KURSK - Profane Existence #57 (Summer 2008)

KURSK are tempo changing, throat shredding, dissonant and genre-bending, and they rule. Be sure to check them out. (Mel Hughes, 2008)

So who's in the band, how long have you been going? 

Brad: The four of us have been playing since 2003, I think. Our first show was in the spring of 2004 with ISKRA.

Were/are you in any other bands?

Brad: I was in a band called HEAD HITS CONCRETE for a few years previous to KURSK.

Morgan: I was in a band called FUCKMORGUE around the same time KURSK started up I guess. Since then I was in DEAD DOGS, and occasionally perform duties as a mincecore mercenary in ARCHAGATHUS.

Sarah: I played briefly with a band called MAIMED AND SLAUGHTERED. We did a CRASS cover. It was ridiculous.

Andrea: In Vancouver I was briefly in a mess of a cider and sedatives fueled band called CROTCH ROT. In Winnipeg I played in a slightly tidier disaster called MOUSTACHE VON HAVOC. I also just joined a power violence band that can't keep the beat or pick a name yet, if we suck up enough or pay someone we might be allowed to play our first show at Winnipeg's Arson Fest this year.

Brad, are you the token boy member of the band? Like it seems everywhere you read that girls are not into this stuff, blah, blah, blah. KURSK has 3 girls. So, how come you girls are in this band? Have you been inspired by other girls to do things, or did you just get off your backsides and get things going for yourselves?

S: I used to get super stoked over bands like NAUSEA and SCORNED and other bands with ripping female vocalists, so I began thinking... man, why can't I do this sort of shit also? I played around with the idea of starting bands or being in bands for awhile, without any really good push or opportunities arising. It wasn't until I met these kids that it really all fit into place for me. I think that both Morgan and Andrea have been a great influence on my ideas of women in music, and they definitely have driven me and supported me through the times of doubt and hardship.

A: It's been a long evolution of interests for me. When I was younger, bands like TEAM DRESCH, SPITBOY, and SUBMISSION HOLD all inspired me to actually pick up an instrument and start playing music because of what they were saying. At the time, having representation of queer and feminist politics in the music I listened to was really important to me. Musically, though, I am influenced by a whole slew of stuff that has nothing to do with gender - NOMEANSNO and VOIVOD definitely top the list for bass influences anyway. When I first heard INITIAL STATE, I had been playing bass for about two years and realized that I wanted to play heavier music and it didn't have to be this macho or apolitical thing. I think I snuck through the back door to grindcore, or maybe a basement window.

B: Definitely the token man.

M: I kind of feel like I don't even know how to answer this question anymore. Um, I've been inspired by men and women to make music. I play this kind of music because it's what I love and making music with these dudes is pretty rad.

Why name the band after a battle? Any particular reasons?

B: It actually wasn't about the tank battle (that's the KURSK from Finland)... I'd love to say it was named after the magnetic anomaly outside of the Kursk region, but it's more to do with the Russian K-141 sub that went down in the Barents Sea a few years ago [the ship was named after the battle --Ed.]. Thinking about how being presented with your own mortality strips away political identity. It seemed like a good allegory for being tired of political posturing and over-intellectualized, micro-managed responses to circumstances instead of trying to react to your surroundings as a person, with whatever wherewithal you can bring to a situation, and not judging people by some dogmatic ideology.

A: The event really struck me because the press reported it as it happened. Anyone who read the newspapers that day knew that some 20 odd sailors were at the moment trapped at the bottom of the sea. People knew approximately how many hours of oxygen the crew would have left. But, because of the power games leftover from the cold war, people were powerless to help.

A lot of effort seems to go into the covers of your record releases. How important is the visual aspect of your releases?

S: The visual aspect of our releases is just another way to bring the music to life and adds context to what we are playing. One of my favourite things about vinyl is being able to check out the art that bands express themselves with. It's the closest thing to being able to see someone play live, while just holding a record in your hand.

