I think we have a contender for band name of the year…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
Daphne (Samara) was born in Singapore and Andrea (Manimal) in Italy. We are from Camden Town, London, UK.
How did you meet?
We met in a dark corner at The World’s End (a pub in Camden Town, London). Sparks flew when Manimal found out that Samara loved death metal and techno, and that her favourite band was Slayer.
How long have you been playing as a band?
We started making music in early 2020, right before the virus became a global pandemic. When the lockdown in London was imposed, this gave us the time and space to write and record our first album.
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Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
We originally created The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara as a manga comic series that tells the tale of a schoolgirl who runs away into the jungle in order to escape from the modern world. All grown up but alone in the wilderness, she discovers someone who would change the course of her life forever…These characters are featured on the cover of our debut single, “Atoms”
What are your influences?
We are both passionate about discovering new music from all genres of music, ranging from metal, punk, hardcore to industrial techno, post rock to jazz and blues. Our favourite bands are Tool, Deftones, Slayer, Converge, Gojira, God is an Astronaut, but we also love the music of techno DJs such as Jeff Mills, Paula Temple, and Inhalt Der Nacht. We are inspired by the music of Tool, Kraftwerk, Jim Morrison, Leonard Cohen. Our music also draws from literature, history, and philosophy – in particular, the works of great lyrical poets of Ancient Greece, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath and the writings of Carl Jung.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
Our music unites the disparate worlds of music – blending rock with electronic, metal with techno. This wide coverage of musical genres in our music is not coincidental, but with the intent of making music that allows for the experience of the full spectrum of human experience and emotion. We also integrate poetry and theatre into our songs – with lyrics delivered as spoken performances. Also, we go beyond placing brief interludes of spoken word over an instrumental composition. Instead, the poetic/narrative text is set into the composition in lyric mode, and fully integrated into the musical composition.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
The lyrics in our songs draws from personal experience and reflection, classical literature, history, and philosophy. Most of our lyrics are based on original poems cast in lyric form. Sometimes, we adapt canonical and mythological texts, as well as literary texts by great thinkers of ancient and modern history – in our debut single, “Atoms”. We have used extracts from the writings of Plato, Sophocles, Dante, William Blake, Hegel and Jung.
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What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
Manimal: I didn’t realise I had cut my finger playing my guitar with too much emphasis, and by the end of the live show, my guitar was totally covered in blood.
Samara: Body surfing at a metal gig, after which, I landed on the stage and got carried and thrown off the stage (literally) by security.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
LTD guitars, Marshall Jcm 900, Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol M32 Keyboard
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
We are promoting our latest release Deus Ex Machina which is a musical revisitation of Oedipus Rex – a play by Sophocles written over two thousand years ago. The song blends metal, poetry and theatre to tell the story of classical literature’s greatest tragedy. We also did a still motion music video combining imagery of the ancient world with footage of the present times.
What are your plans for 2020?
We will be releasing and promoting our debut album “Full Spectrum”, which comprises 11 tracks lasting over 67 minutes.
If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
Comstead to open, and Skeleton Key to close.
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