Igorrr: Amen To That
Amen, the latest album from French experimental/breakcore/industrial/metal supremo IGORRR on Metal Blade Records, is everything you would expect from an IGORRR release, and then turned up to an even more extreme and eclectic level. Distorted Sound‘s Gavin Brown caught up with mastermind Gautier Serre to dive into the intensely crazy world of Amen.
We start off with Gautier telling us how happy he is to be releasing Amen. “The response has been absolutely amazing. I’m really happy. When you spend years really focused on something, which was the case here. I spent five years creating this beast. At some point you don’t know where you are. You are following your instinct. You are following the reason why you do music.”
Gautier then details a use of sonic extremity on Headbutt where an excavator is used to destroy a piano. “It’s a very fun thing to do, but it was not made only for fun. The reason why I wanted to use an excavator on Headbutt is before the excavator the track, the last note on the piano was me giving a headbutt on the keyboard. I wanted the piano, which I love very much, to be at the same level as the brutality of death metal bands. So giving a headbutt was cool, but that was not extreme enough. I had to find a way to to make the piano one with the metal, like classical music versus death metal, I wanted the piano to win this fight, so I needed something much stronger than just a headbutt, and we crushed it down with an excavator to have something extreme that cannot be played after that.”
Another unique use of sound on Amen was recording a full choir in an actual church as Gautier explains. “I was extremely grateful. It was an amazing experience, and I got a bit emotional, when I first heard the choir because this has been an album that was in the making for years! So once I started recording with the choir, and I sent them the parts, and we had an appointment with everybody to record the parts. We went in this monastery, and when they started singing the parts that I wrote, I saw my idea being real and resonating in this monastery, having an impact in real life. I got emotional with this switch from theory to the reality, that has been a really beautiful moment.”
Amen also features guests like Trey Spruance [MR BUNGLE, FAITH NO MORE, SECRET CHIEFS 3] and Scott Ian [ANTHRAX, MR BUNGLE] alongside artists like LULU FRAYNE and TIMBA HARRIS. Gautier tells of working with such a talented array of artists on Amen. “They were extremely helpful, and it was a big surprise, but it was really natural and really easy. Those guys, on top of being absolutely talented, genius musicians, they are absolutely gorgeous human beings.”
Talk the turns to the title of the album and Gautier explains his excitement about it being named after the legendary electronic break, after being asked if that was the inspiration. “Absolutely. You’re the first journalist that got the link with that! Yes, it’s from the Amen break. The Amen break is the source of a lot of music that has been inspiring for me. The Amen break is famously used in drum & bass, jungle and breakcore.”
Gautier then explores the links between the Amen break and extreme music, and how it fits in with the music of IGORRR. “For me, IGORRR is my perpetual and infinite quest of my perfect personal music, which includes breakcore and drum & bass/jungle style because it has been a part of my musical background. With IGORRR, I tend to be as honest as I can, and to express music as precisely as it is inside me. So, yeah, I am a metalhead, but I also love breakcore, so for me, it’s natural to mix them together, because they join. The same with Baroque music and death metal, they join. Breakcore is a part of myself, and as I’m being honest in my music, you can find breakcore in IGORRR.”
Gautier concludes our great chat enthusing about IGORRR’s upcoming European tour with MBR and IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT. “That’s gonna be awesome. I can’t wait to be there. It’s a big challenge to reproduce the IGORRR music on stage, because unfortunately for my musicians and myself, when I am composing music, I have no boundaries, and I want to be as complete and honest as possible. So I don’t watch the difficulty and the feasibility of doing that kind of music on stage, and 100% focus on the music itself. I don’t care if it is too extreme, too complicated, or whatever, I’m focusing on the music itself, and we’re gonna find a way to make it live after all. So now we are in this moment where we sit down with the guys in a room and we observe in the music we want to play, and we are watching each other and thinking, ‘what the fuck? How are we gonna play this live?’ Because it’s really complex. It’s a real technical challenge, but it’s always fun when you succeed!”
Amen is out now via Metal Blade Records.
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