The
following interview was conjured with Filipino Black/Death Metal band,
Asgardsrei. Some sentiments expressed here are quite
far-fetched, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Death By Hammer. However, it’s probably better to make up your own mind. Having said that, this is by far the edgiest interview in the history of this webzine.
Hail. The whole project of Asgardsrei is shrouded in mystery, since I
couldn’t really find much info other than a few reviews here and
there. Are you content at keeping a low profile, especially
considering the quality of your output?
More
than content keeping the mystique of the project intact, considering
it's supposed to be dark obscure music. I find that music is at least
1000x more interesting without knowledge of its creators, although
this does not always apply since there are countless bands with
anonymous members that make crap music like this trend of cringe
occult black/death bands with shrouds over their stupid faces. It's
lame and I sincerely hope the trend dies soon, with its fans and
creators. Hopefully it is a painful and messy death as to overshadow
the transgressions they have committed on good taste.
In
the case of Asgardsrei it's not so much a marketing ploy as it is
unwillingness to tarnish the music with vapid posing. I would prefer
that the music is received as coming from a supernatural source, as
it is the essence and true source of the music, the goal of which
seems to be the rousing of strange uneasy thoughts in the listener's
imagination.
Can you give us a little background on Asgardsrei and tell us how the
project was conceived? Did you already have a clear idea in your mind
about the musical direction when you started the project?
It
began around the time an unearthly presence had taken up residence in
a deep recess of my subconscious, after which it eventually spread
out to the living world as a semi-incarnated entity that radiated
strange assemblies of sound that were audible only to my ear. The
recordings you hear are my frenzied attempts to remember these
sequences and to record them as I heard them. In that regard I see it
as a great failure as the recordings bear little to no resemblance to
the things I have heard and witnessed. The music that I hear in
itself is of a profoundly fleeting nature, thus impossible to
translate accurately into physical form. As a result it is heavily
warped by my own compositional tendencies and the music I listened to
at the time.
As
I indulge in this interrogation the entity continues its quest to
cross over to the other side, so to speak; to complete its fleshbound
form for reasons I have yet to determine. Its malignant music grows
louder and clearer by the day, but for now I can keep it in check.
For how much longer I do not know.
As
you can probably surmise from my predicament there was no clear
musical direction for the project. I am only a conduit for this
force. Many sleepless nights were spent attempting to capture this
music, until the recording of the first release seemed to placate the
spirit. Before the first release there were recordings of
various styles: some soundscapes, messings about with effects units,
some ambitious pieces that utilize various instruments and noise.
These recordings were lost to time however and I can guarantee that
no ear will ever hear them from here to eternity.
The reviews I’ve read for your albums so far indicate high praise.
Are you satisfied with the overall feedback you've received so far?
I've
read a few and it's quite amusing seeing how some people get it and
how some completely miss the point. It's cool that there are people
that genuinely like it -- maybe they are unwittingly afflicted by the
same force. Almost all reviews attribute certain aspects of the sound
to bands that I have never listened to or don't like at all.
The
state of music reviews these days is pathetic. No one is adequately
attentive nor endowed with great discernment as to be a reliable
source of music journalism. In fact most reviewers seem to treat the
activity as a micropenis measuring contest to see who can cite the
most obscure bands to compare a certain release to, even if said
bands have absolutely nothing to do with the review material.
I
see basic bitch reviews littered with nonsensical buzzwords and
dumbass phrases about morbid percussion, skullcrushing riffs,
complete blasphemous perversion etc. This kind of mass-produced
review tells me nothing about the music and is tantamount to
literally performing fellatio on the band themselves.
Some
try to be smart and put in all these pseudo-technical bits of
analysis when it's clear that they don't know a lick of music. These
people should be shot in the kneecaps, flayed alive and dismembered.
An
honest lucid review is hard to come by these days, but ultimately it
doesn't matter, as it is not the review but the music that I am
after.
Your last album, “Dark Fears Behind The Doors” got reissued
through HESSIAN FIRM from France. How did you get in touch with them,
and how does it feel getting renewed interest after all these years?
