Dødsengel Interview

Regular HELL FURNACE readers may remember my review of Dødsengel’s Visionary a few months ago. I stand by everything I said at the time – it’s a stunning debut album, with hidden depths that become more apparent with each listen. With more of their intense anti-creation Black Metal due to be released very soon, Dødsengel’s Kark and M.A. agreed to talk to us in their first ever interview.

How did you create the musical style for Dødsengel? Was it something that evolved gradually, or did you know from the beginning what you wanted to achieve?

M.A.: “A mix of both. We knew what kind of musick we wanted to create, but such projects tend to have a mind of their own. That is also one of the most rewarding parts of the process, revealing parts of your subconscious mind or subtle bodies, transforming them into sonic vibration.”

Kark: “I knew from the very start how I wanted it to be. The riffs came by themselves, and so did the sound and arrangements and everything around it. Everything we have done in Dødsengel has been like that. It starts by visualizing the sounds and melodies and feelings, and everything falls very easily into the right places. And the two of us work almost on a telepathic level together.“

Was your main intention to create music that fulfils you while you perform it, or to satisfy the people who would listen to it?

M.A.: “Dødsengel is mainly a magickal tool, or journal if you will. Its main purpose is to be a medium in which we express ourselves both plainly and in metaphors and soundscapes. That being said, I still want Dødsengel to function as inspiration to follow the NOX path of initiation, leaving the dedicated listener with a wish to dive deeper into himself and explore darker paths of Malkuth.”

The musicianship and song-writing on Visionary set an unusually high standard for a debut release. Are you confident that you can build on the strengths of your first album?

Kark: “Without a doubt. ‘Visionary’ is merely the beginning of what is to come.”

M.A.: “Build on them, past them and transcend them.”

How long did it take to create Visionary? Did you already have a record deal agreed before your started work on the album?

Kark: “Visionary was written in a period of 2 months, and it was recorded and mixed in 3 days.”

M.A.: “We didn’t have a record deal, we just got together the two of us, started rehearsing and felt the connection. We shared ideas, thoughts and this karmic bond developed into Dødsengel in an amazingly “right” way.  A month or two later, “Visionary” was recorded.”

Will your future releases also come through Satanic Propaganda Records?

M.A.: “No, we already have a mini-CD in print via Full Moon Productions, and a 7″ plus a tape coming through Terratur Possessions.”

Your lyrics contain many references to occultism and anti-creation… and your music sounds more hate-filled and chaotic than many bands who claim to be inspired by more ’straightforward’ satanic, pagan or national socialist philosophies. Tell us about your main sources of inspiration and how your ideas resulted in such devastating musical compositions.

M.A.: “Aleister Crowley, Julius Evola, E.A. Koetting, the brothers and sisters of my lodge, our brothers in spirit in Nidrosia, but first and foremost my Daimon, SMOZIZ.

“The musick has a life and Will of its own, beyond the grasp of conscious speculation. Listen to it while scrying deep within yourself, and it might choose to answer. Keep in mind that the answer will differ between each and every Man and Star in the cosmos, but that will not in any way decrease the importance of its words.”

Kark: “As far as my inspirations go, I tend to get a lot from reading books on various occult subjects. Both fiction and non-fictional. I get a lot of from H.P Lovecraft. The settings, landscapes and creatures from his works is a soundtrack by itself.

“As for the musical inspiration, I get bits and pieces from just about any kind of music there is. And then I run it through the filters in my ears, and what comes out is what I feel black metal is to me. A haunting melody will always grasp you stronger than any blastbeat or a fast riff.”

Clearly you are deeply involved with the occult subject matter of your music and lyrics. Are there any musicians in particular (of any musical style) who have created music that compares to yours in terms of inspiration and themes?

M.A.: “The personality and feeling that I sense in our musick is unique, but there are of course many other musicians and bands that channel spiritual currents expertly.

“From Norway we have Black Majesty, Mare, Celestial Bloodshed, Kaosritual and One tail, one head, who all play brutal, haunting hymns to the left hand path, equalled only by Behexen, Nightbringer, Ofermod and Funeral Mist. For a more grinding, atmospheric, droning chant to spiritual annihilation, there are the glorious Unbeing, Moss and Gnaw their tongues. And with the new renaissance in the neo-folk scene, occult musick is on the rise in all its forms.”

