Tag: Interview (Page 2 of 4)

Trepaneringsritualen – Interview

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On January 7, 2019

In Interviews

Trepaneringsritualen is one of the most respected projects in the last decade of the post-industrial genre. With some albums which harken back to the sounds of 80s ritual ambient projects and others more traditionally structured, Trepaneringsritualen provides listeners with an array of soundscapes which could be as likely heard in a solitary ritual space as in a venue packed with metalheads. 

While the sounds of T x R x P are anything but uniform, Thomas Martin Ekelund, the original member behind the project, explains a bit about the purpose of T x R x P and we find that this is as complex and unwieldy as the music itself. 

We talk about the evolving background of T x R x P which includes a few new members, incense, touring, Fimbulvetr and more.

Enjoy the read and listen to the T x R x P loud!

Interviewee: Thomas Martin Ekelund of Trepaneringsritualen
Interviewer: Michael Barnett

Michael: Do you think you have come closer to the full understanding and consciousness you are seeking as Trepaneringsritualen?

T x R x P: Quite the contrary. Every flash of light reveals further paths veiled in darkness; with every door opened another two shuttered ones appear. I have been forced to accept that this is the way it’s going to be. We’re stumbling around an ever-changing labyrinth, and what we find in there rarely makes any sense. Perhaps that sense of no-sense is the purpose, or perhaps we will ultimately find ourselves in the embrace of true illumination. I don’t know, but in either case, T × R × P is a curse that can not be escaped.

Michael: Has there been a time in a collaboration as Trepaneringsritualen that you felt you came even closer to your personal source than during solo sessions?

T × R × P: I don’t make the distinction. T × R × P is and has always been something far greater than me. The brothers and sisters that have contributed to the workings are as essential to it as am I. The vortex may emanate from me, but their energies and the tangents they have added have been needed at various points in order for us to move forward.

Trepaneringsritualen by Linda Marie Bjärenstam

Michael: You’ve mentioned in the past that intoxicants are not a necessity for you to fully embrace the presence of Trepaneringsritualen. But I wonder what your thoughts are on the encounters throughout history with hallucinogens, and what effect they may have on the shaping of various religions.

T × R × P: I believe the use of hallucinogens has had, and continues to have, a considerable influence on the spirituality of Man. Those who aren’t entirely blind have a need to transcend this prison, and these substances offer at least a faint glance of the utter enormity of that which lies outside of creation. But hallucinogens are just a tool like any other. It’s a shortcut to utter madness, but it still only shows us the faint shadows of true reality.

Michael: Do you feel that Trepaneringsritualen has been born at this time in history for a reason? Or, do you think your personal spiritual journey remains somewhat separated from a linear framework?

T × R × P: That’s an interesting question, I have not pondered the timing. It doesn’t seem terribly important on a grander scale. We’re all captives in a temporal realm, and time is cyclical, so any point in time will have occurred an ungraspable number of times before and will occur innumerable times again.

Michael: What other performances and/or locations have you visited (outside of your own touring) that have enriched your understanding of Trepaneringsritualen?

T × R × P: There have been many transformative experiences in my life, everything from seeing Arktau Eos performing a ritual in a forest in the Sierra Nevada, to walking alone in the rain on the battlefields at Somme. But I don’t know that they have related explicitly to T × R × P. Generally, power nexuses like megalithic sites and places saturated in death like the aforementioned battlefield always shed some light on the path I am walking.
(Editor’s note: Check out our recent interview with Arktau Eos.)

Michael: You’ve mentioned the importance of attacking the senses, and in particular the nose, during your rituals/concerts. Would you recommend a blend of incenses or oils for an audience to better connect to Trepaneringsritualen when listening at home? Would this differ from album to album, season to season?

T × R × P: The V ∴ V ∴ V blend we created together with VI & All Things Obscure last year is the ideal starting point. We often modify its effects with sandalwood, palo santo or juniper at live rituals, depending on the desired result, alongside rotting blood, mold and mildew and other scents of decay. As a species, our olfactory perception of the world is what leaves the strongest impression, hence the focus on these aspects, but we aim to attack all senses.

Void ∴ Vision ∴ Vortex Incense

Michael: You’ve mentioned the Fimbulvetr‘s arrival in a past interview. I wonder if you still see this as the case? If so, what signs do you see of its arrival?

T × R × P: There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re in the midst of it. Everywhere you look you see the signs. Brother is fighting brother, sister is fighting sister. The masses are deaf and dumb. Men and women without honor, fully shackled by the vapid, vain and vulgar chains of consensus reality. This is an inevitability, all things created will decay and ultimately be destroyed. Rebirth is equally inevitable. We’re far from done, and until we are this is a circle that will keep repeating.

Michael: After the release of Kainskult, you started working on a new album with Peter Johan Nijland. How is this album coming along?

T × R × P: Peter has been a long-time brother, and an essential resource for T × R × P for a number of years. It finally became evident that he is an integral part of the working, and thus he has joined permanently. A split 7” with Nordvargr is imminent on Cyclic Law, and we are working on several other projects at the moment with a few already approaching completion — including a long-form work entitled ᛉᛦ to be released on Cold Spring during 2019.

We have started working on what might be considered the continuation of Kainskult — tentatively entitled Nine Daggers — but its conclusion is further into the future, and still in a very obscure state. We have also included Sister ᛏᛇᚱᚫ ᚾ ∴ ᚾ ∴ ᚾ in these workings, but her role will by necessity be more shadowy, though of no less importance.

(Editor’s note: A new project led by Peter J. Nijland, released on Cyclic Law.)

Michael: Would you like to talk about any of the specific activities you conducted in celebration of the tenth year of T × R × P?

T × R × P: There was no specific commemoration of the first decade. But 2018 was a year of Metamorphosis in many ways that shall become evident in the future.

Michael: You’ve stated previously that “we’re prisoners in a counterfeit world…”. Do you think as time passes and people become more connected to each other through the internet that more of us are beginning to see through the veil? Or, do you think we are becoming blinder by the year, increasing momentum toward an ending?

T × R × P: Ultimately, I don’t believe true union can be achieved in this realm. Connections can certainly be made, and you will find the people you need, be it through long-distance communication or face-to-face interactions. But each of us is cursed to always walk alone until the ultimate dissolution of the cosmos.

Michael: If you were able to have everything necessary, location and tools, what would be the perfect venue for a Trepaneringsritualen ritual to reach its fullest potential?

T × R × P: There’s an enormous number of places where rituals could be conducted, power nexuses from all over the globe that would bring their energies into the working. That might be a simple sacrificial oak grove on my mother soil, the ruins of Göbekli Tepe, or some ancient catacomb in Langadòc. Unlimited financial resources would merely bring more of what we already do. More fire, more scents, more lights, more participants.

Trepaneringsritualen –  Nicky Hellemans Photography

Michael: How are things going for the Beläten label? Are there any releases coming up that you would like to mention?

T × R × P: Beläten is currently obscured by the veils of alphaomega. Time will tell when they will lift and what they will reveal.

Michael: Where does the entity that is Teeth currently fit into the world of your output? Is this element currently silent or are Teeth’s reverberations still felt through T × R × P?

T × R × P: Teeth came very close to destroying me, but ultimately I won that battle and arose as a new man. It was an immensely painful struggle, but any struggle worth enduring will be. I don’t think the Teeth entity is in any way present in T × R × P, but it did cause me to open my eyes and as such it served a purpose.

Michael: You’ve mentioned that you find T × R × P to be a more positive project than people seem to realize. Why do you think others see the project as being so dark and what would you say they might be missing?

T × R × P: This working is certainly treading dark territories, but “dark” isn’t inherently negative. That’s a Judeo-Christian notion, and perhaps these people are simply unable to shed that yoke since the occident has been in the claws of that particular dragon for so long. It is in darkness we may find illumination. »Darkness yields the brightest light, and that it might reveal is dreadful desolation and the sweetest agony.«

Michael: Among other things, Nordvargr and you have collaborated on his latest solo album Metempsychosis on the track “First East”, not to mention the recently fully collaborative release ‘Alpha Ænigma’ as ᚾᛟᚢ II // ᚦᛟᚦ ᚷᛁᚷ. I wonder if you could speak a bit about your discovery of Nordvargr’s music?

T × R × P: I’ve been listening to Brother Nordvargr’s endeavors since I was a mere child, which undoubtedly has left its mark. It wasn’t until a few years ago our paths crossed, and it became apparent that our missions are of a similar nature, and I have found in him a true brother. Alpha Ænigma is just a small sidetrack, an impulse that came out of a larger collaborative working under the name Det Kätterska Förbund which is slowly beginning to show its face to the world. A triptych of EPs are in the works for Cold Spring, but travails of Malkuth have conspired to slow down our progress on this endeavor.

Michael: Have these collaborations felt important, in the sense of the T × R × P mission (whatever that may be)? Will there be more of these collaborations/rituals/experimentations with Nordvargr in the future?

T × R × P: They are of utmost importance, and I suspect our paths are forever entwined at this point. It’s a rarity finding a kindred soul like that, especially in the Swedish scene which, truth be told, mostly lacks the sort of depth we’re both striving towards. I am honored and grateful to call him a Brother.

Michael: How far back exactly does your relationship with ritual ambient go? Do you remember who was the first artist of this variety you discovered which really made an impression on you?

T × R × P: That’s a hard one. It’s 20+ years for sure, so not entirely convinced I recall the exact timeline. Korpses Katatonik & Zero Kama were important, Dogs Blood Rising by Current 93, and the first Lustmørd LP had a huge impact as well, and last but absolutely not least Slaughterhouse Invitations and other early works of Brighter Death Now. The sheer obsessiveness of their works is something that just grabbed hold of me, and never really let go. It’s impossible to overestimate the impact these artists had on me as a young man, and they all continue to be a source of inspiration.

Michael: You often describe Teeth and Trepaneringsritualen as currents of energy or consciousness that flow through you. I wonder if this is totally involuntary or if you are working with a form of surrealist automatism, voluntarily allowing yourself to be open to these foreign currents/entities?

T × R × P: Teeth was an attack, a malevolent entity that, for whatever reason, tried to destroy me. I am quite aware of why and how this happened, but I am prefer to keep those details to myself. Needless to say, it’s a battle I won and came through stronger and more focused.

T × R × P, on the other hand, is more akin to a union. It’s the ineffable powers of T × R × P working in tandem with my impulses. I am not T × R × P, I am part of it. It’s involuntary in the sense that I never asked for this, but it’s also voluntary because I have chosen to carry this curse to its conclusion. My aim is to ultimately be able to give up all control of the process, but I suspect that is impossible. Try as I might to escape it, I am still a being of physical manifestation, and as such, I am shackled to this world. A considerable part of what I have written has been initiated and often completed in trance states, and I find it a very rewarding way of working. It is at least a vague estimation of giving up control.

Michael: With Kainskult, T × R × P seems to be taking another step further in a process that seemed to become noticeable on Perfection & Permanence. Namely, that these two albums seem to be moving into a more musical direction, with more distinct percussion patterns and vocals that follow this more structural framework. Is this a process that is happening outside of your control and understanding, or is this a direction you are purposely taking?

T × R × P: It is true that both Kainskult and Perfection & Permanence are song-based in a more or less traditional sense. This is one aspect of T × R × P. It doesn’t mean we have abandoned the more explicitly ritual music, nor do we see any real necessity to make a distinction. It’s all of the same essences, with the same purpose. The differences are only on an aesthetic level. 2019 will see releases encompassing both aspects.

T × R × P @ Boiler Room, Berlin 2016

Michael: You’ve had an incredibly rigorous schedule for live events over the last few years. Is there any fatigue at this point, or are you still feeling the need to conduct your rituals across the globe as often as is permitted?

T × R × P: The public rituals are such an essential part of the working, so we try to accept as many offers as we are able. It certainly takes considerable effort to keep up, but it’s a sacrifice we’re obliged to make. Logistical issues have made it hard to schedule further public works recently, but we’re slowly getting back on track and I suspect the second half of 2019 will prove quite hectic.

Michael: Thank you so much for your time, I am very pleased to be speaking with you on behalf of This Is Darkness. Are there any final words you’d like to say before we part ways?

T × R × P: Thank you for the opportunity. We have nothing further to add.

Links

Official T × R × P Website
Bandcamp
Facebook
Instagram

Our review of Kainskult on This Is Darkness

Sodom & Chimera – Interview with film director James Quinn

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On December 27, 2018

In Interviews

James Quinn is the writer and director behind Sodom & Chimera Productions and their upcoming film Daughter of Dismay. Quinn has been solidifying his position in the film community over the last few years since the company launched with it’s debut film The Law of Sodom in 2016. I’ve found his work very compelling and have been following the company for the last few years. But, it seemed like things were really starting to take off in 2018. This is, indeed, the perfect time to speak with James Quinn. As industry renowned talent is being brought on board for post-production and the film gets closer to completion the scale and quality of what he’s orchestrated has become apparent. This is a huge step forward for a small company, which could see themselves moving toward ever loftier goals in the film industry over the coming years. I hope you’ll enjoy my interview with James Quinn, and that you will find his work as compelling as I have!

Krist Mort as The Demon

Interviewer: Michael Barnett
Interviewee: James Quinn

Michael: The end credits for The Law of Sodom looked a bit like those of Lynch’s Eraserhead. James Quinn, you seem to have carried most of the weight of Sodom & Chimera in its earliest incarnation. Was this something you enjoyed? Do you consider yourself an auteur, more than a compiler of elements, a true author of a production?

James: The Law of Sodom (2016) was a very personal and extreme project, both in terms of content and how it was made. A lot of time and pain went into it, and it’s indeed a production that I practically carried alone entirely. By now, the way I make films has changed dramatically. I do consider my projects to be somewhat of auteur works though. My ideas and concepts of films are things I’m very picky and strict about in terms of execution, and in most cases, what you see on screen is based on deep, personal ideas and emotions, things I try to convey in very specific ways. Though, it has to be made clear that all films are collective works, larger ones often more than smaller ones.

Regarding Eraserhead (1977), yes, that has always been a massive inspiration to me as a filmmaker, and has also influenced the making of The Law of Sodom.

Michael: How long has Sodom & Chimera been active? Was it long before the release of The Law of Sodom, or was it a fast-moving project from the very beginning?

James: Sodom & Chimera is fairly young. It was founded in October 2016, right after the North American premiere of The Law of Sodom, which was shot before Sodom & Chimera was a thing. Sodom & Chimera, to me, is more of a personal collective. We’re a small team, and work together on a lot of projects, but most importantly, it’s a way to connect all works, promote them, and give them a voice under the banner of something more recognizable than just the name of a director. Sodom & Chimera represents a large body of work, from photography to film, to the occasional other obscure piece of art that might present itself. It has indeed always been a very fast moving project, from the day it started.

Michael: What have been some of the biggest influences on the people behind Sodom & Chimera? Do you have a personal favorite director?

James: I can’t speak for my colleagues, but personally, there are only a handful of artists that directly influenced me. The very obvious one is David Lynch, though – even though I greatly enjoy all of his works – the only of his films that directly affected my own filmmaking are Eraserhead and Inland Empire (2006). Other big influences in terms of more obscure works have been Karim Hussain’s Subconscious Cruelty (2000), Merhige’s Begotten (1990), Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), Un Chien Andalou (1929), Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2009), and several works from the 20s and 30s. Even though a lot of my previous films are very bizarre and surreal, the grotesque aspect of them was never my true objective. It was important to me, yes, but my main goal was always to create something that is beautiful or at least interesting to look at. Cinematography is the most important element in all of my films, it’s a tool I use not just to show what’s happening in a scene, but to be poetic and create impressions that stick out. To be completely honest, most of the ways I frame shots and try to explore visuals do not stem from inspiration from certain films or photography, but from paintings. Paintings are built differently, from the way they’re framed to the amount of detail present, to just how much image is included in the frame and where it cuts off. Creating images like this is a very mathematical process, actually. I try to keep that in mind whenever I build a scene.