B: Especially in the age of downloading and over-saturation of stock imagery. We are lucky to be friends with a lot of talented people. Andrea has done art for a couple of our covers, the Implication EP and the THINK DON'T PRAY split... Aaron Nichols did the art for the DEFEATIST split, and Michal Majewski did the art for our split with DAMAGE DIGITAL. We're currently working with Chris Ellis from PROTESTANT on the art for our split with LYCANTHROPY.

M: Like Brad said, we've definitely been blessed with having an incredibly talented artist in the band and having run into folks who are similarly inclined and have been kind enough to help us out. There is something still really gratifying about getting a record that looks like someone put a lot of heart and soul into the whole experience, not just in the music. Of course we all own records that are amazing that might have regrettable artwork. But really thoughtful, or even just aesthetically pleasing cover art and liner notes can really add something to the experience of putting a record on, you know?

Do you think that corporate science/medicine has too much free reign over society? Too much of a hold, where people can't choose alternative sources should they desire to do so?

B: It's firmly entrenched. Most post-secondary schools rely heavily on corporate funding from places like Monsanto, etc, the whole infrastructure of farming is being undermined by GMO's and non-seed bearing crops... the medical industry here doesn't seem as thoroughly fucked as it is in the States, with every second pharmaceutical firm shitting out a new product with a million harsh side effects every week, but that may just be a function of the visibility of it here. Laws tighten every day with regards to alternative medicine... very hard to keep a revenue stream going if people can make choices about how to treat themselves without spending obscene amounts of money on over the counter quick fixes.

A: Yeah, it has nothing to do with health or "progress" and everything to do with profit. Doctors start receiving gifts from pharmaceutical companies while they are still in med school -- companies buy their fucking beer for keg parties. By the time they are practicing they don't even question whether to take the free trip to Bermuda for pushing more Loxapine or to the weekend golf trip for encouraging people to take hardly tested medicine for conditions they may not even have. I think all of us, or our family and friends, have received inadequate care or have been more harmed than helped by a backwards health care system.

It seems that society, as a whole, is living in fear. What with CCTV cameras, etc. Yet, people still get mugged, raped, etc. Is society on its last breath? What would you like to see changed, so that people are free to live and not be brought down by fear?

A: Yikes. I struggle with this one. I go back and forth between being completely nihilistic and once in awhile being ashamed out of my apathy by people who have lived through the most horrific experiences imaginable and continue to fight for change. All of the crimes that our standard of living is based on -- sweatshop slavery, land theft and destruction for resource extraction -- are considered non-issues by most people. Yet the media focuses on isolated random violence. I don't know what will help people switch focus from fear of crime and terror to looking at the roots of the problem.

B: If I had the answer to the second half of that question, I'd probably go insane wondering why people can't see it also. If I wanted to be cynical I'd say that it seems like the apparatus building and damage control are often more important than solving problems in the first place.

S: I also think a lot of the fear that wraps up and keeps us in a world of violence and desperation comes from the power and control of money. The influence of corporations, the imbalance of the classes, the struggle to support oneself in a society that is set up to make it quite difficult to get ahead or to sustain a decent living. It takes the feeling of control out of ones hands and creates fear that some 'other' force moves and makes things how they are.

M: I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately, as I'm currently in New York where security culture seems to have become sort of a cultural white noise that people are pretty used to having as a part of their day to day lives. I haven't been here very long, so of course my observations are based on limited experience. I can't say if anyone actually feels safer here because of it. In my view, the iron-fist style of policing and the general attitude in public policy that if the great unwashed masses were left to their own devices, the would just tear each other to pieces is pretty wrong-headed. It seems sort of flaky to say, but I think for the most part, humans generally try to get a long with each other because it's actually more beneficial to them than to be constantly in conflict. Because of the great disparities of wealth and power within most societies, and the increasing size and population of urban areas, I think this tendency of people to try to accommodate and work with each other becomes less and less possible, and unfortunately it becomes replaced by suspicion and fear. I'm not trying to say that human social organization has been or even can be utopian if it;s on a smaller scale, but I think at this point it's going to take a lot more than just taking down the cameras. As far as society being on its last breath, well... if by society you mean the ever-spreading global culture that is mainly informed by Western values, I can never tell. Civilizations rise and fall, it happens over and over again, but it has never happened to one that has been so all-encompassing. I can't tell if that'll go first or if the planet will. It's like the chicken or the egg questions, except it'll be: "which one was last?".