How was the album received back in 2013?
It
was a result of necessity that I had gotten in touch with Hessian
Firm. There was a long period of inactivity after the recordings of
2013, and this led to the intensification of psychic upheaval,
reprieve from which I thought could only come from spreading this
music to the world at large.
I
decided on Hessian Firm partly because the daemon had exhibited a
particular affinity for the label, the reason for which probably is
because it had a fairly high barrier of entry that only a few bands
deemed worthy could get a release through it. In addition HF released
some music that I enjoyed listening to so it was the best choice.
It's
surprising to me that there are people who like it enough to purchase
a copy, as I don't think too highly of the music myself. In any case
I hope that time spent with it by others proves to be a rewarding
experience.
Very
minimal effort was spent on spreading this music in 2013. Mostly it
was just sent to close friends so there was no buzz about it at the
time. Not that I know of.
Can you please highlight some of your biggest influences and tell us
how that moulds into your sound?
JP
video game soundtracks, anime music, vaporwave, drum n bass, jp music
in general, fern planet etc... bladee, Zomby, Burial, weird
electronic music
These
have no influence on my music nowadays as that would mean that I have
been making any music at all, which I have not done for years. There
is no point anymore in making metal for reasons I will disclose later
on.
It sounded like you were listening to Beherit quite obsessively when
writing your last album, "Dark Secrets Behind The Door,"
but managed to craft a distinct sound superior to most bands of this
style. Do you have a preference for bestial black/death metal?
Yes
I was listening to Beherit but I don't like bestial black/death at
all. It's a joke.
That
style should have never existed in the first place as it is the most
pathetic excuse for dark music I have ever had the displeasure of
hearing, next to noise and dark ambient. Every single bestial
black/death/war band, in fact any band that propagates the "first
wave black metal" sound should be rounded up, tortured, and be
left alive as quadruple amputees.
That
style is an abomination created by and made for middle aged burnouts
trying to relive teenage years that passed them by due to them being
incompetent retards. Every single record in that style is just
another piece with which some chinless balding nerd can pad out his
record collection or even worse, AOTY list which he can then parade
around his fellow soyboy war metal maniac friends online.
Every
band that plays this style should be killed in the most violent way
and their bloodlines should be erased. These include
black/speed/heavy/thrash retard bands that in reality just sound like
monkeys with lissencephaly trying to ape early Bathory or whatever
Motorhead (a band that sucks ass) derived shit from the 80s. For them
I have a great piece of advice: sell your instruments, stop playing
music, learn to appreciate the finer points of having a heroin
addiction and die of either an overdose or shooting. Have your filthy
jackets arranged for incineration at the time of your death.
Every
single member of Ross Bay Cult should have eaten a coathanger at
birth and everyone who supports that "horde" of dumb
pampered canucks roleplaying as bestial warriors ought to get
sterilized, castrated and then murdered anyway. Same goes for the
pathetic Asian funderground scene that worships that crap. Singahell
lmao. Another group of 1st world retards pretending they are real
battle hardened satanik warriors. Wake up bro, you are muslim. Put
your bullet belts to good use and shoot your friends before offing
yourselves. On second thought since those aren't even live bullets
might as well just go straight to the killing of yourselves.
In
a perfect world, everything that is called black metal and isn't from
Norway is met with derisive laughter and forgotten immediately. 1st
wave BM, Greek BM, Finnish BM, USBM etc all belong in the trash. A
perfect world is one without bullet belts and patch jackets. No metal
"community".
What is the correlation between Norse mythology and your music?
Furthermore, what kind of themes are you exploring with Asgardsrei?
Asgardsrei
has nothing to do with Norse mythology. That would be dumb as I do
not even have Nordic ancestry nor do I live in a Nordic country.
The
music revolves only around dark surreal thoughts, hallucinogenic
mind's eye-exclusive traumatic voyages through unknown psychic
places. It is the music of ghosts, things you would hear on a
particularly silent night out alone at the graveyard. It is a
transmission from a place so unfathomable that even I do not know
what it is.
