Spectral Sorcery
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A print zine founded MMXXIII, run primarily by Lolth and published by the Eastern Black Metal Inner Circle (E.B.M.I.C.), and distributed by Cult of Oblivion Recordings. Issues are compiled and published quarterly, and include content pertaining to dark underground music and other black arts.
Interview with
MORBÆRSANGER (USA)
[Taken from Spectral Sorcery, Issue #5, Autumn MMXXV A.Y.P.S.]
Lolth: What was your introduction to dungeon synth? What motivated you to start making it?
MORBÆRSANGER: I got my first dungeon synth tapes semi-randomly in a collection i was buying off an old metal guy liquidating his collection. Next to some random black metal, he included several Voldsom Musick tapes including YEARNER - “Winternight”. I had been collecting bm & noise tapes for a bit so I was aware of DS, but hadn’t given it a shot. Long story short, putting on “Winternight” the first time was a transformative experience. Everything since then has been trying to emulate that cold lush sound.
Prior to MORBÆRSANGER, I was making ambient and noise music under a couple names. MORB. was the first time I ever established a distinct concept and aesthetic in a project, trying to explore a created mythology. But the true inspiration to create the project (besides listening to ANCIENT IRON, FORGOTTEN PASSAGE, and YEARNER) was stumbling on a Casiotone and finding out it sounded perfect recorded on a shit shoebox tape recorder. The first demo was recorded in an afternoon next to an open window straight to tape and done.
Lolth: What artists inspire your music most? Are you influenced by genres outside dungeon synth?
MORBÆRSANGER:I’m inspired by anyone that takes a rough, droning, harsh, hissy, distorted, noisy, compressed view on their music production. I hate clean sounds. For dungeon synth, that means YEARNER, MAELIFELL, MAGIC FIND, ANCIENT IRON, FORGOTTEN PASSAGE, FOOLISH FIRE, WINTERBLOOD, PUTRID MARSH, among others. I also love the harsher and raw black metal bands out there both for their production and aesthetics like EERIFIED CATACOMB, SANGUINE RELIC, CIRRHUS. But I’m pretty genre agnostic when it comes to my music, and let a lot of experimental, noise, ambient and drone influences come into my music. This means artists like YELLOW SWANS, KALI MELONE, KEVIN DRUMM, SHREDDED NERVE, MISTLETOE, SEWER ELECTION, RICHARD RAMIREZ. I have to resist the urge to take MORB. down a totally blissed out harsh noise direction daily.
Lolth: How do you record your music? What are your thoughts on analog versus digital production?
MORBÆRSANGER: Either due to ignorance or laziness, my production is 95% analog. Pretty much everything is recorded direct to tape, mixed to other tapes, mastered back onto tape, and then eventually recorded digitally with minimal mixing/editing. Like for my recent tape “(like) Thieves in a Glowing Orchard,” I recorded all the tracks to a portastudio with a couple minimal overdubs, then piped to a stereo tape deck with pedal effects and harsh edits to cut the tracks. Longer stuff like the title track was a mix of three portastudios playing the tape loops and pre-recorded stuff through effects, all live mixed for the final version.
I don’t have a huge hatred of digital production, it’s just that analog is what makes sense to me. I also hate having to take the time to learn new things, I guess I’m a luddite. While it would probably be easier in the long run, I can’t see how or why I’d reduce my setup to a laptop/controller. There’s too much fun chaos to be in had in an analog setup. Playing live, I basically just bring my studio setup to the gig and everything is either played live or setup on tape loops. I’ve gotten an incredible amount of mileage out of my 4-tracks (shout out Tascam).
Lolth: Many argue that since the recent explosion in DS, the genre is no longer fundamentally tied to its history with metal. What do you think of this newfound diversity in sound and thematic scope? Is dungeon synth a fledgeling offshoot of black metal or its own beast entirely?
