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A French label had the good idea of putting together a tribute to Failure -whose wonderful albums started in the 90s have remained quite misunknown-, with bands from everywhere and in more or less saturated styles. The first part of Planète magnifiée thus offers 19 covers, while the second focuses on the well-named album Fantastic Planet. As I wanted to know more about this great homage, I asked Derrek a few questions about this project.

First of all, who and what is BITUME?

BITUME is an associative label oriented rock/metal, but which can lean towards pop and experimental, founded in 2016 by myself. The association is today only made up of two people (my wife and myself).

How did you discover Failure?

It's a band that I discovered about 10 years ago in a rather funny way on YouTube. I was looking for a song that I had heard in an episode of Heartbreak High, and in my suggestions there was the album Magnified (thanks Mr. Algorithm), whose cover caught my eye. I took a slap... I listened to the albums over and over, and even after 50 listens I still discover things I hadn't heard. It's such a musically rich group, and indeed unfairly misunknown... (And for the record, I never found the song I was looking for...)

And what do you think of Failure's other projects, obviously in particular Replicants with ex-Tool Paul D'Amour?

Their covers project with Replicants was great, as they managed to put the musical richness of Failure into them. I also really liked Year of the Rabbit, Autolux, and particularly ON with its slightly 80s feel.

The two tributes to Failure that you have just released one after another make me think of those for Soundgarden [released by Redux Records]: a tribute to the band, and a complete album cover [of Superunknown]. How did you get the idea?

Well, I didn't know there was a Soundgarden tribute album! The idea for the double tribute came later, first I had gone with a simple compilation. I had the complete tracklist when Kellii Scott shared my post on social networks looking for bands in order to make a Failure tribute. I had a lot of emails following that...

As the bands' choice of titles progressed, it turned out that all the songs from Fantastic Planet were chosen. That's when I decided that it'd be a good thing to split the compilation in two, and make a special one for this album.

There are songs from all Failure albums; I guess that was on purpose?

Yes, it was. At no time did I tell myself to exclude something from the band, as there's nothing to throw away in their discography.

How did the selection of covers go?

First I contacted a few bands that I knew and that might be interested, and I also got some feedback with the announcement I had made on the networks and a few forums. I had a completed tracklist of around 15 songs, and as I said previously Kellii Scott shared the announcement about my search for bands. Then my mailbox exploded! For the selection, it happened rather naturally because the bands for this kind of compilation are quite motivated. But sometimes after explaining the terms and what I needed, some bands declined or no longer responded to me.

Then there was a lot of exchanges with the bands. When one of them gave me their choice of song, I blocked it for them. There may have been some negotiations, for example when one band was hesitating between two songs and another specifically wanted one of these two songs. But overall, the bands were understanding, and if a song was already chosen then they took another.

Did you also solicit the bands from your label?

Yes, I talked to the label's bands about it first, and four bands were interested in participating (Nick Hollow, MasaCritika, Diego Annuitti and Kaamosmasennus). I also contacted bands that I knew might be interested in the project (Untlited With Drums, Mr Godson, dreDDup).

There is a cover in Spanish, and another with a French accent; but a cover particularly surprised me: the one by Bolshevik Intervention, with different lyrics in French.

The bands were free to perform their cover the way they wanted. Two of them told me that they wanted to translate the lyrics into their own language. It's not necessarily easy to sing in another language, and it's better to do it that way than to butcher it in English. For Bolshevik Intervention, they adapted the lyrics so that the song fit their world. The original lyrics refer to Tarkovsky's film Solaris, in which a kind of extraterrestrial entity confronts the protagonists with the ghosts of their past by making them real, which leads them to their doom.

Failure chose to make an allegory about drug addiction, the fight against one's own demons. In the version of Bolshevik Intervention, it's neither extraterrestrial intelligence nor a narcotic product that gives the protagonist hallucinations, but government propaganda that makes him see enemies where there should only be peers; all in a fairly contemporary context, and which fitted well with their relatively cold and martial musical style.

And how does it work to be able to cover so many titles from a band?

The goal of this compilation was to be free (on Bandcamp and YouTube). YouTube has an agreement with copyright managers, and if the video generates revenue then it's returned to the authors. For Bandcamp, I haven't found much information regarding covers. It's a platform that I use a lot with our label, and as the primary goal is to pay tribute to the band, it seemed obvious that it'd be broadcasted there. The rights for covers on the Internet are quite vague, and we can see lots of things, so it's not easy to know the legal limits concerning their distribution.

Did you contact the members of Failure? If so, do you know if the process interested them and if they listened to the result?

I contacted Ken Andrews, but I haven't heard back from him. After Kellii Scott shared the news for the band search, he sent me a message to ask if I could send him the compilation before it came out. Then he let me know that he and Ken Andrews had listened to it. He told me that they found some versions very interesting, and that they generally liked the project.

Except for a few exceptions, I find that covers -especially by famous bands- have been only titles at the end of an album or to accompany singles. I prefer this kind of tribute albums by bands who aren't (yet) well-known and who nevertheless have a very good level. What's your opinion on this?

Indeed, the covers often ended up as B-side for singles, but it was also a way to discover new bands. Sometimes covers were better than the originals, and some songs were so successful that those who listen to them don't even know that they are covers.

Recently, I really liked the covers made by The Lovecraft Sextet. Do you have any other tribute albums or covers to recommend?

Before creating BITUME, I was in a free label called Chabane's Records and we had made a few tributes. I would recommend the homage to the music of video games from the 80s and 90s [Press Start Button - A Tribute to Video Games Soundtracks of the 80s and 90s], the one to the French punk band Medef Inna Babylone [Requiem pour les Medef - Hommage à Medef Inna Babylone] and that of 90s dance music [Decade Dance - A Tribute to the 90s Dance Music]. They can be found on the Internet. As for covers, I'd recommend "Summertime Blues" by Blue Cheer, "Biking" by Medef Inna Babylone, and all the covers that Nirvana did.