Interviews : “I rethought my purpose in life and what truly mattered…” – an interview with Encircling Sea’s Rob Allen

When it comes to powerful, enthralling music, Melbourne’s Encircling Sea are up there with some of the best. Their nature inspired style of atmospheric metal is the type that sweeps you off your feet; it’s as intense as it is beautiful. With their third album Forgotten Land acting as a bit of a new-beginning for the band (plus a vinyl version on the way), guitarist and vocalist Rob Allen gave us an insight into how the album came to be.

So A Forgotten Land has been out for a few weeks now, and you had the album launch at the Gasometer Hotel (where I discovered the brilliance of The Boy Who Spoke Clouds, so thank you for that). Now that it’s all done and out in the open, what are your thoughts looking back at it all? Are you happy with how everything turned out?

Firstly, I am very glad you enjoyed The Boy Who Spoke Clouds. His set was a truly moving experience.

We are very happy with the finished craft and it is wonderful to finally have this music out in the world. This album is a very personal one and really signifies a dramatic change not only in the band but in my personal life as well. It is a point in time in which we look onward from, that from now on my life and thus that of Encircling Sea will be vastly changed. The hope is that we can achieve a deeper and more profound level of connection within us as the creators and harnessers of that music.

This is album has been a long process that has involved much growth and change and we couldn’t be happier with the musical translation of that period of time.

Your previous two releases, Écru and I, were each one long track. Was it a conscious decision to not follow that trend on the new one, or was it just how the writing turned out?

In a way it was both. The first two albums lent themselves very openly to being drawn out and explored as one long track. When we started writing this record, the first song was written and it didn’t necessarily lend itself to that same idea. Thus we decided to write more and see how it evolved and after writing the second song the album progressed very naturally into what it has become as the writing was flowing with me through this transitional time in my life. The lyrics also came very naturally with each song as they each represent a different state of progression through what is the story of this album.

What are the chances we’ll hear “Become” live? I think I know the answer but I’m hoping I’m wrong…

I think that we would all love to play that song live someday, whether it manifests into action is another thing. The female voice on that song is my wife Ramanee and she is adamant that she will never sing live again and I think that if it does happen it will need to be in all its glory. You never know what the future holds.

Last time I spoke to you, you mentioned that the lyrics were broken into four distinct movements that connect the songs together. Can you talk us through that?

The songs both musically and lyrically tell a story of transition. One that can be viewed both metaphorically or literally. For me, it is distinctively both. I have relocated my life to rural NSW, something that my wife and I have been planning for some years and that has finally come to fruition along with the birth of our first child.

We decided to move our life away from the city to reconnect with the seasons and simplify our lives as much as we could. This process of physical relocation also came with a spiritual or metaphysical side. I found myself connected to a side of nature previously forgotten superficially, yet something that was rooted deep in the core of my being. It was then my task through the writing of this album to connect back to that feeling, that childlike energy of being in nature.

The story travels through that reconnection. The advent of which was the subject of our album ‘Écru’, in form of a spiritual awakening that occurred in the forest. The first track ‘Yearn’ is a deep ache for a new life and a new land, or forgotten land as the title suggests, one that has now connected itself deeply to me and I to it. I spent the better part of two years in despair of the life I was living and the one I knew I wanted to live. Feeling as though in that time, that it was always just beyond my grasp. ‘Transcend’ is that frustration manifest, the song is a battle cry to my own being to make, by any means necessary, this life I craved become reality. ‘Become’ and ‘Return’ are then both celebrations of that life changing process. ‘Become’ being an invocation of the spirit of my new home and its sense of deep timelessness and simplicity. ‘Return’ is the evocation of the beauty and natural grandeur of this special place and a realisation of the true meaning of home.

Since the last album you have moved out of the big city. Combined with that, Encircling Sea’s content, your solo project Vaiya, and the recently launched Natural World Records, I gather that your connection to nature is a huge part of your life?

Yes indeed, as stated with the album, all of this is the musical and physical manifestation of a significant change in life. That connection is something I associate deeply with childhood or like a dream that lingers after waking, a feeling that gets into your bones. Something that stays with you through it all and in my case, it laid dormant in the recesses of my heart for many years through much angst and frustration. It wasn’t until my mid 20’s that the lingering feeling really thrust forth into my everyday life and that was a very significant feeling of being truly lost. I felt like a spiritual vagrant stuck in a land with no nourishment or fulfilment and that feeling turned itself inward to manifest as a deep disassociation with modern life. I thank my wife Ramanee, and my connection to black metal and nature together for bringing me out of that hole. It culminated one day in a subtle and profound moment atop a granite bolder in the middle of the forest. The spirit of Écru’ was born that day, the simple beauty of nature and a feeling of calm seeped into my bones. Quite literally, my life was changed. I rethought my purpose in life and what truly mattered and I began to make the necessary changes to relocate my spiritual mindset and physical life to one that would truly fulfill and nourish not only my own life, but also that of my family, friends and nature itself.

