It was 11 years ago when I promised this CD to Gabriel of Twilight Records. After the release of the first album Struggle for Wisdom in 2003, we appeared on many compilations. That time was the golden age of compilations in neofolk, many labels released them around different themes. We received many requests for participation, and although we didn’t accept all of them, the number of songs we wrote for these compilations and split releases was higher and higher, we were very prolific, and certainly all songs were exclusive, written specifically for these releases. We had a good and efficient team for the songwriting and the recording, besides the founding members Gergö and myself we were assisted by Benkö Misi, who wrote most of the keyboard parts (as well as in case of the first album), he had many good ideas, helped us a lot, and also the guys (Toth Agnes and Szabo Mihaly) in Elysion Studio (where we recorded most of these songs) participated actively in these songs, not only in the recording, but sometimes also in the instrumentation (writing keyboard parts, for example).
In those days I got a request from Gabriel, that he liked our music very much and would like to release something from us on his label Twilight Records, for example a collection of compilation tracks. And I answered that it was my intention, too, to collect the tracks from compilations and split releases, but I wanted to do it only after the release of the second album:
“…we plan our next full-length release around 2006-2007. And after that we would like to compile our songs from compilations, vinyls etc., and we’d like to re-record all of them.”
Well, our second full-length album is still not released, and I think it won’t be released in the foreseeable future. But now, after 11 years I’ve finally decided to collect these songs from compilations, vinyls, split releases into one album. As it was planned before, all of them will be re-recorded, some of them will be slightly reworked. All songs will be included in this record, that were completely written by us, both the music and the lyrics (meaning no cover versions, no poem adaptions), accompanied by a new (previously unreleased) version of an old song. 10 songs from the first 15 years of the band, in the “classic Cawatana style”: acoustic guitar-based neofolk with martial industrial, neoclassical influences, with the classic lineup, including both founding members (Gergö and me). For all of those who miss the old sound of Cawatana.
The CD will be released by Twilight Records (Argentina) and GH Records (Spain) as a 4-panel digipak with 12-page booklet, containing all the lyrics and information about the songs.
Planned release date: second half of 2016
cawatana 