Salva Maine of Culture Kultür: Each song has its own theme

Today, Culture Kultür release their new studio album “Spirit”. This is their first album in five years since the “Reborn” album released back in 2005. So, what took them so long before releasing a new album? A change in label from Out Of Line to Caustic Records have been made. Do the album have any specific theme and what is the story behind the band name. I contacted frontman Salva Maine to get some info.

You can find my review of the new album “Spirit” here.

Blackvector: Hello, whats up?

Salva Maine: Hi, quite busy with promotion, digital distribution and preparing the live shows

Blackvector: Please make a short introduction of yourself.

Salva Maine: This is Salva Maine and I am the vocalist of the electronic band Culture Kultür. We are now presenting our new album, ‘Spirit’ which will be available on 10/10/2010

Blackvector: You’ve been around for quite some time now. How did it all start?

Salva Maine: Well, the band started in 1992, but I joined on 1999. In the beginning the core of the band were Josua and Wolfran, both music lovers. Josua was member of some bands in the 80s and Wolfran worked in a music shop. They knew each other trough the local comic scene. One day Josua showed some instrumental songs to Wolfran who thought that they would be better with vocals. And that’s who it all started.

Blackvector: I’ve always wanted to know, what is the story behind the band name?

Salva Maine: Me too!! I think that it’s an homage to the english (synthpop) and german (EBM) musical influences of the band.

Blackvector: What kind of music do you listen to when not working with Culture Kultür?

Salva Maine: Mostly the music of our scene. When traveling by car with no MP3 is a terrible experience, because the spanish radio stations are awful. Then, the most pleasant option is to tune an electronic dance station.

Blackvector: The new album “Spirit” will be released in September. What can you tell us about it?

Salva Maine: The final date was changed to October! The disc follows the path of our latest work, “Reborn”, but this time we tried to sharpen the songs with more direct synth leads. I mean, we use less arpeggios and more leads. We improved the production as much as we could, using new equipment for the vocals recording. It’s also a quite varied album, from dance songs to ballads, and mid tempo songs. We put a lot of effort in each track to make them as perfect as we could.

Blackvector: Does the album has any specific theme or path it follows throughout the tracks?

Salva Maine: Each song has its own theme. Some of them are based in personal experiences occurred since our last work. Some others are based in actual world scale events that affect us all (like ‘Sieged’ about Iraq war), and others are invented histories (for example, ‘Unforgiven’). We created a listening path with the order of the tracks, making the listener travel through our wave: starting with energetic songs and finishing with some ballads.

Blackvector: Why did it took five years in between “Spirit” and you latest studio album “Reborn”?

Salva Maine: We are very lazy! And Josua has two sons and we both has day works, so finding time is always hard. Moreover, he had some health problems that slowed down even more our working path. We have become more perfectionist, too.

Blackvector: When did the work for the album start?

Salva Maine: After “Reborn” we made some gigs in USA and after that we took a pause, so I think we actually started working on the album back in 2006.

Blackvector: What is the main goal when you creating a song? Do you have any specific procedure?

Salva Maine: Our goal is create something beautiful, and loaded with meaning. Sometimes we have the extra goal of expressing some inner feelings about something. Our procedure usually starts with a basic outline with a couple of synth lines an a drum base. Then we start to add a vocal line and a motif, molding the outline until we have a proper structure. Then we create the lyrics and complete the synth lines with leads or pads.

Blackvector: During the work, what was your own expectations for the album?

Salva Maine: For us the goal of all this is the music creation itself. The process of song making. The satisfaction of working on a piece of music until we can say “now sounds good!”. The album is really a bonus, and if people’s feedback is good then we reached full score!!

Blackvector: I’ve noticed that you no longer appear on the artist page on the Out Of Line label site. What can you tell us about it? Are you searching for a new label?

Salva Maine: The period with Out of Line was very productive, but after a while we preferred a label more close to us. Even in these Internet times, the distance living from Spain is quite important. So we contacted a spanish label, Caustic Records and made an agreement with them. They are a small label but with a good background here in Spain; they release records from other spanish bands like PAIL, Tannhauser or Narsilion and also some foreign like HIV+

Blackvector: What do you have in mind after the album have been released?

Salva Maine: First, preparing the live shows. We are making video projections, and also doing special mixes fo the songs. After that, I would like to make a compilation album including new remixes of old songs by ourselves, and also with remixes from other bands that we have stored through the years. But it’s soon for that.

Blackvector: We’ve come to the end. Any closing words?

Salva Maine: Thanks for the interview and hope you and your readers like “Spirit”. We put a lot on it!

Blackvector Magazine thanks Salva Maine a lot for his time.