So you’re releasing the new album on vinyl shortly, why have you decided to do so?

‘A Forgotten Land’ was always going to be on vinyl. We have been working with Sick Man Getting Sick Records from Germany and Replenish Records from the US in order for this to happen since before we planned to put it out as a limited run CD. The CD just had a quicker turn around in terms of art and production, we also wanted it to be available at the Summer Solstice show we played. Since then, we have been working to get the vinyl out as soon as we could. These things just take more time then you ever expect.

Vinyl is such a pinnacle of releasing music. It has superior sound and aesthetics and we are all big collectors and fans of vinyl, so it was natural to want to release our music on vinyl too. It would have never had been possible if it were not for our wonderful labels willing to put the time, effort and money into this release.

How difficult, both financially and logistically, is it to get vinyls printed these days?

Financially it is very hard; it is not cheap to release music on vinyl, especially if you want to do a limited run. The per unit production costs are much greater the smaller the run. So it is wonderful to have labels that are willing to commit to something based on their love of the music and format.

Encircling Sea have never been one to flood the live scene, and I gather your location means that shows will still be few and far between, but what should we expect on the live front in 2013?

Shows will certainly be fewer and farther between this year and for all the years to come, that said, it certainly doesn’t mean we will never play live. With the DLP version of A Forgotten Land being released this month we hope to do some more shows and get around the country a little bit in support of the record. Shows are taking a back seat due to my relocation, but it is also to preserve that which we hold in highest regard, the energy and that is the essence of an Encircling Sea live show. The fewer shows we play, the deeper we feel the importance of creating the right energy for us within the live setting. When we played a lot of shows we felt that energy diminish, so the preservation of that takes the highest priority.

Speaking of your other projects; you started the label Natural World Records to release A Forgotten Land through. Why the decision to launch your own label?

I had been thinking about starting a label for a while and never really thought it would ever come to fruition. The main reason behind the label is to give all the musical projects I am involved in a home to release music in small runs and high quality packaging, and also to maintain control of the quality of the presentation and production. I aim to be able to reach further into the realm and include some of my good friends under this umbrella too but I will be taking things slowly and making sure I don’t just release things for the sake of it. It has to have a connection for me, something I can truly grasp onto in a meaningful before I would even consider putting it out.

Can we expect any other releases through the label anytime soon?

This month I am releasing The Boy Who Spoke Clouds brilliant new album ‘Secret Corridors Lay Outside The Walls’ in a run of 100 CDs housed in a beautiful printed cloth package. That will hopefully be out by the end of the month.

I will be releasing a new Vaiya album hopefully in time for the Winter Solstice and also another project of mine called Warmth, which is a dark, neo folk project I have been working on for a couple of years and I plan to record the album soon with Adam from The Boy Who Spoke Clouds at his wonderful studio, The True Vine in Pascoe Vale, Victoria. That will likely see the light of day for either the Winter Solstice or the Spring Equinox. I hope to have some other releases this year too, from people other than myself.

The best way to keep up with what’s happening is to follow Natural World Records on Facebook. 

How about your ambient folk project Vaiya, what’s happening there at the moment?

Firstly, I’d just like to say Vaiya is not folk exclusively. [That’s what happens when you only listen to 20 minutes of a 27 minute track – Ed]  Black metal and ritual energy are the basis of Vaiya, and folk and dark ambient play large parts. However, it varies based on the release.

I will have a new album out in time for the Winter Solstice, it is a conceptual and ritual based album telling a story of the fading of the sun and fallowing of the earth as we move into the winter. I have used words based on a Pagan ritual rite that invokes dark energy and celebrates the night. I also have plans to release a split with a very good friend of mine from the states but details of that will have to wait.

To finish up, who are three Australian bands that your fans should check out? 

Spire – The most interesting black metal band in this country. Pushing the boundaries of what ambient black metal can be.
http://sspiree.bandcamp.com/

Abre Ojos – Meditational soundscapes and transcendental visual animation entwined into a beautiful and profound dreamlike journey.
http://abreojos.net/

Soil and Ash – A good friend of ours crafting wonderfully dark folk, blackened doom and ambient black metal sounds.
http://soilandash.bandcamp.com/

The CD edition of A Forgotten Land has sold out, but the digital album (plus vinyl soon) is available from Bandcamp.

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