ASPHYXIUM ZINE

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Interview with The Cannibal Fae Of Waking Dream by Dave Wolff


Interview with Eurithia Tachinidae and Lyra Daydream of The Cannibal Fae Of Waking Dream

Asphyxium: The Cannibal Fae of Waking Dream strikes me as a strange mix of goth, industrial, techno and experimental metal, with a tribal/pagan feel. Was this what you had in mind? How long has the band been active and how did it develop?
Eurithia Tachinidae: We weren’t sure what to make of it. It started with the end of The Entropic Order (an incredible group that originated in New York but has since moved to Canada.) I wasn’t sure where the project was going or who was going to be involved. Neither was Lyra. If anything, those who were involved with this project (aside from the two of us) weren’t really human. They were New Yorkers too and were right in the tree across from our firescape on the second floor.
I don’t expect anyone to believe what I am saying as it sounds crazy to even me. They were the inspiration for many of the songs that came to be, with the exception of some that dealt with personal mental illness and also the unfortunate truths regarding the actions, thoughts and motives of humanity. It’s amazing: the things that fear, hate and desperation can make a person do even in this Modern Era thus continuing to be undeniably self-serving, and so obviously disturbing. No rhyme intended!
We’ve been an active project since July 2016. As for development, I suppose you can think of humanity as going through perhaps a second biological Dark Ages.
No question that the internet has enabled an easier production of musical numbers, no matter how brilliant or how shitty the song is during this year. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Then again, we’re witnessing a clearly obvious repeat of what has already happened before many times over not just in the times of the Black Plague. Both cruelty and brutality as a species as one should notice has always been common place and to this day still is. We just destroy everything. As such, we as a species forget the lessons we have learned, and the. Proceed to make the same mistakes all to prove that they are right. It’s very subtle but essentially some humans can be stubborn and prefer never to learn any lessons at all. It is just the nature of our inner beasts. We don’t think. We just do and say. As a result this emotionally damages the ability a cope which would refrain them from acting out of hatred. In itself, our development is just a reflection in the mirror.
We also lyrically speak in our songs of the beauty of that which is unexplainable and scientifically unproven. Like the hidden truths of the universe, like Pandora, are just waiting in some box of curiosities, anticipating our final moment of passing, whether atheist, or religious fanatic/radical. Typically only revealing then to us the purity of unseen truths. Death isn’t something to fear though. It is simply a way to know everything within a flash before the body becomes lifeless. A piece of mortality that each of us will feel at some point, whether through the deaths of others or the death of ourselves.

Asphyxium: How long was The Entropic Order active, and how frequent were their performances in NYC and elsewhere? What was musically and aesthetically unique about the band?
Lyra Daydream: The Entropic Order was active from 2012 to late 2015 with my involvement; a few months after I left the group officially. There were only about ten shows. In 2012 we were located in Asheville, North Carolina and played about four to five house parties. My singer wanted to move back to NYC and asked me along. I had always wanted to leave North Carolina so I took the plunge. Christian and I got a new drummer and bassist in 2014 and played a total of six shows in the city between 2014 and 2015. I think if anything was unique about the band it was the combination/chemistry of my guitar and voice doubling Christian’s vocals. The lyrics he wrote were quite intelligent and had great hooks, Dave Mendez was a phenomenally intuitive drummer, and we had a serious work ethic. Though we only played ten or so shows we practiced and recorded weekly, sometimes having several practices in a week.

Asphyxium: Did The Entropic Order release anything while Lyra was in the band? How can people stream digital releases or order physical copies if they’re interested?
Eurithia Tachinidae:
The Entropic Order from what I hear will be opening up a Bandcamp page soon. For now there’s only Soundcloud, Youtube, and Facebook. I think when Christian Spencer gets around to releasing it, perhaps tracks will be available then.

