"All About The Album - 15 Questions" - a brand new section at the RockUnited site where any recording artist with an recently released CD is confronted with 'album'  questions (15 of them, duh!). If you'd like to have your material up here, email: urban "at" rockunited.com (simply replace "at" with your standard @ )

ANA KEFR: "The Burial Tree"

ANA KEFR  and their sophomore album, "The Burial Tree", certainly the album that will push these guys over the top and into the spotlight. In fact, right now as I'm typing this short introduction, "The Burial Tree" ranks as #3 best-seller on Amazon (Metal) !!!  Well, it's probably my favourite album of the genre since Extol and their "Blueprint" effort and you'll end up surprised by the band and their ultra sonic sound-wave. It's frankly just a great mixture of everything from Progressive to Black, Death, Trash metal with the odd Jazz  and Arabic music influence. Find out more about the album, the band and their influences, here's their vocalist,: RHIIS D. LOPEZ...

How has the reaction to your latest CD been?

We expected there to be a pretty good response to it, but we've been totally taken by surprise by just how great the reaction has been. 95% of the media reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, we've been given some huge compliments and watched the album reach a lot more people than our first album. Yesterday (May 3, 2011) the album was released and within a few hours it ranked as #3 best-seller on Amazon, above bands that all of us enjoy and admire. It's really kind of surreal right now, I don't think any of us thought the reaction was going to be THIS big. We put a lot of time, energy and money into this album, it's really gratifying to see that every little bit was worth it.

How long did this CD take to make from start to finish, recording-wise?

As far as the recording goes, we began on November 5, 2010. Spent about 4 days recording the drums and fine-tuning the way we wanted the drums to sound (tone, etc). Spent about a week recording the rhythm, lead and bass guitars, two days to record the keys, half a day to record the saxophone and clarinet parts, and then mixing took a few days to find the final sound. All in all, it took a little over 2 weeks, but we spread the 2 weeks over 3 months, ending the first few days of January 2011. We wanted to take our time and have days away from the studio during the recording process so we could take a break and let our ears come back refreshed and more open to hearing what we might miss if we had just been in there 12 hours a day, day after day.

What kind of 'sound', production wise, did you have in the back of your mind, prior to entering the studio?

It was hard to pinpoint one thing. We all think pretty highly of the production of Opeth's last album, "Watershed," the guitar tones and general mix is really powerful, but we also knew that we didn't have access to the budget or all the equipment a label-backed, bigger band has. We entered the studio with the clarity and power of "Watershed" in mind, but I think our album still came out pretty different. Our music is all over the place, so it's kind of an adventure to find the mix that makes it sound right.

What kind of input did the producer have during the process?

David Franklin co-produced the album with us, we all worked together to make the album sound the best it could. David is a drummer, so he has a special interest in making the drums sound as best as possible, along with the rest of the instruments of course. While we were responsible for the writing and final product, David was there at every step to contribute ideas, sometimes to push one of us to do another take to get a part recorded as perfectly as possible. He contributed a lot of ideas to the drumming on the album, actually, as well as throwing out ideas for the other instruments to just round things out a bit. David wasn't there to make drastic changes, he was more of an outside ear and brain to catch us when we stumbled or to give ideas when we were stuck.

And are you pleased with the final outcome? (sound - production wise)

Yes, I'd say we're all pretty happy with the way it turned out. We recorded a single with David before this album, "Tonight We Watch the Children Fucking Burn," so we knew we could expect something good. I think what we got in the end was actually better than what we expected, which is thanks to both David's engineering and the mastering.

Did the producer (you) use any (weird) experimental miking and/or recording techniques?

There are a few things on the album that came about as an accident/mistake/experiment. At the end of Monody, there is the sound of feedback cutting in and out, and that is literally the guitars giving feedback while David was pressing the button to turn the microphone on and off. The sound always reminds me of a satellite in orbit for some reason, it's very spacey and interesting, and David did that without even asking if we'd mind. Thankfully, we loved it! There were a few ideas that we had wanted to try but were unable to because of time constraints, Alphonso (bass) studied recording and had some interesting things to try out that we may end up giving a shot with our next release.

