Sopor Aeternus
Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble of Shadows ( lat. Sopor aeternus "eternal sleep", "sleep of death"; English ensemble of shadows " ensemble of shadows"), just Sopor Aeternus for short , is a music project by the singer Anna-Varney Cantodea that has existed since 1989 (Latin cantare ' to sing' and dea 'goddess'). In addition to instrumental and vocal music , Sopor Aeternus also produce photos , choreographies and other artworks . Anna-Varney Cantodea sees herself as the focus of her work.
Cantodea
Anna-Varney Cantodea mostly shuns the public, which is why little is known about her. She grew up as a boy , but appears in nude photographs with female genitals pasted into the computer because she sees herself as a woman. She generally lives as a woman.
Cantodea founded the Sopor Aeternus project in Frankfurt in 1989, which initially had major financial problems. She speaks English and German at a native level and has knowledge of French and Latin .
Anna-Varney Cantodea is apparently a sympathizer of active euthanasia, vegetarianism / veganism and animal rights - the official homepage linked to the PETA website .
Theoretical background
With Sopor Aeternus, Cantodea aims at a process of autotherapy and the artistic confrontation with oneself. Her goal is enlightenment or the final elimination from the cycle of life-death-rebirth in which she believes. Their primary motivation comes from pain and suffering, from which they seem to have an immediate need for expression. She wants to show the honesty and truthfulness in the dispute.
Sopor Aeternus see themselves in a philosophical tradition with Arthur Schopenhauer's theses ( subjective pessimism ), which strive for redemption in a similar form. In terms of music theory , Cantodea wants to follow Richard Wagner's ideas (see The Work of Art of the Future ). Above all, she sees the connection between herself and Richard Wagner through the ideal of a total work of art through reciprocal references within the work. She sees the equivalence of text, music and images, which should form an inseparable unit.
She explained her way of working in an interview: Cantodea does not always start with the same aspect of a song, but usually begins with the title and believes in a hidden connection between text and music, as these are assigned to one another, i.e. they only use certain instruments may in order to remain truthful.
Individual or several publications together are self-contained in terms of content (for example, I killing myself ... is generally to be seen as a forerunner of Riding Es ... ), but also contain cross-references to other publications.
Until 2013, Cantodea only gave written interviews in order, according to its own statements, to derive new perspectives on its own work from the questions. On September 28, 2013, the first audio interview in the entire history of the band was published. In particular, correct reception is never important . According to their own statements, Sopor Aeternus only publish to share their own findings from this process.
Content
Like her self-image , Anna-Varney Cantodea is constantly developing her content, dealing with them and their weighting.
death
The theme of death appears in all of Sopor Aeternus' works. In particular, suicide , reincarnation , euthanasia , necrophilia , the undead and the loss of a loved one should be mentioned. Opinions advocating the right to suicide can also be found on the website; including a link to the website of Dignitas .
Examples are the songs See, My Beloved - Here I Have Poison ( Dead Lover's Sarabande I ), Dead Souls ( The dead ride so fast ) and Dance of Cruelty ( Death Wish - Sous le Soleil de Saturne ).
Transsexuality
On the album Todeswunsch , Cantodea deals with its own gender and distinguishes between biological gender (i.e. genetic , gonadal and genital) on the one hand and spiritual gender (i.e. identity gender ) on the other. In particular, the songs Drama of Sexlessness I and II , Sister of Selfdestruction , Feralia Genitalia and Anima I and II can be assigned to this topic and the topic of suicide. From 2007, however, songs such as In der Palästra or Architecture II , as well as interviews, allow the interpretation that this phase has been overcome and that Cantodea has found a normalized and especially humorous approach to her gender identity .
music
The music of Sopor Aeternus cannot be assigned to any particular genre. It often moves between songwriting and chanson , but also includes film score , dark ambient , neoclassical and medieval elements (e.g. on "May I Kiss Your Wound? - Saturn: Orion", "suicide fantasies") , "The Goat" or "Do You Know My Name?"). Anna-Varney herself referred to it in early interviews as "Medieval Doom Folk", but today uses the term "Music (k) for dead children and otherwise wounded souls" due to the lack of a suitable genre and considers herself one of the last representatives of true Gothic. Further influences are used with different emphases on the albums. For example, on the publication Songs from the Inverted Womb predominantly elements of early music , especially the Baroque , are used; Electro-pop elements were increasingly used on the La Chambre d'Echo release . Cantodea thinks the current age of digital music is particularly exciting, because in her opinion you can work “with the best of all worlds” and bring in aspects of the entire history of music.
Frequently used instruments are trumpet , horn , xylophone , spinet and dulcimer . The use of church organs and church bell samples is also characteristic. Cantodea herself uses her voice to produce various sounds such as singing, whispering or croaking.
photography
Since the album Es reiten die Toten so Schnell (2003) Anna-Varney has been working on the artwork with Joachim Luetke , who is also responsible for the artwork for bands like Dimmu Borgir , Rage and Destruction . For the album La Chambre d'Echo , Sopor Aeternus produced a 128-page booklet with glossy recordings in collaboration with Joachim Luetke.
Video clips
In 1992, the short filmmaker Marcus Stiglegger shot recordings for a video clip cycle together with Anna-Varney at the Nordfriedhof Wiesbaden, in the cemetery gardener's house there, in a Gothic club, in a forest near Dieburg and at the Mainzer Hauptfriedhof. The recordings disappeared for over 10 years in the archives of the Trisol label, until the release of the box Like a Corpse Standing in Desperation gave the chance to finally assemble the planned clips from the material. Under Cantodea's guidance, several thematically related short films were made.