Do you think a raw production in black/death metal band can add more
depth to the music?
It
ultimately depends on how the music is written. If it's heavily
layered music with numerous parts, it would make sense for it to be
presented with some refinement, so that the notes are heard.
In
the case of simple music, raw production does lend it a rough charm,
as in early Darkthrone. The production on those albums matters as
much as the songs.
For
metal made after the 90s the only appropriate production is one where
all tracks are muted for maximum headroom.
Can you give us a little overview on the underground scene in the
Philippines? Are there any bands from your country that you find
worthy of support?
I
have not been in touch with the local scene for years, but I can say
I made some good friends within it. The Filipino metal scene is
better for the quality of drinking sessions than the music it has
produced, although there are a handful exceptions.
Pathogen
is cool, and the rest of the San Pablo bands are leagues beyond
anything else. My favourite band from here is Karimlan, who I
sincerely think smoke everyone else because they make highly original
music. It's feral naturalistic music with intense spirit that I could
say had a profound influence on my own music. Other than that it's
all derivative trash for dumb record collectors.
Deiphago...
...suck
and should be aborted as soon as possible. Wiped off the face of the
earth. Nothing good has come from those Costa Retards. Only very
rarely have I come across a band so profoundly untalented that they
cannot even play the simplest riffs properly nor play a note vomit
guitar solo right. The realization upon finding that this band is
well-regarded by a lot of people around the world has led me to think
that something cataclysmic happened around the 90s that destroyed
many individuals' sense of hearing. HHR must be run by a mentally
challenged man since he bothered to publish this band's nonsense.
This might be new knowledge to most but people who bought their
records and paid to see them live are eligible for a persons with
disabilities card since they have proven themselves mentally
retarded.
Stylistically, how do you perceive the development between your first
and second album?
Between
those albums not much changed. The songs became shorter and better
written but they are pretty much cut from the same cloth. Dark Fears
was slightly recorded better and had better guitar tone. The musical
detours from the previous album were cut out.
If I may ask, why haven't you released anything new since 2013? The
world needs new Asgardsrei material!
Believe
me when I tell you that the world needs no more Asgardsrei material,
or any metal for that matter. The music had run its course and was
dead by the 90s. By that time the metal style had been codified to
the point that one could whip up a checklist of things to put in an
album for it to count as metal. Essentially, it died when bands
started writing metal instead of music. That's when it metamorphosed
into the joke we know as metal today.
The
fact that there are people peddling "metal" today as if it
were alive and breathing is a mockery of it. People who sincerely
believe that metal lives are posers of the worst kind because they
are deluding themselves that it was ever alive beyond the 90s in the
first place. Metal was a product of its time and there is no way to
resuscitate it. No attempt at "progressing" the musical
language of metal will keep it from the grave. People who continue to
tune in and contribute to this pathetic zombie industry of new
"metal" releases are cringe and should be culled from the
human race. Their collections should be dismantled and recycled to
make objects that hold more value, like toilet seats.
Practitioners
and fans of OSDM revival should be locked away in a vault beneath the
ocean and the raw material used for the manufacturing of their
tasteless wares should be recycled. Same goes for nu-trad metal,
thrash and everything else.
People
who push for progression in metal, as in Zealotry, Ctheilist or
whatever pale imitation of Gorguts/Finnish DM it is should be
eradicated with bioweapons perhaps as a touch of irony being the
infections they are. Death in opposition my ass lmao gtfo nerd
And
despite what a certain egghead charlatan would tell you, metal will
not be revived by improving composition or by leaving out the guitar
altogether. Nor will it be reinvigorated with the incorporation of
grandpa music ie. Romantic classical forms and structure. As you can
see the death of metal traumatized some people to the point of
senility. Therefore it is only an act of benevolence that they be put
out of their misery.
I
would also wish death on trad bands and fans. That shit wasn't even
metal in the 80s.
I thank you for your time! I wish you and your project all the best.
The last words are yours.
Thanks
for the time as well.
RIP
METAL 1985-1996