Asphyxium: What led to the disbanding of The Entropic Order? With The Cannibal Fae did you intend to continue The Entropic Order’s vision or start something new?
Lyra Daydream: The band ended for several reasons. The major factors being Christian getting chronic bronchitis, differing ideas about where the band was going creatively, and Dave was planning to move to Arizona to take care of his mom. The band basically ran its course. Christian then moved to Canada. It was fun while it lasted and I’m proud of the hard work we put in. When Liz and I started Cannibal Fae of Waking Dream we were not looking to continue with my previous work. I did keep one song that was mine before E.O. though we have yet to release the recording.
In 2016 I had all this music gear and felt too burned out to get into a new project. Liz was the catalyst and wrote some songs that got me out of that rut and we found a new sound, new artistic concepts and expanded our palette with more and more old drum machines, new synths, and built our home studio.
Eurithia Tachinidae: The Cannibal Fae of Waking Dream has so far included Lyra Daydream, sometimes referred to as Lyra Nightmare (inside joke). I’m Liz Lund, (sometimes referred to as Eurithia Tachinidae.) We’ve also worked with Jamie, only known as The Oddmother on stage. She briefly joined us and helped out on bass with our Lucky 13 Saloon show in September. That was sweet of her.
As of late July 2020 Reggie Smith joined as a second guitarist/rhythm guitarist. To think...we had played at the venue The Well only the year before in July of 2019, just before everything got crazy. I play keyboard/synth and am on vocals. Lyra Daydream is second vocalist, plays bass, the hammer dulcimer, synthesizer and is also our main sound engineer. She also has an interest in electronic drumming. She has been the main guitarist for our live performances thus far. As for collaborations, we briefly worked with David Martin aka K-Effect Mastering briefly for the song Nueve Angeles De La Muerte. He’s from Spain. Our last live show was in October of 2019. When November hit, the Cannibal Fae of Waking Dream took a long break up until July of this year.

Asphyxium: How did you come up with the name The Cannibal Fae of Waking Dream and how did you intend it to represent the band’s songs?
Eurithia Tachinidae: The name “Cannibal Fae of Waking Dream” originally started out as simply “Waking Dream.” It derived from Lyra Daydream’s stage name and her actual last name, Wakefield. However, there is a metal band in Russia that goes by the same name, as we soon found out. That was why it was in our best interest to change it. How did it become the Cannibal Fae of Waking Dream specifically? To make all walks of religious life, atheists, and for the sake of those who would think I’m crazy, hallucinating, or dare I say faking my issues in some twisted manner during this situation I say to you (with nothing to prove to anyone and no care to do so) that I was seeing a bunch of “things” that typical humans would say were not there. When saying things, I mean what looked to be like nature spirits. Sometimes they would come indoors but not often and I had developed what originally would have been considered psychosis but more like on a permanent on a functional basis. It comes and goes whenever it wants to or whenever I feel certain emotions.
Anyway, here’s how our little faerie tale goes.
Once upon a time, Fae were in a tree and they were being watched by humans. Not liking to be noticed at all, the Fae decided to play a prank on those humans. How did they do this? Well, they can change for of course. What those humans saw then left them stunned and some shaken. The faeries pretended to devour each other in front of them for a laugh. The Fae pretend to eat each other from the outside in.
And so the name was changed to The Cannibal Fae Of Waking Dream. We’ve also gone by Waking Dream NYC before on certain pages, just in order to also not be confused with the band from Russia.

Asphyxium: How did you two bring together so many different musical genres, and how much of a process is it to draw influence from them?
Eurithia Tachinidae: Those sounds came naturally to us. Once we learned to play together, our sound or sounds rather, came to be and it was all different depending on the song. It was like the shifting of the moods, a musical mood ring of sorts. Call it bipolar genre shifting if you like but there’s always been a dark quality to our music so first and foremost the most general way we can label ourselves as a band (if and when we have to) is maybe “Goth” perhaps? Gothic? Whatever! We fit into too many genres to pick just one. The thing is it breaks out into all kinds of different subgenres when we play because we tend to experiment musically, so it really depends upon the track and the moment. Also the instruments and the way they’re used may be different in a moment. Each track tends to evolve sound wise into something else over time and a performance might sound different than the last one. Sticking to one genre for us is almost impossible. The way that we play as a group and a team makes our sound subject to change constantly. 

