Interview mit Aort von Code

The last album was six years ago, in the meantime you have released two EPs. What do you like about the EP format?
In all honesty, the EP format is not my favourite.  The main focus will always be the albums but the EP is sometimes useful to share ideas that do not deserve a full album’s worth of attention.  I would view them as curios rather than formal parts of our discography.  For me, our discography really comprises our demo and five albums.

Why did it take so long to finish a new album this time?
The creation of the EPs following ‚Mut‘ took a good amount of time. We didn’t really feel ready to attack an album at that point so we took some detours before we focused on the album.  Making an album is a huge time and energy investment and we find we need to be ready to commit to that seriously.  The album itself took three years from the beginning of writing to the release of the album.  This is just how long it takes us.  We don’t release albums lightly.

Your new Album is entitled „Flyblown Prince“ – whats the meaning oft hat title, what is it about?
The album title stemmed from the track ‚Flyblown Prince‘ which is an abstract story of a killer’s mental disassociation and unreality.  The Prince of corpses if you like.  This isn’t the theme of the whole album but it does reflect the angst ridden tension and aggression of the album as a whole.

The artwork is quite eery and dark – was it painted for the album, following the atmosphere of the music, or did you chose an existing artwork? In the second case: Why does it fit perfect to your album?
Yes the artwork was created for the album, and we couldn;t ask for a better piece to translate the feeling of the music.  We sent demos of the songs to the artist for inspiration and this was the image that she created.  The sense of inner tumult and desperation in the image reflects perfectly the feel of the album.

The music is quite rough and black-metal-ish this time – that’s quite surprising since your last album „Mut“ was more avantgarde or post/prog metal then black metal. What made you change your sound once again so fundamentally?
There is never a grand plan with our progression.  It just felt right to return to the sharp, angular and metallic core of our music.  It might seem counterintuitive to an outside, but creating music in CODE is a very organic process.  There is no goal or direction – we follow our intuition and our intuition told us that this was the album to make.

As an artist, do you think about the fact that with a second such blatant change of style you could lose fans that you gained with the last album?
That is always a risk, but we have never created music with the goal of gaining or retaining fans.  Of course it is delightful to hear when someone enjoys our music, but if we were to create music for that purpose, I think the fans we do have would soon detect this and leave us.  I like to think that people like our music for it’s honesty and while they may not liek the changes in style, the honesty is still there.  People that like our music tend to appreciate a challenge too so this may help our cause as well.

To me it actually sounds like it’s the real successor to „Resplendent Grotesque“ – especially the vocals are extremely similar to Khvost. Was that intentional, did you want to go back to that time and orientate yourselves on your first albums?
I think in retrospect I agree with you.  It’s closest companion would be ‚Resplendent Grotesque‘.  It is certainly not a direct copy – the scope of ‚Flyblown Prince‘ is much more extensive and of course Wacian writes in a very different way to Kvohst.  The album wasn;t created referencing ‚Respledend Grotesque‘ in any way but it is essentially the same person the wrote the music and the music lends itself to a certain vocal tonality so there is always likely to be some readacross.

What surprised me a lot is the mix, but especially the mastering – the album is much quieter than the last ones (or albums from man other band), and also sounds a bit thinner (at least then „Augur Nox“). Why did you decide to do it that way?
We didn;t reference other albums when we made this album so the production needed to fit the songs on it’s own merit.  The days of the loudness war are long gone I think.  That ended up being a case of mutually assured destruction.  To me, the mix of Flyblown Prince is far superior to Augur Nox.  I think everything is much more audible and sharp on the new album so I would say I am entirely pleased with how it came out.

At least in Europe, Corona seems to be losing its threat at the moment, do you think it’s over? Are you already thinking about live shows again, or is it still too early for you to plan in this regard?
It isn’t over yet, and complacency is our collective worst enemy.  A misguided step forward will mean two steps back.  I do think we are heading in the right direction, and better times are in sight, but we need to stay on the course and do the right thing.  There is no time for scaremongering or alterior motives.  We would like to plan for some shows but it is simply too early at the moment.

Besides the music – did you use the concert-free time to get a new „Corona hobby“? What do you do with all the free time that has been created by the loss of shows?
The same as I always have done – I create music.  Flyblown Prince was a huge time investment and I am also involved in numerous other projects.  Corona made no difference to me in material terms – I worked and I made music.

Thank you very much for the interview. Let’s wrap it up with our traditional brainstorming:
Last album you listened to: Plaid – Polymer
Who will win the Fifa EURO? I can only hope that it is England, but I doubt it.
Darkthrone: „Under A Funeral Moon“ = apex black metal.
Brexit: A total unmitigated disaster based on misinformation and personal agendas.  A national embarassement.
A food that always makes you happy:  Not a food, but coffee is always my friend
CODE in 10 years:  Hopefully still creating music that we can be proud of.

Once again thanks for your time. The last words are yours – is there anything left you want to tell  our readers?
Thank you for the great interview Moritz, I really appreciate it.  To your readers, thanks for taking the time to read this interview and please do check out our new album ‚Flyblown Prince‘ – it is the product of sweat, tears and stress and we hope you enjoy it.

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Publiziert am 4. August 2021 von Moritz Grütz