Ieva Agnostic as The Witch in Daughter of Dismay

As to the question of who’s my favorite director, that’s an easy one, actually. Andrei Tarkovsky. Never have I seen any other works of film in my life that convey visuals like his. It’s pure cinematic bliss to me, and all of his films are truly like moving paintings. Having seen his film Andrei Rublev (1966) on 35mm, I don’t think I’ll ever change my mind on who my favorite director is.

Michael: Daughter of Dismay has been moving along nicely, with some great talent steadily being added to the project. How much work is going into this one in comparison to previous films?

James: Daughter of Dismay is a mammoth of a project that pretty much destroyed my health. There was so much careful planning, budgeting and pitching involved, so many days of going without sleeping, so much unbearable stress that I literally had to call an ambulance to my house due to heart problems a week after the shoot was over. I’m still recovering, even though production is nowhere near over. Once post is finished, the entirety of the production will have taken around a year, of which only two days were shooting. Shooting a short in 70mm IMAX, actually getting it made is pretty much near impossible, and it has a reason no one has done it yet. Getting closer and closer to the finish line of post production, I can see why no seems to have even attempted it yet. It completely eviscerated me, mentally and physically. But it was entirely worth it.
James Quinn

Michael: Do you anticipate Daughter of Dismay to be a more or less accessible (in terms of theme/content) film than your previous works?

James: Daughter of Dismay is supposed to be a film that can be enjoyed by the masses. It’s the most accessible film I directed so far, and can be enjoyed by pretty much anyone who is okay with darker themes. It is indeed extremely dark, emotional and sad, with one scene that might make some cringe, and the tone is very sinister, but in its core, it’s a very inspiring story with an extremely polished look. It’s not experimental in the slightest and presents itself in a very linear manner, with a focus on epic, visceral execution. We had an extremely large budget, which enabled us to get the most out of this and make it feel like a little blockbuster, instead of just an independent short, for which I’m very thankful. The reason I made the film this way is multi-faceted. I love creating dark niche visions, films that freak people out and evoke extreme reactions, raw, experimental films that mess with people’s heads, but I’ve also always particularly enjoyed the kind of cinema that relies on entirely different values; clean, more traditional pieces of direct storytelling, with a strong focus on emotion, something that progresses throughout the story and ends with a bang, a scene that leaves you emotionally affected while watching the credits roll. This is a recipe that works especially well with short films, one that I’ve been meaning to explore for a while, though never had the means to properly pull off. Some of the fans of my work might get cramps reading this, but Daughter of Dismay was made to be mainstream-accessible, which is one of the reasons we shot in IMAX, and will present it in this format. It’s supposed to be big, epic, dramatic and to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, though in this case not for being “fun”, but for the intense impact it has. Even though it is so very accessible, I still have to clearly mention that I included a lot of my trademark elements in the film, and it is guaranteed to be the darkest and most surreal IMAX film you’ve ever seen.

“I love creating dark niche visions, films that freak people out and evoke extreme reactions, raw, experimental films that mess with people’s heads, but I’ve also always particularly enjoyed the kind of cinema that relies on entirely different values; clean, more traditional pieces of direct storytelling, with a strong focus on emotion, something that progresses throughout the story and ends with a bang, a scene that leaves you emotionally affected while watching the credits roll.”

Michael: What is the most crucial change in the framework this time around? Someone added to the project of utmost importance or some perfect set location?

James: Everything was different about this project, and every single thing mattered. From the gigantic efforts our cinematographer took upon himself, making sure to pull this off in the most amazing way possible, and enabling us to shoot in IMAX, to the lighting team, who pulled off the insane task of shooting with an ISO of 50 in a location with barely any light, and made it look like the sun was shining intensely, to our special effects team, who built an entire fake human that looked completely life-like, to our incredible team of production assistants, we went big in every single aspect of the production and squeezed out every drop of potential there was, to make it the film it is now. It would be hard to pick something precise, something that I can point to specifically, since every single aspect of the film’s production was extremely important, and if just one were missing, the film wouldn’t exist.

Dajana Rajic on Daughter of Dismay set.

Michael: For Daughter of Dismay, are there any connections to previous films you’ve produced? What should the viewer know, going into the film?

James: I would actually go as far as to say the ideal way to watch this is without having seen any of my other work before. It has no connections whatsoever to the rest of my films, and is very different, in that it is just a lot less offensive or extreme, and, like mentioned earlier, much more accessible than anything I’ve ever done. So, having seen the rest of my work, one might get false expectations, which is one of the reasons I’m making it very clear that this is a cleaner version of my artistic vision, though I do think fans of my traditional work will enjoy it just as much. If you go into this not knowing anything about it, or about my work, you’ll be able to enjoy it unbiased, just knowing you’re going into a 70mm IMAX film, which I think really helps.

Michael: You created the film in 70mm, and appear to be one of the first in the industry to do so for a short film. What influenced this decision and what is so important about working in this format as opposed to the industry standards?

James: We’re the first narrative short film in the history of cinema to shoot in 70mm IMAX, actually. Most films that have been shot this way are either grand space documentaries, or other documentaries of gigantic proportions, or massive blockbusters like Dunkirk (2017) or The Dark Knight (2008). The reason we shot in this format is quite simple: It was clear pretty early on that Daughter of Dismay is supposed to be a big, epic piece of film, something you watch and go “wow”, something you don’t just watch, but actually experience. The closest experience to being inside a film itself (besides 3D, which I’m not a supporter of) is 70mm IMAX, a format that is so unlike any other format, simply due to the intensity of the image, the detail and sharpness, it’s like being sucked into the world of the film itself. Christopher Nolan very fittingly described it as “virtual reality without goggles”. You’re being moved closer to the screen, which is extremely large, not only being very wide, but multiple times as tall as regular screens, which places you directly in the center of the image. Additionally, the sharpness and detail are so intense, it makes things pop out that you would never see in any other format. The digital resolution equivalent is around 18K, something that is obviously impossible to reach with digital sensors. Actually, you see more detail in a 70mm IMAX projection than in real life. We had to stop and have someone remove a pencil from the forest ground during one scene since people would have been able to see it on the big screen. In real life, this was barely noticeable. The way we see things when looking at a two-dimensional image this sharp is vastly different from the way we see the world in real life, and it gives us a strange sensation of being “more real looking than real life”. This is exactly what I wanted for Daughter of Dismay. You don’t just go see it. You experience the entire thing. Obviously, not everyone will be able to see it in this format, but we’re going to make sure to have the rest of the presentations be as impressive as they can, which means most of them will be in regular 70mm or 35mm, both formats that are absolutely beautiful.

Michael: You filmed Daughter of Dismay deep in the woods of Austria. Was this the plan from the beginning? What are some features of the Austrian woodlands which attracted you to this set location?

James: I have always been fascinated by forest landscapes and the natural atmosphere they bring. There’s something mystical and sinister to them, even though I consider it to be a place of peace. Most of my films have scenes in the woods or take place in them entirely. The Austrian woods, besides being the most accessible to me, since Austria is my home, are especially beautiful to me. For Daughter of Dismay, I wanted a set that’s as visually impressive as possible. Fallen trees, very large, tall ones, big, thick roots, grounds full of leaves, all of this is essential to the visuals of the film. I’ve shot in many different forests so far, and all of them looked different. This time, I went back to one I’ve already shot in, for Flesh of the Void (2017), though in Daughter of Dismay everything looks vastly different due to the different format, color and style. I’ll most certainly continue to shoot in forests, though I’d love to explore different ones in the future. Getting to explore mystical locations for a film shoot is one of the many things I enjoy about filmmaking. It’s a multi-faceted process that brings me much joy.

Still from Daughter of Dismay

Michael: Joseph Bishara will be working on the film score for Daughter of Dismay. What has been your past relationship with this musician? Why is his work so fitting for the film?

James: I haven’t had any sort of relationship with Joseph previous to Daughter of Dismay. He was my first pick for the film’s score, and he agreed to do it. I consider us extremely lucky to be working with him. Joseph is an absolute genius in his field and, in my opinion, one of the most talented horror composers of all time. I clearly remember seeing Insidious in the theater in 2010, and being absolutely blown away by how anxiety-inducing and dreadful his sounds are.

The screeching violins, dissonant and violent, loud, metallic explosions of piano strings, paired with very harmonic, beautiful and emotional melodies placed me in an absolute state of awe. I remember going back home, and immediately looking up the score online, listening to it again to examine it. There’s a very psychological element to Joseph’s way of composing, with an extreme amount of detail and passion present in his music, as he’s able to give you chills by simple (and also very complex at the same time) means of sound, something that deeply impressed me. I ended up following his work closely, being blown away over and over again. For Daughter of Dismay, we needed something sinister, something dark and mystical, but at the same time something that is extremely emotional, melancholic and touching, something that puts you in a certain mood by just listening to the piece itself. Knowing very well about Joe’s talent in not just creating horrifying soundscapes, but also strong emotions, I contacted him and told him about the film, and the rest is history.

Michael: Ben Brahem Ziryab has been brought on as director of photography. He’s done some quite impressive work in the past. How has your experience been working with him? Does he bring a particular magic to this project?

James: Ben was absolutely amazing to work with. He did indeed bring a particular magic to the project. Not only did he enable us to expand to IMAX instead of regular 70mm, his work ethics, dedication and talent stood out so much, I know for certain already that I will continue to work with him on more projects. He initially contacted me about a possible collaboration, and after talking to him on the phone for hours, I knew absolutely that this was going to be a person I’d want to work with more regularly. His passion for analog film and cinematography is absolutely magical, and he is talented beyond belief. I especially urge readers to check out his short The Negative (2017), which was shot in VistaVision (horizontal 35mm film). It’s an absolute masterpiece of both, storytelling and cinematography, and is deeply inspiring as a project, too. We worked together closely on Daughter of Dismay, and prepared on location for around 10 days before the shoot, visiting the set almost daily, to plan everything through as carefully as possible. Working with him on set was fantastic, as our visions for the film matched perfectly, with some of his own touch making it the unique piece it is now.

Editor’s note: You can read more about Ben, VistaVision and The Negative in this article by Kodak cameras.

Director of Photography, Ben Brahem Ziryab on set.

Michael: As for the acting talent in Daughter of Dismay, do you have any recurring actors you seek to employ for each project?

James: I try to work with new talent as often as possible. I enjoy exploring the world of actors and actresses, and there are many fantastic talents out there. I do occasionally hire people I’ve previously worked with, as I did with Dajana Rajic, who plays the daughter of the witch in Daughter of Dismay and has acted in a music video I directed. But usually, I try to focus on being open towards new talent and finding the absolute perfect persona for the character of the film. In the case of Daughter of Dismay, we had an extremely talented all-female cast. Actually, the entire reason why the film exists is due to the lead actress, who I did a spontaneous photo shoot with in early 2018, in which she posed as a witch, which lead to very occult works of photography. I was so impressed by her ability to portray emotion and expression purely through her face and posture that I asked her if she was interested in starring in a film as the same character. She loved the idea, and I was so into the character that I ended up writing the script in a couple of hours, since I already had her entire background story laid out in my head. Everything progressed from there. She really sells the film, her talent and mystical looks are perfect for this role and inspiring. Dajana, who played the role of the daughter, a smaller role, but very important nonetheless, did an equally amazing job. I love working with children, and Dajana is especially gifted at following instructions, and has an intense emotional range that she can express on command. Her role was very dependent on conveying confusion and sadness, and she proved to be absolutely perfect for it. The shot before the very last shot in the film is a shot of her that is especially haunting, though you’ll have to see for yourself why.

Dajana Rajic in Daughter of Dismay (not that final shot mentioned above).

Michael: What are some other films and projects from Sodom & Chimera which you would like to mention?

James: With the promotion and publicity of Daughter of Dismay, I’m trying to focus on presenting it as a singular project, one that’s separate from my others, like mentioned. I’ve made a range of films so far that are all very different from each other, though many carry distinctive elements that I put in all of my films. My favorite so far, besides Daughter of Dismay, was Sulphur for Leviathan (2017). It’s a grimy arthouse short about Satanism and the downfall of Christianity, and was heavily inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky. It was painful to shoot and made me want to quit filmmaking, but I’m extremely glad we pulled it off. It’s still the most provocative and radical film I’ve made so far, even though there’s practically no violence in it.

For people who would like an introduction to my filmmaking roots, I suggest to check out The Law of Sodom, which is an extremely disturbing and experimental film about my personal experience with mental illness, all written and shot during episodes of psychosis. (Watch on Vimeo on Demand)

Like mentioned though, Daughter of Dismay is a very separate piece, and I’d like for people who see it to disregard any other work they might have seen of mine. That doesn’t mean I’m not proud of my other films – not at all. It’s just such a unique and different film, I’d like people to go into it without any specific expectations of my style.

From the photo set (same name) which inspired Daughter of Dismay.

Michael: You also work within still-photography, a number of these sets are available for browsing at sodomchimera.com/photos. I particularly enjoyed the ‘Idolatry of Emptiness’ set. Is this an equal passion to your filmmaking? What has been your most memorable photoshoot?

James: Photography is a big passion of mine, yes. Visual art is something I’m very fond of, and there’s something about photography which greatly excites me, which is the ability to tell an entire story with one single frame, to put very specific thoughts into people’s brains and make them make up their own stories. There are similarities to filmmaking in the way I approach it, but in the end, it’s such a wonderfully different medium, and it’s especially pleasing as an artist since it works quicker than shooting a film. I do prepare most of my shoots, and even script them, but with photos, the possibilities of being spontaneous are much more open, and I very much enjoy that. Often, my photography is later used as the base for films, as was the case with Daughter of Dismay.

from ‘Idolatry of Emptiness’ set.

Michael: For a newcomer to the films of Sodom & Chimera, what would you recommend to readers as the best starting point?

James: I’d say check out the photography first, and start with a more stylistic and less extreme short, like Sulphur for Leviathan. It will give you a better idea of our artistic goal, after which you can work your way up to more obscure works like The Law of Sodom and Flesh of the Void. Ideally, you’d start with Daughter of Dismay, but it’s obviously going to take a little while until that’s possible.

Michael: Do you have any lofty goals for Sodom & Chimera? Any dream projects which you are waiting for the perfect set of circumstances to proceed? Or have you been steadily working through most of the ideas as they arise?

James: There are a few projects and scripts that I’m sitting on that I’m waiting with still, just because they need the right resources and talent, and I’d like them to be perfect. I can’t really say a lot about our future work, though I can tell you that there will be more features coming.

Michael: I thank you very much for your time, James. If you have any last words or information that you would like to give readers, feel free!

James: Thank you! All I want to close with is an appeal to people to go out and experience movies more intimately and intensely, and give analog film a chance. Look up special screenings, take a road trip and check out a film in 70mm IMAX, watch old classics in 35mm, take the time to experience things and movies you don’t know or maybe wouldn’t have watched otherwise, try to see the medium of film as an experience and spectacle instead of something to pass time with. It’s such a beautiful art form, and there are amazing sights and experiences to be had beyond just watching a film on a flat screen or in your local multiplex. Go live some movies.

Links

Sodom & Chimera Official Website
Facebook – Sodom & Chimera
Instagram – Sodom & Chimera

Hector Meinhof – Interview

By

On December 11, 2018

In Interviews

Hector Meinhof is an author and musician out of Sweden that has recently released his debut book, Three Nails, Four Wounds through Infinity Land Press. Outside his writing, Meinhof is known for his work as a classically-trained percussionist. He’s performed as part of Kroumata, a percussion ensemble. He’s also part of the scenic music duo, Hidden Mother. He is a collector of  antique photography, specialized in post-mortem, medical and religious themes.

This book had a real impact on me, more so than with many/most books I’ve read in recent years. There is a perfect melange of macabre photography with a strange story that takes place in an asylum, centered on seven 11 year old girls. The story is filled with brilliant allusions to an apocalypse, mental/physical disability, old-fashion asylum conditions, and a dark and twisted conception of Christianity. Mingled with this is a very unique writing style, a blend of dialogues, poetry, and prose which all come together with the images to form an incredibly powerful experience.