Do you think we will learn lessons from the past? It seems we are doomed to repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

S: I believe the past is rarely seen clearly, and the present is lived without much regard for the future. I think the individual may have enough trouble maintaining how they view their surroundings and themselves, that society as a whole is destined to do the same.

B: On its face it looks like its looping in on itself.

A: Most likely doomed.

Burning Cedar. What's your view on what is happening with Israel/Palestine? Is it too easy to choose sides?

M: That song was actually about the Israeli bombing of Lebanon in the summer of 2006. I don't know, this is a conflict that has its roots way beyond the creation of the state of Israel. I don't find it easy to take sides at all! I sympathize with the people who are living in the path of this conflict every day, on both sides of the wall. I think it's way too easy for people to view both "Palestinians" and "Israelis" and these monolithic entities where everyone who might fall into either of those categories share the same views about the conflict, and to associate policies and attitudes of the Palestinian Authority and the state of Israel with the people who happen to live under their jurisdiction. There is a mythology surrounding both sides that unfortunately, most widely available media does little to dispel.

A: Palestinians have lived in refugee camps since 1948, denied proper health care, access to food and even oil for cooking, and have endured intermittent bulldozing and bombing of their communities. We have to be able to separate people from their leaders. Just because I live inside the borders of Canada doesn't mean I at all support the continuing land left of First Nations across the country. I heard on the radio the other day that currently a majority of Israeli citizens actually favour negotiations with Hamas, but the state acts on its own imperatives. I don't have to believe in the political agendas of Hamas or Fatah to believe that Palestinians have a right to not live in a war zone.

The three 7"s I have of you are on different labels, and two of them are split releases. How did they come about? Do you like sharing split releases and working with different labels?

B: It pretty much just happened that way; our friend Greg from Spiral Objective was in Canada at the time that we recorded the first record, and we've known him for years. A few friends of ours were starting a label locally (CAL-3) and got involved with that release as well. The Level Plane release came about at Aaron (DEFEATIST)'s suggestion. I guess they needed a scapegoat, haha?? Seriously though, it came at a time when I was just getting over a shitty ankle injury. We weren't playing much and we were feeling a pretty big lack of momentum, so it was a really significant thing for us, and also led to a friendship with Greg/Level Plane and another release on that label, the DAMAGE DIGITAL split. That's being co-released with Fuck Yoga from Macedonia. I'd been talking with Ivan for a while, working on some release plans. The split with THINK DON'T PRAY was put out by the bands, they are great folks and great friends, and the world is a sadder place without 'em. We're doing a split with LYCANTHROPY from CZ that Ondra and I have been talking about for quite a while. That's being done by Halo Of Flies (US), Rimbaud (Ireland), and Amertume (France) and a split with HALF GORILLA that is being done by xTRUEx and Just Say No! out of Alberta. I guess we meet a lot of people, that's what it's been all about. We're taking a break from splits for a while, though.

What's in store for the band?

B: Currently we're doing a bit of a member change, as Morgan got hitched in May and is moving to NYC permanently sometime in the fall. Congrats to her and Joel, big shoes to fill, but our pal Loren from BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA is picking up with us for the summer to do some shows and writing, and there will definitely be news when we have permanent arrangements nailed down. We have been delaying working on a full length for Aborted Society for a while now and are itching to get started on it. Thanks for the interview, Mel, we appreciate chance to rant, though we should have recorded the drunken porch chatter that we had before we sat down to start typing!

I agree, Brad, it would have been cool. Maybe some other time, come to Ireland and we can do that. Lots of luck to Morgan, hope life goes well for you in NYC. Thanks to the band for the interview and may they continue to steam ahead, knocking heads and inspiring change as they go.

www.myspace.com/kursk
www.kursk.n3.net