The lyrics on your web page… Do they feature in any music you have recorded? (the subject matter there seems even more deeply involved with occultism and the sephirothic tree, compared to the few lyrics that are featured in the Visionary CD booklet)

M.A.: “The lyrics on the FMP page is from the mini-CD which is being released by them as we speak. It is a conceptual record where the two of us are joined by frater :M:, describing the qliphotic “Ritual of Becoming”, and thus the ideological goal of Dødsengel. The words in the ‘Visionary’ booklet are an ideological statement, not lyrics. We decided to go for this unusual approach so that listeners would know what we represent. We don’t leave you wondering if the band actually has a message to get across. The ideas given to us by our magickal workings are there in plain sight, for those who have any interest in seeing them.”

The violent twists and turns in the song structures on Visionary create a challenging and rewarding album to listen to. This ‘controlled chaos’ is further strengthened by the vocals, which emit powerful feelings of insanity, hatred and anger. How did you prepare yourself mentally for such an emotional performance in a studio environment?

Kark: “First of all, I have a 60 minute warm up exercise containing every possible vocal style I like and have been influenced by. If the physical part isn’t ready, then the mental part wont be either.

“As far as the performance goes, I like to have the room lit by candles and incense. This helps to clear the mind, so that its only focus is on the voice. All the emotion needed really lies in the lyrics, and I don’t have the ordinary “fill yourself with hate” routine that so many others have, since our lyrics are meant to enlighten the mind, and not to blind you with hate. The hysteria and insanity comes by itself.

“For the recording process, I do all the songs mostly in the first and only take. I do the songs in one whole performance, and don’t do another vocal track for a different vocal style. It’s all in the one take. And I never do double tracked vocals, backup vocals or any of that crap. It will always be just the one voice. This is the thing that really gets the mind and soul going. Just to let the emotions flow, and not stop halfway into the song to do ‘that last line once more with more hate’, or to overdub some sentence or word to make it sound ‘bigger’.

“And its also important for me to do the all the songs in one session, in the running order of the album.  It certainly helps for creating the mood, and it gives me a sense of working towards completion, and not just doing bits and pieces here and there.

“It’s all a very hypnotic seance for me. After I’m done, I can’t really recall much of it. It’s mostly a big blur of feelings that I am left with.

“The vocals for ‘Visionary’ was recorded in about 2 hours.

“All the songs are always recorded as a live performance. No studio trickery. When the mind is set on performing the pieces, it floats by itself.”

M.A. “I don’t feel I have any choice in the matter. I’m completely possessed by the musick, and since there’s usually only the two of us in Kark’s studio, you can just let go of your sanity and let the magick manifest itself in whatever way it deems fit.”

Since the early 1990s, Norway has produced many creative, diverse and successful Black Metal bands. Did the heritage of the Norwegian Black Metal scene influence your decision to start creating your own music?

M.A.: “Of course! Musick is perhaps the strongest inspirational tool we have at our disposal, I don’t deny the fact that it has formed much of what I perceive as my identity, and made many choices for me through my life. The goal was never to emulate anyone, however. The musick just manifested itself through the two of us, and it’s natural that it takes a form that is in one way or the other shaped by the nature and tastes of its host.”

Are you content to exist in this present age, which gives you the tools and technology to create Black Metal, or would you prefer to have lived in another era, with its own positive and negative qualities?

Kark: “I live in my own world created by myself. I choose what or who I want to bring into my own existence.”

M.A.: “The spirit cannot “die” in the macrocosm, only be separated from it. As long as you exist today, you have always existed.”

Which trait do you most despise in your fellow humans?

M.A.: “That we all have to be restricted by norms and rules to function in groups, leaving self-realization impossible in the macrocosm.”

Which trait do you most admire in your fellow humans?

M.A.: “The ability to form our own realities.”

What’s the most disgusting thing you can think of?

M.A.: “Being enslaved by Creation.”

Dødsengel web page

Tags: 2009, Dodsengel, Dødsengel, Norway

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 08:34 and is filed under Black Metal Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.