A couple of months ago, an album came to the attention of Progscape.com staff called "Nula Jedan" from french band "Thork". Having been caught by the beauty therein, we decided to look a little deeper and find out where Thork's music really comes from and some ideas behind the creation of "Nula Jedan". So, a few weeks ago, Progscape.com staffer Paulo André took some of Sébastien Fillion's time, nowadays the creative force behind Thork, and went looking out for answers...

Progscape.com: Let's start with a classic introduction. Who are Thork?

Sébastien Fillion: Thork was born in 1998 in Annecy (France), and its line-up has changed as the years went by. In the beginning, we were playing live in concerts with a permanent formation of five musicians. But since our second CD “Wê-ila” in 2004, we have stopped the stage. In fact, for our new album “Nula Jedan”, Thork is more a personal project rather than a band. I’ve composed all the tracks, sung and played most of the instruments (guitars, bass, keyboards, flutes…). From the original formation, there is still Claire Northey (violin) and Samuel Maurin (guest bass player on one track). Philippe Maullet (from Syrinx) has succeeded to Michel Lebeau on the drums. My twin brother Arnaud plays cello and oud, and I’ve also invited various musicians for the recording (brass section, choirs and tablas).

P: How did the name "Thork" came about? Also, what does "Nula Jedan" mean and how does it tie in with the album concept?

S: I don’t know where exactly does the name “Thork” come from. It was founded by our first guitar player Antoine Auresche (today TAT). Maybe it comes from the Nordic mythology. However “Nula Jedan” has a very concrete meaning: it means “Zero One” in Bosnian, and it’s the core concept for this album. The album’s thread is a man-machine duality, presented under various shapes : in war time, trouble, souvenir, distance, etc… The man apart from his soul becomes a machine, and conversely the complex machine manages to judge, dream and imitate the man, reproducing or drawing lessons from his mistakes. « Zero One » is an allusion to the binary code present in the heart of modern technologies nowadays.

P: How is the composition process for Thork like? In this case, how has "Nula Jedan" come about and how long was it in the making?

S: Our three albums were composed in different ways. “Urdoxa”, released in 2000, was a real five-musicians (guitar/ voice, keyboards, violin, bass, drum) creation: we built the songs with weekly rehearsals. For “Wê-ila”, most of the tracks were composed in trio : keyboards, bass and drums. And for “Nula Jedan”, as I told you before, I’ve composed and arranged all the pieces, which wasn’t easy work. Actually, all the songs on “Nula Jedan” were dating from the “Wê-ila” period and if it took me so much time to play, arrange, record and mix everything, it’s because I had some other extra-Thork projects these past few years. Among them, I’ve turned up in Africa, composed music for a cartoon in 2005, and published two novelS: the first in 2006 and the second one two months ago.

P: How has "Nula Jedan" been received in your home country and elsewhere in the world? What kind of feedback did you get?

S: It’s hard to answer this question, because the album hasn't yet been out for long. But the feedback is very good, which wasn’t certain because of the changes in the band, and also because of the fact that the music is quite different, less experimental than before… Actually, we sell much more CDs abroad than in France, probably because as we say “no one is a prophet in his own country”… The best European place interested in our music is Germany. Elsewhere, we also find some passionate listeners of “Nula Jedan” in USA and Japan…

P: I find your music pretty hard to classify and file in a single genre. So much music has been created so far that I personally feel most genres are already saturated and truly original music is now happening when different parts of the musical spectrum are mixed and matched together. Do you agree with the view that the best style is simply to have no style?

S: My first answer would be “Yes, Absolutely”, because this is our philosophy: we don’t have style. As our music is non- conventional rock, we are classified in “progressive rock”, which is a very large label, a mixture of plenty influences… But some artists are also classified in a simple style, like “jazz”, “classic” or “rock”; they play with conventional sounds, sometimes with conventional structures, but even with those barriers, they manage to create great things, and they have a public, so thanks to them the genre is perpetuated… and from this style, we’ll get some influences. I really believe that progressive rock is the easiest music to create, precisely because there are no barriers, no rules in this music… we can record whatever we want; nobody will say: “what’s that strange sound”, “you don’t respect harmonic rules”, or “why this 7/8 bar ?”… which is not so much the case with “pop music”.

P: Radiohead have recently spawned controversy by pretty much giving away their music online, allowing people to pay whatever they felt like for their new record. What is your opinion on that and do you think that could ever work for Thork?

S: I think that we’re living a kind of revolution in the musical industry. Radiohead’s initiative is good, but you can’t compare a band like Thork to Radiohead ! We live in two different worlds. Radiohead has probably sold one million copies of their previous albums… Thork one thousand !… If they act like this, it’s because they want to cut the intermediaries, and keep the control of their “product”, like an auto-produced band… but with their notoriety, they’re sure to earn something, and why not more than in the past. It’s like Marillion’s pre-orders… But for us, pressing a new CD is a risk, because we’re not sure to repay the costs. If we were acting like those famous bands, we’d better stop the music because nobody would pay for free unknown music !

