Danish experimental artists MEEJAH and HIRAKI have unveiled their new joint single ‘Preserve/Manifest’, taken from their split EP, INTERWOVEN, out 13th March via Pelagic Records.
Stream the single and pre-order INTERWOVEN here: https://orcd.co/interwoven
‘Preserve/Manifest’ derives from an insistent digital beat and the desire to create something genuinely interwoven. Repeated like a mantra – effigy, effigy – the track becomes both mirror and warning. A powerful exterior in constant progression, trembling at the slightest fracture. HIRAKI stands as the primary architect behind the sound and structure. Yet exactly because the track is a true collaboration, MEEJAH’s influence and additions turned the composition around several corners before it settled into its final form. This was further shaped by mixer Klaus Q’s intuitive grasp of the ambition to travel from a swelling heartbeat to a feral distortion hammer.
HIRAKI vocalist Jon Gotlev commented: “The lyrics as well as the track itself balance between preservation and manifestation, where dominance dissolves into intimacy and resistance turns into care. You could almost call it a tense symbiosis of power and control, love and egoism – a kind of simulated driving force rendered as an organic coexistence.”
The INTERWOVEN collaboration has induced a new set of emphases for the two Danish bands, demanding MEEJAH to go darker and heavier, while moving HIRAKI towards an experiment of intertwining complex expressions in a longer format.
The themes on INTERWOVEN spawned in the dark stage room Gloria at Roskilde Festival during a The Ocean concert where Mai Soon Young Øvlisen from MEEJAH stood in the audience, overwhelmed with a fast stream of thoughts before her inner eyes.
Memories of the old East Berlin, the Book of the Dead, the heart weighed against a feather in the afterlife, innocence and revenge – and how the executioner becomes a victim to the loss of their own humanity. When suddenly Loïc Rossetti sat down in front of her – asking her if she was okay – as if he sensed that one day she would ask him to sing with her.
Through collaborations with the LLNN brothers Rasmus and Ketil Sejersen and their industrial, hardcore project John Cxnnor, HIRAKI and MEEJAH met The Oceans light designer Pierre Roi des Forêts – who helped them connect to Loïc.
HIRAKI and MEEJAH decided to exchange artistic powers, common music backgrounds, combined with their shared love for the underground scene. HIRAKI plugged onto the themes – adding their trademark aggressive style, new perspectives, lyrics about malice, control, contradictions and the existential self-awareness of one’s choice to cause harm – and significantly broadened the artistic handprint.
INTERWOVEN is mixed by HIRAKI’s long time producer Klaus Q, and references common influential bands such as The Body, The Armed, Sightless Pit, Massive Attack, Julie Christmas and Death Engine.
Track list:
01. Redirect Revenge
03. Preserve Manifest
02. All Contrast
04. Dead Calls
HIRAKI online:
https://www.instagram.com/hirakiband
https://www.facebook.com/HIRAKIband
MEEJAH online:
https://www.instagram.com/meejahmusic
https://www.facebook.com/Meejahmusic
Click image to watch the video
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