Category Archives: Odd

Bergraven -Det Framlidna Minnet (Nordvis Produktion)

Bergraven -Det Framlidna Minnet (Nordvis Produktion)

This is quite an odd album. When I first heard a random spot, I expected black metal, and indeed, I did get the sense that this comes from that world, but the album has no known category, which is good.

The voices are not the screechy bitch-vocals of black metal – they are more on the exasperated shouting side, mixed with the melancholy folk sort of singing.

The music ranges from unusual timing and long riffs. to more straightforward and recognizable passages, but the songs seem to have been made to put the listener in a strange place. Even the upbeat portions have something twisted going on, as if a mad clown attempted to play something catchy, but is so bonkers that the otherwise accessible tune becomes demented.

There are bursts of aggression, but that’s just an ingredient in this insanity-potion, not the main flavor. Add to this, non-English lyrics, making this a welcome visit to another realm.

Sarah Longfield – Disparity (Season of Mist)

This is not a metal album, but it deserves a review here because it is odd, and because it is creative.  The music also has a lot of impressive guitar playing, so those who might get a whiff of something commercial should be glad that even if this were a mainstream offering, guitar is prominent, not absent, as it is in pop.  I must state that this cannot possibly be a contrived commercial album but I can understand if you detect some aspects that of hit music, but the execution is just too bizarre for simpleton mainstreamers to embrace.

Each song is a different adventure into Kookoo Land, so it’s not like one tune can define the album.  The part of me that loves novelty music is stimulated by what I hear, but so is the musician, and of course, I can’t help but admire the exploration and creativity.

I will include a sample here, but you should understand that this is only one song.  I didn’t find a video for one of the more dexterous songs, but I suppose that if nothing of this sample resonates with you then you will probably not be a good candidate for the reward of the rest of the album.

SOLEFALD – Norrønasongen Kosmopolis (Indie Music)

I skimmed the E.P. but kept going back to the second track, which I will provide as a stream shortly.  The female vocals have an interesting flat quality. The rest of the album does NOT sound like this,.  I don’t know what it is about the song, but I just cannot get it out of my head.  Maybe I am just growing too odd for my own good.

Here it is:

Three songs sound very folk-ish, but one returns to an odd sort of industrial-sounding flavor.  I like the risks that the band takes,  Listening provides surprises.

SOLEFALD - Norrønasongen_Kosmopolis
SOLEFALD – Norrønasongen_Kosmopolis

Islaja – Tarrantulla (Svart)

This is is a very odd album.  Np two songs are alike, but each one will make you question whether it is creative or the product of someone who is mentally ill, which of course makes it a mandatory purchase.

The woman’s voice wanders many realms. The non-English songs should be language commercials because the enunciation is riveting.

I can spend more time describing the  album but I would like, instead, to simply state that you should buy it.  Support creative work, even if you may not resonate with it.

I include some videos, but bear in mind that each song is different, and deliciously bizarre.

Coph Nia

interview with Aldenon conducted by Bill Zebub for issue #31 of THE GRIMOIRE OF EXALTED DEEDS magazine

 

When Cold Meat Industry started to send me CD’s, I did not really understand the sort of “music” that was coming my way. It wasn’t until I heard thy first album that I took that label seriously. The other acts seemed to be a bit pretentious, a kind of bullshit being sold as art. Hast thou ever thought the same thing about the earlier Cold Meat Industry bands?
No… I come from the industrial scene to begin with, and I’m very fond of the early Cold Meat Industry stuff. I actually like it a lot better than much of what is released these days.

The main thing that separated thee at the time was the total sincerity of the music. It instantly appealed to the mind and was a sort of paradox. Some of it seemed so familiar, and at the same time it was new and unique. What makes thee so familiar with the many states of consciousness?
Without pretending to be an expert on different states of consciousness – I do take a great deal of pride in constantly changing and evolving. Most people have respected me for that and I will continue. I want to be able to use Coph Nia solely as an expression of my will. Thus I won’t start a new side-project each time I create a musical piece that sounds a bit different than the ones I’ve done before.

Of course, I learned about Arcana a bit later, as well as Sophia, which are trophies among my CD’s. Cold Meat Industries has some superb music, in my opinion.   Is Coph Nia one of their top sellers?
Yes, right now I think I’m among the top three, which is very satisfying since the debut came out 2000. That is not to say that I’m a young punk, but Coph Nia is still a pretty fresh act on Cold Meat.

 

One of the things that really hit me on the “Shape Shifter” album was how masterfully spoken the unusual lyrics were. In America, pronunciation is dying, and more and more consonants are becoming as silent vowels. Vocabulary also diminishes here, and I
fear that in twenty years I will have to move to another country if I want to converse with someone whose manner of speech is above that of a retard.  How is it that thou, a Swede, shames Americans with thy superior command of English?
Well I have always had a talent for language. And also the fact that English is not my language makes me pay a lot more attention to
getting pronunciation correct. But I have the same feelings as you towards what’s happening to the Swedish language. People can’t speak or write anymore. It’s all very sad.

Thou hast made some very haunting music. I wonder how thou doth prepare thyself when beginning to compose such things.
I prepareth myself thusly: I pour myself a glass of wine and let utter pathos consume me! Seriously, I have no given formula for that.
Sometimes I have a very specific concept in mind long before I start the creative process.  Other songs are born out of “sound design sessions”.  Lately, as I’ve focused on vocal songs, I have started with a very simple and basic musical idea. After that I make a quick vocal take which serves as the basis for the whole song. A lot of considerations go into the sound design stage, and I have certain ceremonial preparations for the final vocal takes. But it’s not what
some romantic sods seem to think… I don’t raise Goetic demons to aid me in the studio! 

There are some moments in the music that seem like an evil mystisicm, of dark ritual.  It seems to me that thou art acquainted with Jung’s archetypes, like that of the shadow. Is this true?
I’m not very familiar with the Jung terminology. I have been meaning to study his works but never gotten to it. But I am very interested in
mysticism and ceremonial magic. The western magical tradition in general and Crowley in particular is definitely the main influence on my work with Coph Nia

I have been exploring some of the works of Stravinsky, and the music seems perfect for horror. Every once in a while, I catch a similarity to his music in horror or action movies. Thy music is quite horrific too, but in a surreal sense. A schizophrenic may appear like a dull-witted person, sitting and looking at something with no comprehension,  face showing no expression. Just dull. But, in that tortured mind, a powerful dread tears the person apart as his consciousness is pure nightmare, but no indication of the internal sensations are evident externally. The wretch suffers in silence. Thy instrumental pieces remind me of that a lot. Calmness and terror combined. What is the motivation for making such music?
That is a feeling I very much enjoy to wallow in.  Eire and brooding as opposed to “in your face” horror, violence and terror that so many others seem to prefer. Darkness for me is not negative or “evil” in any sense.

