Sakatat was a solid grindcore band, based on the one release of theirs that D.U. reviewed, Bir Devrin Sonu. The group put out a brief email news release, which was remarkable because it only indirectly informed that the band broke up:
“Turkey’s own old school grindcore trio SAKATAT’s debut album Bir Devrin Sonu is now available for free download at www.sakatatgrindcore.com where you can also check out the entire shot of the final gig. Bir Devrin Sonu is still available on single-sided 12″ vinyl and CD from Bringer Of Gore and Everydayhate, respectively. Much love and respect to everyone who’s shared our passion and had fun with us over the last eight years! SAKATAT 2005-2013.”
Speaking to D.U. via email, Semih Aksi from Sakatat obligingly goes into detail about why the band decided to end.
“We’ve grown up to witness some of our favorite bands ruining their legacy with half-assed albums, solely because they depended on recording and playing music for different reasons. You ask yourself why and the obvious answer is that those bands keep on recording new music, touring, playing festivals and all that solely because they need to feed their egos somehow and that is the only way they know.
“Look at half of the older bands out there and tell me how many of them have put out anything that is worth buying during the second half of their existence? There is already shitloads of new bands out that are able to pull off somehow fresh and exciting records even though they are probably the 2000th band playing the same shit, so why would older bands bother wasting more time, money and resources solely because they can and maybe need to?
“Sure, some of of them might be still enjoying doing what they do, but to us, it seems pointless to keep on playing unless you can manage to top your previous works and keep things exciting. In other words, it is the challenge that makes it fun. Not that we have done anything spectacular with our band whatsoever, but we thought it wouldn’t make any sense to keep playing only for the sake of it, so about two years ago we planned to break up as soon as the album is out and the tour after that was over.
“I am almost happy when I see bands I like breaking up. Calling it quits at the right time has kind of a charm to it since starting something can be quite a challenge.”
And this doesn’t mean that since Sakatat is no more, the individual members are staying idle. Semih explains that “until we come up with something new, we first and foremost keep going to shows, buying new records and also keep setting up gigs in Turkey, helping our friends’ bands on tours and put out their records, and last but not least, use the breakup of Sakatat as a chance to work on something ideally more exciting and radical than what we’d done before, both musically and lyrically.”
It sounds like we should keep our eyes open for what the guys come up with next.