Hector Meinhof has written a book that is both beautiful and cruel. His poetic prose and the doom-laden pictures from his extensive collection of vintage photographs have bled into one tortured, corporeal unity. This is the illustrated scripture for the new dark ages, it will be read and beheld again and again. – Martin Bladh

I decided that only reviewing the book wouldn’t do this work enough justice. I wanted to delve into the topics a bit deeper with Meinhof and find out a bit more about this promising new artist to the literary world. There will be a review coming along soon, but for now I highly recommend this book! Enjoy, and thank you all for your continued support of This Is Darkness and the works we cover!

Interviewee: Hector Meinhof
Conducted by: Michael Barnett

Michael: First off, thank you very much for agreeing to the interview. Three Nails, Four Wounds was my first introduction to your art-form and I must say I am incredibly impressed. I rarely am eager to go right back to the beginning of a book and start reading again, immediately after finishing it. But this the case with Three Nails, Four Wounds.

Hector: Thank you for those kind words, Michael. I’m looking forward to hearing your questions. Let’s dig into it!

Michael: Christianity plays a major role throughout the narrative of Three Nails, Four Wounds. What is your particular relationship with religion? Do you fascinate on it from afar, or do you hold some beliefs?

Hector: I did not have a religious upbringing at all (by the way: Sweden is mostly protestant). I thought religion was the most boring subject when I went to school. I didn’t care about these things until my 30s when I started to read about Christian mysticism. People on the fringe of society have always interested me and all those eccentric mystics – the saints, the stigmatics, Christ-erotics, those crazy nose-bleeding nuns, levitating, fasting, suffering, flagellating themselves – really struck me as the most extreme way of life ever recorded in the human history. It also made me aware of my Christian heritage. In the West – especially in Europe – we are all cultural Christians whether we like it or not. It’s not just the architecture, music, art, philosophy – but it’s in our way of thinking, in how we perceive things. So, whether you believe Christ was crucified for our sins or that he was “incompetence hanging on a tree” [Anton Szandor LaVey] it doesn’t really matter – we are what we are because of Christianity. In Scandinavia, Christendom is of course mixed with Norse mythology (look at the Norwegian stave churches with their dragons).  Personally, I don’t have a problem with our Christian heritage, it has given birth to astonishing art, literature and philosophy, a rich set-up of archetypes that can guide and inspire, and the church’s demand for control wasn’t strong enough to keep the light of science from creeping in.

Michael: Martin has mentioned in the Afterword that it took you a great deal of time to find your individual writing voice. Do you think you’ve finally found that voice with Three Nails, Four Wounds?

Hector: That’s a good question. There are so many books in the world – is it even possible to create something new? Since I can’t do better work than Dante, Göthe, Shakespeare, Bronte,  Dostoevsky, Huysmans, Rilke, Woolf, Proust, Camus, Bataille, Zürn, Ungar and Wittkop, already have done, I need to find themes, or a combination of themes, that haven’t been explored (at least not the way I do it); combine that with a personal style regarding language and form – then maybe you can create something that at least could be perceived as original. I had been writing for many years, but never thought anything turned out good enough for publishing. This time I thought it did. I guess this is my voice then – but I suspect that it will change over time. It took a long time for me to learn how to write, let’s leave it at that.

Let me add that when I started to write “Three Nails, Four Wounds” I knew that I wanted the story to take place in a hospital, and that although the religious themes would be there (like a skeleton of the book), my main focus was to find ways to express feelings of despair, pain, loneliness, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, a frustrated stutterer full of things to say lacking the ability to talk freely, and mental illness in general. I didn’t want it to be a conventional novel (building up characters, etc.), and I wanted a slightly surreal tone in the girls’ speech – that was my biggest problem: how to make them talk like they were from another dimension of life. So, I got the idea of using old poems (written ca. 15 years ago) as lines – and that’s how I found the tone in the dialogue. At one stage, I did consider composing the book entirely of lines of dialogue, but it felt too constructed.

From Three Nails, Four Wounds

Michael: Was Three Nails, Four Wounds part of this process of finding your voice, or did you begin the book after you felt that you were in this proper mindset and had found a narrative voice suitable to continue with a more intensified and directed focus?

Hector: I guess “Three Nails” was part of the process. I wrote the book, read it, and felt for the first time that this book made it through the needle eye of my ambitions. I was ready. Twenty years from now, I will hopefully be a much better writer and then I will probably see flaws in this first book of mine – but I do believe that I will stand behind it and defend it.

Michael: Would you like to elaborate on some of the ideas that you were working on when writing this book?

Hector: My heroines, the seven 11-year-old girls, are not victims of anything, they act without hesitation, they are not afraid of the present. And many people are afraid of the present. A psychologist (I can’t remember who) talked about a man, happily married with children for 15 years. One day, his wife tells him that she has had an affair for the last five years and that she wants a divorce. The man is shocked. He says: “But I thought we were happy – when we had dinner last weekend, our holidays in France, when we visited your parents… Now, it’s like I don’t know myself anymore” – and the man had a breakdown. Happy memories turned into memories of deceit. His wife’s betrayal had changed his past, his history. So, the present can change the past, and that’s why it’s scary. In the present, we lack control. Everyday unexpected things can happen. Someone might walk up to you and say or do something that changes your past – and then we don’t know who we are anymore. The seven 11-year-old girls don’t remember, maybe they don’t have a past at all – and they are not afraid of anything.

My heroines are female because I think Woman has a certain inclination to spirituality – and most important: they use their body to express this spirituality. Reading about, for example, Mechthild von Magdeburg (which is quoted in the book), there is a very physical side to her belief in God. She talks about Christ more as a physical lover rather than something unreachable. The female saints bleed, they experience stigmata, they fast, they throw up objects, they levitate; when their bodies are dead they smell of flowers, when their hearts are dissected we find patterns and symbols inside. It seems to me, that female mystics use their flesh in a way male mystics don’t (there are, of course, exceptions). Their worship is like an art-form – and makes me think of contemporary performance artists, such as Marina Abramovic, especially her work in the 1970s.

Editor’s Note: An interesting article, if you want to learn more about some of Marina Abramovic’s work in the 70s.
https://www.elitereaders.com/performance-artist-marina-abramovic-social-experiment/?cn-reloaded=1

Hector: My heroines are children because I wanted them to be virgins. You could say that I use the seven 11-year-old girls as a cliché of the innocent childhood, not yet affected by social rules, sensual not sexual etc. But there’s a deeper meaning to it: their virginality – and I’m not talking about the bodily aspect of the term, but rather as a mental state. The virgin is self-enclosed, remote, secluded, turned inwards, doesn’t please others, penetrating only her own body, sterile, uncontaminated. Virginity as a state of mind is a sort of resistance. Let me quote from a book I just read [Images of the Untouched, 1982] about how to make a unicorn trap. You place the virgin in a forest, “with her breast uncovered, and by its scent the unicorn perceives it; then it comes to the virgin and kisses her breast, falls asleep on her lap and so comes to its death.” You could interpret the unicorn as “the spirit”, and the ”unicorn trap” as a way to unite the spirit with the body. “The virginal nourishes the spirit, while spirit makes the virginal psyche pregnant.” So, virginity as a state of mind is to be pregnant – that is: creative. In some cultures, the menstrual blood is viewed as a manifestation of creative power, especially a girl’s first menstruation. So, in my book you can see what happens when seven 11-year-old psychic virgins start acting, breaking the snow-white silence and awakening the avalanche.

Michael: There are hints that this book may not take place in a century-old past, as may seem more obvious, but that it is a look into the future. A possible warning about our coming struggles as humanity, as we wrestle with the ramifications of our systematic destruction of our own planet and existence. Do you see this as a sort of apocalyptic warning, a sort of prophecy?  Something more abstract than this?  Or do you prefer to let the reader sort these details out on their own?

Hector: Timewise, the book takes place in all eras (including the future). I think that in our culture we have lost the belief (and understanding) in sacrifice as a means for change.  I wanted to remind people of that. I have a really bad feeling about the future. On the other hand: the way I read the book, it actually has a happy ending. I believe that in the end of the book [spoiler alert! -> when the seven girls torture themselves to death, this sacrifice actually saves the town and the people in it. <- spoiler alert!] Let me just add that I don’t have an agenda – political or religious – with my work, you might see it as an intellectual preparation for the approaching darkness.

From Three Nails, Four Wounds

Michael: Were there any worries about the subject matter/visual content of Three Nails, Four Wounds?  It is, of course, packed with some quite macabre imagery, unavoidable considering the themes of the photographic content.

Hector: Not really. I did suggest that we black out the eyes of the disabled children, because those photos were taken in the 1940-50s (so they could still be alive, although I doubt it). It is, of course, a bit weird that photographs taken in the 19th century – for private use or as documentation – are now viewed as art. I see them as historic artifacts worthy of our attention, as memento mori objects, as our past, our collective memory.

From Three Nails, Four Wounds

Michael: It seems reasonably obvious that Infinite Land Press wouldn’t take issue with pressing such an intense release, as it is really the culture of their company. But, what of the hapless consumer that stumbles across your work. The person that had no clue what to expect. Do you have any preferred reaction/emotion you’d like to see coming from them?

Hector: I think the hapless consumer will be alright. If he or she doesn’t like my book they can just throw it away. People get offended by different things, some by photos of the dead, some by naked breasts, some by stupidity. I cannot limit myself by the fears of others. I saw ”The Shining” [Kubrick 1980] when I was ten, and I couldn’t sleep for days. I got extreme anxiety when I had to watch an anti-drug movie in school, where a woman injected heroin into her neck. But I survived – and rather than prosecute the people behind these ”childhood traumas” I feel grateful for being exposed to great art (The Shining) and brutal reality (syringe in neck). And no, I do not have any preferred reactions from a reader – all emotions are welcome.

From Three Nails, Four Wounds

Michael: “The Shining” was the first film that I appreciated more deeply and intuitively. A horror that could overcome the viewer on multiple levels. I, also, wouldn’t have had it any other way. Now that you are moving in the published world, do you have plans for more publications to follow in the foreseeable future?

Hector: I am currently writing a new book. Infinity Land Press is interested. I need at least one more year to finish it. The plan is to get it out in 2020.

Michael: Have you been holding back ideas with the anticipation of coming into your own as a writer, or have you been working through material as it presents itself?

Hector: The latter, I believe. Writing for me is very intuitive. I don’t know what’s going on inside my head when I’m working. It’s a mystery to me – and I like that.

Michael: Martin Bladh mentions that you found inspiration in a passage from the ancient Roman historian Plutarch, in which fear of being carried naked through the market stopped a sudden phenomenon of the Miletus townswomen impulsively hanging themselves. Was this an interesting tidbit you found? Or do you have a deeper fascination with Roman history/stories/mythology?

Hector: I would like to learn more about Roman history, but the Plutarch story was just something that I stumbled upon and felt was connected to my book.

From Three Nails, Four Wounds

Michael: During my studies of Roman history at university, I found the stories: ‘The Golden Ass’ by Apuleius, ‘Satyricon’ by Petronius, and ‘The Satires’ by Juvenal, to all be the most resoundingly interesting. But there is a never-ending torrent of literature worth reading. One must be selective with their time, especially in modernity when vacation and retirement are imaginary concepts for most people. (At least here, in the U.S.)

Hector: I agree, there are so many books to read! Think about a man like Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. He read all books that existed in his time, he possessed all knowledge there was in the world and could grasp the whole intellectual effort made by mankind. You could say that he knew everything. Today that would not be possible – and knowledge is consequently fragmented upon various experts. And now I have contributed to the ever growing pile of books in the world with my own book…  I would guess that psychic virgins are very selective readers (or they probably don’t read at all).

Michael: What are your thoughts on Francesca Woodman’s perspective on her art?  Do you think it was auto-biographical in nature? Do you think her still largely unreleased body of work would inform us better on this matter?

Francesca Woodman, Space 2, 1976.

Hector: I was around 20 years old when I discovered Francesca Woodman. It had a great impact on me back then, but I haven’t thought about her for some years now. I don’t want to speculate about her work, if it was auto-biographical or not – it is what it is, for us to enjoy. But there is something mysterious about her, both in her work and her as a person. A feeling of something untold. I saw that documentary [The Woodmans, 2011] a few years ago, it had a weird atmosphere – her father photographing young Francesca-like women, like he was repeating (or continuing) his dead daughter’s work. The documentary didn’t really give much new information, but it was nice to see bits from her performance videos, and to hear her “Minnie Mouse” voice.  When she jumped out of a window at her New York apartment she did not leave a suicide note, but in a letter to a friend she wrote: “My life at this point is like very old coffee-cup sediment and I would rather die young leaving various accomplishments, i.e. some work, my friendship with you, some other artefacts intact, instead of pell-mell erasing all of these delicate things.”  That tells us quite a bit regarding her aim for perfection. I do hope we will get to see the rest of her work someday, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Michael: Have you found any current photographers that are able to capture her level of emotion in their works which you found so profound with Francesca Woodman?

Hector: For the last ten years or so my focus has been on antique photography, so I’m not really up to date on contemporary artists. But if you want pain, I can recommend the saint-like Spanish photographer David Nebreda.

Michael: Again, in the Afterword, Martin mentions your original fondness for film directors like Pasolini, Dreyer, Bergman and Tarkovsky. Who are some of your more modern favorites? I’m, personally, a huge fan of the works of Lars von Trier and David Lynch, quite a bit above most other current filmmakers, though I’m always looking for some young talents to carry the torch for the next generation.

Hector: When I started writing, film was an important source of influence. I went to a movie theater (that showed classics and art house films) almost every day. But as with contemporary photographs, nowadays I’m not really up-to-date with what’s going on. I like Michael Haneke’s films, Tarr and Alexander Sokurov. If I should name a Swedish director, it would be Ruben Östlund. Sorry, don’t come to me if you want tips on photographers or directors! When I was younger, I searched for influences everywhere, nowadays I try to avoid influences – the thoughts inside my own head are enough.

Vintage hidden mother photographs from Three Nails, Four Wounds.

Michael: How has your collection progressed since you started procuring 19th and early 20th century photography? Do you just find this sort of stuff on the internet, or do you attend auctions and other markets for finding such niche photography? I imagine there must be so much of this stuff out there, waiting in attics for some horrified descendant to one day unpack, and they wouldn’t have the slightest clue what to do with an oddity like this.

Hector: I think my interest in buying antique photographs started when I saw a “hidden mother” on eBay. I realized that there were a lot of interesting photos on the market. Pretty soon, I started to buy post-mortems, and then medical photos, and then religious themes. Most of them I bought at on-line auctions like eBay, but I have also gotten to know photo collectors from around the world. It’s a small community and we know each other’s interests, we sell and trade with each other. Some of the photos in the book make me uncomfortable too, looking back I think this was a way for me to come to terms with certain fears, and to learn to see beauty even in the nastiest subjects. I like to look at kittens too.

From Meinhof’s personal collection.

Michael: I imagine a hobby like collecting 19th – early 20th century post-mortem photography wouldn’t present itself in a vacuum. Do you have any other interesting collections you’d like to mention?

Hector: Well, that would be old books – but beyond that I don’t really think that I’m such a hoarder. On the other hand, if I had a lot of money, I could easily imagine myself surrounded with exquisite antiques – cylinder music boxes, medieval paintings, large vellum books, talking machines, phonographs, 17th century medical models in ivory, religious objects and relics from saints – in my little castle in the Swiss alps…

Michael: That sounds like a wonderful way of spending a fortune! Has your particular environment had an impact on your artistic direction?  As you are Swedish, it is understandable that the works of Ingmar Bergman would come to you at an earlier age than for someone like myself growing up in a rather traditional American family.

Hector: Bergman was important, films like Persona, Hour of the Wolf, Cries and Whispers, had a huge impact on me. Not just visually, but also his treatment of the Swedish language. But most of all, this feeling of independence and freedom; that you can create a piece of art with its own inner logic regarding form and content, not following the manual and not caring about what other people think or say. And, since I have been working with hardcore contemporary art music for my whole adult life, I think (although I cannot explain exactly how) that this has influenced my sense of form and structure. Xenakis, Stockhausen, Cage, Lucier, Ligeti, Sciarrino, Whitehouse…

From Three Nails, Four Wounds

Michael: What are your feelings on Infinity Land Press? Are you happy with the book and Martin and Karolina?