Ah! I just realized that the name is actually two words: Coph Nia. What is the meaning, if I may ask such a standard question?
The words are taken from Crowley’s ’Liber Al vel Legis’, more popularly known as ’The Book of the Law’. The full passage reads: ”I am the Lord of the Double Wand of Power; the wand of the Force of Coph Nia—but my left hand is empty, for I have crushed a Universe; and bought remains.”  To my knowledge, Crowley himself never came up with a completely satisfactory explanation of the words, as he claims Liber Al was not really written by him, but received from an entity named Aiwaz. He talks about the wand in question as “controlling both the active and the passive“, which leaves a lot of room for creative interpretation. Numerous people have put forth theories about the meaning of  ’Coph Nia’, mostly concerning its numerological properties. To tell the truth, I don’t care very much about finding out what it implies. I chose the name mainly because of the mystery surrounding it.

It must be hard to sell albums that do not fit any category. What measures art thou taking to make sure that fame comes to thee whilst thou yet live?
I haven’t had to do anything. My music has spread on its own merit. It’s true however that anything released on Cold Meat Industry instantaneously moves 500 to 1000 copies, but after that you’re
on your own… I am very happy that so many people enjoy my work.

 

Korovakill

Interview with Christof Niederwieser by Bill Zebub for issue #30 of THE GRIMOIRE OF EXALTED DEEDS MAGAZINE

 

I was very traurig when I discovered that Korova was no longer a band. I googled the word “Korova” and Redstream Records had
a band called Korovakill. The song titles had compound nouns that Deutsch-speaking leute are fond of, so I wondered if Korovakill was a new incarnation of Korova. I Emailed Redstream to find out, and when I received the antwort, I could not believe my augen! Thou art not dead. Was the change of name a strategy to get out of a gay contract?
Guten Tag! We changed into KorovaKill to make it more a rhyme on Bill. We thought that would be a nice thrill .

The music was just as delicious as I remembered, and I loved the album so much that I almost was sent to das krankenhaus.
Is such strange music the work of a band, or a project?
Thank you very much for the Roses! I think it’s not so important if you call KorovaKill a band or a Project. Until the end of 1999 we have been what is called a band. We had rehearsals twice a week, we had fixed line-ups with fixed members, but in the end, all the songwriting and the whole organizational work was just done by
myself. Since 2000 we are what many people would call a project. We don’t have rehearsals at all. We just meet before recordings. The
members are also involved in many other bands. Moritz has played on albums of a dozen different bands within the last tears – Atrocity,
Graveworm, Abigor, Dornenreich, Darkwell, Siegfried – just to name a few, and Renaud puts his major focus on Elend. But when we record an album together the interaction between us is much stronger and intense than in our early days. Although I am still doing the whole songwriting, Renaud and Moritz contribute very much to the arrangements and to the final shape of the songs. Concerning this point, we are much more a band now than six Years ago. So if you like you can call us a “banject”. 

 

Thy lyrics are a close to the poems of schizophrenics. I know, because I published a newsletter that was written by
schizophrenics. Inside the words that seem like broken concepts are true meanings. If I may, I would like to decipher the meaning
of “Into the Underwhirls.” Was that song  about the brutal practice of fisherman who use huge nets? Each year, they catch dozens of mermaids, and while the ugly ones are thrown overboard after a few blowjobs, the pretty ones are kept on the ship, away from their natural environment. Dost thou think that thy message could
reach more sympathetic ears if the lyrics were more straightforward?
I like your interpretation, but one question remains unanswered: “Where do Mermaids have their Vulva? Our Lyrics always have been
symbolic, for they shall take a glance into the hidden, into the realms of Untime, into the world behind the world, the eternal shining beneath the shallow surface of the visible. It’s a realm where the ordinary logic of language has no value anymore. You just can try to catch a little shadow of this world by painting pictures with words and sounds. Schizophrenics and drug people mostly get a distorted picture of this world. Artists and visionaries try to get a clear picture of this shining empire. But in the end, each of them must fail,  because as soon as you try to make the invisible visible, you destroy it. Whatever you see loses its unseenness. Who knows will  understand! And we just bear our children for those who understand. It’s not our aim to reach a high quantity of ears, but a high quality. We don’t make music for the masses. We make music for individuals! 

 

Thou art now in Berlin, which I think is dangerous for an Austrian. Germans hate the Austrian accent, but Berliners hate the soft accents of the surrounding Deutschbags. A Berliner would say “Ik bin attraktiv” but the softer people say “Ish bin Berlina.” How  dost thou find refuge among people who are so kalt?
This question reminds me of the last Bephegor concert here in Berlin, when Hellmuth shocked the audience by doing his a announcements in Austrian accent. After the show he enjoyed teasing girls by telling them in dialect, that they had a nice ass. It was a very funny evening. Yes, there are some strong stereotypes between the crude megalomania-maschine-Prussian and the naive farmer-operetta-Austrian. Germans don’t take Austrians serious, intellectually and Austrians don’t take Germans
serious concerning creativity and humaneness. They are streamline-pseudocreative half-robots for us. But fortunately these are just stereotypes and there are enough nice German people, who don’t fit into it – about the rest, I don’t care. And actually most Berlin people aren’t kalt anyway – they are “warm”…it’s the European capital of gays. Concerning the accent, it’s a bit more complex, because there are over hundred very different accents just in Tyrol, the little part
of Austria where I come from. And my accent is very hard – people often think I am from Russia or Poland. My accent is a crushing Kruppstahl- Fist compared to the soft Piefke-Slang. 

