Xasthur (USA) Interview 2003
Hail Malefic. How are you? Can you tell us something about your last three/ four releases, and do you have any follow-ups on the way?
I’m shitty. There were a couple full lengths that came out at nearly the same time in 2004, ‘Telepathic With The Deceased’ and ‘To Violate The Oblivious’, both of these albums are probably the most advance so far in the Xasthur discography, the production has improved along with the ‘musicianship’, but mind you, both are just as bleak and grim! I’m more or less satisfied with both albums actually, I think on ‘Telepathic…’ there’s a variety of different moods, some songs are harsh and aggressive, some are slow, like almost in the ‘funeral doom’ sense, some are weird and warped, etc. Sometime this year, I’ll have a new full length CD entitled ‘Subliminal Genocide’, which I just finished recording not too long ago, it’s a mixture of my old sound meets the new sound.
Some Xasthur songs appear in different versions on different releases. Do you consider two versions of the same song complementary or alternative, or is the later version a revision? Are you of the opinion that a work of art is never finished while its creator is still living (like perhaps Degas, Stravinsky, Boulez…)?
It’s more based on perfectionism, I can’t really leave an old song sounding basic or undecipherable for too long when there’s not only something that I can do to improve it, but also when there’s something I can add to it. Some songs weren’t hypnotic enough or monotonous enough the first time, some could have been layered more, some could have had darker disharmonies, some could have had a better production or more creative drum patterns and some I had even more ideas for later on, there are so many possibilities with either music or art that’s its endless what you can do with certain sounds (or dismal colours) and what can be added to them. If you hear (for example) ‘Blood From The Roots Of The Forest’ on the album ‘The Funeral Of Being’, and then the re-recording of this on the split with Nortt, then you’ll see what I mean, you’ll see the difference and see why I sometimes operate like this. However, after a second or third re-recording, I’ll leave the song alone. I don’t know why people complain so much about this though, and I really don’t care if they do! I never noticed any complaints when Profanatica/ Havohej re-recorded ‘Weeping in Heaven’ 5,000 times, and the same way every time too.
Many of the lyrics in Xasthur seem to deal with astral travel, dimensional projection, and similar fare not encountered much since the early ’90s pioneering works in black metal (Immortal, Burzum and Darkthrone). Of what importance are these topics to you- and do you believe there is anything after death?
Sometimes I used to write about things like stepping out of the self and leaving the world, becoming something else etcetera, yes, astral travel and stuff like that, it’s hard to put these feelings and memories into words. I imagine I’d return to topics like this once in a while in the future, these things still have some meaning to me, but they are far from being everyday practices and thoughts nowadays. For a while now, my writings have been different and developed more into my own abstract concepts, like helping people destroy, fear and hate themselves etcetera (see other recent interviews, I’ve rambled on for hours about this). I think that ‘this’ and ‘now’ must be a hell after death, and when this comes to an end, we may just find total darkness, stillness and emotionless death.
Being American, how do Bush’s policies affect you personally, and what are your hopes for the coming electoral campaign? What is your opinion on the September 11 attacks, are they cowardly assaults or heroic defiances?
I’d say 9/11 was more of revenge than anything. I believe Kerry would have benefited only certain kinds of people, I believe Bush can help destroy everything, so I guess Bush is good for something.
Are there any specific recording conditions you apply to all of your music?
Songs in the same albums sound extremely different production-wise, yet all seem to be recorded on analogue media. I am always experimenting with what I have production-wise, that’s interesting for me, from adjustments of the instruments, to the mixing adjustments, both… I think it can either keep or lose a person’s attention when the songs are always changing, in tempo, arrangement, but also in terms of production, the ear doesn’t get as easily bored and each song can sort of stand out from the other this way, but most important, it keeps me from getting bored. Yes, you are correct, I do record via analogue, I have never recorded using computers in any way, ever.
Does any literature or visual art gear you up for composition, perhaps even any philosophy or specific periods in history?
Reading about figures in history such as Vlad Tepes to Charles Manson, reading some psychology books here and there, the black plague… The rest of the time, just pure hatred and despair gears me up for song writing.
With the wane of true Norwegian black metal, other more unlikely places have been dishing out what can be regarded as today’s ‘underground’ music. California is one of these places, and many of its secretive black metal acts (among them Xasthur) have discovered or are on the verge of discovering ‘new’, so to say, sounds and structures in a black metal template. What is your explanation of this phenomenon?
California is an unlikely place indeed, the scene here has been terrible for years, especially in Southern California. All I can do is speak for myself personally by saying that the scene here disgusted me for so long that it just made me want to be the opposite of it in the kind of black metal I perform, many of the bands here suck, they just ‘play in a band’ just so that they can say that they ‘play in a band’, and it really shows… I’m not going to sit around being some fan of this. When you see how little some people do with music, believe it or not, it CAN be inspiring and makes you feel that there’s so much you can do… I don’t even know what motivates them to do the little that they do. There are many stupid people who love California, all of it’s as fake and shallow as Hollywood, but there are some people who truly hate it and I think it shows in the music they make, everything black metal hates is here.
Thanks for your time and answers. Please conclude in any way you like and tell the readers how they can obtain any releases…
Thank you for the interview, my apologies for the difficulties, for any releases, if interested, the contact is the same still xasthur [at] hotmail [dot] com