P: Despite the fact that it is hard to pigeonhole Thork in any genre, there's definitely a progressive inclination. Since its heydays back in the 70s and part of the 80s, prog has become kind of a dirty word but recently it seems to be cool again to be labeled as being progressive. Do you share this opinion and is it something you like to see attached to Thork? Or do you prefer to steer well away from that label, much like Porcupine Tree does, for instance, even though they are certainly very progressive in nature?

S: I really think it’s important to stay far away from a label, because as I told you before it’s a barrier for the creation. Thork is just a name, and people who discovered this name ten years ago are following the band’s musical evolution. In our philosophy, each new album should be a surprise, with new sounds, new musicians… “Nula Jedan” is more a mixture of influences sometimes electro, world or pop, than a pure progressive rock album, and I hope the next ones will be very different again, and will bring something new in this musical genre in which we’re classified.

P: Do you see the Internet and the explosion of online media sites like YouTube as something positive or harmful in general? How has the Internet helped Thork and do you think it's a good time to have a band?

S: The Internet’s explosion is an excellent thing for discoveries. If you surf on myspace, you’ll probably hear plenty of great unknown bands… For us, it’s really positive because many people discovered our music thanks to our MySpace site; they give their point of view about our songs, and sometimes they buy our album. For independent artists, it’s a great way of promotion… I would say most of the time the only way of promotion !... but of course for a records company, the point of view may be different !

P: What's going on in the French musical scene these days?

S: I don’t know…

P: Can you name a really positive and a really negative situation that has happened for you or the band live on stage? Best gig, worst gig kind of thing.

S: As I told you, we’ve stopped the stage with Thork. But my winter job is multi-instrumentalist in a hotel’s piano-bar, where sometimes famous musicians come to on vacation. My best souvenir is probably of Sir Paul McCartney, who came twice to listen to me at a one meter distance… First time I was playing guitar, and the second time piano… very impressive! I thought I had a heart-attack : this guy is a legend !...

P: Is there a band you'd really like to tour alongside with?

S: Thork ?

P: Another classic question... who are your influences? Do you have any idols in music or any form of art in general? In fact, is your work inspired by fields of art other than music?

S: No, we can’t say that our work is inspired by fields of art. The influences are really musical for the music, and literary for the texts, which is not very original… Here again, it’s hard to name “idols”, because the influences always change. I can no longer listen to some albums that I used to love in the past. It’s strange, because I’ve never listened to much progressive rock… Some of the artists I still like to listen are Rachmaninov in classical music, Keith Jarrett in jazz music, but also Tori Amos, Värttinä, Madredeus, Mari Boine Band, and a lot of world music… very varied !

P: What have you been listening to recently? Are there are any up and coming bands be it in France or abroad that you're really enjoying?

S: The last Tori Amos’s album “American Doll Poses” is one of the best albums I’ve heard this year… For me it’s progressive music, because there’s a musical concept : she has invented various characters with their own personality, style of music and voice. It’s also politically a rebel album against Bush’s government… But above all, Tori is a real songwriter, with a lot of innovation and emotion when she plays piano and sings… It’s the main problem of most progressive rock bands : you have great songs, great musicians with high-level technique, but strictly no emotion, which is a fundamental part of the music, and probably the hardest thing to create… For the question about new bands, really I can’t answer because I don’t listen to much music. Most of the time, I discover a “new band” after at least their second album…

P: 2007 is coming to an end. Can you highlight some positive and negative things this year about music? How kind 2007 was for Thork? S: 2007 was of course a very important year for Thork with the release of our new album. It’s the beginning of a third era for us !... Actually, it’s important to make this name live with new projects. You know, when you’re a musician, each new release gives you motivation to follow the musical road… Really, I can’t find any negative thing for us…

P: What does the future hold for Thork? Or what do you expect it to hold for Thork and yourself?

S: I just hope there will be plenty of new musical adventures, full of meetings and albums, and why not some day some concerts again… I don’t mind about the sales and the echoes about our music. The essential is to create, evolve and share.

P: OK, we're done. Got any special message to send out to the world? :)

S: First of all, music is not a vital thing ! You’re a human, so you must breathe to live. Please make efforts to preserve our planet !... Then, being on Earth isn’t a gift for everyone; it depends on the place you’re born… Nowadays, if you’re European or American, you can move wherever you want, but if you’re African it’s harder, and most of the times just impossible. So be aware of the quotidian luxury you’re living in; have a thought for all the people who don’t have our way of life, who don’t have electricity and are really far away from the internet revolution… And finally, visit our website www.myspace.com/thorkmusic, where you can listen to some songs of our new and previous albums, and of course order them !

Check out the reviews section for the accompanying review of Thork's latest album "Nula Jedan".