 

I have a beautiful Deutsch frau who writes for me now. Her name is Katja and I would love to inhale her auspuff. She is a fan of Angizia and I was wondering if thou couldst arrange an interview.  Apparently that is another band that is no longer on Napalm
Records. What has happened to that record label?
Oh, I also would like to inhale Deutschfrau-Auspuff! Does Katja have a beautiful sister here in Berlin? Maybe “Panzerdivision Brundhilde” or “Schlachtross Irmgard”? They are cordially invited. I am sure Michael will answer her questions about Angizia They have just released their new album some weeks ago – a great work once again! Napalm Records have supported the Austrian underground very much for many Years. Maybe bands like Angizia, Korova, or even Abigor would never have gotten a chance to release albums without them. I think this is what counts. We had some legal arguments
in the past with them, but everything has been clarified in the meantime. There’s no bad blood between us.  (UPDATE: I arranged an interview betwwen Katja and Christof – and the now have a child because of me.  I am cupid.)

 

I would have thought that thy band would be on Holy Records because of the experimental nature of the music. Have they
offered a contract, or is the old hatred of the French preventing such union?
Well, we have been in contact with Holy Records in 1997, when no record company dared to release our second, yet unreleased, the album “Echowelt”. Phil told me on the phone: “Sorry, you Guys are too much! You are much too much!” I haven’t heard many Holy-releases
since that, but as far as I know they are doing a good, reliable Work. At the moment there’s no use to think about that anyway, for we are very satisfied with our current Label Red Stream. 

 

Is it nutzlich to have mind-altering substances while composing thy music? There is an argument in science about such things. One side is saying that enhanced creativity is just an illusion.
I don’t think that substances can make a philosopher out of a monkey. But I know that the Monkey may think different about that… 

Is it silly to call a police siren a siren? It may be true that the police siren calls men to their doom, but the police siren has no lure. I would think that it is better to call it a banshee. What dost thou think? Is this matter serious enough to write a symbolic
song?
I think there are more serious problems in the world. Why do so little people have to laugh when they read the name “Dick Cheney?” Do his friends call him “Penis”? And why is “Dick” the German Word for “Fat”?

Let us just say that In Germany, it is not an a compliment if a girl tells thee that thy dick is not gross. American women think that my dick is gross, but Geman women would not say that es ist gross. In any case, I have only recently realized that thou hast a member of Elend in thy midst. I have been trying, for months, to arrange for some Elend songs to be used in my first avant-garde movie, but the Lecons album is a source of shame, not pride, to the composer. It baffles me completely. Newer Elend still has the heavenly soprano, but gone are the tortured screams. It has made me verruckt. Canst thou relay the message that it is grausam to make such a legendary album as Lecons and then to shut away the secrets forever. A legion of fans await the wieder-kommen!
Elend just had rather limited resources for the production of their first two albums. It’s the sound quality that is not satisfying for them anymore, not the music or the concept. I like their scream-albums very much, but also the new works are great, I think. It’s more than ten years ago now that they’ve started screams and violins, and I totally understand that they don’t want to repeat themselves for ages. 

In America, women have been cultivated to prefer large sizes of things on men. In Germany, do women judge thee on the size
of thy schnurbart?
Yes, also in Germany you can increase your shooting quota by wearing a beautiful Osamabeard. 

In America, people sometimes fart when they drive. What does thou do when thou does fahrt?
I fart.

I am very curious about that unreleased album. I want to hear it! Is there a chance that Redstream will release it? Will they also pay for your nebenkosten?
The Echowelt-songs always have been our killers at concerts. It’s total mania! It’s total outbreak and destructurement – a post nuclear
deconstruction of all that once was called music about a place that once was called world! Unfortunately just an ugly-produced demo with four songs has been recorded back in 1997. Some songs are nearly ten years old now, but they sound fresher and weirder than ever! We definitely would like to go to the studio somewhen and record this album with good production, since it is our core-work. But it’s not realistic that this will happen in the nearer future. There is just too little interest in KorovaKill. If more people would buy our albums it would be much easier for us to do productions.

Has a man ever given thee a hummer, or dost thou only allow women to do so?
I just allow blue-haired girls to give me a Hummer Simpson.

Is it not ironic that Freud came up with the pleasure principle? (Freude)
No, that’s just what Jung called “the Synchronicity between Name and Named”.

With friends like Freud, who needs animas? Some extreme bands like to schimpfen on their albums, but thou hast stayed away. is it because thou dost not need to do such things to create curiosity?
We don’t have to nag on our albums – lots of other people are doing that work for us. 

I hate when bands advertise heavenly operatic vocals on their albums when their vocalists are not trained. When Elend had
the contrast of the genuine operatic vocals with the tormented male vocals, it was very powerful. But I can only listen to a few songs on the newer albums because I do not like the Barry-Manilow-style of singing. It is gegenuber of the first example – the untrained make vocals are only interesting when they are tormented. what thinkst thou?
Oh, Barry Manilow – that’s a big compliment! I am sure Renaud will be happy to hear it! He is singing in that way, because untrained  listeners are only interesting when they are tormented.  Personally I like his voice on the new albums very much. There was no intention  to sound operatic at all, so there’s also no use for comparisons with
Pavarotti or Caruso.

Korova
Korova

As unusual as thy melodies become, they have never been very dunkel. Will that change on thy next album. Wilst thou venture
into this territory and stay away from hell?
In the black of the void waits the gold of the All. So our melodies are a step further to the dark. They show you what comes out when you
were sitting in the darkest place of the world for twenty years, without any sound, without any movement, without any sentiment. And then, after twenty years, suddenly the Darkness dissolves and the hidden Light comes out.

Some heroic themes live in thy songs. It is sort of an archetypal hero who has great strength but also great weakness. Elric is a sort of diabetic, is he not, in Moorcock’s Elric saga? Let us stay away from asking why a man would not change his last name if it is “more cock” – let us dwell on this serious topic only. In thy hero themes, art thou really trying to make people think seriously about unterhund? He needed to take a pill from his ring in order to derive great power.
Hmmm, that’s really interesting. So far I haven’t been aware of the hero, Underdog theme in our lyrics. But you’re right, it’s in there
pretty often. Maybe it’s because we have been beaten like a dog by the metal scene since fourteen years now. I think it’s time to beat back! Our next concept will be about terrorists flying with  aeroplanes into the Milwaukee-Festival.

Hast thou ever cancelled a gig  because someone gave thee a
shnoopfen?
What is a “schnoopfen”? This Word does not
exist.