Hector: I had met Martin once before in connection with the recording of the CD Closure… by his post-industrial band IRM. They wanted some additional percussion on the album and, via a mutual friend, I got the job. A few years later when I had finished Three Nails, I heard that Martin had moved to London and started Infinity Land Press, together with Karolina. I sent him the manuscript and he replied like 24 hours later that he wanted to publish it – I was stunned! Martin and Karolina are very professional, both are artists themselves, so we have the same understanding of where the boundaries in our different roles (writer – publisher) should be. I think Karolina’s design of the book is very tasteful and Martin provided a thoughtful afterword that gives the reader some background to the thematic aspects of the book. And of course, the translators Marianne Griolet and John Macmillan were crucial for the birth of this book as a physical object. To produce a book with over 100 photos is expensive, and I wanted it to be affordable (especially since this is my debut), and I think that ILP managed to make a book that feels luxurious without costing a fortune. I am very happy with the result, it’s a little gem. And the reception has been fantastic, I’m humbled by all the praise from my readers.

Michael: I think you hit your goal nicely. I forgot the book was under £20, it certainly feels like a more expensive and very well-made product.  Do you see any other publisher out there working on projects of these sorts?

Hector: I think you know more about publishers than I do, Michael. But we have, for example, Kiddiepunk [Michael Salerno], and Amphetamine Sulphate [Philip Best]. I was happy that Wakefield Press released two books by Gabrielle Wittkop a few years ago.

Michael: I am learning new things every day. I am constantly finding new artists, publishers, film directors, that are changing my ideas on art and its limits. I just try to bring the zine’s readers along in my process of discovery. You never know where the next hidden gem will decide to shine and reveal itself. I find that an artist’s particular set of interests can often unlock a whole new world of interests to their followers. So, I thank you for sharing some insight, not only into your own work and process, but also into the things that brought you to become the artist you are today. I thank you again for your time, and I’ll leave the final words to you!

Hector: The pleasure was mine, Michael. Thank you for spreading the New Gospel! My final words… well, the aborted calf is shaved and skinned. The skin is stretched over the firmament: In the afternoon sun, people cease to cast shadows. In the town square, the puppet theater closes for the day. The puppet master pulls off the puppets and discovers that his hands are soaked with blood. You see, this is for real.

Purchase Three Nails, Four Wounds here.

Hector Meinhof Links

Official Website
Facebook
Instagram
Youtube
Hidden Mothers band site

Ruptured World – Interview

By

On September 20, 2018

In Interviews

From the first seconds of Exoplanetary, the new Cryo Chamber release by Ruptured World, I knew this was going to be a unique and incredibly entertaining album. I was not wrong. As I found out more about the man behind the project, its breadth and attention to detail became more understandable. I will preface the interview with this “about me” from Rennie’s Amazon page:

Alistair Rennie is author of the weird, sword and debauchery novel, BleakWarrior. He has published weird fantasy and horror fiction, essays and poetry in The New Weird anthology, Weird Tales magazine, Fabulous Whitby, Electric Velocipede, Mythic Delirium, Pevnost, Schlock Magazine, Horror Without Victims, Weird Fiction Review and Shadowed Realms.

He was born and grew up in the North of Scotland, has lived for ten years in Italy, and now lives in Edinburgh in the South of Scotland. He holds a first class Honours Degree in Literature from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD in Literature from the University of Edinburgh. He is a time-served Painter and Decorator and a veteran climber of numerous hills and mountains in the Western Highlands, the Cairngorms and the Italian Dolomites.

Interviewee: Alistair Rennie of Ruptured World
Conducted by: Michael Barnett

Michael Barnett: So, I want to get this stupid question out of the way first! While considering Exoplanetary for review, I felt some connections to The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), googling it to make sure I had the correct title, I notice the main star is Michael Rennie. Any relation?

Alistair Rennie: That’s a great question! Unfortunately, the answer is no, we’re not related. Though my dad used to claim that we were. There’s a good chance I could be related to the alien Klaatu, however. The true star of the film.

Michael: On that same topic, what were some of the foundational influences on this project? Did you get inspiration from some of those old sci-fi films, like the one aforementioned?

Alistair: Yes, I did, as well as from elsewhere. I think it started off more influenced by 80s classics like Alien and John Carpenter’s The Thing, at least at the stage of writing, and with a strong Lovecraftian influence, too. But, when it came to recording, the older archaic broadcasting style came out in a very spontaneous and natural way, and I liked the way it blended unusually with the more modern electronic soundscapes and drones of the music.
Films like Them, War of the Worlds (also the musical version) and Forbidden Planet, and also the kind of narration you sometimes get in the old Hammer Horror films – they’re definitely in there.

Michael: Before we get into your new album on Cryo Chamber, I thought you could tell us a bit about the writing side of your artistic journey. I am looking forward to reading BleakWarrior, which seems like it will be quite the tale, if the review snippets in your promo are any indication. I will assume the majority of readers here will be aware of your music before your writing. Would you like to tell us a short description of BleakWarrior in your own words?

Alistair: It’s a tricky one to describe because it was very experimental and incorporates a range of influences, including Sword and Sorcery, Manga/Anime, Cyberpunk, Elizabethan Revenge Tragedies, Ancient Greek and Celtic heroic verse, violent westerns, Classical Chinese Literature. It’s an attempt to blend the extremes of pulp and literary elements of fiction and turn them into something that combines sensationalist sex and violence with metaphysics. I tend to describe it as sword and debauchery, though that downplays some of the more philosophical content that might be in there. In some ways, it’s also a study of what happens when we act or exist outside of a moral framework. If I were to summarise it in strictly generic terms, though, I’d call it dark weird fantasy, with significant SF and horror characteristics thrown into the mix.

Michael: Is the world in this book something that you would think dark ambient fans will find interesting?

Alistair: Without wishing to be presumptuous, I think so, yes. There are some very dark elements to the story and its characters. It’s very bleak, as the title suggests. But there’s also some over-the-top mayhem and humour that’s more black metal than dark ambient. There are also parts of the novel that focus on the natural world and ideas relating to the metaphysics of physical nature, which I think is clearly a theme of dark ambient music on a number of levels. You can see that with many of the artists on the Cryo Chamber label.

Michael: Would you like to tell readers a few recommendations in case they are interested in reading your other works?

Alistair: I think dark ambient fans might be interest in what’s been called New Weird fiction and, in particular, in an anthology called the New Weird which features a chapter from what later became BleakWarrior. It’s a ground-breaking anthology in many ways and features writers like Michael Moorcock and Clive Barker, Brian Evenson, Michael Cisco, Jeffrey Ford, Jeffrey Thomas, KJ Bishop – authors who, I think, would be interesting to fans of dark ambient.
In my own case, I have a story that’s coming out later this year in an anthology called Mechanical Animals to be released by Hex Publishers. The story I’ve contributed, called “The Island Brushed By Ghosts”, is set in the northwest of Scotland and deals with subjects pertaining to the nature of existence, as well as nature itself. It’s more cerebral and less frenzied than some of the other stuff I’ve written. If you prefer the mayhem, though, I had a recent story in an anthology called “DOA III” which was released by Blood Bound Books. It’s a sort of surreal slash horror SF far future story. Very dark! But also with elements of humour.

Michael: Which came first, your fiction writing or music production?

Alistair: That’s a very good question in the sense that they kind of evolved together. Music came first in terms of actually creating songs, finished works, as it were. With writing, I started off writing song lyrics and poetry. Fiction, writing stories, came much later, in my late teens, and writing stories that were actually completed and presentable came later still. But I believe that there’s a very close connection between music and writing, which is stating the obvious, really. Often, with writing, you’re striving to find harmony and rhythm, not only in the prose, but in the proportions of the story-telling, the narrative itself, to create a unified organic whole out of something (language) that is essentially chaotic and uncontrolled. Music does that, but with sounds instead of written symbols and utterances. And, of course, language itself is inherently musical.

Michael: How have these two elements been able to come together for you in the Ruptured World project? Did it originate as a story idea, or was it always meant to be this spoken-word blended with dark ambient format from its inception?

Alistair: I think what came first was the idea of using radio transmissions – which I find to be deeply mysterious, an area of activity where the technology and mystical elements of nature come together within the context of sound. I’ve always been fascinated by radio, especially by short wave radio. I remember when I was younger, before there was an internet or even home computers, I used to tune into voices and music from other parts of the world and found it incredibly exciting and amazing to be able to tap into the atmosphere of other countries. It still fascinates me today, even while it has been dramatically superseded by the internet.

Michael: Have you worked in other styles of music, or is Ruptured World your first foray into the musical world?

Alistair: I’ve been involved in music since I was twelve years old. I started off playing in a punk band and later played in an indie band that was fairly well known locally in the north of Scotland. And I also grew up playing folk music, which is not uncommon for musicians from Scotland, where there’s a very strong and innovative folk music scene. But, alongside all this, and right from the start, me and one of my friends had formed our own music project, which is very much the origins of what is now Ruptured World. We were influenced by bands like Bauhaus, the Virgin Prunes, the Cure, the Birthday Party, Japan and David Sylvian. There was just the two of us. We couldn’t find a third band member who shared the same tastes or ideas as us, so we couldn’t do a standard three or four piece thing. So we improvised. I had a Casio keyboard and we had guitars. We used all sorts of other things to generate noise, everything from biscuit tins to crash helmets, often using our voices as sound effects. And we also did spoken word. I still have old recordings on cassettes. More recently, we revived some of our old songs, did new versions of them using the technology of today. It was wonderful. The music is dark, sometimes haunting and melodic, but also low-fi and deliberately crude and primitive in terms of sound and style.

Michael: You performed all the vocal parts on Exoplanetary, and I assume Frontiers of Disorder as well? I, personally, love your vocal performance on these albums. Have you heard things like this in the past that inspired you? Or is this an idea you came up with to combine your loves of music and storytelling?

Alistair: There are definitely precedents for combining narration and music that have no doubt influenced me. There is nothing I can point to directly as an influence in this particular case. But I think War of the Worlds is certainly there, and audio recordings of poetry I’ve listened to over the years. And some of David Sylvian’s music where music and spoken words are combined. I also recall an old album a friend of mine had, one of those Dungeons and Dragons albums they used to produce, where a D&D story is narrated alongside the music. When you hear music and storytelling done together, I think it’s a very natural combination and, indeed, one that occurs every time we watch visual narratives realised in film. We forget that film is also an audio as well as a visual medium. I suppose, in many ways, that’s what Exoplanetary aims to be – a narrative and soundtrack conceived as a film but rendered and delivered through the medium of sound only.

Michael: Will you be continuing to work in this format on future releases?

Alistair: Yes, I think that’s a certainty. It’s a fascinating and extremely enjoyable challenge to integrate the musical and spoken word elements together. And trying to find ways of delivering the spoken narration, and do so effectively, is an extremely enjoyable if often difficult thing to aim for. And, being a writer, for me it’s just the obvious and natural thing to do, I think.

Michael: On the technical side, do you prefer working with digital soundscapes or do you incorporate modular synths or other such equipment into the mix?

Alistair: I tend to work principally with digital soundscapes combined with live materials gained from different sources and approaches, often through sampling where I take live recordings of instruments or objects and sounds derived from various places, and using them all as part of the digital tableaux. I have a very experimental approach, often unconventional, which is also true of my writing, and I try to explore those areas which are off-piste, as it were.
One approach I’m seeking to develop now derives from an interest I have in ideas relating to the “genius loci” or spirit of place. This is a literary term that, among other things, refers to the specific conditions or essence of a particular place or geographic location. I’m looking to do live recordings in specific locations using instruments and devices channeled and amplified through conventional hardware, then integrated into the soundscape of the purely digital environment. So, it’s trying to take the essence and evocation of a particular place and preserve it in the alternative digital universe, as it were. Not an easy thing, but something to aim for!

Michael: If you used many field recordings on Exoplanetary, what was the process like capturing these sounds? Were you able to work with some sound banks or did you take field recording expeditions?

Alistair: I use only field recordings, precisely for the reasons given above. It’s the fascination of the specificity of the sound and the particular place or conditions in which it was conceived and recorded. The active participation in the process from start to finish has a strong fascination for me. Not that I don’t think sound banks are useful. They are a valuable and viable resource. And, for me, the rule is to use anything and everything that works for the creation of the sound or music, so a certain magpie instinct is necessary for gathering sounds and adapting them to the creative process. But, in my own case, the fascination requires me to follow the goal of capturing a unique essence and trying to integrate it into the overall composition. I suppose that might sound somewhat airy fairy! But I think anything that injects your music with an additional sense of purpose is worth pursuing. It will ultimately lead to better results in being driven by the conviction of an established methodology.

Michael: You’ve mentioned previously that you are an avid climber, it seems you’ve reached the summit of a good number of mountains around the world. Do you have a particular love of nature or is this more a physical drive for you? Do you think these excursions in nature lead to a deeper understanding of this dark ambient genre?

Alistair: The love of nature I think is the overriding passion, but I also relish the physical contact with the natural world and the physical effort it requires of you. Walking in mountains, in heightened terrain that changes your visual perspective of the world, is exhilarating for all sorts of reasons. You see the world, quite literally, in a different way, in the way it actually is. You see how the contours lie, how the habitable spaces are often actually small pockets or strips of land surrounded by hostile terrain. The close contact with weather conditions is always a great source of inspiration for me, and also the fear you feel when you’re faced with raw nature.
And I think these are facets of our experience which are very much at the heart of the dark ambient coterie of themes. Importantly, dark ambient doesn’t deal solely with the beauty and spiritual amplitude of nature, which are ably and admirably covered by many artists in the ambient and new age genres, for example. Dark ambient has a preoccupation with the more menacing aspects of nature, with its innate power and mysterious forces which, while crudely scientific, are nevertheless suggestive of something greater. And I think this is where we receive a sense of awe that causes us to look on nature with a primitive response we cannot summarise in words. Hence, we resort to music and sounds as a means of expressing it, which is very much the territory of dark ambient.

Dark ambient has a preoccupation with the more menacing aspects of nature, with its innate power and mysterious forces which, while crudely scientific, are nevertheless suggestive of something greater.

You find in old mythologies that humans, when confronted by gods, must shield their eyes because, if they don’t, they will be driven mad by the beauty and terror of the deity they look upon. I think dark ambient is a form of music that dares to look upon the gods and seeks to reiterate what it sees through the language of sounds.

Michael: What would be your dream project? If you could secure funding for any sort of project?

Alistair: It would have to be something that combined music with landscape. The Austrian musician, Manu Delago, recently led an expedition of 7 musicians into the Alps where they recorded music to be made into an album and film, called Parasol Peak. They recorded songs acoustically as they ascended through the various stages of their journey, and the results are incredible. So, doing something similar, but using electronic means of music production, would definitely be a dream project for me. And, to be honest, I don’t think it would require a huge amount of funds, so I may well go for it sometime soon! The problem would obviously be the need to generate power for electronic devices, but I’m sure there’d be a way.
Musician Paul Winter did a similar thing when he recorded music for an album in the Grand Canyon back in the 1980s. He and his musicians rafted down the river to find a spot to record music that would capture the echo generated by the canyon walls. Again, I would like to undertake a similar expedition with the objective of creating an electronic dark ambient extravaganza!

Michael: I’ll end on a bright note, how do you imagine Earth to look 100 years from now?

Alistair: Rain, rain, nothing but rain. Lots of gloom. No sunlight. Humans will evolve into vampires. A bit like Scotland during the summer, really.

Michael: Thank you very much for your time Alistair, I’ll leave the last words to you!

Alistair: Thank you, Michael! It’s been great to be in This Is Darkness. I very much wish you and your readership a prodigious abundance of lasting wellness!

Alistair Rennie’s Links

Ruptured World: Official Website, Facebook,
Bandcamp (Exoplanetary), Bandcamp (Frontiers of Disorder)

Alistair Rennie’s Publications: Official Website

Frédéric Arbour of Cyclic Law / Visions – Interview

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On June 26, 2018

In Interviews

Frédéric Arbour is probably one of the most important people in the dark ambient scene. Since the early 2000s, his record label, Cyclic Law, has released some of the most important and influential dark ambient albums in the history of the genre. Though, Arbour himself has always seemed to be one of the most quiet voices within the genre. Along with running the label, Cyclic Law, Arbour creates music in various projects including: Havan, Stärker and Instincts. His other project, Visions, has just released a brilliant new collaborative album with Phurpa, entitled Monad. So, now seemed like a great time to catch up with him to find out more about Visions, his collaboration with Phurpa, and the Cyclic Law record label’s past & future. Enjoy!

