Crescent Lament 官方部落格　

2012 Interview about Crescent Lament: by French Musical Website “Kochipan” (Original English Version)

更多關於該訪問的介紹 / More information about this interview

1-For people who would discover you today could you present Crescent Lament and its member ? 



Crescent Lament is a Gothic metal band from the island country of Taiwan in East Asia.Founded on 28 February 2007, we have taken part in several large music festivals in Taiwan, such as the Whale fight-Round 2 and Formoz Festival in 2008, and was invited to perform as the opening band in Lacrimosa Sehnsucht World Tour Live in Taipei and Chthonic’s World Tour in Taipei in 2009. After releasing two singles, Crescent Lament and The Forgotten Winter, we released our first all-English album Behind the Lethal Deceit in November 2011.

Crescent Lament is a septet group consists of the following persons: Muer Chou (soprano vocalist), Komet Chou (drummer and composer), Warose Chen (synthesizer and grunt vocalist), Wick Hsu (bass guitarist), Wat Chiu (guitarist), Taur Yang (guitarist), and Heven Chang (violinist). Members of Crescent Lament all come from different walks of life — physician, counseling psychologist, electric engineer, business manager, and musical engineer. While most of the members are not fulltime musicians, we try to create sparking music with our diehard passion for Gothic metal.

2-If you would have to describe your musical style how would you do it ? 


We hope to portray the shadowed side of humanity and conflicts through Gothic metal music; we wish to create the profound, splendid, dark, and beautiful atmosphere through describing the mixed emotions of cruelty and tenderness deep inside the human heart.

This is what Crescent Lament is all about—the feeble light of the crescent moon is the last bit of hope that people could rely on in the quiet and dark night filled with negative emotions!

3-Listening to your songs we have the feeling to be balanced between dark and light, between soft and hard. What did you want to express through it and how do you work to create such atmosphere ?



Before answering this question, we want to make a brief description about the history and current situation of Taiwan:

“In past centuries, Taiwan had been ruled by several bloodthirsty colonial powers and have been through exploitations by authoritarian regimes, making her an island filled with sorrow from historical conflicts. Although Taiwan may appear to be a civilized and free society, she is still deeply troubled by ethnic tensions that resulted from repression and manipulation of the past. More over, while Taiwan has long been a sovereign and independent state, it is still rejected by the United Nations due to continuous threats from China, and the 2.3 million free people are still orphans in the international community.”

In other words, because of the complicated history and its unique position in the international community, Taiwan is still searching for the balance between its sorrowful past and the unknown future. With the melody that is sometimes exciting, yet sometimes modest and sad, our music is to portray the rage, the shouting, the disappointment, and the little bit of expectation within the minds of the free people of Taiwan.

4-Taiwan music is more known for its pop and rock waves. How did you come in Gothic Metal music ?

We’ve decided to become a Gothic metal band because, first of all, we love the strong contrast in this music style and the refined melodic atmosphere. In addition, we believe the essence of Gothic metal music is very suitable to recount Taiwan’s own stories that are full of sorrow and conflicts.

We’re interested in making songs that portray the contradictory relationship between the bright and the dark sides of humanity, as well as the struggling and the pain of the ordinary people. In our debut album, we wanted to express how the Taiwanese people faced exploitation, threats, and negative emotions.

5-Taiwanese audience could have encounter you thank to your live sessions like in Formoz festival. 
What kind of memory do you keep from it and how you do you prepare these events ? 



The 2008 Formoz Festival is one of our most unforgettable performing experiences! We performed at an outdoor venue on a hill—under the stormy weather and lightening because Taiwan was hit by Typhoon Phoenix as the festival took place. At first, we were worried that the event would be cancelled due to the weather, and that we would lose the opportunity to perform. But thanks to help from the festival organizer, the concert continued despite the weather. What really touched us was that, when we got on the stage that was a little bit shaking due to the strong wind, there were hundreds of people in the audience, wearing raincoats and waiting for us to sing. Under the stormy weather and the pouring rain, both us and the audience fully enjoyed Gothic metal music. Furthermore, when we played the last note, a thunder hit as we ended our performance, and the audience just broke into rounds of applauses! We were all wet because of the rain and the sweat, but we were all burning inside.

Because the audience in Taiwan has always been so passionate, we take each performance very seriously. In order to have a perfect performance, we would start rehearsing and designing the concert three months in advance, hoping to give the audience a perfect impression of the band.

6-How did you come to choose English language than Mandarin for your songs? 



Since the beginning, Crescent Lament has been writing songs in English, the reason behind is simple, but sad. Taiwan has been excluded from the international community and the voices of the Taiwanese have been overlooked due to continuous military threat from China. We wanted to tell the world about the free minds of the Taiwanese through borderless music and lyrics in English.

7-What is the process of song's creation ? 


Since we want to talk about the conflicts in humanity and the conflicts that Taiwan faces, we would come up with a storyline behind the music before creating the music. For instance, in Behind the Lethal Deceit—a conceptual album that describes the tragedies in the wartime, we would have a story first, and divide it into different sections like how you would do with movies. Then, according to different scenes in each part, we would write songs that correspond to the emotions in each section. Because of the way we work, some listeners have told us that they feel like seeing a movie playing in front of them when listening to our music.

