Late last year Melbourne post punk/industrial act, Kollaps, released their darkly brilliant debut full length, Sibling Lovers, arguably their most accomplished piece of work to date.
The band has just planned to embark on an extensive European tour which covers 13 countries, while one of those dates include an appearance at WROCLAW Festival in Poland, alongside topnotch acts like Pharmakon, The Soft Moon, Blixa Bargeld & Teho Teardo and Monolith.
Given the chance of the tour announcement, we had a chance to ask Wade Black, the band's vocalist, a series of questions about Kollaps and their future plans.
The sound of Kollaps is not very easy to pinpoint, as it brings together many different styles and diverse sounds. How would you describe it yourself?
We intend Kollaps to be a difficult, emotionally driven listening experience. Sonically our band has intentionally taken a very postmodernist approach with the creation of its music in the sense that we have taken influence from a variety of different artistic places to create something new. It is industrial music intended for degenerates and outsiders.
How much of an influence was the first Einstürzende Neubauten LP for you? How did you end up picking its title for the band's name?
Quite influential. It took awhile for us to find our own sound and during the inception stages we were performing as a post-punk band with only very light industrial leanings and hence initially we didn’t mind the association as the reference was far less significant. The decision on the name came simply due to the Einstürzende Neubauten LP being made around a time that a lot of inspiring music was being created, a lot of music made during this period is music that we generally gravitate towards. As we began to take an interest in noise and industrial music more specifically the name became more relevant to us in a more personal way, particularly as we began to collect and assimilate much of our instrumentation from dilapidated environments. It was only when we began actively pursuing the appropriation of scraps and bits of junk that the name began to truly take on a personal meaning to me and encapsulate a meaning of industrialism; the making of music with literal parts of degradation and societal collapse. Kollaps became an accurate descriptor to what we perceive as our current dystopian situation both internally as people and what we are currently seeing both politically, socially and environmentally.
What else would you list among the band's main influences?
We’re influenced by a lot of traditional industrial music such as Throbbing Gristle, SWANS and Chu Ishikawa. Pharmakon’s Bestial Burden is a modern industrial work that influenced me personally. I’m also influenced by non-musical arts such as the miserable playwright Sarah Kane. Japanese butoh is also influential to the band aesthetically despite us not physically replicating this on stage we do share similar sentiments and ideas about love, life, age and death.
How has the band evolved since its early days?
The biggest evolution in our sound happened in the moment we began ex-communicating cowards and time wasters from our circle. At one stage we had even seemingly become addicted to firing one another which also became another problem that we had to overcome internally. Having Damian join the band in 2016 was a significant game changer for us as having him bring his previous experience gave us a firm sense of direction, this was applicable mostly to us as a a live band as for a very long time early on in the piece Kollaps would very rarely finish a full set without equipment failures, things falling apart or having someone turn the power off on us.
How different was the creative process between the first EP and the latest album, Sibling Lovers?
The process behind the Heartworm EP was comparatively innocent to that of Sibling Lovers . We had no real ambition or focus and I believe that it is quite evident on the tape that we had no idea what we were doing. This changed significantly during the writing process of Sibling Lovers where things in my personal life began to become extremely dark and I began using Kollaps to facilitate the documentation of my emotional distress. I began intentionally making bad decisions and sabotaging many aspects of my life in order to achieve a genuine feeling of darkness and turmoil on Sibling Lovers.
What's the weirdest, most unconventional non-instrument you have used in a recording?
You would most likely get a different answer on this depending on what member of the band you asked however I feel that the most strange instrument I used personally was the recording of a drum machine being turned off and on, ironically this was used as a drum sound. I still find that the metal coil Damian plays on stage to be the most unusual thing generally. Every time I see it being dragged somewhere, whether into a studio, the back of the van or on stage, the sensation of being somewhat bewildered by it has never worn off. Honestly, we used an acoustic guitar on one of our most recent recordings which felt very unnatural to us. All the scrap and junk has began to feel comparatively normal to work with.
How different is Kollaps as a live act compared to what we're getting on record?