Interview with: Frédéric Arbour [See end for links to his projects and label.]
Conducted by: Michael Barnett

Michael: First I’d like to talk a bit about your new album Monad, a collaboration with Phurpa. After your last two releases as Visions, you decided to take a break from the project. Was this release with Phurpa aligned with those plans, or did this opportunity come as a surprise, changing your plans?

Frédéric: I guess it was neither a surprise nor planned. I had put Visions on hold for an indefinite period to focus on Stärker and Havan and a few other collaborations I have also been involved in, and this past year I felt I had to rethink my approach and sound and decided to focus on Visions again and go forward with new ideas.

Michael: How long have you known Alexey Tegin? How soon did you decide that you would want to collaborate with him and the Phurpa project?

Frédéric: I have known of Alexey since 2002 from a release under his own name titled Gyer. Also, having been close to Tibetan ritual music for many years prior, his unique take on this tradition immediately resonated with me. We were in contact some years later, and we were able to finally meet in 2014 while I was hosting a Cyclic Law night in Moscow, where Phurpa closed the evening. Alexey was also kind enough to invite us to his home and ritual chamber. We have since kept in contact, and have also released 2 other albums by Phurpa through Cyclic Law.

Michael: Did Visions and Phurpa come together in a studio setting to create Monad, or was this done electronically between Germany and Russia?

Frédéric: It was done through exchanging ideas and audio files electronically. Alexey sent me mantras which had specific intents, that I then processed and merged into what became Monad.

Michael: Were there set guidelines for your individual roles (i.e. Phurpa does all percussion, Visions does all drones), or was it a more fluid process?

Frédéric: It was quite fluid, there’s chants and percussive elements from both Phurpa and myself. I layered the drones and atmospheric elements throughout, and also did the final mixing and mastering.

Michael: How did you decide on Monad as the title for the album, and I assume the theme of the release as well? Should we assume this to be the Monad of Gnosticism?

Frédéric: It would translate to the totality of the whole, and its source, and the channeling of this primordial force.

Michael: Obviously, Phurpa is a very spiritually oriented project, backed by the strict adherence to the beliefs that Alexey Tegin holds. Would you consider Visions to be an equally spiritual project, or do you seek to harness more abstract ideas?

Frédéric: Spiritual, most definitely, with a strong dose of abstraction. At its etymological roots, the word abstract relates to being “withdrawn from worldly interests”. This is where Visions stands.

Michael: How did the similarities/differences in the religious/world views between Visions and Phurpa play into the creation of, and energy behind, this release?

Frédéric: Let’s just say that we both channel and explore the same currents through our musical means; and this is how / why our paths crossed and we’ve come to this collaboration. The result and energy it emanates speaks for itself.

Michael: With Monad released, will Visions continue to be a main priority for the moment or will you allow it to patiently lie in wait for your next inspiration?

Frédéric: This release is a prelude to the new album coming early next year, I’m working on new material that is soon approaching completion.

Michael: Let us turn the attention now to your role as founder and main operator of the Cyclic Law record label. In a word, how are things going at Cyclic Law at the moment?

Frédéric: Things are good, there are quite a few titles planned for the rest of the year and well into 2019.

Michael: You’ve recently made a huge move, transporting the whole Cyclic Law operation from Canada to Berlin. Would you care to speak any on the reasons for that move? How are things in Berlin, so far?

Frédéric: I’ve known for many years that I would at some point move to Europe. I’ve been traveling and touring Europe yearly for over 20 years now, and have always felt more at home on this side of the Atlantic. Berlin was a more strategic choice in terms of ease of relocation and for its very active cultural landscape. Things have been quite good for me as a whole here. I’m definitely glad this move came to its conclusion.

Michael: Obviously, during the previously mentioned move, the label’s output was a little slower, though it has considerably increased in the first half of 2018. Will you be planning to keep things moving at this pace for the near future?

Frédéric: Yes, moving took some adjustment, but 2017 and 2018 have been quite active with very interesting releases coming my way, and there’s quite a lot in the works.

Michael: I haven’t read any previous interviews with you, so I thought it would be interesting to hear a little bit about the start of Cyclic Law from your perspective. Those first few years, releasing the first handful of albums which ended up having such an impact on the dark ambient genre. What were your feelings starting up the label?

Frédéric: Well things started around 1998, when I purchased my first synth to create what became the Instincts / Bustum The Mystery Visions album, and subsequently what established Cyclic Law as a label in 2002. In those years, I had met Svartsinn, Northaunt and Kammarheit through the mp3.com platform. Things evolved from there, with the release of the Nord Ambient Alliance compilation and then releases by Kammarheit, Sophia, Svartsinn etc…

Michael: Did you have any intentions of still doing this almost two decades later?

Frédéric: Well you can never predict where things will lead you. But, my intentions to push this forward as long as it feels relevant have been there from the start, and I hope I can keep doing this for some time still. Things change, but the music still speaks.

Michael: Do you have any thoughts on the dark ambient genre as a whole, with the emergence of things like Spotify, Youtube, and too a lesser degree Bandcamp, that make it easier for listeners to absorb massive amounts of music, but harder for invested labels to pay the bills.

Frédéric: Well these are 2 things, content vs form. As for content, well the genre has evolved and I’m still surprised by some of the quality and craft some artists deploy. Even after all these years, there are still new ways to interpret and approach this genre. As for form, well yes, there’s a lot of material out there and for someone diving into this genre today the scope is overwhelming. Album sales are fluctuating and the streaming reality is what it is. We just work with the means we have and keep pushing forward.

Michael: Many people have quite rigid views on their favorite genres of music, whatever they may be. Do you see a great new horizon ahead of us, or do you think the golden age of dark ambient may already be in the rear-view?

Frédéric: Most musical styles have had their “golden age” and now it is through convergence of styles and ideas that things evolve. I’m okay with this for the most part. Classics will remain classics, yet there are more classics to be made.

Michael: The reemergence of vinyl has left its mark on dark ambient, as it has on most other genres right now. Cyclic Law got into the vinyl releases early on in this trend. For you as a label head, what are the ups and downs of vinyl?

Frédéric: My initial goal with the first releases was to give the CD format the aspects I had enjoyed of vinyl, the smell and feel of heavy cardboard, inserts, gatefold sleeves etc… this was at a time when vinyl was almost out of the picture. Yet, we were releasing vinyl back in 2003, before this “comeback” of vinyl. Now we can offer both CD and vinyl, and even cassettes. So, it’s interesting to be able to present all these formats. I maybe secretly miss the 8-track cassette days of my youth.

Michael: You played a big part in the startups of Kammarheit, Northaunt and Svartsinn. You found Psychomanteum, the first released project by Robert Kozletsky, now best known for Apocryphos, while he was still in college, only beginning to even realize his own talents. The list could go on. Do you have your eyes set on any artists right now that you think are incredibly talented which haven’t yet gotten the recognition they deserve?

Frédéric: Well yes, there’s always this aspect of running a label, to push the more established acts as well as unearth newcomers that one feels must be heard by a wider audience. Recently, Shedir from Italy has had a big impact on me, as well as a few others yet to be released: Cober Ord from France, Kristian Westergard from Norway, Purba from Russia, O Saala Sakral (ex Hadewych) from The Netherlands and more…

Michael: What can we expect the future to hold for Cyclic Law, business as usual, or any surprises on the way?

Frédéric: Well business isn’t quite usual here. There are definitely some surprises. But, I’ll have to keep the suspense for now.

Michael: Thank you so much for your time, Frederic. It’s been a great pleasure getting to pick your brain!

Frédéric: Thank you Michael, and for all your work. Your platform is a haven in a sea of insignificance.

Links
Cyclic Law: Official Site, Facebook, Bandcamp
Visions: Facebook, Discogs
Stärker: Facebook, Discogs
Havan: Facebook, Discogs

Mortiis – Interview (Era 1 focused)

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On June 19, 2018

In Interviews

 

Mortiis is hailed by many/most as one of the greatest originators of the now greatly expanding dungeon synth genre. His Era 1 releases considered classics, and highly sought out by the dungeon synth community, as well as by fans of the Cold Meat Industry label, in general, which was home to Mortiis Era 1. With a new round of concerts featuring Era 1 material, a re-issue of his book ‘Secrets of My Kingdom’, and re-issues of many Era 1 albums, it seemed like a great time to have a conversation with the man behind Mortiis and pick his mind about the new book, his re-emergence within the Era 1 context, the Cold Meat Industry 25th anniversary festival and more!

Interviewee: Håvard Ellefsen a.k.a. Mortiis
Conducted by: Michael Barnett

Michael: The last year or so has been pretty crazy for you, it seems. Since your re-emergence in 2015, there has been a simultaneous flow of new fans to your Era 1 material, which culminated in the recent tour and appearance at the Cold Meat Industry 25th anniversary festival. In general, how have you been feeling about all this change?

Mortiis: Good. The only regret I have is that everything should have happened sooner. Especially the release of The Great Deceiver. But a lot of shit got in the way of that, so it wasn´t so much that we were dormant or inactive prior to 2015, we were just dealing with a ton of crap in the background. All that bullshit culminated in us getting rid of some, let´s say, obstacles in the “organization”, that had been wasting a lot of our time, especially in the couple of years leading up to the release of The Great Deceiver. From that moment on, you could almost physically feel the shifting of gears and actual forward movement.

Michael: More specifically, are you pleased to see your old work coming back to prominence so many years later?

Mortiis: To be honest I think it´s cool that people like my music, regardless of when it was made. I just think it´s cool to see people dig my stuff…I didn´t always feel this way…A few years back, I wanted people to feel the way I did, which was, invariably, that my latest music was the best…That´s not realistic, obviously. But I wanted things to be like that. Needless to say, an artist should always feel that the latest work is the best, but it´s not realistic to expect everyone else to agree.

Michael: After this round of 1st era re-issues, the touring, and the re-printing of your long sold out, and greatly sought after “Secrets of My Kingdom” book, what is next for Mortiis? Will the full focus return to Mortiis, the band, as opposed to Mortiis, the dark dungeon music guy?

Mortiis: We´ll have to see about that. I´d like to get another album out of the Era 1 style stuff, but brought into the light on current times. The band will resurface, because so much of my heart and soul has been vested into it, and the music and energy that it inspires in me, so I could never let that go.
As of right now. I am committed to a lot of shows for the rest of the year, and beyond that, I have many plans and ideas, and I´ll just reveal that along the way, when the time is right, haha!

Michael: Your own music aside, what are your feelings on this huge re-emergence of dungeon synth?

Mortiis: It sort of happened in my absence, and I wasn´t really made aware of it until I peronally came to terms with my musical past, which I had a lot of personal issues with up until about 2-3 years ago, when my mind became less foggy and judgemental about it. By that point, it seemed to have been growing to a decent size…It´s interesting that its happening now. Because, I don´t think my reissues had anything to do with this emergence. I think it´s a monster all on its own, so to speak. So it would appear it´s really just a very cool coincidence. I still haven´t been able to check out a lot of it. Although, I have done shows with projects like Old Tower recently, which sounds pretty cool me.

Michael: You’ve marked your stamp of approval on several recent dungeon synth releases, including Machina Coeli’s Gnosis, and at least one other that escapes me at the moment. I’ve also seen your name in the “thank you” sections of many artists’ albums. What do you think your position is within this new dungeon synth community? Are you keeping an eye on new projects, or do you mostly ignore these trends/communities and focus on your own work?

Mortiis: I don´t ignore them, I´m just not as good as I should be on checking them out. It´s all about lack of time really. I´m pretty swamped at the moment, and have been for some time… I see the forums online and I notice a lot of these names. So, I think a good portion of what´s out there, at least I´ve seen their names around, if nothing else. As for my position, I don´t know, I don´t really want to speculate in that. And, it´s not really up to me anyway, to place myself in any sort of hierarchy. If that makes any sense. I think I´m well respected by most people into dungeon synth. Although, I remember one douchebag being very personally offended at me for posting in a forum that was for French DS people only, which I missed. He got all worked up about it. Maybe he hoped for some sort of response. He never got one, so he was probably punching a screen somewhere. Hopefully it broke.

Michael: If you had one piece of advice to give new dungeon synth artists, what would that be?

Mortiis: Don´t post on French DS forums, haha! Nah, the French are OK, except this one dude, haha! To be honest, I´m not a DS expert, I don´t have it “all figured out” or anything. When I started out, I took a lot of shit for being an outsider visually, and making music that was hard to pigeonhole, so my best advice is to just keep at it. If it feels right, then let the world burn, fuck the critics, be yourself.

When I started out, I took a lot of shit for being an outsider visually, and making music that was hard to pigeonhole, so my best advice is to just keep at it. If it feels right, then let the world burn, fuck the critics, be yourself.

Michael: I mentioned earlier the CMI festival. How was that experience for you? Was it surreal to come back together with so many of these people from your formative years?

Mortiis: It was cool to meet guys like Tomas from Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio, Peter from Deutsch Nepal and Peter from Raison d’etre, as I hadn´t met them for years. Jouni, from In Slaughter Natives, I worked with a few years ago on mastering some of my music, so it hadn’t been that long since we´d last met, but of course it is always nice to meet Jouni. The experience was cool, I mean kind of scary, since it was my first Era 1 show in about 18 years, and I was doing things a bit different than the past anyway, so in a sense this was almost like a debut show. I think a lot of people got into it, but of course CMI attracts a lot of somewhat elitist types, with very specific tastes and with strong opinions on what they like and don´t like, so I think there was a clique of guys like that that probably had no time for me, to put it that way, but I knew that was going to happen. In that sense nothing has changed since the old CMI days when I used to go out and do shows with Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio, Raison d’etre, In Slaughter Natives, and so on.

 

Michael: You have been taking Era 1 on tour recently. What are your general thoughts on live performances of dungeon synth / dark dungeon music? Do you think this is an important aspect for any musician, or is it personal taste?

Mortiis: I think it´s all personal. Either you want to go out and play live, or you don´t. I´ve gotten used to it, so I´m always up for doing a show, as long as the promoters aren´t trying to pull quickies and pay peanuts and fuck you over, but I usually catch those fuckers out before the 3rd email, so they´re goners if it doesn´t feel good. We´re done at that point.
Regardless, I think all music deserves a shot at proving itself on stage.

Michael: You’ve re-released “Secrets of my Kingdom”, now entitled: “Secrets of my Kingdom: Return to Dimensions Unknown”. How has the response to this been from fans?

Mortiis: Very good. I think people really appreciate the additional work we put into it. There´s about 100 pages of bonus material consisting of unpublished texts, artwork, interviews, and so on…The response has been nothing but positive, from where I´m standing anyway.

Michael: Are you personally pleased with the final product and working with Cult Never Dies?

Mortiis: Yes, totally. Dayal is a pretty passionate guy about the product he makes, so he really pushes to make it the best it can be.

Michael: This book re-issue, as well as the era 1 album re-issues, contain artwork by David Thierree. Are you personally acquainted with him, or did you two only work together on these releases? Will you be planning to contract him for work again in the future? Also, I wonder if you have a favorite of his re-imaginings?

Mortiis: We´ve known each other for a long time, but we only really reconnected over these reissues I guess about 2 years ago. We´ve been in pretty steady contact ever since. He also worked with me on a bunch of pieces for my live show. There will be at least one more release coming shortly, that includes his artwork, and that one may well be my favourite. Other than that, it´s a hard choice. I think the Født til å Herske artwork looks brilliant, but the Keiser Av En Dimensjon Ukjent artwork has so many hidden signs and symbols and references, it´s kinda hard not to pick that one as a current favourite.

Michael: In your interview within the new book, you mention that most of this body of work comes from your teenage years, and that you don’t fully appreciate it as much as you might like. What were the changes/arguments made that brought you to re-release this book? Do you feel that this newer version has been redeemed of any potential flaws you saw in its original form?