It is a kalt, sort of like a flu. It flew over thy head. Thy lyrics make me denken a lot. Why is the swastika forbidden in thy land? After all, the KKK costume is permitted here, as well as the swastika. Is it more a
symbol of defeat to thy country? I have also noticed that the Hitler mustache is no longer in style. Oliver Hardy from Laurel and Hardy, as well as Chaplin, were fond of that mustache style. I am sad to see it go.
Please understand that I don’t want to answer 

In America, the Nazi movement is very popular. We even have a candy here that alters brainwaves. It is called Racist Peanut Butter Cups, but a more obvious candy product is Rece’s Pieces. They are
the color of the German flag, and I have to admit that the peanutty goodness gives me a spell of good old-fashioned jew-hating, unless I eat the candy as part of a balanced nutritious frushtuk. Is that the secret plan of Hitler, a final dying stroke of genius to overturn the minds of Americanss with the simple use of candy?
I don’t want to answer the Nazi questions. It may be misunderstood by too many Europeans if I would take part in such kinds of jokes.

Thou art reluctant to make humorous comments about Nazi antics, but Ko n n i g e n Katja, my Deutsche schwester, sees no reason to
be afraid. As a musicican, thou art an artist because thou art not afraid to offend traditional composers with thy explorations, but
why is there so much concern about what a humorless person will think about thy reply? Surely thou art practiced in the experimentation – researchers tend to compensate for participants who have have the response-style of giving socially-pleasing answers.
No, it’s just too billig for me to take part in Nazi-jokes. You don’t need any brain cells to gain attention with that kind of stuff. So I prefer to leave that to others. The second reason is, that talking about Nazis, no matter if in a positive ora negative way, gives them power, makes them important. But I don’t think that they deserve
such an attention.

Dost thou denken that when a subject, like Nazi history, is avoided, it is actually preventing the “realization of the Shadow?” Jung, thy deutcshe bruder, warned that to deny the Shadow in thyself is to be doomed, for the shadow will manifest in other, dangerous ways. Is it not besser to be in control?
You have to confront with the Shadow, throw his masks away and look deeply into the jerking smallness behind. But there’s no use to
drag it on your shoulders just for fun after it has been de-shadowed.
Because then the Lightbringer would turn into the Coprophagous.

Dost thou believe that aus-of-Korper experiences are real phenomena, or are they purely mental?
Since it’s your mental energy, astral body, soul, or however you’d like to call it, that is leaving your body, of course it is purely mental, spiritual, immaterial, or whatever term you’d like to use. But anyway, it’s still a “real” phenomena. But what is reality? 

If thou wert to fly in a dream, is there really a difference between that and if thou were to fly in waking reality?  After the flight, all that we have is the memory of the experience.
There isn’t any difference. Life or dream, it’s all the same. There’s no possibility to differ one from the other.

Dost thou glauben that ethics really exists in science, or is that just an Amerikanization of science which transforms research into a business – a business that must be protected? Universities that conduct research have much to lose if a participant were to sue. Few people realize this, but even if a participant signs a consent form to participate in research, a lawsuit can still be filed. Experiments in which participants are deceived are considered “unethical” by the review board which has the power to deny the research, but I think a better word is “liability” – the university fears lawsuits that the “traumatized” participants may file. Now it is thy turn to sprechen.
Just unethic people need ethics. Ethic people don’t need to talk or even think about ethics. It’s like intolerant people always have to use
the word “tolerance”. The have to preach tolerance to fight the intolerance within themselves in the outside. Of course you need some basic standards about what can be allowed in science, e.g. when you think about genetics or testing out new medicines on people. But if there are so many standards that even deceiving
people in psychological experiments is forbidden, it leads to a very boring science, where nothing new is going to happen anymore.  Anyway, I think, that there is nothing like an evolving collective of scientists. The big steps in science are done by a few big Individuals.
And the whole huge mass of university-scientists are just the cattle that gathers around. These are the business pseudo-scientists. And
this cattle needs rules. But everybody candecide himself to which side he wants to belong, to the side of money and reputation or
to the side of wisdom.

Dost thou wish for the world to return to the glorious days of World War Zwei, when there were no restrictions imposed on human experiments?
Well, actually there have been more restrictions on science and art than ever during Teutsches Reich. Physicians who believed in relativity theory, “depraved” artists, astrologers, everybody who was experimenting beyond the norm had to flee or was sent to concentration camp. And the medical results of the human
experiments were pretty poor. Those days have been as glorious as the Bush-era in USA – if you really want to believe in cheap propaganda.

Thy homeland is a modern Atlantis, is it not? Thou art from Austria.” Aus” means “out of” so thy people must be out of a land called “Tria.” What was “Tria” like before thy people were exiled?
In the ancient days of Atlantis, Tria has been the legendary continent in the hollow core of the Earth. Nobody knew if it really ever existed. But some old Atlantean writers have named this mystic continent in their books, so many Atlanteans believed in it. It was told, that the
Tria-people have been technically advanced very much, but then they incensed the gods and hence received big punishment. The whole core of the Earth was filled with glowing lava. Their whole cities have been destroyed. But the most intelligent Triaseans escaped from this Inferno and settled down in the Alps. There they live in immense wisdom, beauty and matureness until today! But also a group of mentally deranged Triaseans managed to escape. They copulated with apes and formed a new race called Humans. Soon they spread like parasites all over the globe. But the Austrians
were very wise. They camouflaged as harmless idiots and hid all their richness. So the humans don’t bother them.

Scientific method demands that something must be observable.
This may be useful in determining how much water must I drink in order for all gelb to disappear from my urine, but that means that
many interesting things fall outside of this approach. I consider
psychologists who are behaviorists to be too dull and stupid to
understand something as abstract as psychoanalysis. Thou art more of a reader of Jung, but thou must surely hate behaviorists more  than I, for they regard Jung as a mystic.
I don’t hate behaviorists, because this would mean that they had kind of power over me. I think they are very funny, especially when
they take themselves so serious.  And they may think a b o u t me, Jung, Satanas, sexy boy Shawn Michaels, or anybody else whatever they like. 

If a person who is blind since birth dreams of colors and objects that were never seen, what dost thou infer?
You don’t need to be blind to see or dream colors and objects, that never have been seen by other eyes. It happens every day and every second, because you never can see something twice in exactly the same way. You never can put your feet twice into the same river, like
Heraklit said.

