AKESAS IŠ PLAKENTORIJAUS: The Great Secret unfolds itself

To tell the truth, i've never heard about Your band. What/who is it? How did it appear?

Well, it's hard to say who Akesas iš Plakentorijaus is... maybe just another smart nickname for solitude. I wouldn't dare to call it project, rather a playground.

We've got two different words for a play in Lithuanian - one refers to playing musical instrument, another - to playing toys and games. I guess Akesas iš Plakentorijaus is a result of treating instrument as a toy. This was never meant for any other purposes, but kill the time while expanding it at the same time. On a wider scale - this is improvising with the meaning of life, as long as my skills aren't good enough to stand for musician.

Let's call it philosophy of strings, for all philosophies are born within lack of satisfaction, while strings might serve as means for finding your own here and now - the initial source of existencial fulfilment or maturity. As F. Nietzsche wrote: “Man's maturity: to have regained the seriousness that he had as a child at play.”

So, there's no band, You are the only man behind this interesting name and strong music?

There is no band. Akesas is just a wanna-be writer, and this started some 25 years ago with the very first profound state of 'WHY am I ?'. Feeling quite displaced throughout my entire conscious life since then. Dainius Žičkus always sounded alien to me - it was really hard to identify myself under this construct. One can never get into objective touch with his own name - on the contrary - your own name makes you a prisoner of your own pseudo-identity. That's why I invented Akesas iš Plakentorijaus - so nobody knows what it is and where it comes from. Nobody, but me. Void sometimes contains more personality than the person itself. Akesas iš Plakentorijaus means nothing, I mean it goes as a synonym to nothing. The Great Nothing - the one that exists nowhere else, but within your own entity.

What music do You prefer to listen?

All is good: metal, folk, dark-wave, ambient, jazz etc. Music inspires, whatever it is: Hancock, Coltrane, SHINJUKU THIEF, EMPEROR or IMPETIGO.

I love latest stuff from MELECHESH, ABBATH, DARK THRONE - from Black Metal, WARDRUNA, HAGALAZ RUNEDANCE, GIRNŲ GIESMĖS - from neofolk/post-industrial, MORDOR, DEUTCH NEPAL, ARCANA - from ambient fields. Generally speaking - there's no indecent genre, there are indecent bands. So all music can be good. Often depends on the mood, of course. My latest discovery is FORGOTTEN SILENCE 'Kro Ni Ka'. A totally overwhelming masterpiece. Give it a fair listen, and you'll find treasure. I promise.

Lithuania has music ! Good, profound music, but one must dig deeper. Mainstream follows the western fashion just as everywhere- that's the crappy part that makes our culture secondary, but we got really unique and profound acts like ANTIS, SENAS KUINAS, I.V.T.K.Y.G.Y.G., VELNIO NUOTAKA (soundtrack by Viačeslavas Ganelinas), ANUBI, POCCOLUS, ZPOAN VTENZ, KATEDRA, ANDRIUS MAMONTOVAS that can represent Lithuania in an authentic or historic light. There's much more to those mentioned, but let's leave some room for intrigue.

People tend to link me to metalheads - and I'm hell proud of it. At least it's worth to represent something while you are alive, so people around could know what to expect from you. The world is turning faceless, as you might feel it yourselves... eventhough it's full of Facebook.

Facebook is not a book. What about books?

Books. Yeah - I'm proud again for I still belong to this old-school generation, who remember the smell of a book, the yellowish weariness of the pages. It's not only text books breathe, they breathe touch of time, they breathe soul of the writer, history... W. Gombrowicz, K. Abe, V. Sorokin, J.P. Sartre, F. Rabelais, C.G. Jung, V. Erofeev, Ch. Baudelaire, A. Šliogeris, F. Nietzsche, C. Castaneda, V. Pelevin are among my favourites... Too many to mention.

God/gods/mythology/any higher purpose?

Higher purpose ? This might appear rather rude as a statement - but I don't need to believe it anymore. I know it. The closer to death one has ever been, the clearer is the source. Your inner being may never occur out of accidental reaction of star-dust. This is obvious to me, but I'm not to start juggling evidences. Universe represents entire existence, and here's no point in proving this. Either you've been in a state, where The Great Secret unfolds itself, or you haven't. That's it. Everyone is a part of creating essence as well as a thoughtless mechanic structure crawling for survival (why?) . The one you identify yourself with defines who you are. God or gods ? Religion as a matter of choice ? Crap.

You have enough songs to make an album. What about it?

I don't know myself. I have made some 13 songs, each sharing different emotion, different connotation. Some of them got dark-wave approach, others are more of a rock'n'roll drive, some hip-hop attempts and maybe folk/alternative vibes. I guess none of us is able to create a song, but catch it - thoughts are always in the air around us. Same with songs (shit, have I just called them songs ?).

Is the world too full of ideas? There are some many bands one cannot simple listen to them in his/her life.

The world is pregnant. It's pregnant with new ideas, new technologies, new social/economical patterns. And the only way for the world to give birth is war. Sad but true.

Both WW's brought in new lights, new beginnings, new futures... Has mankind changed a lot in a while ? I don't think so. There's gonna be WWIII. Otherwise we shall face no shift or upgrade in technologies. Wanna install something new ? You must quit with something old. Quit roughly, as long as those sitting in the throne will never divorce with oil extraction, fake cancer treatment, or alcohol production. War is the end of the old world as we know it. But no - I don't believe in the total end. At least, there was no total beginning.

Painting by Dainius Žičkus