Mortiis: There´s the intro from the original 2001 version, that was written at some point during the year 2000, and at that point I was very disillusioned with my ’90s output. All across the board: music, lyrics, etc… That had more to do with me sinking into a depression that was deeper and darker than I realized at the time. I can see that now, in retrospect. In the interview, in the book, that I did with Dayal across several 2-3 hour phone conversations, I did probably touch upon this a lot, too. Because, it´s the main reason Era 1, to me, was locked away in some deeply hidden mental closet, and I threw away the key, just to use a worn out cliché.
I don´t think the original book was flawed, it has many things about it that I like. But the new edition is better, improved in the sense that it´s physically larger, it has more content, and I personally shed a lot of light on those days, which we thought would be interesting to the hard-core fan, if no one else. All the material was written between 1992 and 1999, though the bulk would have been written between 1992-1996, so I would have been 17-21 years of age when most of that was written.

Michael: Are there marked differences between your fan-base for Era 2/3/0 and those of Era 1? Would you say one group or another has a sort of darker mentality?

Mortiis: Not sure. I mean, if I was to point anything out, I think metal people, for a reason I still can´t properly understand, beyond the fact that they may be connecting with some sort of primal atmospheric element in the era 1 stuff, seem to like Era 1 a lot more than everything else that came after. But it´s not a rule of thumb. I get people that are fans of everything I´ve done, then I get the sort of industrial/electronic/goth person that got into Mortiis post- Era 1. It really varies, but it´s not like I could point at a guy in the room and tell you what Mortiis records he´s going to be into.

Michael: I recently discovered your 25 minute music video ‘Reisene Til Grotter Og Odemarker’. Those dark and smoky corridors and stone towers were the perfect accompaniment to your sound and your image. Would you be open to doing something like this again? Or is this something that you lost respect for over the years?

Mortiis: I didn´t lose respect for it. VENOM did shit in castles, so how can I lose respect for it? Haha! I just completed filming for a new video to be used for some Era 1 stuff down the line. It´s not in a castle, though, but it´s pretty damn dark stuff anyway.

Michael: Can you remember back to a time when these ideas of “Mortiis” first came into your mind? Were you a child, imagining these dark images and soundscapes, or did this come to you later as you began discovering black metal and the darker side of the global community?

Mortiis: The first lyrics I wrote that became the Mortiis mythology, in the summer of 1992, were all supposed to be used for a planned Emperor concept album. That never happened obviously, since I didn´t last very long in the band after that. I had sketched out a dark otherworld in those 10-12 lyrics, and I brought them all with me, because I knew I wanted to base my music around them. That´s how it got started.

Michael: Politics are on everyone’s minds these days. No need to give an affiliation or ideology, but I wonder how you generally feel about this political landscape? Will it all calm down, and life go back to the mundane boring nature of the last 30 years, or are we headed for darker, more uncertain times?

Mortiis: Well it´s steadily been becoming more and more uncertain, and increasingly hostile and violent, and we have world leaders that seem more occupied with feeding fear and stroking their own egos, than actually going to work, so as it stands right now, I don´t think it´s looking that great. I hope things will get better. I have kids, and I don´t want them to grow up in some sort of dystopian, cynical future. But when people think they can run the world like a company, with no real interest in ramifications and the ripple effects of your actions…Who knows where things will end.

Michael: Thank you so much for your time. Is there anything else you would like to tell readers, which I have overlooked?

Mortiis: Thanks for your interest. Check out www.mortiiswebstore.com for vinyl, CD, shirts and other merchandise. Thanks!

Mortiis Links:
Official Website, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram,

Teahouse Radio / Hypnagoga Press – Interview

By

On May 21, 2018

In Interviews

Over the last few years we’ve seen a huge increase in the output of Pär Boström. Once known only for his oldest (main?) project, Kammarheit, Pär Boström has since created a multitude of wonderful albums, always more or less focused on dark ambient, as Cities Last Broadcast, Altarmang, Bonini Bulga, and now his latest project Teahouse Radio. Near the beginning of this recent bloom in releases, he partnered up with his sister, Åsa Boström, to start the publishing house/record label Hypnagoga Press, as well as collaborate on their first release as Hymnambulae. After my previous interview with them in 2016, not long before I started This Is Darkness, I thought it was time to catch up with the siblings and find out from Pär about the new Teahouse Radio album, and to get some general clairvoyance on the label and future releases from Åsa. Enjoy with a cup of your favorite tea and be sure to check out the new Teahouse Radio album, which you can stream in full below.

Interview with: Pär & Åsa Boström

Conducted by: Michael Barnett

You can also read our review of the Teahouse Radio debut here.

Michael: Teahouse Radio is your latest project to be released through Hypnagoga Press. Since, over the last few years you have been working on a growing number of projects, I wonder if you could tell readers what makes Teahouse Radio unique for you? How does it stand apart from your other endeavors?

Pär: One intention we have with Hypnagoga Press, is creating a house encompassing all our projects. Even the ones that have been or are still brewing in the background. For one and a half decades, Teahouse Radio has served as a counter-point during a difficult psychiatric evaluation and treatment. It took me this long to decide to finally share the music. What makes it unique, for me, is how it managed to keep its roots in the children’s books I read, as a kid. A sort of honesty and naïveté that resonates well with me. Things like Narnia, Winnie the Pooh and the Moomin books have been a big inspiration for this project. There is something in those books that connects to my own early encounters with melancholia and existential questions. I don’t really have the words for it, only the music. Some would say it’s not as dark sounding as my other projects, but I would say it has some of that as well. But more than anything, it has a different form of melancholia and dreaminess.

Michael: How long have you had the idea to work on a Teahouse Radio album?

Pär: The oldest songs on this album are from 2004, maybe a bit earlier than that. But, I can’t recall exactly when and how it started. One day it was there. A new friend you feel like you’ve known forever. I don’t know if I had the intention, initially, to publish an album. All my projects start this way. Something personal, a place to visit for as long as I need. Somewhere along the way, I invite people to take part in it. Then, the music sets out on an adventure of its own, becoming a part of other peoples lives, as well.

Michael: Can you tell us a bit about the process behind creating the Teahouse Radio debut, Her Quiet Garden?

Pär: In 2016, I stayed in my sister Åsa’s old summer house and guest studio. My intention was to make an album, using a semi-acoustic guitar and a few effect pedals. I often do this, bring equipment with me somewhere secluded. It was supposed to be a singer-songwriter thing. Early on, I noticed that what I was making was similar to what I had already been recording as Teahouse Radio, years before. I had a notebook with me to jot down technical details about chord progression, lyrics, etc. Instead, immediately it turned into a studio diary, with reflections on what I was making. I wrote about my cat Kosmos who had passed away three years earlier, picturing her in this peaceful, dreamy garden. As I was sitting in the rocking chair listening to the new recordings, I wrote about the weather, the bumblebees and about loss, in general. About mental illness. Somewhere in those notes, the album began to emerge. Half of the songs had been recorded sporadically since 2004. The rest were created during a few days late that summer, in that idyllic countryside setting.

Michael: Hypnagoga Press, the label run by Åsa and yourself, has focused on releasing music by your various projects. Of course, some of these projects are your solo efforts, but others have been collaborations, for example: the Hymnambulae or Altarmang debuts are collaborations with Åsa Boström and Kenneth Hansson, respectively. The new Teahouse Radio album looks to be more of a solo project, in line with Bonini Bulga or Kammarheit. Was this, in fact, a solo project, or did you collaborate with any other artists on this one?

Pär: Teahouse Radio is initially a solo project, but I would like to select a few collaborators further down the road. The songs on Her Quiet Garden were sent to Simon Heath, who added a few extra touches on some of the songs and mastered the whole album. I am very grateful for the way he made the old and new material blend together.

Michael: Is there any specific importance behind the names Teahouse Radio and Her Quiet Garden?

Pär: There was a tiny wooden house, an elk tower, in a field outside the city where I lived during high school. Due to my insomnia at the time, I sometimes bicycled there, and had a cup of tea while trying to find radio stations on a small radio I insisted on carrying with me. When deciding on names for this project, that memory came back and Teahouse Radio felt like a suitable name. As the first album is centered around loss, my deceased cat Kosmos became the main symbol. To imagine a garden for her. A calm, quiet garden.

Michael: You’ve given followers some hints about this release, over the last year or so. Was the process behind its creation similar to other albums? Meaning, do you usually use journals in this way, capturing your ideas for later translation into music?

Pär: I don’t think I’ve shared anything from my journal entries before. Not translated and shared almost in full like we did in The Solar Zine Vol.3. I often write about my music, looking closely for clues on how to best proceed with what I’m working on. Most studio notes are about changes I want to make and title ideas. But, this notebook went further. I will experiment with this on future albums, as well. To my defense I want to add, that when combining a rocking chair, a loop pedal and a summer house with a beautiful lake and garden view, there will be some thoughts running through your head. Dramatic weather only further added to the mood.

Michael: The album art for this release has an incredibly unique and surreal feel. What is the importance of this image and how was it created to have such a unique look?

Pär: I am constantly drawing. Strange animals, trees, figures interacting with each other or dealing with sleep in different ways. It has been like this for almost two decades. I decided early on, that Teahouse Radio should try to fill a gap between my music and these drawings. So, for Her Quiet Garden I made a lot of different paper landscapes with trees and a pond. I tried all kinds of papers to make it look like water and other transparent papers to get a fog like effect. Not many of the photos I took were used for the final artwork, but I will continue with these kinds of images in the future.

Michael: Will Teahouse Radio remain an active project after this release?

Pär: That’s my intention. The illness, the need to take a break from the world, to dream and drift, will likely never change. And there will always be the need to make music for weather and cats. Aural tales.

Michael: What does the future hold for Teahouse Radio? Do you intend to do any live performances as this project, or will it remain a studio entity.

Pär: For now, I wish to remain in my studio for quite some time, before doing live performances again, with any project. I’m happy to be able to create now. I’ve had long periods of inactivity before, or have felt a big need for distance and avoidance, so I want to make sure I’m making the most of this moment. As I said earlier, I hope to collaborate with different musicians in the future. Hopefully animators and paper landscape artists, as well. Her Quiet Garden is merely the introduction.

Michael: Is there any interesting news happening with any of your other projects, currently? I’m sure you have a lot going on, but anything you are willing to share?

Pär: A new Kammarheit album is completed, but it might still be some time before it can be released, as it is a soundtrack and must be synchronised with a product that isn’t finished yet. I have yet another unknown project I will share soon, and then it is hopefully time for new material from Altarmang, Hymnambulae, Cities Last Broadcast and Bonini Bulga. It moves in cycles. Even with Hypnagoga Press, I feel like we’ve barely started yet.

We Didn’t Tell Each Other How Wounded We Were by Åsa Boström

 

Michael: Transitioning to label matters, Åsa, would you like to tell us what has been happening lately around Hypnagoga Press? Any new plans, projects or developments that you would like to speak about?

Åsa Boström: We’ll open the publishing house part of Hypnagoga Press soon, and to begin with, publish some of my books. Going forward, the music label and publishing house will overlap. Literary texts, voice, spoken word will be embedded in our music publications, and our literary publications will include music components.

Onward, we’ll also be focusing more on collaborations. Recently, we made a remix for Carl Abrahamsson, featuring on an album set for release at the end of May. It also contains both music and spoken word, with Carl’s and my voice overlapping.

Michael: Hypnagoga Press has already done releases in several formats: CD, Cassette, Zine, will you continue expanding into different forms of media?

Åsa: Yes, we’ll continue expanding into different media formats. Explore multimedia products – music, literature, art – as well as various packaging formats. Boxes. Hybrid products. Possibly include objects as a part of the packaging. In my art-making, one medium I work with are sculptural objects, a form of ritual objects, made from materials collected on travels. Some of this might also turn up in our packaging. We’ll also introduce vinyl and more types of fine art prints. We intend to keep the physical editions very limited.

I Had Words Left, You Found Them by Åsa Boström

Michael: So far, Hypnagoga Press has been a conduit for you and Pär’s creative output. Will there be plans to search out talent from other individuals, or are you happy to keep this a close-knit sort of personal operation?

Åsa: Hypnagoga Press is mainly a space for realising our own projects. But we’re planning an outlet for collaborations with others, an imprint or a series of publications, in the future.

Michael: Hypnagoga Press is still quite a new label, with your first release being Orgelhuset in 2016, by yourself and Pär as Hymnambulae. What has the startup been like? Are you happy with the current position of things, or have there been any setbacks?

Åsa: I’m very pleased with our first music releases – the debut albums by Hymnambule, Altarmang, Bonini Bulga, and now Teahouse Radio. Projects with narrative depth, supported by interesting creative processes, and I look forward to their progression.

Hypnagoga Press will be built long-term. It’s intended as a life’s work, with our creative and spiritual practices interwoven with creating experiences in which others may take part. Our publications serve as a form of tools, also for others to utilise, forming their own path and journey. To step in closer, reach further, manifest more.

Life also interfered in our startup. I got ill, due to mold in the countryside house where I was living, in the woods in northern Sweden. A house we’d made our Hypnagoga Press headquarter, where I had also set up my own studio space and a guest studio. All of that had to be taken apart and some of our publications got delayed. Now I live in Umeå, where Pär also lives, which makes running Hypnagoga Press together easier. Forces more joined and space freed up for what’s ahead.

Prayer Book by Åsa Boström

Michael: Are there any topics you would like to tell readers about, which I haven’t mentioned?

Åsa: I’d like to add a few words about our new release by Teahouse Radio. I’ve followed the development of the project for almost 15 years now. It’s a good example of how our individual projects often influence each other. I’ve been listening a lot to Teahouse Radio while writing my novel The Seafarer, which we’ll be publishing soon. And Pär has read The Seafarer while working on Teahouse Radio. Initially, we had planned to release them simultaneously.

Michael: Thank you so much for your time, it is always a pleasure!

Pär/Åsa Boström: Thank you Michael, likewise!

Links:
Hypnagoga Press: Website, Facebook, Bandcamp, Youtube
Teahouse Radio: Website, Facebook, Bandcamp
Hymnambulae: Facebook, Bandcamp

Pär’s projects reviewed on This Is Darkness:
Altarmang – Void (2017)
Atrium Carceri & Cities Last Broadcast – Black Corner Den (2017)
Atrium Carceri, Cities Last Broadcast & God Body Disconnect – Miles To Midnight (2018)
Bonini Bulga – Sealed (2017)
Kammarheit – The Starwheel (2005)

 

Matteo Brusa (Medhelan/La Tredicesima Luna) – Interview

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On December 16, 2017

In Uncategorized


Matteo Brusa is the man behind the dungeon synth project, Medhelan, and the dark ambient project, La Tredicesima Luna. Hailing from northern Italy, Brusa’s cultural and geographical histories have played a big part in his identity as a musician. I was able to pick Brusa’s mind for this quite extensive interview, which will look into the background of the man, as well as the beginning and future of his musical projects. 

Michael: What sort of music inspired you to become a musician?

Matteo: I’ve been exposed to several music genres since a very young age, but if I have to name those which most inspired me to become a musician, I’d say classic rock, progressive rock and electronica. I discovered Black Sabbath at age 12 or 13, while Italian 1970s progressive rock is the reason why I picked up bass at age 14. At almost the same time I discovered electronic music from the 90s, especially European trance, minimal techno, downtempo and breakbeat, and developed an interest in electronic music production.

Michael: When you realized you wanted to start making music, how did things evolve leading up to Medhelan and La Tredicesima Luna?

