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Interview with Dark Sun: Colossus-magazine 3/97

A warm, sunny summerday combined with a few cold drinks and a coastal gazebo usually carry the promise of a good time, and this particular day was indeed no exception, as I was about to start an interview with Dark Sun members Ylli, Janne and Hemppa in order to inquire about their past, present and future. The group personnel has remained pretty much the same during their five year journey with only a couple of player changes. Up to this moment Dark Sun have released four demos (one of which is a live), two singles (My statued Fire [never released] and Oh! What will it do to my nerve system [early `97]) and of course the full length CD Feed your mind (summer `97) which is a sort of compilation album including songs that range even five years back. This is how they feel about their record:

J: Tiny the man started a new chapter in the DS story. At that time we felt there was no way we would leave that song out of the album material, and Black spires was a similar deal as well. Internal vacation was left out just before studio. I have to admit that Our man inside is again very much a kindred thing to those mentioned above. And of course, Astral magic has a certain gig value in itself.

Y: Now that space seems to have become a trend everyone should instantly realize what the song Abduction files is about. Actually, due to our awereness of this change in the subculture we had to proceed with the recording session quite suddenly and we had to record it pretty quickly. Dark Sun have dealt with the space and ufo subject for a long time, quite a while before this contemporary trend did even exist.

Impartiality is the key to processive observation.

J: The lyrics to Abduction files are a recollection of a regenerating dream in which I was wondering in the woods and I stumbled on a cottage inside which I found myself sitting beside the fire; the expression on the face of this dobbelgänger of mine reflected some sort of deep knowledge of the places he had seen and things he had done against his own will. This is how I developed the idea of an alien abduction. The mysticality of this album lives a life of its own. For example Black spires is a musical view to a world where originally human-built machines construct vast cities on an increasing speed and the humanoids let their attention wander and they sink into waters of Lethe...

S: Maybe this is symbolic to people themselves?

The developement of technology is essential in order to make time travelling possible.

Astral magic, words written by Santtu, is one of the earliest songs of Dark Sun, and Ylli has a comment on it: this song has been labelled as an “acid song” but you have to acknowledge that this is not the case, but merely pure human impulse and fantasy connected to a wider vision.

J: ...whereas Tiny the man is about a conscious satellite that has been sent out to space by man in order to report its experiences back to earth from where its components originate. A fascinating thought, but it also somehow frightens me.

Y: We continue with the theme space and dimension. It is a question of basics, actually; Humans, and the dimensions they have achieved during their existance. Afterall, we are life forms travelling through time and space, observing the developement and metamorphosis of human culture and also the developement as a unit, in this case a band, thus projecting our vision of time. Every man does the same, but not necessarily everyone is aware of the likeness of the outside world: the solution is to open the door and find out that the surrounding world is filled with clear conclusions and deductions!

J: The next album will follow the same thought pattern. We´re going to experiment with Voudoun philosophies, science fiction and pure human tragedy.. We´re forming a kind of documentary of things that take place around ourselves, Santtu adds. That´s right, feed your mind!

Colossus: I take it there´s something mystic behind the last song on the album, The next step?

S: Ylli wrote on the studio calendar DO NOT ENTER!!! when he was recording the song with Mikko!

Y: Yeah, it was just positive conspiracy! (whole lotta laugh!) After a period of falling into seriousness the Dark Sun boys conclude that the result was fairly succesful.

Learning to observe is learning to live in the here and now.

Gigs:

The first gig we played was the legendary (now dead & gone) Shadowclub. We broke the record in alltime ticketsales that night, possibly a result of our continuing harrasment on other folks about the gig. We gave away hundreds of flyers, Janne remembers.

S: There have been times when we have had many a gig per month; on the other hand, sometimes we stay quiet for a whole six months. Most of the dates we´ve played have not been arranged by ourselves at all; someone has contacted us and we´ve decided to play.. It´s quite allright not to play too often. You can sense that the audience yearns you...

J: We´d like our gigs to be rare but delicious spectacles with a massive visual touch, something like what we saw in the Club Semifinal 1996 (Exactly! editor´s note).

One of the highlights of Dark Sun career this far has been the gig with X-Hawkwind member Nik Turner at the “1997 Space Party” in Hamburg, Germany.

Janne: Yeah, we did play a festival in Harburg, Hamburg. It was like a green spot in the middle of the city, and it was situated just next to a vast industrial area which you could see if you climbed up a grassy bank. Swedish space group Darxtar cancelled their gig and we were notified.

Santtu: I was delayed because of my university studies and I had to fly to Hamburg. The others travelled to germany on the Finnjet a few days earlier. From the airport I was transported by car to the gig, and I didn´t even have the time to greet the others before I noticed I was standing with uncle Nik himself on the stage. He winked his eye and said: – You made it finally! The gig was quite succesful. We played comparatively early so all those Ingrids and Helmuts had to leave their tents and camps pretty suddenly in order to move closer to listen to us. It was great, and even greater because of the presence of Mr. Turner on stage!

The next stage

Ylli: Our management has reserved time for a studio session; Metamorphos is going to release a compilation CD and we are to record two songs (other groups: Lotus, Spiral prophets, Moonfog prophet, Circle, Transparents).

Janne: The studio we were about to record in was still under construction, and I was not aware of that at all. So, when I entered the site I saw nothing but, what seemed like, a demilitarized zone, and two construction workers having a pause. I asked if they knew where the studio was. They glanced each other briefly and told me that I´m actually in the studio.

The contact between different parts of the brain is based on electronic communication. But who or what is in control of these parts? The answer: DNA!

Santtu: On this compilation we´re going to record a song called Zombie tree, a psych/HM oriented tune. The other is Time-space continuum, a sequence-based song. Someone actually found a certain comparison with Tangerine dream. That was a surprise. It´s a ten-minute multidimensional boulder that really works, and it seems to move in the space and time... FOREVER! (absolutely horrendous laughter all over!)

Dark Sun and the Millennium

Santtu: In the turn of the Millennium we´ll be on some distant and isolated Inka Temple eating mushrooms and playing one hell of a gig (laughter I´ve never heard before!)!

Hemppa:No, really, those are just numbers among others. The actual question is: what are we going to leave behind to generations to come, I mean, in the audio format? I hope future generations do not have to replay their own thoughts over and over. Just play some Dark Sun and you´ve got your batteries charged well enough to meet the next millennium! (maybe I just dreamt that laughter)

Thank you to Dark Sun. My comment: Adios, 20th century.

You´re in a time.