Doest thou love that geld is gelb?
Well, but geld isn’t gelb at all as long as everybody has washed his fingers before paying. 

In thy land, are Amerikans famous for being Stumfsinning?
Yes, many stumpfsinnig people in my land think so.

Foreigners learn English from Oxford style, which is the gay style from England. They are also taught the British gay pronunciation.
I have often wondered if the accents of foreigners would change if they were taught the pronunciation of the region they would inhabit. The English do not pronounce the “r” very much if it is in the middle of the word, but Americans pronounce it, and in the hard way, not the soft British way. I think this would improve race relations in America. But the real question I have is, if I visited thee, would I get beaten up because I sound like a a fag? I know high German, the Berliner style of proper German, but no one there speaks that way, right? is the verb always in the second place? Does anyone say words like Arbanduhr? Wie spat ist es?
Language in northern Germany is like a machine-code. Of course there are also regional dialects, but everybody can understand and
talk the machine-code if it is necessary. Southern Germans and Austrians also have their own regional accents, but mostly they cannot talk the machine-code, because they don’t want to be machines. But I guess a guy like you would be beaten up anyway if you’d come to Germany or anywhere else. I like the sound of
Oxford English, at least it sounds more noble to me than the American chewing-gum slang. But personally I prefer to talk English with Italian accent. I started that when I lived one year in Italy and I am still doing so. 

Did thou hate learning English? French is even more annoying to  learn. It feels like I am learning slang because of all the apostrophe
action. Of course the language is so shitty that the French would
want to shorten it as much as t h e y could. A F r e n c h sentence
could have t w o b i l lion letters i n it but to read it would only sound like “blaaaaaah!” The world should learn the beauty of the Czech language. Each letter is so precious to the word that everything is always pronounced. Not a single drop is ever wasted. To speak Czech is to be drunk on words. Or dost thou not agree because of the hatred passed down from thy forefathers? Dost thou hate Slavs?
Well sorry, Bill, but the Czechs are our brothers! They’ve been an important part of the Austrian World-Reich Monarchy for hundreds of Years! It’s a cool country with cool people and I am sure, that within the next twenty years Czechs will be first world and Germany will be second world. Then Czech men will come across the border and fuck German women cheaply and make cheap holidays in Germany. That will be justice. I liked to learn English, but I love
French, though I cannot talk it, and I love French women! They have the right mixture between grace and emotion, between dignity and warm, rich feelings.

I demand that history should be taught to students from as many versions as there are available. Read the words of the winners as well as the losers. In America, there is much propaganda about the atrocities of the Axis, but there is no mention of the atrocities that the Americans committed. Canst thou reveal at least one thing?
Surely the intentional starving of Germans after the surrender was not an action that was lovingly remembered. I do not ask this to stir hate, but rather, to lift it. I want people to stop thinking in black
and white. Hating a German because he was a soldier is like hating a black person because he is a nigger.
After the second World War Americans have been very popular
in Germany. They were friendly and brought food and freedom. So I don’t know exactly about what you are talking. Concerning atrocities, I would rather talk about the present,
about the indirect genocide that Americans will be guilty of in some years, because they deny to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, or about
the “structural Violence” of Market-Fascism, that they are forcing upon the whole world. Anyway I don’t want to raise anti-american stereotypes, since I know so many cool people in US who definitely
won’t deserve to be insulted just because they have some stupid
Landmates. 

When China finally starts attacking, which country gets destroyed first?
I guess China.

 

Chryst
Chryst

UPDATE: Christof released a new album under the name CHRYST.

SLAGMAUR-Thill Smitts Terror

It’s hard to categorize this album because it has familiar elements yet it does not belong to any group in particular.  The vocals can be death metal, the lower register of black metal, clean, and also may fit pagan metal, if you pardon that term.   The foreign tongue adds to the feeling of the music.  

Throughout the album there is a sense of something being not quite right.  This uneasy feeling is further coaxed by odd instrumentation and atmospherics.  The tempo is mostly mid-paced, so expect neither brutality nor doom, but be thankful that the black metal cliches are absent.  

Notre Dame interview with Snowy Shaw

interview with Snowy Shaw conducted by Bill Zebub for issue #27 of THE GRIMOIRE OF EXALTED DEEDS Magazine

 

I prefer a personality interview as well as a musical interview, unless you prefer a totally insulting interview.

Why do you choose to go that way?  I mean, to insult people – is that to make it fun for the readers or something?

 

It’s fun for the whole world. 

So people that you don’t like or don’t respect – you just give them a hard time.

 

I pretty much give everyone a hard time, and people like George Corspegrinder from Cannibal Corpse have a lot of fun being assholes back to me.  Let’s begin.   Mickey Dee badmouthed King Diamond in interviews and stuff like that.   I was at a Motorhead show and I was wearing a Mercyful Fate shirt, and he said “Why are you wearing that?  That band sucks!”  He wasn’t even in that band.  And this was apparently after King Diamond had a talk with him and asked him why he said things like that.  He’s still an asshole.  I don’t know why he has problems with King Diamond, but I was talking to King and he said that in the press he saw that you felt constricted in the band.

That I did or that Mickey did?

 

That you did.  I know that if you say something negative it wouldn’t be as an insult.  I know that you would have a reason for saying something that sounds negative.  The press might make it seem nasty.

Yeah, I realize that it’s stupid to say anything negative because nobody believes me.  If it’s a question about “Ok, is it a drum machine on The Eye?” or something – I mean, that is kind of a stupid question…

 

That is one of my questions.

The thing is, it was my decision to use that kind of drum patterns and stuff like that, but nobody would believe me.  Yeah, I’m the one who brought it up, and if I didn’t say anything, nobody would know about it.  Nobody believes me.  They believe King instead, of course.  But I have nothing against King. 

 

The question was more “what was the problem?”  He said that you were doing all these crazy things and you said “I’m going to do everything I ever learned as a drummer” and that he was holding you back.  Like, every time there was a change in a song you would have massive drum rolls.  They were good, he said, but it just made the music a bit more complex than it needed to be.