Matteo: As mentioned before, I grew up in a very music-friendly environment. My father was an amateur keyboards player and used to own several different instruments, among which a prized Roland Juno-106 which is now in my care. As a kid I spent a lot of time toying with them and eventually teaching myself how to play a bit of keyboards and some guitar；at age 14 I began studying music theory and bass guitar, and started producing my first raw electronic tracks on a simple tracker software. Since then I’ve tried my hand at several electronic music styles, I’ve played bass in a number of underground bands through the years, and I created my first full-fledged musical project KRiOS, active from 2006 to 2014, which started out as a industrial dark ambient/noise act and eventually grew to encompass all my musical influences, including folk, shoegazing, dreampop and electronica. The major turning point was when I came in contact with extreme metal in my teens: I was particularly impressed by Black Metal, its counter-cultural significance, Weltanschauung and aesthetics, and how these same characteristics were applied to electronic music by the likes of Burzum, Ildjarn, Neptune Towers, Mortiis and Wongraven. Black Metal derived Dungeon Synth and Dark ambient became my genres of choice, those which most resonated with my self, when I felt the urge to create something carrying a deeper, more personal meaning. At that point it wasn’t “just music” to me anymore.

Michael: Outside of music, are there any other things for which you are passionate?

Matteo: I have a solid interest in European history and culture, both ancient and modern, and in metapolitics: I’m intrigued by everything that puts our social, economic and values system, deemed untouchable by most, into question. I highly value doubt and critical thought over given truths and conformity. Moreover, I support any cause that aims at preserving differences and natural diversity over homologation, and as a consequence I’m very passionate about the preservation of rural traditions, folk lore, legends, tales and the gallo-italic native Lombard language of my homeland in northern Italy, all things endangered by the slow destruction of traditional communities and cultural identities.

Michael: How has the history of your particular region affected your way of looking at life?

Vigevano Castle

Matteo: I grew up on the border between Lombardy and Piedmont, and I have half Lombard, half Piedmontese ancestry. It’s a place rich of historical traces spanning from the proto-Celtic cultures of Golasecca and Canegrate to World War II. A land dotted with feudal age castles and keeps, still functioning abbeys and monastaries, medieval villages perfectly preserved in their core structure, churches, monuments and works of art from all over the centuries and so on, up to the modern age. The place where I was born and where I lived for 25 years, Vigevano, is brimming with history. It was part of the Second Lombard League in the 13th century. It holds a complex castle system, complete with an innovative elevated passageway, built between the 13th and 15th centuries by the powerful Visconti and Sforza feudal families, which includes one of the finest plazas in Italy. At the time, Leonardo da Vinci worked in Vigevano for Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. It’s also the place where, during the First War of Italian independence, the Salasco armistice between Austria and Piedmont was signed in 1848 and where in 1849 the battle of Sforzesca was fought. In the industrial age, it flourished with the most renowned shoemaking industry in Italy and it’s still a tradition. Eleonora Duse, renowned actress and lover of Gabriele D’Annunzio, was born there in 1858. When you grow up surrounded by history like this, you can’t just ignore who you are and where you come from, which people and events influenced your ancestors, and how it cascaded to you. This is the lesson I learned from the history of my region. My roots are firmly and deeply radicated in this place, and I’m proud to collect its heritage. Sadly, the majority of people just seem not to care anymore.

Michael: When did you first take an interest in the history of your region?

Matteo: I could say it’s always been there, as I remember being a kid in primary school and listening in awe to the teacher recounting the history of my hometown, as I mentioned before, from Celts to Roman age, to Lombards’ and Franks’ rule and then to the Visconti and Sforza families in feudal age, and again from Spanish and Austrian domination to the Savoy royal family’s reign, straight into Napoleonic era and then through the First War of Italian independence towards modern age. But if I had to pick the moment when it actually became a conscious, fully developed interest, that would be in my late teens/early twenties, some time before I set on composing what would eventually become the bulk of Medhelan’s “Ticinum Insubria” album, a time when I started feeling the need to embrace my cultural roots rather than downplay them.

Michael: You have released several albums now in the cassette format. Why do you think this renaissance in cassette releases has happened and what is the most important aspect of them to your music.Matteo: As far as I can tell, the renaissance of compact cassette is mainly due to the “nostalgia factor”, to put it this way, harking back to things instantly reminding of a “golden age” of sort. While this could have been enough of a reason for reviving them in the general context of underground music and its current retro trends, I believe the return of compact cassettes holds a deeper significance to our scene: it is a powerful statement of independence from the mainstream, against the rise of dematerialized digital music, in favor of an iconic, old school, analog physical alternative. Philosophical issues aside, tape gives a recognizable sonic quality to music, a depth and warmth which is a very welcomed enhancement to certain styles of music, such as ambient.
To sum it up, I like cassettes both for how they sound and look and because of their cultural significance.

Michael: You’ve released albums now through Deivlforst Records, Lighten Up Sounds and Haftvad Records. Were these all good experiences with these labels? Will you continue working with some of them for future releases?

Matteo: I’ve had great experiences with all of them. I first got in touch with Deivlforst through Grimrik, who eventually became a friend and mentor to me, and deserves all the credit for tutoring me on taking Medhelan to “Fall of the Horned Serpent” level. I feel close to both his and Murgrind’s vision and philosophy about music and the scene, and consider Deivlforst as Medhelan’s natural home；Medhelan’s next album will be released by Deivlforst. Matt Himes of Lighten Up Sounds is a great and extremely hard-working guy, who took La Tredicesima Luna under his wing to provide it with the best presentation, promotion and distribution available. I have only positive things to say about my experience with him, La Tredicesima Luna is likely staying with Lighten Up Sounds. Finally, Haftvad was Medhelan’s first label, and a very good collaboration, despite inexperience and some difficulties not depending on either me or the label. We never did anything again together, but I was impressed by Ramin’s dedication to the Dungeon Synth scene and community.

Michael: You’ve also had several self-released physical editions, including the beautifully crafted Ticinum Insubria re-release on cassette. Do you prefer leaving these physical releases to labels or was it equally enjoyable to create the releases yourself?

Matteo: While I enjoy self-releasing and being in full control when creating the entire opus from scratch, producing and distributing it, working with a label has a number of advantages that significantly reduce workload and costs, while usually making for a more professional final result. “Ticinum Insubria” itself was kind of a hybrid, as Dan Capp did the whole design and layout work while I only took care of production and distribution. I’ll probably keep releasing both ways, but if I had to choose one, today I lean more on having a good label take care of the process.

Michael: Does religion play any major role in your life and/or music?

Matteo: Rather than religion I’d say spirituality plays a major role in my life: I follow a Celtic Pagan reconstructionist path which permeates my life and gives perspective to my music. I try to live my daily life as an all-encompassing ritual, living in the world and embracing its beauty and chaos without ever straying too far away from things that really matter, always caring for those who walked here before me, those who walk by my side and those who’ll walk my steps after I’m gone.

Michael: I know this question has already been answered in a previous interview for Masmorra’s physical dungeon-synth zine, but for those that haven’t had the pleasure to browse that edition, what does Medhelan mean, and why did you decide on this name?

Matteo: Medhelan is the ancient Celtic name of the town Romans called Mediolanum, which is present-day Milan. According to Roman historian Livy, it was founded around 600 BC by the Gaulish chieftain Bellovesus, nephew of the legendary king Ambigatos, who gathered people from several different Celtic tribes to establish a settlement in northern Italy; this particular endeavor, while based on obvious tangible needs, is also loaded with spiritual significance if interpreted as a “coming of age” quest. I picked Medhelan as my project’s name because it perfectly relates to both my love for my homeland with its rich history and my Celtic spiritual path, while at the same time it speaks of the reward coming after the struggle, and of a ritual rebirth.

Matteo: All Medhelan albums were created on software synthesizers and sample libraries only. “Fall of the Horned Serpent” is entirely recorded on Propellerhead Reason 3.5 factory soundbanks! Grimrik was able to squeeze gold out of twelve years old entry level libraries, which seems an amazing feat to me. I like to expand my sonic palette and avoid repeating myself though, so future releases will likely include some hardware synths and possibly some real instruments.

Ticino River

Michael: Some of your tracks use field recordings, I wonder if you’ve had any interesting experiences while on field recording expeditions?

Matteo: This might come as a surprise, but I actually almost never employ field recordings！The wide atmospheres swelling and rumbling underneath my songs are mostly generative soundscapes, synth drones playing dissonant chords, or stuff I create myself by heavily manipulating bits of sampled sounds, different pieces of music and such. For example, one track from “Ticinum Insubria” (I won’t reveal which one!) stands atop a completely unrecognizable sample of an alpine choir song. I like to experiment with such techniques.

Michael: Are there any new releases in the works for Medhelan? Has a label been decided for the release, which could be announced publicly?

Matteo: As previously mentioned, a new Medhelan album is in the works, albeit very slowly. It will be quite different from the previous one, and again it will be released by Deivlforst Records.

Michael: Medhelan is obviously a very fantasy oriented project, especially on Fall of the Horned Serpent. What were some of your favorite fantasy stories/mythos/sagas? Do any of them play into the works of Medhelan, or are you working within a framework totally of your own making?

Matteo: To be honest, while “Fall of the Horned Serpent” and “The minstrel’s fireplace tales” are fantasy-oriented in appearance, I’ve never considered the fantasy element to hold such a primary importance in Medhelan; for example, the story in Serpent unfolds in the form of an episodic fantasy tale, ridden with echoes of northern sagas (anyone familiar enough with the subject matter will find clear connections), but it merely serves as an allegorical means to express my views and vision of life and the world, to speak out about things I care for. While I like fantasy settings, I’m not much of a fantasy reader, besides my love for Tolkien’s whole opus, but I’m very much into epic poems and literature: my must-reads include Homer’s Iliad (Hector is a figure I strongly admire and relate to, his human virtue and flaws make his tragedy the most poignant in the whole story) and the Odyssey, the Arthurian cycle, Beowulf, von Eschenbach’s Parzival, the Chanson de Roland and more.

Michael: La Tredicesima Luna translates at The Thirteenth Moon. What is the significance of this name?

Matteo: The thirteenth moon of the year, sometimes called blue moon, is the second full moon occurring in a single month, like a “bonus” moon round. It’s an event occurring only once in a few years (hence the expression “once in a blue moon”) and it’s held by certain traditions as a time favoring divination and magick. I picked the name because of the latter implications and how they relate to La Tredicesima Luna’s concept.

Michael: How long have you had the idea to release an album as La Tredicesima Luna?

Matteo: The idea for La Tredicesima Luna first came to me in 2012. It was initially supposed to be a Pagan neofolk project with dark ambient leanings. I recorded a few demos back then, which were subsequently discarded. When I decided to split Medhelan’s ambient side from its new Dungeon Synth path, it was a natural choice to revive La Tredicesima Luna from standby.

Michael: Do both projects follow similar themes, or is there a vast difference in the thematic core of each project?

Ticino Woods

Matteo: While both take a Pagan stance in concept, Medhelan is mainly based on history, Celtic culture and spirituality handled in different ways, ranging from the simple historical soundscaping of Ticinum Insubria to the full-fledged allegorical storytelling of Serpent, while La Tredicesima Luna holds a more abstract, ritual approach focused on Pagan symbolism, mysticism and contemplation.

Michael: What is next for La Tredicesima Luna? Are you working on a follow-up to Il Sentiero Degli Dei or giving the project a momentary rest?

Matteo: The follow-up to “Il sentiero degli Dei” is currently release-ready and will likely see the light some time next year through Lighten Up Sounds.

Michael: What do you think the long-term future will hold for you musically? Will Medhelan and/or La Tredicesima Luna continue to be your main focus or do you have other ideas which you would like to explore?

Matteo: Medhelan and La Tredicesima Luna will likely remain my primary focus; that said, I enjoy making different styles of music and I constantly find new musical interests, so I wouldn’t exclude anything.

Michael: Thank you so much for your time Matteo, are there any final words you would like to say to readers or anything I missed, which you would like them to know?

Matteo: Thank you Michael for this in-depth interview. I’d like to say a huge thank you to all fans, friends and fellow musicians I could get in touch with over these years, to all people who contributed their work, dedication and criticism for making Medhelan and La Tredicesima Luna shine, and to the Dungeon Synth community as a whole, for constantly caring and supporting. I’m deeply satisfied and grateful for all that. Behold the strength of the community.

Medhelan Links: Facebook, Bandcamp
La Tredicesima Luna Links: Facebook, Bandcamp

Nhor – Interview

By

On December 8, 2017

In Interviews


2017 was an interesting and eventful year for the UK project Nhor. He pushed the atmospheric element for his approach to its minimalist limit, which resulted in a quadrilogy of EPs that formed the Wildflowers cycle. Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter shed light on aspects of their respective seasons not often explored in any art-form — let alone through piano ambient music. As this portion of Nhor’s existence closes out, the artist was kind enough to sit down and give some insight into the creative process, hidden meanings and personal significance of Wildflowers.

Interview conducted by: Maxwell Heilman

Maxwell: Do you have a favorite EP out of the four? Does it coincide with your favorite season?

Nhor: I don’t think I do have a favourite, not yet anyway. They each have their own unique mood and special moment held in time. As each season approaches, I always consider it to be my favourite, but the flowering of bluebells in Spring is always a special occasion for me, and very likely a catalyst in realising the Wildflowers concept.

Maxwell: Other than the imagery, what differentiates these four releases from one another? Are there any distinguishing characteristics to listen for when listening to the EPs?

Nhor: I suppose ultimately this is for the listener to decide. I can hear a great deal of change, but I know how I play and write music, so maybe some things are more apparent to me, especially including the knowledge of what inspired each song, and the process undertaken to convert that into music.
I think Autumn has the darkest mood. Spring represents an awakening, Summer is more hopeful than any of the others, but I won’t pass judgement on Winter yet, not publicly anyway, I’d rather people made their own conclusions about the new EP.

Maxwell: Wildflowers are the cycle’s unifying image, yet these songs never seem to directly address them. Do you have any insight into how the Wildflowers concept lays the foundation for the music?

Nhor: The wildflowers fit the idea, of musical ideas. Wildflowers are beautiful flowers, that bloom for such fleeting spells within their own seasons. These hopefully mirror my music, which is made more of ideas and moods than it is of “songs”. These ideas hopefully fit within their own time of the year, mimicking the short spell of a wildflower in it’s given season.

Maxwell: Even in your black metal releases, piano often takes center stage (Within the Darkness Between the Starlight comes to mind). What is your history with this instrument? What draws you to it?

Nhor: I think simply, I find it very expressive. Luckily, I don’t think it requires a lot of skill to play it as I do, or coordination to press a key (which is the basic requirement of getting a nice sound from a piano, a violin requires much more coordination to make a note sound good). I don’t mean to offend any pianists, I know there are very, very accomplished pianists out there, but this isn’t what I’m trying to achieve. I’m trying to translate the mood of myself and the seasons. Also, the piano helps me to simplify my own work, and concentrate on the melodies and notes I’m working with. If there was no darkness between the starlight, would the stars still hold your gaze? I stick to that concept in giving the notes room to breath. Nothing is more fertile than the void.

Maxwell: The Wildflowers EPs have a very raw, immediate sound to coincide with the music’s delicate delivery — almost sounding like they’re being played in the same room as the listener. Care to elaborate on what the recording process was like?

Nhor: Recording is not something I look forward to. I enjoy writing music and exploring ideas but the recording can completely change my mood and take my focus away from what I was trying to create. There is a point where the recording/mixing/mastering process becomes more of a science than an art. I tend to leave a take rolling for a long period of time, to try and forget about what’s happening and let it come naturally.

Maxwell: How did you approach writing these songs? Are any elements improvised?

Nhor: I don’t really have any knowledge of music theory, so everything is just a natural progression or elaboration on an idea. I suppose everything is improvised. It’s strange to say but I can hear the melody before I’ve written it. I then spend some time chasing those notes, trying to find them, and exploring anything else I stumble upon along the way.

Maxwell: Did you find it a challenge to impart discernible structure and unique moods to such minimalist, ethereal music?

Nhor: It’s not something I have actively tried to achieve. If I have achieved it then it has been a welcome accident. I write what I feel, and try to not plan anything, or make any rules, especially not in structure.

Maxwell: These songs are incredibly vivid within their stripped-down sound. Do you have imagery in mind when you write, or does your music paint a picture for you similar to how it does your listeners?

Nhor: A lot of the time I’m drawing from a sight or experience that pushes me to play my piano. At times the music will pull old memories of my own which then create their own space or story with their song.

Maxwell: The moon is a recurring character in the cycle. What does this entity mean to you within the context of Wildflowers?