How did you go on about capturing your 'live sound' in the studio, or perhaps you didn't

I'd say the album is and isn't our live sound. The only aspect of the album that wouldn't be our live sound would be the obvious things - Kyle's voice digitally skipping in "Apoptosis," etc. We wanted the drums to sound as natural as possible, as well as the levels of the instruments. Whereas I've doubled up my vocals in the past, there are only a couple of spots on "The Burial Tree" where I did so, and those spots were done that way to give the lines more punch. There was a lot of care given to make sure that this album could be played live, as is, without having to have a million things with us. The album, though at times it sounds like a million things are happening at once, is really just a 5-piece band with keys, and occasional pieces involving the saxophone (and once a clarinet). We will be bringing the djembe into the live experience for pieces like the ending of "The Collector." Rather than rely on sequencers and samples, we want to keep it as real as possible.

Please inform us about your favourite songs and lyrical highlights and why?

My personal favorite songs...it's hard to choose. I'd say "Monody" and "The Blackening" are my favorite songs that aren't as heavy as the others, while "The Collector" and "In the House of Distorted Mirrors" are fun heavy songs. "The Zephirus Circus" is a lot of fun to play. Lyrically, "The Collector" is my favorite, it always gives me this sense of being an insignificant speck of dust in an infinite, expanding universe.

Any overall theme of mood that you're trying to capture while writing songs?

With "The Burial Tree," it is hard to put into words the mood I'm trying to capture. There is this feeling I get whenever I experience something that I know has some profound meaning hidden within it; when the mind is picking up faintly on the significance while, still on the surface, we are trying to piece the details together to solve the puzzle. It is like opening an old occult book and reading some proverb or parable, and being struck silent for a moment, an almost dreadful sense that one is on the threshold of knowing a new frightening truth. Read this short poetic prose by Robert W. Chambers, it always gets me:

THE GREEN ROOM 

The Clown turned his powdered face to the mirror.
"If to be fair is to be beautiful," he said, "who can compare with me in my white mask?"
"Who can compare with him in his white mask?" I asked of Death beside me.
"Who can compare with me?" said Death, "for I am paler still."
"You are beautiful," sighed the Clown, turning his powdered face from the mirror. 

Does your vision for coming up with music get affected at all by time?

No, we actually spent a lot of time working on the material for the album. It's important to us that we spend enough time on each song, even on each riff, to make sure that we're 100% satisfied with the final results.

Did the record company interfere with anything on your "sound" and songs?

No, we are basically self-managed so we have free reign!

Are there any 'crazy' behind the scenes anecdotes from these sessions that you can share with us?

Every day we spend recording has a theme, we did this for our first album and we did it for "The Burial Tree." For example, one day will be pajama day (so Kyle shows up in his boxers...), another day will be hat day (so Alphonso wraps a piece of shipping plastic around his head...). While our music and lyrical content is generally pretty serious, we are all constantly laughing and having fun with it, I think that if you're not really enjoying it then there's no use bothering with it. Recording an album is a lot of work and can be pretty stressful at times, so you might as well have as much fun as you can with it. Each one of us, when it came time to record our instruments, had to come to the studio that day (all 12 hours) dressed in their Halloween costume. I was Death, Brendan came as the Predator (now nicknamed the Shredator), Shane as Pokey from Gumby, Alphonso as a cat, Kyle was a vampire priest. We're constantly making fun of each other and ourselves. We take the band and the music very seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously at all. And anyone who came in to record with us had to go by those rules, so when a journalist from a magazine came in to do a studio report, she had to dress completely ridiculous, much to our entertainment.

How would you describe the sound of your new CD to any potential new fan?

It's like a soundtrack, but it works within a general framework of extreme metal. There's black and death metal right alongside Arabic music and jazz, it's pretty unpredictable but it still works. It can be very violent, but in the next moment very melodic and tragic. It is progressive metal with a totally different twist. Darker, angrier and a bit weird.

Who are your influences and heroes? (music-wise)

Personally, my favorite is Tom Waits, and then Pink Floyd, Mr. Bungle. We all listen to a weird mix of things, and are inspired by a lot of things from Bauhaus to Bloodbath to Radiohead to Killswitch Engage to dubstep techno.

If there's anything you'd like to add, say, please do:

Thanks for the great review and interview!!! :)
Sincerely,
Rhiis D.Lopez/Ana Kefr

Interview by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom,
Photos from the band's website www.anakefr.com
www.myspace.com/anakefr 
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