When I joined the band, he wanted… OK, Mickey Dee was good.  It’s fine to have a drummer that could be like a puppet.  You can have control over this guy.  Maybe King all the time wanted not that kind of complicated drumming and strange drum arrangements.  I know Mickey told me that King told him “Stop playing that!  You’re ruining my songs!”  But back then they were a band and Mickey Dee would say “Fuck You!  I play the way I want to!”  But when I joined the band I didn’t have that kind of position of course.  So I just had to do what he told me.  We kind of compromised and arranged things together and so on.  I don’t know what it was, but I felt I want to do what I want to do.  It’s not like I want to be a modern drummer and that is my major goal.  I want to play good drums.  Sometimes I thought some of his ideas, or arrangements,  was kind of simple and standard and stupid or something… (laughs)

 

When you left, were you thrown out or did you voluntarily leave?

Yeah, I left the band.  “Ok, now it’s a European tour coming up.  Oh no!  I quit.”  Kind of strange, but that’s the way it was.  It’s like putting a lid on a volcano.  It’s a stupid expression maybe, but I needed to express myself musically.  I wasn’t satisfied with just being a drummer and playing (ed. – Snowy makes sounds imitating a drum beat).  It didn’t give me that much so I needed to quit and try to write my own music and start my own band. 

Snowy Shaw
Snowy Shaw

It’s very important for me to clarify right now that you’re not saying anything in a nasty tone.  Some magazines are irresponsible and they don’t mention that.  They try to make it look like you’re trying to start a fight.  Notre Dame does not have showy drums – like you’re showing off.  It seemed like that was the argument in King Diamond.  Do you agree?

He comes up with some stuff and it’s basically my arrangements, but when I wrote some songs myself I tend to arrange the drums so it’s pretty simple just because the song itself should be in focus instead of different musicians showing off what they can do.  It’s quite the same for thing for King.  I think I play better drums if I don’t like the band, because then I just want to have fun playing drums. 

 

Your accent sounds more Danish than Swedish.

Nobody told me that before.  Maybe I have a sore throat or something because they sound a bit like they’re supposed to throw up when they’re talking. 

 

Maybe that’s the reason.  So what do you have to say about the production of the drums?  I thought that you would be over-produced based on what I’ve heard about you.  But it’s a mild production.

The overall production – I don’t really like it because we have kind of a limited budget.  We have to go mix in a friend’s place or something. Next time around it will be a lot better because we’re working with this friend and he’s a real producer.  The drums sounded quite bad the last couple of albums.

 

That helped me understand the elusive personality of Snowy Shaw a little bit.  I heard that you like American Indians.

Yeah.  I was really into that some years ago.  I was into reading about the Midwest Indians.

 

Any particular reason?

I don’t know.  I mean, for various reasons I guess because they were very cool and proud and they had a great history.  It was magical and mystical.  I thought it was very cool.  But I kind of left that, and since I’m working with Notre Dame I’m watching horror movies and being more into eerie and stupid horror comics.

 

So you were never part of any drum circle?

Indian drum circle?  I never had the opportunity, but maybe in the future.

 

You don’t prefer to play drums with your hands.

With my dick.

 

The first time I heard Notre Dame I didn’t know you were in the band.  It was on the Mercyful Fate tribute on Listenable Records.  It was Into the Coven.  The very next time I heard your band it was on this latest album Coming Soon To A Theatre Near You.

Second one.

 

That’s the second one?

No, the new album is a re-issue – the Second Coming.  It was four and a half songs originally, but now it’s like eleven.  We added a bunch of bonus tracks from the same time – the same recording sessions and so on.  We fucked it up totally.  I think it was better the first time.  It’s better as a mini album because you tend to get tired after six songs – not when you record them but if you listen to them.  You’re pretty much satisfied when you’ve heard seven songs. 

 

I’m sure Osmose will love to hear the way you’re talking about the album. 

Yeah, but what’s done is done.  I just wanted to… because of the lousy distribution… I’m sorry… I’m burping here from drinking Coca Colas.  But anyway, we just wanted to give a second chance because the distribution wasn’t working that good and maybe Osmose distribution isn’t working that good either, but it’s much better anyway.  But they wanted to add a bunch of bonus tracks, and I looked into some old material that’s never been mixed and so I recorded some vocals and some guitar on some songs.  We made it like a totally new album instead of just a re-issue.

 

So the vampire theme is going to be common to your next album as well?

No, not really.  I mean, the character Vampirella – she’s still in the band.  Maybe we kind of focused on that for some time, but it’s basically just shock shock rock and horror metal.  I grew up with KISS and Alice Cooper.  I was really influenced by those kinds of shows and the kind of image that Alice Cooper had.  I think this is my interpretation for the new generation.  It’s not just about vampires.  I grew up reading all those horror comics.  So this is just the logical development. 

 

Back to the old days when Mercyful Fate reformed – there was an American tour.  Did you have any problems playing drums for the song Satan’s Fall?

No, absolutely not.  That is my favorite song.  Maybe there was a show where I fucked it up.

 

No, there was a lot of Snowy in that performance rather than Kim Ruzz. 

Yeah.  I really like that song so I couldn’t keep relaxed.  I just went berserk.  Maybe I fucked it up.

 

Is it easy to fuck up in that song?

Yeah, maybe it is because when we played this big festival in Copenhagen that is the only time I fucked it up.  There are so many changes in the song and I was so excited and everything so maybe I forgot something because I was waiting for the last part which is the coolest.  So maybe I skipped a few parts of that song.  That song is so fantastically evil.  When I was a kid I listened to it and I thought “this is too much!  This is really scary!”

 

Did you ever imagine that you would be playing with King Diamond?

No, not really.  I didn’t realize they were from Denmark when I was 14 or something.  I didn’t see that coming.  But after a couple of years Mickey Dee and Andy Laroque joined the band, and all of a sudden we had some kind of relation to them. It wasn’t that far-fetched to actually join the band after a couple of years because they had close relations to Gothenburg musicians. 

 

For the band Notre Dame what is the reason for the choice of black metal vocals trading off with sort of like the theatre style vocals?

Maybe I was into that somehow.  They’re the same kind of songs that I wrote for Memento Mori.  It’s just that we don’t play the drums that slow.  (ed – makes drum noises)  It would be boring to play it that slow.  So instead we speed it up and play the fastest part possible – all these kinds of patterns.  But when it comes to vocals maybe it’s that I can’t sing that powerful so I’m just trying the best I can.  I’m also into Metal Church and Nazareth and Udo,..  Accept and stuff like that.  I don’t know if it’s black metal vocals.  It’s just really distorted vocals I guess.

