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When you listen to an artist like Sopor Aeternus, you need to open your heart, soul, and mind. You have to know how to listen, intuit, let yourself go into the total darkness that torments this artist, and grasp its meaning.
Anna-Varney Cantodea, this is the name he is known by, turns out to be one of the most brilliant and controversial minds in today's music scene. Not much is known about his private life, but from some of his interviews, it is understood that he did not have an easy childhood, his relationship with his parents was not the best, he lived for many years in darkness in total isolation, even risking blindness, all this lasted until he began to hear what he himself calls the Ensemble of the Shadows, spirits that made him hear beautiful melodies. From here, the Sopor Aeternus project was born, his "rebirth". Anna-Varney Cantodea decided to dedicate himself to music, bringing to life all those melodies suggested by the voices that tortured his thoughts while he spent his days sleeping to dull his pain. As he himself admitted, in an interview, "they" would not leave him in peace until he got up to write down notes on a piece of paper of those beautiful harmonies he heard. The music lyrics mainly speak about himself, having nothing to do with the outside world, as demonstrated by one of his old songs "Todeswunsch" which means "desire for death". For this artist, death means nothing but returning the soul to the true "home" or the place where we really belong.
Over the years, the music of Sopor Aeternus has changed, perhaps this is also due to the spiritual evolution of the artist himself. Not only has the approach to music lyrics changed, but also a bit the musical style; the early albums like "The Inexperienced Spiral Traveller" or "Todeswunsch" had a less oppressive sound, where the despair and mood of this artist seemed hidden behind the apparent and cheerful notes of carefree folk songs, until Anna-Varney decided to lift the black veil over his face, metaphorically speaking, so much so that Sopor Aeternus' music becomes a funeral march, accompanied by laments, cries, and anguished screams, as demonstrated by subsequent albums like "Dead Lovers' Sarabande". The lyrics of the song "No-one is there" contained in the first "Dead Lovers' Sarabande", perfectly reflect the artist's isolation from everything around him:
So, I prefer to lie in darkest silence alone...
listening to the lack of light, or sound,
or someone to talk to, for something to share...
but there is no hope and no-one is there.
No, no, no... not one living soul
and there is nothing (left) to say,
in darkness I lie all alone by myself,
sleeping most of the time to endure the pain.
After the two "Dead Lovers' Sarabande", it's the turn of another very interesting album by this artist, it's "Songs from the Inverted Womb" which contains the melancholic and poignant "...and Bringer of Sadness" (there is also a video of this song). However, the album that struck me the most is the subsequent "Es Reiten die Toten So Schnell", a cryptic, gothic, evocative record, characterized by a dead, cadaverous voice in some cases. The artwork of this album, shows us Anna-Varney naked for the first time, with female sexual attributes, though, in reality, his uh..how to say, his "intimate parts" are virtually created by a computer, because he himself has declared that he never wanted to undergo surgery for religious reasons, even though he has always admitted feeling like a woman inside. In short, Sopor Aeternus, is indeed one of the most controversial and mysterious figures in the music scene, it's a shame that his music (which really seems to come from the afterlife) is not known to a broad audience, and that, in a sense, it's still kept "in the shadows".
Returning to the album "Es Reiten die Toten So Schnell" remains one of my favorite works, the track that opens the album is "Omen Sinistrum", which is introduced by the toll of some bells, and ends with the backdrop of a thunderstorm, followed by the beautiful "Dead Souls" one of the most dragging and spectacular tracks of the album, another strong piece of this record is "Beautiful Thorn" which has a small introduction with oriental flavors. A bit flat for my tastes is the next "Baptisma", interesting instead is the song "The Feast of Blood" which sounds in a full folk style in its first bars, until an unsettling scream from Anna transforms the track into something darker and more gothic. Dreamy and even danceable is the track "The Dreadful Mirror", with a splendid and delicate children's choir in the background, at least that's what it seems. The tenth track of the album "Birth-Fiendish figuration" is not something new to our ears, as we have had the chance to hear it on the first album of Sopor Aeternus, ""...Ich töte mich..." (those German titles again), I was saying the track is also included in the debut album, with baroque and medieval flavors (give it a listen), because it's a beautiful album. It's worth mentioning the last track "Dark Delight", I'm talking about "Es reiten die Toten so schnell" obviously, characterized by Anna's terrifying screams, one of the most gothic and anxious tracks of this album... and with this, I've concluded.
As Anna-Varney would say at the end of an interview "...may the shadows guide your way...".
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