At the moment, all songs are composed by the drummer Komet, who connects the music to the story as well as make the arrangements. Later on, each band member would help to fix the details to complete the songs. For a conceptual album, the “one-man composition” would help to make music more harmonious, but we do hope that in the future, all of us could brainstorm together to compose something richer.

8-You've released your first album in november "Behind the Lethal Deceit", 4 years after your creation. What did you do during these two events ? 

 

During 2007 to 2009 when the band was in the initial stage, we wrote songs in a fast pace, recorded singles, and took part in concerts to accumulate experiences and build up connections. At the same time we designed our Web page, our logo, and other promotional materials, hoping that, with music and visuals, listeners could better understand the message that we’re trying to deliver to them.

From 2009 to 2011, when other members were serving their compulsory military duty, we stopped performing in public, and began to record the album Behind the Lethal Deceit. It was our first attempt to create a conceptual album, so we spent much time discussing the storyline, revising the songs, and put out much effort to create a lyrics book that looks like an illustrated story book. To celebrate the release of our debut album, we had a tour around Taiwan, and received great feedbacks from the listeners, making us feel that we’ve accomplished something wonderful after four years of hardwork.

9-This album is a concept about war. What stories inspired you to write it and what did you want to share with your audience through it ? 



As mentioned before, Taiwan continues to face military threats from China, and that, according to Pentagon, China has deployed more than 1,000 missiles aimed at Taiwan! The Taiwanese, hence, have a growing craving for peace. While the war in former Yugoslavia that happened in the 1990s may seem unconnected to Taiwan if seen from geographical and historical aspects, the political and ethnic conflicts behind the cruel war are similar to what Taiwan faces today. Hence, some researchers have published in-depth articles comparing the situation in Taiwan and in former Yugoslavia.

Because of this connection, we tried to use Yugoslavia’s example to stress the ignorance in use of force, and the preciousness of peace through the sad story in our conceptual album Behind the Lethal Deceit. Everyone talks about peace in the present world, however, the word “peace” means much more to us who are actually facing military threats.

10-Reading to your previous interviews you seem to carry on Taiwan's pains. In the past decades how thing evolved in Taïwan and do you think music can have an impact on the island's situation ? 


 Taiwan doesn’t have a long written history, however, it’s filled with sorrow. Half a century ago, the Chinese Nationalist Party (also known as KMT) regime fled to Taiwan with its troops from China after losing the civil war to the Chinese Communist Party. With a large army and police force, the corrupted KMT—which had killed a lot of Taiwanese during the 228 Massacre—tightly restricted the freedoms of thoughts and of expression through a 38-year-long Martial Law rule. The Taiwanese were prohibited from speaking their own languages, and were forced to speak Chinese; they were banned from learning about Taiwan’s history, rather, they had to study Chinese history.

After the Martial Law was lifted, the Taiwanese seemed to finally have freedom of thoughts. However, ethnic conflict is still around under the table. Transitional justice never happened in Taiwan, the perpetrators of the 228 Massacre and the White Terror Period were never sanctioned, and justice was never done to the victims. The KMT, which is to be blamed for the repressions and killings, is still Taiwan’s largest political party, and the richest political party in the world. In other words, the hate and the problems between different ethnic groups are still around.

But we’re still happy that music has started to change some of the issues. The well-known band Chthonic sings original Taiwanese songs in the Taiwanese language, and recounts Taiwan’s history. Numerous other bands summoned the free will of the Taiwanese, and carry on the Taiwanese culture.

The soul of Taiwan, which was excluded by the government in the past, changed the ruthless attitude of the government, making them to start to respect the voice of the people.

11-How do you see the Gothic metal music evolution in Taïwan ?


In Taiwan’s history of music, metal is not the mainstream, and Gothic metal is even less common. Before the birth of Crescent Lament in 2007, there have been less than five Gothic metal bands in Taiwan’s music history. So, there’s actually not much to talk about when speaking of the development of Gothic metal in Taiwan, and Gothic metal fans often feel very lonely in this country.

Since Crescent Lament is the most active Gothic metal band in Taiwan at the moment, we hope to create meaningful music with connections to Taiwan’s history and current status, so that more people could be attracted into this unique filed of music, and enhance development of Gothic metal in Taiwan. 


12-What are your next projects and do you have a message for French audience ?

Behind the Lethal Deceit is our first conceptual album, which attempts to show the world the military threat that Taiwan currently faces. In following music works, we plan to tell Taiwan’s history, while adding elements of traditional musical instruments, and dig deeper into the covered sorrowful past of the country. During the Great Navigations, Portuguese sailors called Taiwan “Ilha Formosa”, meaning “the beautiful island”. Crescent Lament hopes to compose more music unique to the island, for the world to see Formosa again.

Many thanks to Dimitri’s invitation and interview, we’re very honored. We hope that, one day, we would have the opportunity to perform music from the beautiful island of Taiwan in the beautiful country of France.