As you might have noticed by reading my Istanbul Special, I like the Turkish scene a lot and found some new friends there. After the release of their CD Puked Genital Purulency the Turkish Band CENOTAPH got more and more attention in the European scene. So I decided to ask singer Batu a few questions.

Dunja:How did it all start? Tell me something about the history of CENOTAPH.
Batu: CENOTAPH was formed by me in 1994 in Ankara/Turkey. At the beginning it was very difficult to find the right members for the band, but finally I managed it - our Line-Up is the same since 1994 but in 1996 Cem joined us as a drummer. We released 2 demos and 2 albums, and we played many brutal shows in Turkey etc…

Dunja: So you become more and more popular in the European Underground Scene. What do you think about it?
Batu: In every interview we say, that foreign countries are very important for us - our aim since Promo Tape 1996 has always been the worldwide scene. With our debut album Voluptuously Minced we got good feedback from the scene and joined many magazines and so the success of the first album made the people curious for the second CD. When we finally released Puked Genital Purulency we reached a very killer selling rate, also Hammer Muzik made good job with the promotion this time.

Dunja:Some people might find it strange that you come from Turkey. So how is the scene in Turkey?
Batu: Yes, generally people in the Metal-Scene think that turkey is only an exotic country with a lot of tourism, but many of these narrow minded people are shocked when they listen to our albums, because they didn't expect such a brutal act from Turkey. CENOTAPH is the Turkish death-grind answer to the worldwide scene. In Turkey the scene is pretty good, but it's generally located in the big cities like Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Also there are many demo bands and interesting death-black-doom-metal bands around.

Dunja: So which of them could you propose us to listen to?
Batu: Suicide, Corroded, Flying Dirty Clouds and Awake - these bands kick ass.

Dunja: A CENOTAPH Gig is a real rarity. How often did you play and why don't you play more often?
Batu: Because of the shitty organisators and the very bad sound in clubs we don't play so often. Our music is fucking complex and technical death-grind and in these shitty conditions with these sound systems in clubs its very difficult to play our music clear for the audience. Because of this we are trying to join good organisations with professional bands but it doesn't mean that we have a shitty concert performance. We are performing our songs more
brutal and faster in live shows than in our the albums.

Dunja:You live in Austria, Coskun lives in Istanbul... how can you all come together to work out an album?
Batu: It's a very difficult situation for us. Our bass player Bülent is in Texas/USA because of university and our drummer Cem is in the army now, Coskun (guitars) is working in Istanbul and I'm in Austria. After releasing the second album we only concentrated on promotion for the new stuff, but our bass player also writes new songs for the 3rd album and in summer 2001 we'll start our rehearsals in turkey.

Dunja: And where will you finally record it?
Batu: We will record the new album when we are ready with all songs. We are not in a hurry and we don't want to release any shitty album. Also we don't want to copy our previous albums and for this reasons we will wait and see what will happen after this summer.

Dunja: In the Puked Genital.. Booklet you find a lot of "Gore" - Pictures. What do you think is so fascinating about pictures like this?
Batu: The lyrical concept and the booklet design are similar to each other These sick photos are the real images of the ones we try to describe in our lyrics. But we added an extra warning part in the CD booklet that none of these images reflects the life perspective of any CENOTAPH member - so we are not responsible if any sick person takes them too serious and kills someone. Gore is just fun for us.

Dunja:Also the lyrics are very brutal. Are these words that come out of your brain or do you just write them to act brutal?
Batu: The lyrics are written by me and our drummer - we use these sick lyrics because no other lyrical concept fits good enough to express our sickness. We can write them in every mood. Political, social or satanist lyrics aren't interesting for us, so we will continue to write about guts,shits,blood and pathological Gore-Grind.

Dunja: So I guess you are also into Horror Movies?
Batu: Sure, we used many Horror Film-samples to create our intros in the albums. My favourite movies are old school horror stuff like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hellraiser, Evil Dead...

Dunja: In your freetime, do you also listen to brutal music or can we find other CDs at your home?
Batu: Mostly (%99) I'm listening to brutal shits. We receiveand trade many CDs with other bands in the scene and I have a huge undergroung CD archive at home, but mostly I'm into USA Brutal Death-Grind or European Gore-Grind. Beside that I listen to many Black-Metal and Doom-Bands as well.

Dunja:I heard that your previous album Voluptuously Minced will be re-released?
Batu: Yes, it was totally sold out and very difficult to find in distros. So Hammer Muzik will produce a second edition of it. Please contact them for more info at www.hammermuzik.com

Dunja:What can we expect for the future? Will the new album be as brutal as Puked Genital Purulency or do you think about some changes?
Batu: Our musical perspective is never fast enough and never brutal enough. We will not copy ourselves and we will try to do again an album that is as original and brutal as the last one.

Dunja:Well thanks Batu for answering the questions, do you have anything more to tell the readers of "Nocturnal Hall" ?
Batu: Thanks a lot, Dunja, for the great support. Watch out for the next CENOTAPH album and my solo project Drain Of Impurity's debut album.