 

The first track on this second edition, The Bells of Notre Dame, reminded me of Immortal, and then I took a look at the cover and you have the diamond-shaped corpsepaint around your eyes just like the singer.  So I was wondering if you have any admiration for Immortal or if that was just a coincidence. 

I never listened much to them, but they look cool (laughs), especially this Battles of the North album.  But this is just some kind of coincidence because I didn’t use that kind of make-up for a long time.  I think he has much bigger diamonds than I do.  It covers pretty much his whole face.  Most of the time I just have some mascara and I look more like…

 

A girl.

No, not like a girl.  But it was more like a raccoon.  This was the only time when I was like, “this looks kind of theatrical,” like pantomime, or scary in some kind of circus way.  I did not think of Immortal when I did that. 

 

I’ve seen the movie The Decline of Western Civilization, and I saw it because I thought it was going to be about metal but it was about posers.  And there was this one poser in there who was talking like an absolute faggot…

And his name was?

 

I don’t know his name.  Half of his hair was blonde (Snowy laughs) and half of his hair was black, and I also noticed that in the Notre Dame pictures half of your hair is blonde and half of your hair is black.   So I was wondering if you know the poser from that movie.

No, I don’t.  But I heard that the singer from Madam X dyed his hair black and white.  I was thinking more of Carella Deville (spelling?) the Disney character.  You know, I’m blonde, so that isn’t very evil.  So should I dye my hair black?  No.  That’s boring.  So let’s do it halfway as a compromise.

 

So it’s not a symbol for bisexuals?

No.  I can do that and still go around buying groceries. I don’t give a fuck.  It was just a thing.  After that I shaved off my hair completely.  But now it’s growing back and I look like…

 

Hitler?

A German look, or something.  This was a long time ago. 

 

A long time ago I interviewed Candlemass and the lead guitar player told me that he found your drum configuration very strange.

Strange?

 

Yeah. On your rolls, what you do is each hand goes down your sides instead of going in front of you.  Do you know what I’m talking about?

No, not really. 

 

Was he just imagining things?

I don’t know.  I mean, I only have one rack tom and I have two floor drums.

 

One on each side?

Yeah, actually when I bought this Ludwig I had four floor toms so I can have two on each side, but it’s just a poser thing because I can’t play on my left side.  I did it with Mercyful Fate to look cool, but it’s OK with just one rack tom and one floor tom.  I’ve been playing drums for so long, and I don’t think about drums very much nowadays.  It’s not like I’m, “OK, check out that new drummer from this band!.”  I just play the way I play.  I don’t think that much about it.  Maybe some people find it strange.  I’ve been out playing festivals with this power metal band now called Dream Evil, and people seem to like the way I play.  People say, “Oh, you’re my favorite drummer!” and so on.  I don’t really know what’s the big deal.  I’m just playing straight bullshit.  I can’t really see what’s so special. 

 

But at one time were you obsessed about learning drums?

Yeah, I was, when I was still a teen-ager.  Now my goal is elsewhere, like to sing better and write the best possible songs I can do.  It’s not like I’m practicing drums very much these days.

 

Is Notre Dame a project or a band?

I guess it’s both.  For me it’s a good forum, or something, where I can write my kind of music. We’re starting to do shows now.  We had to turn down some offers from big festivals in Europe this summer.  So we will be starting with the King Diamond manager taking care of the whole business because I don’t know how to handle that stuff.  I can’t negotiate with foreign promoters and stuff like that.  But for some time now it’s been like a project – a recording project pretty much.  Have you seen our video?

 

No.  Is it available N.T.S.C.?

I don’t think so.  I don’t think that Osmose have done what they should do. 

 

They have been doing a lot because they believe in the Grimoire.  A lot of Europeans don’t see the value of advertising in America.  They don’t believe that the American market is worth it.

Yeah, it’s so bad because I don’t think that our albums are even released in America.

 

Yeah, it’s hard to find.  But if anyone here wants to get an Osmose album it’s pretty easy to get  There are enough metal merchants. But you have to be a real undergrounder.  A lot of people in America are very lazy about their music unless they’re enthusiasts.

Yeah, but people are that way everywhere.  You go to record stores – what you see on the shelf is what you buy.  It’s not like you’re running around to five different stores trying to find something.  I wouldn’t do that nowadays.  Maybe when I was 15, but not now.  It’s a shame.  You’ve got to just feed the people. 

 

If you want to succeed.

It’s not like I want to make a lot of money.  I would be an idiot if I did with this kind of music.  Maybe I am an idiot.  We spend so much time doing this stuff that we want people to at least be able to find it if they want to, and to reach out to as many people as possible.

 

Maybe this interview has helped.

Yeah, hopefully.

 

The song “Daughter of Darkness” – was the piano in the beginning taken from Beethoven?

Vampirella said, “Listen to this song!  You stole that part!” 

 

It’s not exact.  It just sounds like it’s based on a Beethoven song.

Yeah, it’s Moonlight Sonata, or something.  I never sit down and “OK, I should steal this”.  I’ve always had some kind of obsession with the Halloween theme – that’s where it’s coming from.  I always have that kind of sound in the back of my mind.  When I’m writing, maybe it sounds familiar, but I don’t know what it is.  About Beethoven I really liked that song when I heard it.  When I wrote that track it didn’t even cross my mind that it reminded me of something, but a year after we released that CD. I went to a record store and bought a vinyl album of Pahntom of the Opera, and I put it on, and then I heard it (the opening of Bells of Notre Dame).  It’s, like, unconscious.  I pick it up somewhere but without knowing it.

 

The titles of your songs are like B movies, like “Dracula Sucks”.

Yeah, I borrowed it from some B movie.  It was such a cool title. 

 

It’s so funny when an originator is not original.  There’s also “The Misconception of the French Kiss”.  I get a feeling of French theatre.  Is that how you got signed to Osmose, which is in France?

I don’t know, but somehow with different projects you get different visions, and like, I was really into Indians like I was talking about, and I wrote Indian music.  No, not really, but anyway, this French kind of style – I think it’s a bit elegant and just the kind of image that you get from watching movies.  Ok, I went to the ballet and drink wine.  The French theatre pretty much inspired me to write this music.