Asphyxium: What did you mean about “the beauty of the unexplainable and scientifically unproven” and how do you represent this in your lyrics?
Eurithia Tachinidae: Well, we write lyrics that sometimes, but not always reflect images of fantasy and science fiction-like quality. The lyrics just come naturally, and for whatever reason, mainly deal with themes of the “paranormal,” “fantasy,” “mental illness,” and a whole lot of “nihilism.” So far, without being cliché about it, I can honestly tell you the lyrics come from the heart and through my perspective whether fact or fiction, from some sort of unseen muse or muses. It might be all in my head or it might not. Either way it can’t be proven.
The sound and lyrics fold into one another and become creations with each having a particular life of their own so to speak. Each track so far has been individually special to us and it almost seems in that state of mind, that we personally don’t have much control as to where the sound goes next.

Asphyxium: List all the material The Cannibal Fae has released until now, and the formats they’re available in. How do you go about promoting your releases?
Eurithia Tachinidae: Usually the tracks are in either mp3 or wav file. However we have yet to have the tracks officially mastered even though they are copyrighted. Once all is mastered we’ll be coming out with the official album hopefully sometime this year. We finished our album cover, although the logo is not included just yet. That’ll be coming soon. The cover was made with acrylic paint and is a picture of all the emotions we experienced over the course of a year. Both Lyra and I made it together so these images are the reflection of our mental trauma. We promote our tracks on Soundcloud, Facebook, Youtube and all social media sites. We made a commercial for our project’s first ever music video back in 2018 called Fire Sprites Nostalgia. Our latest track which will be featured on the album is Psych Ward Zombie. Our EPs before this have been Cannibal Fae, Stink Beetles And Sprites, Pitchforks Are For Pilgrims and Child Dream Favorites. Some of our tracks are available on band camp now. All will be released once they’re officially mastered.

Asphyxium: Who directed and produced your debut promotional video, and can it be found on any sites where your albums are available?
Eurithia Tachinidae: Me and Lyra Daydream directed, produced, filmed and edited most of the footage for Fire Sprites Nostalgia. We did however have some help during certain scenes. One was at a park and one was at a beach. John Ontibero filmed this for us at these particular locations.
Here’s is the music video link below: https://youtu.be/2Ox3MkF4rwg
As for the promo for the video, we did that all on our own. It was rather short.

Asphyxium: Who are you considering working with to master your tracks? Would you release your full lengths and EPs on CD format if you had the means and the opportunity?
Eurithia Tachinidae: Who we plan to work with is undecided at this time. I could ask Lyra for more information about the plans.
We have released our music on CD formats. In our tour they were most certainly available during live shows as well. I would most definitely release everything on CD and other formats. Lyra was thinking audio cassette might be a novel idea. We’ve released free music via Bandcamp I believe.

Asphyxium: How much has the NYC live circuit changed since you became interested in being a musician, as far as clubs and advertising go?
Eurithia Tachinidae: Due to mental health issues along with COVID-19, I have played no live shows since October of last year. However our bandmate Reggie is looking out for future shows most likely in 2021 due to shutdowns. When we are allowed to finally play out as musicians you can best believe that I will be there ready to go just as before and just as we were during our tour and for half the year of 2019. Artistic integrity will definitely as always play a part in our work as a music group. It means everything and is something to be respected. If it were only about money, power or fame for musicians, then there would be no point. It would be a sham, a facade, transparent and shallow. I would hate to play music if the whole point of creativity was simply to please those in positions of authority. Those who can make or break you or chew you up and spit you out. Those are the same assholes that put out generic, boring, catchy, mainstream disappointments consistently with a good looking puppet to match. They all look the same sound the same and every song is the same. This goes for all genres not just top of the pop and such. You can see this even in the metal sub-genres a whole heck of a lot. Each song should be able to hit your inner light and if it doesn’t then it is not a true work of art. Those who do it for the cash and notoriety are doing it for the wrong reasons and frankly shouldn’t be involved in music at all, as such passionless effort has no place in the arts.
There is an idea which has not yet been approved with my band mates but I’ve thought about it, if we allowed those who wanted to download or tracks for free for a week for promotion I think I would be alright with it. However that is for a discussion at a later date.
Right now we are basically promoting our music and tracks on fb and those tracks can only be downloaded by way of Bandcamp. However I plan to continue that discussion with Lyra at some point and see what we can do. The tracks would have to be downloaded off of Soundcloud if they were free as that is where most of our music is displayed anyway.

