There were rumours and conspiracy theories saying that according to ancient prophecies in fall 2015 the world will end. Once again. Lucky people of Vienna, that have the perfect soundtrack for this with German outfit Warm Graves playing live at the Waves Vienna festival. Warm Graves‘ music, often described as apocalyptic and dark, evokes a hypnotic atmosphere by using pulsing rhythms, thightly woven soundscapes with a lot of reverb and a distant choir instead of lead vocals.
But behind all the emotional weight and layered melancholy in their tracks, there is this really soaring, uplifting feeling that makes the music of Warm Graves so mesmerizing. Attracting a lot of attention with the release of their debut album „Ships will come“ a year ago on THIS CHARMING MAN RECORDS and by playing loads of gigs with Moonface, The Soft Moon, Crystal Stilts or Efterklang, the trio will be part of the Waves Festival Vienna, playing live on Friday the 2nd October at the Badeschiff. Don’t miss this as well as our talk with the band. You can also stream their whole album below. Apocalypse now!
Your sound is very hard to pin down genre-wise, what are the musical inspirations behind your productions?
Our main inspirations were taken from Science-Fiction literature and movies, much more than from any musical genre or band. Ever since we started out we’ve been trying to define a sound for ourselves much more than focussing on other productions. Obviously theres a lot of music that has inspired us throughout our lives, but it would feel rather strange to cut all these influences down to a list and a funny thing about true inspiration is the fact that most of the times you cannot define where it actually comes from.
There‘s the label „sci-fi-delic“ on your facebook profile, the title of your debut album is „Ships will come“ …where did this fascination for science-fiction come from?
What we find fascinating about science fiction is the way it bends our perspective on reality and very often sets up a distant view up on mankind. Weather it is a surreal twisted story or a precise futuristic idea, it feels like every good Science-Fiction work is questioning reality as we know it.
Your music is often described as post-apocalyptic and dystopic. There were ancient prophecies about september 2015, where according to those prophecies certain cycles would end and great changes would happen in the world. What is your feeling for the future? What will the oncoming ships bring?
We haven’t heard about that prophecy but remembering the “blood-moon” eclipse that just took place a few days ago, there definitely has to be a relation between those two things. It seems that all these prophecies are closely related to early observations of the night sky. Even back than in ancient times, stargazers added fiction to science. If you’re asking about ships, it was not our intention to give precise hints about the future, but to trigger peoples individual imagination. We don’t wanna line up with the crowd of pretentious fortune tellers. Not in public anyway…
„Ships will come“, conceived as an concept album, sounds really consistent in itself. What about the new material – is it laid out similarly?
We didn’t have much time to sit down and write new material yet. We toured a lot in the past year and just got back to our desks. And when it comes to new ideas, theres a quote that we think hits the spot.. “you know you should never talk about things you’re going to do. takes energy/impetus away..” – user18081971
So, what are you listening to at the moment?
Like right now? – Tom Waits – Live from Austin 1978
Apart from that, we are quite busy checking out new material from the bands we hang out with like Creams, White Wine, Sizarr and Stefkovic van Interesse.
What is the best piece of advice anyone has ever given to you?
“What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