Nhor: I don’t think it’s possible to explain it’s meaning only within the context of Wildflowers. There are so many aspects of the moon I treasure. How the full moon lights the earth, how it disappears, how its light changes through the clouds, its shifting form, its silent presence above. I wrote this short passage a long time ago:

A heavy weight upon my eyes.
A confidant of secrecy.
Soft light spills over me.
It slows my thoughts,
And it calms my wild swelling heart.
I swear that it waits for me.
So profound in its solemn vigil.
Silently it serenades me.
And it knows,
It knows my thoughts;
Of my longing to return,
And of my desires.
It waits for me.
And even when it slips beyond,
I know it will return.
And I pray that when it does,
I will be taken forever.

Maxwell: Judging by your social media, you make a point of immersing yourself in nature. Do you remember a time where you realized the inspirational potential of the wilderness?

Nhor: In my art book Towards A Light that Dwells Within the Trees I speak about how Nhor started, this excerpt from the introduction should cover it:

Many years ago, as I stood beneath the stars during a cold cloudless night, something crept behind the cabin at the foot of my garden. As I gathered myself to approach, the overgrown grounds in front of me began to rustle. The cabin overlooks the forest to the East of my house, so it’s not unusual for creatures of the forest to visit. In fact, ever since this night I have taken such occurrences and crossings of paths to be a good omen. I stood waiting for the creature to re-appear for some time but it had dissolved into the night. As I moved to return to my place beneath the stars the cabin loomed in front of me. I opened its door and stepped inside to find my father’s old piano. On the top, sat his father’s binoculars and lantern. I have been told that he knew the names of every tree in the forest and each constellation overhead; knowledge that I would later find myself drawn to. I left the door open to let what little light I could in, and also in the hope that I would see my visitor once more. After lifting the piano’s lid I remember being surprised at how close its tuning was despite the weather. Then with my fingers stiff from the cold I began to slowly play. It was there that I stumbled upon two chords that ached with sadness. I played them over and over listening to how the room began to fill with their song. I could feel the atmosphere within the cabin changing, beginning to flow out of the door and into the starry skies above. Today though, I wonder if it was in fact the wild night making its first tentative steps towards my side. One thing I do recall clearly is how the two chords sang out like the stars above. Their pale notes hung in the air, painting the room with their light; as if the stars themselves were softly appearing within the darkness around me. It was there that I found Nhor, it was in this moment that its all began.

From this, I became drawn further and further in the forests and woodland that surrounded where I live, becoming obsessed at times. This has been the case for many years now. Nhor is really an extension of my life, I’ve been inspired greatly by my surroundings, and they have helped shape me, and also helped me to answer many questions about who and what I am.

Maxwell: With the Wildflowers cycle coming to a close, how do you feel about the past year of the Nhor project in retrospect?

Nhor: I had a clear idea in mind, and I feel that I’ve achieved what I wanted to. I’m really pleased that people have taken to the idea of me releasing my music seasonally instead of one big single release. It’s allowed me to make a very broad release, but focus quite finely on specific aspects. Also, I must thank the people who have consistently ordered everything I have ever made, and who message me with their support. I’ve received so many thoughtful messages during each season. It’s interesting to hear from people who find themselves drawn to differing seasons. Those kind of things are what help inspire me to continue to release my music.

Maxwell: Do you have anything you particularly desire your listeners to take away from these EPs?

Nhor: It’s enough of an honour for me, to know that people have chosen to spend their time listening to my music. That is something I struggle to get my head around at times. If there was anything I wanted them to take away, I suppose it would be a desire to connect further with nature, or to help maintain the bond between themselves and the natural world that they already have.

Maxwell: Can you give any information as to the future of Nhor in the coming years?

Nhor: The full Wildflowers album is roughly 1 hour 40 minutes of minimal piano. I feel I’ve explored this quite thoroughly. I have a few ideas that have come from Wildflowers, and also worked backwards to some ideas I didn’t get the chance to complete when writing Within The Darkness Between The Starlight. I suppose it all depends on what one I get around to finishing first.

Maxwell: Any final words?

Nhor: Sic transit gloria mundi. Thank you.

Nhor links:
Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram

Erang – Interview

By

On August 30, 2017

In Interviews


Interview with: Erang
Conducted by: Maxwell Heilman

Within the rapidly growing sea of creators beneath the umbrage of dungeon synth, Erang has gained a reputation for the depth and musicality of his output. Besides consistently providing incredible compositions, his boundless imagination takes his music out of this world. His impressive body of work centers around a world of his own design, which he calls The Land of Five Seasons. While respecting the DIY approach with which dungeon synth has become synonymous, each of Erang’s albums paints a unique picture of a mysterious synthesis of reality and fiction. The French mastermind was kind enough to answer some questions regarding his music, his world and the future of his creation.

Max: You often refer to the Kingdom of Erang as something that has been a part of you since you were young. Do you remember a specific moment when the The Land of Five Seasons took shape within you?

Erang: It is a bit hard to explain it with words. The Kingdom of Erang is directly linked to some places & people from my childhood and family. So I grew up with it… then, as I became adult, I’ve added to it other cultural references from old fantasy movies, books, etc. I mixed them with new events of my life, new places and also, of course, others’ creations made directly within my imagination.

So this world-building is kind of a big “monster” to me. It’s an aggregation of my real and fantasy lives mixed together…

Max: Do the recurring characters in the Land of Five Seasons hold any connections to people on earth, or aspects of yourself?

Erang: Yes, that’s exactly part of what I’ve tried to explain in the previous question. Sometimes a character is a mix of a real person name or behavior, or it is a side of my own personality mixed with a fantasy name. I’m the only one who knows exactly what’s behind all of that and I like to let the imagination of the listener wander…

Max: What role does Erang play in The Land of Five Seasons? It seems that he is more than a narrator or an observer, though one might be lead to believe that since he retells tales from that world.

Erang: Erang is kind of a ghost within this world… The Kingdom of Erang still exists, but it is not “ruled” by the character of Erang : it has a “human” king. The skull masked man is wandering through this land, he is the spirit of this land, a shadow from its golden past. Kind of an observer who knows far more than the simple mortal living within the Land of the Five Seasons… he knows about the different dimension and he knows that “Time is a Window.”

Max: How did the music come to be the medium by which you communicate this alternate reality?

Erang: It came naturally. I started making computer/synth music a long time ago by the age of 14, 15 yrs old. I’ve always been in love with raw sounds and early computer music, but always thought that nobody could care about it as it was too unpolished with fake cheap instrument like early DOS game soundtracks. So when I came across the Dungeon Synth blog and the first album of Lord Lovidicus I thought “well, maybe I’m not alone and people out there might like what I like too.” That’s when I decided to release Tome I. Many tracks on this album were written a long time before I knew about fantasy synth music.

Max: Read any good books recently? Have any literary works inspired your fantasy world?

Erang: I used to read more when I was younger, but for years now I don’t have enough free time as I dedicate all mine to my family and my music (and, of course, my everyday job).

I read The Children of Húrin two years ago and it really moved me… the ending was so powerful and beautiful.

Considering the influence of literary works on my own world I would say it is very very little: despite a few tracks name on Tome I, my major cultural influence (outside of real events from my life) comes from movies from the 80s/90s like: Willow, Dark Crystal, Conan, the Neverending Story, etc. Of course, some of them were books before but I came to them through the movies. I was watching them at a very early age and it left an indelible mark in my mind.

Max: Have you ever thought about writing a book about The Land of Five Seasons?

Erang: Well, I think about that almost everyday, yes.

The thing is that, to me, writing doesn’t come as naturally as making music. When I make music it is pure feelings and emotion… I would say that I don’t use my brain, intellectually speaking… However, when I write, I of course need to think about the words and the sentence and ideas I want to share so I need to be in a completely different state of mind which is hard for me to find in my everyday life… I would need 2 months alone in a mountain cabin to be able to write.

On the contrary, as soon as I have five minutes of free time I can instantly start to work on a track or mess with sounds. It’s like breathing to me.

So, to answer you: I’ve already started to put many ideas and scenes on paper, but it will be a very long work and I’ll need a lot of time to put all of that together into a proper book… if I ever do it.

Max: With regard to your musical training, are you self taught or do you have classical training. I ask because the classical crossover in much of your music is hard to ignore.

Erang: Definitely 100% self taught. I know absolutely nothing at all about music theory. That’s why I sometimes spend a lot of time finding the right chord I have in mind, because I don’t know the rules of progression and harmony, etc.

I’m not against theory, not at all… but this is how I am and this is how I like to make music. It’s the same way I drew as a child or made tunes when I was 14… I knew nothing but, man, it was such a blast to play with pencils or my dad’s computer…

Max: Some of the most noticeable aspects of Erang’s music are the meticulous arrangements, soundscapes, and choice of synth sounds. How does your writing process work, and what thought process goes into your choice of sounds (horns, bells, etc)?

Erang: First of all, I listen to tons of music in any style, and I’ve done so since I was a teen. In my opinion, this is a great way to “learn” if you don’t have any theory knowledge. When I listen to music, I can’t help but try to analyze it and isolate all parts in my mind… that’s also a shame because sometimes it’s hard to listen to music “innocently.” Anyway, I could divide my writing process in 3 different parts :

First, I have a melody that comes to me and I try to re-create it. It is as simple as that and I couldn’t tell you why these melodies exist or where they come from… it’s just there and I can’t ignore it.

Second way of doing, I listen to a track I like and I’m hit by a specific sound, or melody or atmosphere within it. Then I try to re-create it, and almost 100% of the time it ends up being completely different… and if it’s too close to the original, I skip it.

Third, I just run my computer and browse my instrument and synth, I mess with sounds and preset… and, lots of times, a “sound” inspire me to create a melody and that’s how a track starts.

If I think about it I would say that the third one is the most common to me.

I always try to put in each song a small thing that is a bit different from my previous work or from what I’m hearing around… just to keep me entertained.

Max: Have you taken notice of any more recent dungeon synth projects?

Erang: I’ll be honest: I haven’t really listened to dungeon synth for a while now. I know it may sound strange but it’s the truth. I follow the “news” and always give a quick listen to new releases here and there, but I don’t really listen to full tracks or albums. However, I could say that if one wants to check interesting projects, one can just go to Bandcamp with the “dungeon synth” tag and find a lot of brilliant stuff right in the first page and so on. Many new and old artists make great stuff, so the best thing is to check Bandcamp, I guess. And the Dungeon Synth Archives channel on YouTube as well.

Max: Are there any dungeon synth artists that inspired you to pursue that style?

Erang: That’s the following of my previous answer: right now I feel a bit like I need to take a step back from DS… I don’t know… it’s maybe not the right time to do so because Dungeon Synth gains more and more interest everyday but, musically speaking, I’m not really excited about what I hear.

Let me be clear, because I don’t want to sound pretentious: many people and artists make clearly great work. The problem comes from me. It’s just that, most of the time, when I listen to DS, it sounds like I’ve already heard it before… Furthermore, as the genre is stuck in the medieval fantasy imagery, to say it fast, you always end up with very similar stuff and the same topics, etc.

So, because I’m into it and making music since early 2012, the problem comes from me: it’s not fresh enough to my ears anymore. That’s also part of the reason I’ve started to experiment with synthwave with 2 of my albums… and that’s probably why the next Erang might be the last… at least for some time… still not sure about that.

Max: If you were to introduce someone to dungeon synth for the first time which of your albums would you choose? If you prefer, you can use an album by another artist.

Erang: About another artist I’ll go with early Lord Lovidicus, probably Quenta Silmarillion. Concerning mine, well, that’s hard to say because they are all different. But I’ll go with Tome I because it’s the one that started it all, and with “Within the Land of my Imagination I am the only God.”

I take this opportunity to tell you that Within the Land… will be available physically in CD really soon (with Kingdom of Erang as well).

Max: Two of your more recent albums have a synth-wave leaning. What inspired that change? Do you have any curve-ball artists outside of the DS/fantasy ambient/medieval ambient sphere that you enjoy?

Erang: The change was inspired by two things: a need of fresh air and the fact that, in my mind, the Land of the Five Seasons always took place between different ages and dimensions. An alternative future of it has always excited in my mind and I wanted to express it in music. The two synthwave albums are part of the “LAST AGE” of my world. And the next one will be the 3rd and last album of the “LAST AGE” era… but it won’t be synthwave because of a twist that you’ll know soon.

Recently I’ve really enjoyed HOME (album, Odyssey) and I’ve been listening to a lot of David Lynch music during the last weeks, some COIL as well.

Max: Dungeon synth has much of its roots in black metal, yet you don’t seem to run with that crowd. Do any black metal bands tickle your fancy?

Erang: Being a teen in the early 90’s I’ve grew up with metal as well as electronic music and other genre. So I’m not a metalhead per se because I’ve never been “addicted” to one musical style only but I was listening to big names like Megadeth, Metallica, early Rammstein, and other stuff as well because my older brother was playing guitar in a metal band. But I wasn’t listening to black metal as a teen. I’ve only gotten into it six years ago and I love several bands: Burzum (a case where I really love the music but I can’t stand the man’s ideas and propaganda), early Dimmu Borgir, Enthrone Darkness Triumphant and Isengard. I love Summoning of course, some Windir as well and probably other bands I’m forgetting right now. As you can see, it’s always black metal related to synth and atmosphere.

Max: Your website features a section dedicated to covers people have done of your music, so it goes without saying that you appreciate people wanting to try their hand at your output. Do you consider the fact your art inspires others to reimagine it to be a milestone with regard to your influence in the dungeon synth community?

Erang: I don’t know what influence I can have or if I have any, but I know for sure that it’s always a pleasure and an honor for me when people make covers of my work. It’s always something surprising that someone on the other side of the world tried to make a cover of one my songs.

If some of your readers want to make a cover of me and need some midi files, they can just drop me a mail on the “contact form” of my Bandcamp page. I’ll send it to them when possible.

Max: Speaking of the dungeon synth community, to what extent do you think it exists? Have you seen these solitary artists begin to connect more?

Erang: Dungeon Synth has changed a lot during the last few years and the community has definitely got bigger. I remember a time when I was releasing an album on Bandcamp and there were only 1 or 2 pages that showed up if you wrote the tag “Dungeon Synth.” There was no Facebook group and Andrew’s Dungeon Synth blog was almost the only source of info. I have no problem if the scene is big or small as long as there are people making cool music.

Concerning the community, I’m not really a “community” or a “social network” guy. I’m on them because you can’t avoid it if you want to share your music. That’s why I put it online, because I want people to listen it: that doesn’t mean I would do anything for that and I wouldn’t put my face on a cereal box to do so (if some people from the Dungeon Synth board are reading, this is an inside joke for you). I don’t adhere to the culture of Facebook discussions on Facebook groups. I’m not against it and I find it cool when it leads to interesting discussion, but I didn’t grew up with it so it is not in my nature. However, I like to go in the FB group or in the forum board and read posts, I do it almost everyday. I would like to participate more sometimes because I don’t want to be the guy who posts only when he releases an album, but most of the time I post about new releases.

Max: Do you have any future plans for Erang that you would like to share?

Erang: Yes… This is important. I’m currently working on the last album from the “LAST AGE” era and that might be the last Erang for a while (except if something really inspiring comes across my way I will reconsider it). This album will explain many things concerning the Land of the Five Seasons and I’m sure the fans will appreciate it. It will be Dungeon Synth/Fantasy Music but with many surprises. I’m very proud of the music I have so far, and it will probably be my “darkest” album.

In addition, 2 of my albums will be available soon physically, in CD : Kingdom of Erang and Within the Land of My Imagination I am the only God.

That will be a lot of work to end the year and, after that, I think I deserve some sleep and silence…

Max: Anything you’d like to say to wrap things up?

Erang: Every time I receive a message from people telling me what my music means to them, it’s the best feeling on Earth. I’m not selling thousands of albums, but it’s still unbelievable that people from all around the world can project themselves into the world I’ve created. They are definitely a part of this world. That’s why I truly thank all of them for their warm support!

… Imagination Never Fails… the Kingdom is ours!

Erang links: Official website, Facebook, Bandcamp, Youtube

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