Philadelphia’s Sadgiqacea play a style of sludge/doom metal charged with cosmic psychedelia and black metal horror. With only a handful of short releases and a debut LP, False Prism, the duo of Fred Grabosky (drums, vocals) and Evan Schaefer (guitar, bass, vocals) is already making a name for themselves. They are now signed to the legendary Candlelight Records, which released their debut, and False Prism has gained the attention of outlets like Invisible Oranges and even Pitchfork.
On Sunday, September 22, Sadgiqacea played a free show at The Smiling Moose in South Side. Openers Ubasute, Dutchguts, and Haethen brought ear-splitting grindcore, sludgy stoner metal, and traditional black metal, respectively. Pittsburgh’s own Dendritic Arbor, whose members organized the show, closed out the night with a quick and brutal set of their vicious blackened death/grind. After the show, I caught up with Evan and Fred for a short interview.
How did you guys start?
Fred: We met at a party. I was in another band at the time. I wasn’t really satisfied with how it was going. Evan was looking to start another band and we linked up and things started happening from there. We had similar veins of music interests, so we just kind of worked together to make something we both enjoyed.
Evan: We also jammed the first day we met.
F: We jammed at that party.
So on that note of similar interests, what are your influences (musically, conceptually, etc.)
E: I like moods a lot. I like dark music. It can be electronic, it can be black metal, it can be sludge or doom. I try to keep a wide range of influences.
F: Yeah, I can agree with him in that respect. It’s the emotion of the music that pulled me in, certain kinds of music genres… especially doom, especially black metal, and a lot of sludgier new age contemporary projects. I guess I just try and make use of all of my favorite interests in our writing.
What do you mean by “new age, contemporary”?
F: There’s a lot of awesome bands out there right now that really fuel our fire. I’m heavily influenced by Neurosis – but they came around in the ‘80s. But there are a lot of crazy bands out there that have been influenced by that same kind of heavy music we feel a part of, that we feel speaks to us more than any other kind.
There seems to be a whole slew of stuff that’s being called “post-metal” now. The term has been around for a while now, but it seems to have had something of a zeitgeist recently.
F: Right. Yeah, I don’t care what the term is, whatever seems to fall into that category, I’m pretty much usually into it.
E: Whatever it might be its just feels close to the heart and makes me want keep making music.
What does the name Sadgiqacea mean?
F: It’s a name that consists partially of Evan’s guitar tuning and partially in reference to cosmic themes.
Going along with that, what are your lyrical concepts? I noticed the album has “False” in front of all the song titles.
E: We try to put on display an amalgamations of things people have been told that just weren’t true. We think rejecting those falsehoods is part of growing as a human being.
F: Yeah, exposing truth is a big part of it: Trying to unveil that fear is really what controls a lot of our thoughts and actions, and how we can overcome those fears and how to express those fears.
E: It’s really about being free I guess.
F: Free will. That fuels the False Prism album for sure.
I can see that with a lot of metal, particularly extreme metal. The music obviously has an incredibly bleak and dark atmosphere, but it’s not necessarily about feeling depressed. It’s sort of on top of it, as if you, the listener are embodying the fear, or you’re embodying the abjection and horror, as if you are this thing that causes the horror. There’s something triumphant about it.
E: Triumphant, absolutely! Majestic…
F: It definitely has an escapism that empowers you.
Any bands that you’ve toured with or peers from around your area that you want to acknowledge?
F: So many, man… So many!
E: We’d have to start off with them all!
F: We’ll start off with Haethen. We went on tour with them just recently; did a little 5-day thing and we’re going back tonight. We want rep Hivelords for sure. They’re our hometown buddies and they partly own our van. We’re quite close to those guys. We had a great 6 weeks out touring with them in the summer time and look forward to future plans with them. Dutchguts are the shit. We’ve known them for three years now.
E: Dendritic Arbor destroyed.
F: Seriously there’s not enough time for us to mention all the bands we’d like to mention, because there are so many awesome talented bands right now that may not be noticed yet, but they will be.
E: We have to mention Anthropic Records [which released the vinyl of False Prism] and Candlelight Records for sure.
Candlelight… Now that’s a label with some history behind it.
E: We realize that we might not fit their bill as far as half the lineup of their usual bands, but we are glad they took a chance with us. And we definitely want to deliver. Big shout out to Chris Grigg of Woe, for recording it. Colin Marston for mastering it.
What do you guys love about Pittsburgh?
E: I love everything about Pittsburgh. The hills, the bridges, the rivers, and the way it looks in the fall and winter especially. Living there for the short time I did (10 years ago) changed my life, without a doubt. I probably wouldn’t be in Sadgiqacea or listen to the type of music that I do if I hadn’t lived in PGH. I miss Club Laga. I saw so many good shows there.
As a band, we enjoyed the Rock Room last time we played [in July]. We had a really awesome crowd. Hivelords, Lackshmeesingh, and Microwaves were really good. Big thanks to Max and the Dendritic crew, as well as Christopher Woodford, Margaret Welsh, and Slaves BC for showing us so much love out here in western PA.
Thank you for your time and support of what we are doing. We plan to return to Pittsburgh early next year.
Cheers,
Sadgiqacea
www.anthropicrecords.storeenvy.com
https://twitter.com/SADGIQACEA