrote about the feeling when you are tortured by memories, dreams of the love. Not wanting to forget, but knowing that if you do not forget, do not let go, you’ll go insane wanting them. Also, about the dreams turned into nightmares, love forsaken, betrayed. All the dreams have gone wrong, stuff like that.. Other lyrics deal about the fact that people are unhappy and disappointed. If we’re not happy, we measure our unhappiness against the fact that we have a finite amount of time on Earth in order to be happy. We invented the myth of religion and God and other fairy tales about the afterlife and God. That’s not the only thing we’ve done in order to get comfort. Alcohol, drugs, and one could even argue culture itself, are all things done to distract from being reminded about our own mortality. The gift of life is a wonderful thing, but it’s also a tragic thing for many many people. I think the planet is ruled by very few people and I see two big containers: one for class A people, one for class B people. I think there is a plan for the world devised by a American, British, Russian, European and middle East financial elite of immense wealth and power, with centuries-old historical roots. This oligarchy controls the politicians, the courts, the educational institutions, the food, the natural resources, the foreign policies, the economies and the money of most nations. And, they control the major media, which is why we know nothing about them. Modern democracy, as we know it, is less than 250 years old. For most of history, except for this brief period, the world Has Been ruled by powerful elites who wielded absolute power over their societies, controlled the wealth and resources of their known world, and dominated their people by force. Those people cabal plans to restore this model of totalitarian rule on a global scale. So, I wrote some lyrics about that. “Decadence in a Nutshell” for istance, same for “You can’t handle the truth’’.

What was the feedback for ‘’Shifting Negative’’ so far?
Pretty good actually.

On this album are feautering some guests, can you name them?
Sometimes I invite people, sometimes they ask me to be part of a record. I like to work with different kind of artists anyway and as far regard Shifting.Negative I decided to work with professional sound engineers and sound designer to get the best sound quality. Guido Elmi was hired to be our post-production supervisor, not as a musician then…To work with worldwide artists it’s such kind of tradition for this band… Sometimes they ask me to work for our records, sometimes I ask them to do that.. sometimes everything happens without forcing events… It was awesome to have mr. Sin Quirin from Ministry, a band I follow since I was a teenager, Ricktor from The Electric Hellfire Club.. mr Davide Tiso of course..  Pier Marzano did some super-cool job with his guitar solos too.. Every time is something really cool and I feel stoked.. the work and the details of the electronic and industrial structures of “SHIFTING.negative” were treated to an almost fanatical level and the result is very, very high. Emiliano Natali was hired to be the engineer, the same as in “Psychogrotesque” and “Dirty”. The thought process was that I wanted to make a record that had a quality associated with a lot of different styles. I needed the craziest sound engineer to do that, that’s why we chosed to work again with him eh ehhh. He was always open to input from us as to which takes people liked and which solos they felt best about. Emiliano is an excellent bandleader as he knows what we wants, but is down to earth and does not have a huge ego.

When Aborym was founded, in the first albums the sound is different, more black metal elements, later on, Aborym became an industrial metal band, still with the black metal elements, what can you tell me about these changes over the years?
I grown-up a lot, fortuanlly. I don’t deny my past, but I feel good right now, both as a man and as a musician. If I look around the music business and I see people is in a state of devolution, going backwards, getting more stupid (I think about black metal, for istance.. or the return of thrash metal from the 90es and I think about hundreds and hundrends of band with the same style and the same sound.. death metal for istance) and I wonder if the lack of courage and enthusiasm  can’t be blamed for why that is the case. I just see a toxic environment in the music business and I feel very lucky to be a big fish in a small pond. I don’t have a particular master plan or career plan. I never really have. What’s important is that everything I do be interesting to me and everything I do comes from a totally free approach and attitude and it comes with sincerity.

Think about 3 industrial bands/artists that you consider to be Aborym’s influence.
I love that first explosion of creativity that came to be known as industrial music. No-one ever referred to it that way back then. That first generation of musicians grew up as alternative metal and metal musicians and suddenly discovered the possibilities of pop music, industrial msuic, synth music and so on. It was a one-time situation that could never be repeated, because now, everyone listens to Einsturzende Neubauten, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails. Everyone knows that stuff, including rock and metal musicians. But during the emergence of this genre, for one brief moment, we had musicians who started playing industrial music that grew up entirely outside of that genre, existing almost exclusively within rock and metal. Suddenly, they were working on music with no map. They didn’t really know where they were going. They were just doing what came naturally. I loved that whole collision of influences and cultures at that time. And that’s where I’ve arrived with my own music. I’m trying to recapture that feeling in what I do today. That’s why I love ’Shifting.Negative’’.

You are the one who founded Aborym, how do you see all these years with Aborym till present, with all the lineup changes, the albums, fans etc?
That’s definitely a new beginning for this band, especially because I’ve a combo of musicians to work with now… I feel very good in working with those talented musicians and close friends. I don’t deny the past, but I never felt so good like now.

What are the next plans for Aborym?
Doing rehearsals, writing new material. We are going to release the “Something for Nobody Vol. 1” very soon. Details are behind the corner.

Thank you again Fabban for the interview and hope to see you soon!
Thank you!

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