Who is the Majesty Keltia?
She’s a queen from ancient times. Authoritarian and misanthropic, with a taste for tragedy and dark tales, she likes to let her imagination wanders through unknown paths and share her discoveries with anyone who pays her attention... At least, it’s how I like to imagine her!
You are playing harp, at what age did you start playing the harp and how did you come to the choice of this instrument?
I was 15 when I got my first harp and began to practice with a private teacher. My father had organised a festival of celtic music for the first time that year and I sort of got bewitched by this culture. The harp has also a ‘bardic quality’ that I found appealing. With this instrument I would be able to play and sing at the same time, like with a piano or guitar but with a lot more originality.
Celtic mythology plays a big role in your music, how did you get in contact with it?
Celtic mythology plays certainly an important role in our music but references to Greek and Latin are maybe more frequent in our repertoire. I get in contact with these cultures by reading a lot and immersing myself in old legends and tales. As a child, I was fond of fairy tales (not just the classics everyone knows like Cinderella but also the dark and freaky Russian tales for example) and soon became a ravenous reader. I also studied Greek and Latin at school and developed a certain taste for mythology.
The Court counts now 4 main members : Laime Ithil (guitars, bouzouki, sound atmospheres, ...), Jack Saturday (slideridoo, ethnic percussions, flute...), Sir Arnald Mac Ougar (viola) and MaestrO (Computer Assisted Music and davul). 4 of us live in the same city, Liège. When you’re a musician in a small city like this, you finally get to know the other musicians living there. We had friends in common and so we were meant to meet each other sooner or later!
What is the essence of Keltia’s music?
That’s a difficult question! I think it’s a particular atmosphere, quite dark I must say, and the desire to share stories and images with the audience. We don’t fit in the usual descriptions. You can’t say we’re a folk band nor a rock band... But you can certainly find rock sounds and folk rythms in some of our songs. So I think the essence is not in the style of music we play but more in the dark and mysterious tales we want to share...
You just released a new album called “Les Metamorphoses” which is a concept album. Can you explain the concept to us?
It’s a 12-tracks album. The first, 8th and last songs are what we call ‘Oracles’. Oracle I and II announce the atmosphere of the following songs. Oracle III is like a recollection of each song of the album.
The others songs are, of course, inspired by stories of metamorphoses. These are as well surnatural (werewolf, Melusine, ... ) as natural (butterfly, ...) or symbolic (the transformation of someone turning to be a murderer, ...).
A particularity of the album is that there is no break between songs, no silence. They’re all linked so the auditor doens’t leave our world during the whole CD.
It’s really interesting to have a link between the songs composing your repertoire. It’s like creating a whole world and not just a set of different songs. I think the fact we all are young adults gives also more meaning to the word ‘metamorphoses’ for us. We all went through a lot of changes the past years, leaving school, our parent’s house, getting a job, a solid partner, ...
Of course this thema is present in our artwork (it’s important to say that our artwork is mainly designed by Arnald Mac Ougar, our viola player) as well as during our shows. We really want to share these stories with the audience and immerse them in our world.
How do you compose the music for Keltia, do you write the songs on your own with your harp or are they created during rehearsals? Do you come up with the frames for the songs and the other band members add their pieces to them?
Sometimes I compose songs myself and share them with the others who add their pieces to them. Sometimes another member of the band brings something. Other times we just improvise during rehearsals and find interesting things that can become more elaborate piece. There is no general rule, really. And I like it to be that way because it’s more spontaneous.
In Keltia’s music a lot of traditional instruments can be heard, where do you find all these instruments and how do you learn how to play them?
Usually we hear and see those instruments during concerts of other bands and litteraly fall in love with them and want to have our own. So we search on internet, we ask friends and we always find a way to get it and find someone to teach us. Jack Saturday is a real specialist in that matter. He gets new instruments every month!
Is it hard to pick the right instruments for the right songs when you can use so many, how are these choices made?
It’s not so hard because each instrument has specifities. There are instruments that you can only play on a specific key (some flutes, the hurdy-gurdy, ...) and each instrument brings its own atmosphere. We try to find a good match between instruments and the story we want to tell.
You’ll be surprise to learn we don’t use any synth. The layer of sounds you hear on our album were all recorded ‘live’ and then mixed and processed by Laime Ithil who is not only a very talentend guitar player but also a sound engineer.
We also recorded sounds that were sampled to create beats and rythms that MaestrO plays live on a computer.
We definitely wanted to give more power and deepness to the music we made. Adding the sounds reinforced the atmospheres of the songs without changing their essence.
What was the most challenging part of the new album to record? Was it hard to make this album?
It took us about 9 months of intensive work so yes, it was very challenging. We wanted to do so much and didn’t realise it would take us so much energy but it was definitely worth it. I think the biggest challenge was to integrate the electronic sounds to songs that were not originally composed to be arranged that way.
We also recorded a string quatuor that accompany us on 2 songs and it was certainly challenging too. Arnald Mac Ougar and Laime Ithil wrote the arrangements. A first experience for them with a very convincing result that lead us to invite 8 classic musicians (a string and a wind section) on stage with us during our last show.
When people listen to the album, what do you want to achieve? A certain mood, let the dream away to ancient times and places?
If people tell me our music made them forget about the present and travel in fantastic places, even for a few minutes, I’ll be happy!
How do you prepare for live shows, do you have strange rituals?
We rehearse and rehearse and rehearse... And yes, we have a lot of strange rituals but not especially for preparing shows. I’ll not tell more about it because it would fill 2 or 3 pages!
The biggest secret for live shows is to make contact with the audience, how do you do that?
I look them in the eyes and asked them to follow me on a fantastic journey by introducing the show with the first lines of ‘The Metamorphoses’ from Apuleius (which you can find on the back of the album packaging).
You are also a member of Seventh Harmonic, how did you get to join them? Why are you involved in another band?
A few years ago, I got a mail from Caroline Jago to ask me if I wanted to join the band as a singer. Louisa John Krol, the Australian singer, had told her that I would probably be interested. She was right. So I accepted and we had 2 gigs together. But then I had less time and couldn’t really participate in composition, ... so I decided to leave the project. A few months ago, Caroline mailed me again to ask me if I would join her and Ann-Mari, the new singer of the band, to accompany them with the harp, for a few gigs. I was really happy to get this opportunity to play again with Caroline so I said ‘yes’.
It’s important for me to play with other people and in another style. It helps me to broaden my experience and I really like to be in contact with other musicians.
Any last words for the readers?
Please take a look to our website (www.keltia.be) and leave us a message to tell us what you think about our music. I wish you a wonderful journey!