 

Speaking of Indians, do you know what the sitar is?

Yeah, but that’s the real Indians from India.

 

Actually, the Cherokee Indians invented the sitar, and when the Indians from India found out that the native people of America were called Indians, they sent spies over to see why they would be called Indians because they wanted to be the only Indians on earth.

Yeah, but it’s hardly the American Indians’ fault. 

 

I know, but the Indians stumbled upon the Cherokee and stole the technology for the sitar and brought it back to India, and India made an agreement with the French government to kill any Cherokee with a sitar because they wanted to be known for that instrument on the planet earth.

Seriously?  That sounds so strange.  I never heard anything like that.

 

No, I’m just joking.  I want to know what you think about Kim Ruzz.  Was Kim Ruzz an originator?

Do you mean like he invented his own style?

 

He brought a unique interpretation into this style of music.

I don’t know.  I mean, Mercyful Fate – the whole band were pioneers.  You can very much hear Stained Class with Judas Priest in combination with Iron Maiden.  I guess they just picked up from what was going on around them. 

 

Sharlee D’Angelo said that one of the things that really set Kim Ruzz apart was that he wasn’t really a metal drummer, yet he played in metal.

Yeah, I really haven’t analyzed it since I was 15, or something.  But I don’t consider myself being a metal drummer either.  I’m more grown up with Sweet and KISS and Deep Purple and so on.  I’m more of a ‘70’s drummer.  I’m not that good at playing metal, really.

 

Do you agree that it’s harder to play slow, like at an extreme doom tempo?

Yeah, I guess you learn a certain way.  I play very hard on the drums and so does Mickey Dee, for example.  A lot of black metal drummers play so fucking fast but they don’t play that hard.  They don’t break any sticks and hardly any drumheads either.  If I want to play really fast, I’m not really used to that because I’m playing so hard and it takes so much energy from me, so I have take away some of the strength and play loose and just focus on the speed instead.  I was supposed to play with Candlemass and I thought, “OK, that’s so easy.”  You have to get used to that because you’re not supposed to play on the ride cymbal, for example (ed – Snowy makes drum noises)  I can’t express this. But you should play very few notes and still keep the beat.  There’s so much space in between the notes, if you know what I’m saying.  So it’s easy to fuck up that way.  If you play as fast as you can play there is not so much space that you can fuck up with.  I mean, every music has its difficulties.  Some people say that AC/DC is so boring.  But Phil is good at what he’s doing.  It’s complicated in different ways, I guess. 

 

You don’t seem to favor the off beat too much.

Offbeat?  What is that?  (laughs)

 

You’ve been called a technical drummer by some people, but you don’t really do jazz beats and stuff.

Like I said, I kind of developed my own – it sounds stupid maybe – but it’s pretty much my own style.  I’m not saying that I’m unique.  I don’t check out other drummers and steal their chops because I find no interest in that.  I’m just trying to play to the music that I’m playing in a tasteful way.  I inspired by from Dio or Black Sabbath and Sweet – those old guys – and I took it from there.  I don’t know if I’m technical or something. 

 

So what does the future hold for America?  Is there a Snowy Shaw tour?

Yeah, that would be great!  I haven’t been in America since ’95, and it really pisses me off that Osmose can’t get it out there.  With other bands that I’m in now, and this Dream Evil that’s power metal and very popular in Europe right now – but I guess it won’t sell too many records in America – so I doubt that we will be going on tour in America.  I would love to come back and see how things have changed.

 

I think that if more white people live in America that metal will come back.  But right now immigration favors the third world countries, and metal is a bit too complex for them.  They like rap.

I don’t like that kind of music. 

 

You call it music?

(laughs)  I was just trying to be polite. 

 

I talked to Tom Pasquale who is a writer for Meal Maniacs.  He also puts tours together, and he said that metal seems to be getting stronger here because there are now five big agencies that book metal tours, whereas before, everyone was at the mercy of this person called Finberg.  

Who was that?

 

He was a person who allegedly took advantage of metal’s lowpoint in America. 

I hear there’s a lot of black metal bands.  Isn’t black metal growing in America?  Marduk, I heard, frequently tour America.

 

Well you know more about this than I do, but I heard that black metal is dying in Europe, but America just started to follow that trend.

Yeah, pretty much.  I’m the wrong person to ask about stuff like that because I’m in my house and write my own music and live in my own world.  So I don’t pay attention to what’s trendy and what’s going on and what’s in fashion. I don’t care about stuff like that.

 

This interview was very merciful, wasn’t it?  Get it?  Mercyful Fate?

Very Mercyful Fate.

 

So no insults.  Are you surprised?

Yeah, pretty much. 

 

I’m making a movie called “Metalheads”.  So far Jensen from Séance, Ross from Immolation, and Agathon from Gloomy Grim have given me permission to use their music.

Yeah, you have permission to use Notre Dame.  I don’t know what I’m saying yes to here.  But of course, spread it around

 

It’s a comedy.  This is great.  I didn’t even have to negotiate with you.

So how did you negotiate with Jensen?  Did you do certain favors for him? (laughs)  You would love the Thrillogy movie that we’ve done.  It’s done in the 1920’s, like Nosferatu, style of movie.  It’s also the ‘60’s and ‘70’s cheesy style of horror movie.  I guess you would really like that kind of video. 

 

 

(editor’s note – there was more to this interview.  When I have archived more of the great articles from the printed mag i shall go back and include the bits that were left out (like the Anal Cunt interview).  These shorter edits were due to the web page limitations with the software i was using in the old days (the program was called “Frontage” and there was a page length limit)

SELCOUTH-Heart Is The Star Of Chaos

This is a strange album.  There are a few moments when the music bears a resemblance to something that is known,, but madness eventually prevails.  Does this description not paint a picture?  Well, hearing the music will make you equally unable to describe this album to someone else.  Perhaps it is better to render an opinion.  This album seems like a novelty at first, but the occasional operatic soprano, gothic crooning, and the fleeting familiar styles and musical ingredients make this border between creativity and psychosis, which I find highly stimulating.  No brutality resides here, and neither does the bragging of dexterity (playing intruments for show rather than for feeling) and jarring tempo changes that are sometimes the components of albums categorized as strange.  No – this is a bizarre experience worth the aural journey, and the writer’s inability to draw a comparison says it all – this is unique.