MORBÆRSANGER: Dungeon synth should always recognize that it was birthed from the black metal scene and honor those first projects. That said, if DS isn’t allowed to grow and change and experiment, it’ll die off as quickly as it has exploded these last couple years. The thing I fear most is DS stagnating and just being a scene of projects that only want to sound like DEPRESSIVE SILENCE or JIM KIRKWOOD with no new ideas being brought in. DS is a scene that bridges so many different sounds, it would be a disservice to fence it in so closely and say only one sound is True DS. But I’ll also say that there’s a difference between expanding the sound in an artistic, productive and inventive way, and making corny shit DS. I’ll leave it there.
Lolth: You’ve performed live on several occasions, including opening for the legendary MORTIIS just recently—how do you think dungeon synth has changed or will change now that people like yourself are taking it out from the basement and onto the stage?
MORBÆRSANGER: I’ve been surprised as anyone how DS has taken to the stage in a big way. I never started this project to play live and if it wasn’t for the (welcomed) bullying of some friends, it never would’ve happened. I think it is still early days for DS live in the broader scene (shout out to N.E.D.S. for keeping it real all this time), so it remains to be seen if DS bands will get booked on broader stages. In a lot of cases, that MORTIIS show for example, it was the first time the venues had ever even heard of DS. Pretty sure they thought they booked a metal show.
So far, I think it has definitely upped the ante for DS projects. DS isn’t about just hiding in your bedroom with a Goodwill synth and recording a ten minute demo for someone to buy on Bandcamp anymore. Now you’ve got to think how you’d perform your tracks in front of a crowd, what your stage setup is like, do you have visuals? I think it has kickstarted a lot of projects to expand their concepts and music in really good ways. And I think the work that goes into live shows will be what gets DS taken more seriously.
Lolth: Is there a message in MORBÆRSANGER’s work? Is there a story to each release?
MORBÆRSANGER: MORBÆRSANGER was meant as an exploration of myth and melody, so for most (not all) the tapes there is an inherent story being told (check the liner notes). I am a fan of myth, folk tales, legends (especially English, Irish, Scandinavian, etc), so some of the tales are my own interpolations of older myths in my own voice, the first demo being a retelling of Pyramus & Thisbe. While I haven’t gone full short story mode for the project, the tale usually comes in the form of a prose poem. The third demo is the best example as I forced myself to write a longer folk tale to explain the music, evoking the themes of melancholy, loss, and exploration of man’s role in nature that find their way into all my music. I view each release as a complete work between the music, the art, the text, that cannot be divorced from each other.
Lolth: Who are your favorite active projects?
MORBÆRSANGER:FAIRY RING, MAGIC FIND, MORTWIGHT, ANCIENT IRON, EXTISPEX, OBSIDIAN, SERRATER, THARMAZEGETHUZAN, REEKING NIGHTSHADE, THE DARK RITUAL, ROMAN MASTER, PUCA, SHREDDED NERVE, FORGOTTEN RELIC, ANONYMOUS SKULL, SCANT, MISTLETOE, KOREAN JADE, ÄTHER, COMPOUND BUNKER, INEFFABLE SLIME, FOGWEAVER, SKAFRENNINGUR, PROLEPSIS, KATABASILISK, MAZEOFITH, ALKILITH, FADED CLOAK, SPLINTERING LIGHTNING SPEAR, SPECTRAL DECAY, PHANTOM SPIRE, CYGNID, PUTRID MARSH, VUAJTJE, CHEVALLIER SKROG, BLOOD MAGIC, KAVAREH, and MARMER to name a few.
Lolth: Final words?
MORBÆRSANGER: Hails to my brothers MORTWIGHT, BLOOD TOWER, and MALFET. Also my deepest appreciation to Ritual Abuse Records, Murder on Ponce, Moonworshipper, Attic Shrines, Dispel Ltd, Death Eternal, Realm and Ritual, Engraven Records, Buried in Slag and Debris, Black Artifact, and Starless Music for giving my music a chance.