LENG TCH'E
The Process Continues...
By: Interview with Sven De Caluwe by Josh Schafer
Progress and growth aren’t usually words one associates with grindcore bands, especially ones with such an irreverent sense of humor and unrelenting musical attack as Belgian razor-grinders LENG TCH’E. Looking to give their fans a more mature and interesting aural experience on their upcoming fourth full-length, Marasmus, LENG TCH’E manages to stay true to their grindcore roots while expanding their song structures and focusing their ferocious, sarcastic energy into the most mature and powerful set of songs the band has written to date. Resound caught up with drummer Sven De Caluwe for a quick chat about the recent recording and the band’s plans moving forward.
Resound: So the title of the album is Marasmus, which is malnutrition in children and infants; and I know you had a kind of theme for you last album Process of Elimination. Does Marasmus give a hint as to any kind of theme running through this album?
Sven De Caluwe: “As you say, marasmus is death or weakening by malnutrition, mainly with children. The whole twist we gave to this idea is a somewhat ‘mental malnutrition’ which our environment and society puts us through. From early ages on people are forced in certain directions in life, be it by SAT tests or even earlier on, you’re pretty much told ‘you should be doing this job or doing this or studying this’ with pretty much a disregard to what the mind is hungry for. Lots of people don’t dig further, just going with the flow and a lot of times the necessary access to information and the ability to broaden oneself is controlled by others. This is the whole idea we wanted to illustrate with Marasmus, and every song is more or less dealing with issues concerning that. Of course we have anomalies that stray away from the original concept, but we thought it was something worth talking and
thinking about.”
Resound: Listening to the new album quite a bit, I have been noticing a little more groove and flow. Is this something guys tried to do with the new stuff or did the writing process just head in that direction? Who were the main contributors on this album?
De Caluwe: “There is definitely more groove, and basically the songs are more mature. We have worked really hard on trying to get our own sound, putting some new elements in the music that make it a bit more interesting and stray away from what you would typically expect from a grindcore unit. People shouldn’t worry too much though; it’s all still very heavy and extreme. Everything pretty much came naturally when writing the songs. All music on the record has been written by Jan (Hallaert, guitars) and myself.”
Resound: Listening to the unmastered version, the songs sound bigger and much heavier, kind of reminding me of ABORTED’s Goremageddon production. Did you guys record at the same studio with the same engineer? Did you aim for that sound?
De Caluwe: “No it was not recorded at all at the same place. We tracked it in Belgium at CCR like our previous albums and Fredrik Nördstrom at Fredman Studios in Sweden mixed it. Alan Douches did mastering at West West Side Music. Personally I think it sounds nothing like Goremageddon (which was done by Jacob Hansen in Denmark), since it’s very heavy sounding and Goremageddon pretty much had a sharp tone to it. We were aiming for something very heavy and are pretty damn satisfied with the result we hold in our hands right now, we invested a lot in this album and worked like mongloids.”
Resound: You have done a lot of album artwork for other bands as well as your own. Could you give us an idea of what the main idea is for the new album art?
De Caluwe: “We’re still working on the artwork for Marasmus right now, there are a lot of ideas but nothing has really been worked out concretely. I’ll be working on it when coming back from the studio (recording with ABORTED). Expect something modern and fitting to the musical direction of the record!”
Resound: LENG TCH’E is known to have some pretty entertaining titles and funny lyrics in your songs. Does this tradition continue on Marasmus?
De Caluwe: “We skipped the whole funny thing for this one, we’ve had our share of jokey joke-maker records and felt it was time to move on, of course there’s still a high dosage of sarcasm on this record, but no more poopie humor if you know what I mean.”
Resound: Have you been able to play any of the new stuff live? What are the touring plans for the new album?
De Caluwe: “We’re already including quite a good deal of new material in the live set to get it all nailed down properly and see which songs flow best on stage. Reactions have been really good so far and the new stuff is much more fun for us to play as well. Look out to hear a lot of LENG TCH’E in 2007, as we’ll be touring with IMMOLATION and ABORTED throughout Europe in May and June and are working on some other exciting plans as well.”
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