Trivia
Together with the musician Constanze Spengler alias Cuirina , Anna-Varney recorded an album of the same name under the name Nenia C'alladhan , which was released in 2002. This is often referred to as a side project of Sopor Aeternus, which the two deny, however, as the cooperation is only intended to promote both. In addition to the main project, Sopor Aeternus published the two Black Sabbath cover versions "Diô Narâp" ("Paranoid") and "Tabôr C'alan O'itanâ" on the (out of print) sampler Jekura - Deep the Eternal Forest under the project name White Onyx Elephants in 1995 "(" A National Acrobat "), as well as the two pieces" Introduction - The Termite People "and" Deep the Eternal Forest ". Further cover versions are “Modela est” (On Voyager-The Jugglers of Jusa ): Original “Das Modell” by Kraftwerk , “Abschied” (On Dead Lover's Sarabande II ): Original by Nico and “Le théâtre de la blessure sacrée”.
The rapper Bushido uses on his album " Vom Bordstein bis zur Skyline " (2003) for the songs Dreckstück and Asphalt samples of the songs See, my lover - here I have poison and Hades "Pluton" from the Sopor Aeternus album "Dead Lovers 'Sarabande (Face One) ”.
In August 2005, Like a Corpse Standing in Desperation , a box set that was limited to 3,000 pieces , was released that included early demo recordings and various merchandising items. In addition, since the end of 2007, separately available merchandising articles have been officially sold for the first time, albeit with a limited range of products.
The album "Sanatorium Altrosa", which was released on April 28, 2008, was released in two different versions: a "Deluxe" and a "Collector's Edition". According to the Internet shop, Infrared, both versions were sold out within a week 8 weeks before the official release.
The album "POETICA - all beauty sleeps" is the first album by Sopor Aeternus that is based entirely on the setting of poems by Edgar Allan Poe . Existing implementations as well as poems that had not been set to music were newly composed.
Discography
see also list of songs by Sopor Aeternus
- 1989 - The dead ride so fast (50 copies lim. Demo tape)
- 1994 - … I kill myself again and again, but I am immortal and I rise again; in a vision of doom ... (1000 copies lim.)
- 1995 - Jekura - Deep the Eternal Forest (Sampler)
- 1995 - Death wish - Sous le Soleil de Saturne (3000 copies lim.)
- 1995 - Ehjeh Ascher Ehjeh (3000 copies lim.)
- 1997 - The Inexperienced Spiral Traveler (3000 copies limited and from 2004 unlimited)
- 1998 - Voyager - The Jugglers of Jusa (3000 copies lim.)
- 1999 - Dead Lovers' Sarabande - Face 1 and 2 (3000 copies limited CD box and from 2004 unlimited; 500 copies limited LP)
- 2000 - Songs from the inverted Womb (3000 copies limited CD box and from 2004 unlimited; 666 copies limited LP)
- 2002 - Nenia C´Alladhan (collaboration with Constanze Spengler)
- 2003 - The dead ride so fast - or: The Vampyre Sucking at His Own Vein (1999 copies limited CD box and from 2004 unlimited; 666 copies limited LP box)
- 2004 - La Chambre d'Echo - Where the Dead Birds Sing (2000 copies limited CD box and from 2004 unlimited; 666 copies limited LP box)
- 2004 - Flowers in Formaldehyde (2000 copies on CD)
- 2005 - The Goat / The Bells Have Stopped Ringing (2000 copies lim. 12 "vinyl)
- 2005 - Like a Corpse Standing in Desperation (lim. Box)
- 2007 - Les Fleurs du Mal (3000 copies limited box and unlimited)
- 2007 - In the Palaestra (DVD)
- 2008 - Old Pink Sanatorium
- 2009 - The Goat ... and Other Re-animated Bodies (DVD)
- 2010 - a STRANGE THING to say (1999 copies limited EP (CD + DVD))
- 2011 - Have you seen this ghost? (1999 copies limited box (CD + DVD); 693 copies limited LP)
- 2011 - Children of the corn (1999 copies limited set (T-Shirt + Digibook); 693 copies limited LP / release: November 25, 2011)
- 2011 - Imhotep (407 copies limited maxi single; 307 copies limited vinyl single)
- 2013 - POETICA - all beauty sleeps (2000 copies limited set (CD + book); 890 copies limited LP / release: 19 September 2013)
- 2014 - Midnight - The Dark Night of Soul (1999 Ltd. Set - CD + book); (890 Ltd. 2x12 vinyl set); (Ltd. Collector's Set - 2x12 vinyl + T-shirt); (Ltd. Collector's Set - Book + CD + T-Shirt)
- 2018 - The Spiral Sacrifice
- 2019 - Death & Flamingos
- 2020 - Island of the Dead
All publications about Apocalyptic Vision. (Belongs to the Trisol Music Group ) Because of the strong limitation, which was relaxed on September 24th 2004 by a re-release of all albums by Sopor Aeternus, there are still many plagiarisms that were mainly produced in Russia.
The first three official CDs (Es reiten…, Todeswunsch, and Ehjeh Ascher Ehjeh) were re-released in 2012 as vinyl editions.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Sopor Aeternus website: Battle Helm Interview, 1999
- ^ Sopor Aeternus website: Gothic Interview, 1999
- ↑ Interview: Orkus No. 12/01 December 2002 / January 2003 ( Memento from June 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Cover songs List of cover versions and music quotes in connection with Sopor Aeternus
- ↑ Discogs: Apocalyptic Vision