Asphyxium: I’ve made a point of keeping up with metal’s subgenres; while there is a certain amount of bands copying other bands there are still many that take it in new directions. Have you heard original metal and/or goth of late? How important is originality nowadays?
Eurithia Tachinidae: The last metal show I saw was Doro in May 2019. After that it was mostly underground bands or those that had not been signed yet. Doro were touring with Metal Church actually. Our plan early last year was to book Opeth tickets for February of 2020 but as we all know that was never going to happen.
I think originality is extremely important in any genre otherwise it isn’t worth making. I’m not saying that specifically Metal is guilty of a lack of originality; what I am saying is that music that comes from the heart is a masterpiece rather than just a piece of art. It’s what makes it stand out. Of course there are different styles of singing. Growling for example within Death Metal takes talent, determination, and then figuring out how to apply that talent and where to put it within a song. We were lined up with both goth and metal bands last year.

Asphyxium: You have some of your artwork posted on your personal Facebook profile. What is your usual inspiration and how much of it have you done for the band so far?
Eurithia Tachinidae: Depending on who you talk to, you would have two different answers. What we’d both have in common between our answers would be that this is what was inside our heads. These are the feelings inside us as a team. This has been our metaphorical experiences over the course of several years. It was our mental head spaces combined. So that acrylic painting was our baby while I was conditionally released and in treatment.
It is why we chose this as our cover. Darkness, fantasy, imagination, the mind, pain, the human condition… it’s all so chaotic to process sometimes… the reasons for anything and the randomness of everything, birth and death. This is our official album cover and with Lyra’s help it turned out absolutely beautiful.
Lyra Daydream: I think I’ve been or we’ve been passed the torch by people in the seen and we want to help keep it alive.

Asphyxium: What do you and Lyra most want to accomplish with the band, musically and lyrically. How do you most want your listeners to resonate with you?
Eurithia Tachinidae: We do or we don’t. If it doesn’t work that’s alright. Not everyone is always going to like you wish or so that is why I tend to expect the worst and hope for the best. To the listeners: “glad you like it.” or “I understand if you don’t. We’re all human and have our own ideas, opinions and tastes.”
I suppose a trait that we most could relate to is that of childlike wonder at one point or another that is saved within our memories. The good memories one can appreciate in between the bad, even if they aren’t very long. I no doubt have a child within that screams to come out and introduce itself to either to create joy or pain. Sometimes I love that and then at other points it’s enough to make me wish for death. A child that at one point or another was forever changed, seems to be a part of so many stories.
However innocent the child may be, there is also a darkness with the light that we don’t understand. Examples are “Ring around the Rosie” and “light as a feather stiff as a board.” How relevant they are even in what we call adulthood! In childhood having an imaginary friend is considered to be “cute.” In adulthood they put you away. It’s no longer cute. Instead it’s perceived as creepy. It’s disturbing, but I personally don’t think it should be. What’s wrong with an adult having an “imaginary” friend? Who are we (society) to determine if a “friend” is imaginary at all? We don’t know everything or all the secrets of the universe. Perhaps who that person is talking to is very much real and the only one who knows is the human that sees and hears and senses it. As children we are in our purest and truest form (energy wise.) Therefore we can sense more than others. It should also be noted that as children the environment where we grow up certainly plays a key part and in how we react to others as adults.
Our inner child reflects those pieces of ourselves, regardless of whether they’re light hearted traits or whether they are considered “dark” in the eyes of our society, It’s simply a mirror image of our true selves and who we actually are. That innocence of societal expectations at a very young age reveals to us the many layers that humans are capable of tapping into under the right circumstances.

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-Dave Wolff

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