Quite different. During our live performances we intend to exhibit the unspoken desires and frustrations of our inner lives and celebrate the grotesque, beautiful and confusing experience of being human. The stage allows us another medium to issue challenges to expectations of social conduct in Western civilisation and through violent behaviour, self mutilation and on stage moral exorcisms we are allowed to more thoroughly explore the artistic concepts behind Sibling Lovers.
What made you decide it was a good time for you to plan and embark on such an extensive tour?
A tour provided us with the opportunity to escape the blistering and unforgiving heat of an Australian summer of which the three of us equally detest. We were also invited to Wroclaw Industrial Festival last year and felt that it was a good idea to plan an extensive tour around this festival seeing as that we would already be in Europe.
What should we be expecting from Kollaps in the near future? Can you share anything in relation to upcoming releases?
We will be releasing a new 7 track LP called Mechanical Christ in early 2019.
You had two songs of yours included in the sci-fi/horror film Upgrade. Is scoring movies something that would interest you to do in the future?
Yes, absolutely, given the right film… We’d be very interested in scoring a film. Our songs were obviously not intended for Upgrade initially so given the opportunity to creatively contribute to a film would be an avenue of composition that we’d all most certainly like to explore.
You have shared the stage with incredible acts like Youth Code, Brighter Death Now and Mortiis among many others. What other acts would be on an ideal bill with you included?
Currently we’re very grateful to be performing with a lot of bands and acts that we collectively hold in high regard. As I mentioned, Pharmakon is an act that I have great admiration for so our show with her at Wroclaw Industrial Festival in Poland and in Arena Wien in Vienna are shows that I’m very enthusiastic about. I know that Damian was pleased to be playing with Neurosis’ Scott Kelly/Mirrors of Psychic Warfare of whom we were unexpectedly billed alongside at Kapu in Linz, Austria. To name a few potential acts we’d hope to perform with on future bills… Genocide Organ, Psychic TV, Uniform, Godflesh, HTRK, Daughters, Anenzephalia and King Dude.
Kollaps European Tour Dates 2018
Thu 25 Oct - Brussels, Belgium - Magazin 4
Fri 26 Oct - Hamburg, Germany - MS Stubnitz w/ Brighter Death Now
Sat 27 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Mayhem
Sun 28 Oct - Stockholm, Sweden - Slaktkyrkan
Mon 29 Oct - Malmö, Sweden - Babel w/ Brighter Death Now
Tues 30 Oct - Aarhus, Denmark - Tape
Thur 1 Nov - Poznań, Poland - LAS
Fri 2 Nov - WROCLAW INDUSTRIAL FESTIVAL w/ Pharmakon, Clock DVA, Blixa
Bargeld
Sun 4 Nov - Łódź, Poland - Klub Dom
Mon 5 Nov - Warsaw, Poland - Chmury
Tue 6 Nov - Ostrava, Czech Republic - Jeden Teg
Wed 7 Nov - Zagreb, Croatia - Kset
Thu 8 Nov - Ljubljana, Slovenia - Klub Gromka
Fri 9 Nov - Vienna, Austria - Wien Arena w/ Pharmakon
Sat 10 Nov - Bratislava, Slovakia - Klub Fuga
Sun 11 Nov - Kosice, Slovakia - TBC
Mon 12 Nov - Hungary, Budapest - Lumen Kavezo
Tues 13 Nov - Miskolc, Hungary- Tinta
Wed 14 Nov - Trnava, Slovakia - Kubik
Thur 15 Nov - Linz, Austria - Klub Kapu w/ Hide
Fri 16 Nov - Prague, Czech Republic - Underdogs’
Sat 17 Nov - Berlin, Germany - Urban Spree
Mon 19 Nov - Frankfurt, Germany - INM Bunker
Tues 20 Nov - Kortrijk, Belgium - The Pit’s
Wed 21 Nov - Cologne, Germany - MTC Cologne w/ Hide
Thu 22 Nov - Lille, France - Imposture Bar
Fri 23 Nov - Paris, France - TBC w/ Trepaneringsritualen
Sat 24 Nov - Antwerp, Belgium - Het Bos w/ Trepaneringsritualen
Sun 25 Nov - Rotterdam, Netherlands - WORM w/ Trepaneringsritualen
*Dates subject to change
Top photo by Photoyunist
ZR