Puissance

TROY SOUTHGATE gets to grips with HENRY MOLLER & FREDRIK SODERLUND, brooding masters of Industrial and Dark Ambient. Here, the Swedish purveyors of calatclysmic delights like 'Let Us Lead', 'Totalitarian Hearts', Back In Control', Mother of Disease', 'War On', 'Hail the Mushroom Cloud' and 'Total Cleansing' give us an insight into their world of black optimism and brutal honesty. This interview was conducted sometime towards the end of 2001.

What was the chief impetus behind PUISSANCE? Was it a desire to express yourselves musically and artistically, a burning hatred for the contemporary age and all it stands for, or perhaps both?

I think it's a little about both, personally I wouldnt stand to be alive if I couldn't express myself, and there is so much that people neglect to say that I feel I have to say it. The modern world is so filled with lies and half-truths that it would be wrong not to say the things we do.

Whom, or what, are your main influences? Is PUISSANCE unique or part of a specific genre?

We write fairly varied music so I wouldn't want to label us anything in particular. However, stating something like that about one's own music usually makes you look like one of those mainstream loser bands that deserves to be shot. So to avoid that I would call us guitar-less, orchestral, spiritual, black metal. On the other hand that sounds a bit stupid too. We are the band that sounds different, nothing more and nothing less.

Tell us a little about the way you compose your music and the kind of equipment you use?

We use synthesizers and samplers primarily, but we also record sounds from other sources, it can be anything really, just as long as it sounds right. Composition is an inspired process most of the time, we don't plan it very well but rather go along wherever it takes us, trying to build interesting sound environments with harmonic musical elements. Lyrics are usually written after the composing itself is done.

I understand that some PUISSANCE material has even been made into soundtracks for various film projects?

Yes. The most recent is a Spanish movie called Estigmas, which features a few Puissance tracks or parts of. Some other bands on the soundtrack are Death in June, In Slaughter Natives and Mayhem. A really sick and weird movie, it's worth checking out. It's released by a label called Visual Beast and will soon be available in DVD format with a lot of special stuff.

You once said elsewhere that in order to understand why PUISSANCE despises humanity it is necessary to sit in a town square and observe precisely how human beings act and relate to one another. Most people in the world do appear to be entirely worthless, but would you go so far as to include yourselves, your families and your friends on the atomic death list?

Of course, we are no exception at all. We are just as filthy and depraved as anyone else. We also lie, steal and cheat. We want more and we envy what others have. No one is an exception.

Were the World Trade Centre bombings a celebration of PUISSANCE ethics?

If you are asking if we did it, then no, unfortunately not. I can however say that it was indeed a good thing to happen. The US really had to get a taste of what it's like to be on the recieving end for once, it hasn't happened before but it was indeed bound to happen sooner or later. At first I was amused when people started talking about "an attack on democracy itself" and other bullshit like that. It's not even an attack, it's a cry for help and understanding. The people who did this were obviously prepared to die to make their voice heard and when they finally do no one listens to what they tried to say. It's quite sickening really how fast the media tried to market a new war. Why don't they try to focus on the real problems, instead. Why not ask ourselves why someone might be so angry with us (and by us I mean the Western Capitalist society)? Shouldn't we take a minute to think about it? Instead we just rant and rave about an attack that never happened. The media tells us that "these people hate freedom" and "they have attacked the free world". That's the dumbest thing I've heard in my entire life, anyone who believes that must be completely retarded. How could they hate freedom? They haven't had the slightest taste of it yet, mostly thanks to our Western politics in the Middle East. We in the West have systematically killed, extorted and ruined millions upon millions of lives in the Middle East. And why, you ask? What crime have these people commited to make us treat them this way? Their biggest crime was to be born in the land that the dinosaurs died in, the land of oil. Our sick Western world is largely built on oil. And when someone else has more than us we behave exactly like the disgusting vultures that all humans are, we try to instigate and control the area. We can't just invade and kill all of them, of course, their religion is one of the biggest in the world. So before the West can go there to build death camps and systematically make the owners of the oil extinct, we want to make them look really, really bad. So we start by provoking them, and killing them secretly. We offer them trade deals to make them depend on us, then we break the deals over and over again. We plant small minority regimes in small countries to keep the conflicts alive. The key is never let them rest, and to constantly poke them; poke, poke, poke. Eventually they will scream for help like they did on the 11th of September 2001. Now is the time. The entire oil-depending world has gone to trample a small country. Let's blame the poorest one. Let's make another war for profit. This time it's not so obvious as it was in the Kuwait War, of course. This time you can't yet see the pattern. It will emerge, though. Slowly. The US atrocities haven't started yet. It will take a few years before the meat grinding death camps of America start to chew down the population of the Middle East. The war on Afganistan is not the issue. It's not even the beginning. It's the first wake-up call that something is about to go very, very wrong. Most people didn't hear it. My children will hear it, read about it in school. The second holocaust. And there will be liars writing papers then, too, writing about how it can never happen again. I really hate everyone for this. I hate the media, I hate the USA and I hate the entire Western world. I know that many will think I'm crazy after reading this. None of it makes sense at the moment. But you will see. The world is so much sicker and so much more corrupt than you can ever imagine.

Do you have a favourite period of history? Has humanity ever done anything worthwhile?

Yes, at one time in the Bible the entirety of mankind drowns. Unfortunately, two people on a boat survive and start the whole tragedy all over again.

Do you have a political orientation of any kind? If so, who do you consider to be among the most worthy ideologues?

I don't believe in anything except corruption. Kill the politicians.

What is your view on religion? Is there a spiritual perspective to PUISSANCE?

We are Christians in the sense that we hope for armageddon.

Apocalypse: How long have we got left?

Far too long I think.

And, finally, what are your plans for the future?

Well, we are preparing ourselves for a possible live performance and working on new material for an upcoming album early in 2002. We also have some new merchandise available such as pins and shirts.

SYNTHESIS would like to thank PUISSANCE for this interview and wish them all the very best for the forthcoming Armageddon. The duo can be contacted via puissance@hotmail.com