Dark Ambient: BlackWeald Interview

BlackWeald Interview

Interview by Casey Douglass

BlackWeald is a dark ambient and experimental music creator that has produced some truly monumental albums for fans to enjoy. His latest release: The Fermi Exhibit, is themed around the Fermi paradox, which in the broadest of terms, is the question of why we haven’t detected alien life. In this interview, we talk about how he became interested in the Fermi paradox, and what his thoughts are about some of the “solutions”. We also delve into the role that Lovecraft’s fiction has played in his creative life, the value of ambiguity in creating, and what kind of equipment he uses to create his dark marvels. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy.

(Photos used throughout provided by BlackWeald. They depict some of the views from his local surroundings).

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Casey: As we begin this interview, you are just over one week away from releasing your latest music creation: The Fermi Exhibit. It’s a dark ambient album themed around the Fermi paradox, the mental itch in scientists’ brains about why the sheer size of the universe lends itself to the idea that advanced extraterrestrial life should be commonplace, but that we seem to catch no sight nor sound of them. How and when did you first become interested in the Fermi paradox and what is your favourite potential solution?

BlackWeald: I was always interested in anything dark, morbid or mysterious. The nature of life, consciousness, and the insane scale of the universe are of course the oldest of these enigmas, also the toughest to get your head around.

I must state that I do not believe in intelligent design. Sure, it seems like the universe is fabricated in a way to facilitate human needs. You know the argument, if you’d change any universal constant (speed of light, Planck constant, ratio of matter-antimatter, etc.), the universe would be so different, that e.g. planets would not form, and no life would be possible. But I believe the answer for this isn’t intelligent design, rather it’s science’s most beautiful theory, the Anthropic principle. If the universe would NOT suit us, we wouldn't be here to observe it. There might be a crap-load of universes with different values of these constants, but there would be no life in them, and no observer in them to say “Hey, it seems to be 100% designed for us!”. So it’s the other way around. It’s not that the universe is designed to our needs, but we are like we are, because the universe is the way it is.

Back to the Fermi Paradox, although there are fascinating esoteric answers (which the album mostly deals with), the truth is probably much more mundane. And most likely the truth does not lie within ONE of these “solutions”, but a combination of the few. Perhaps interstellar travel simply cannot be solved, and you cannot bypass the speed of light anyhow. Combine this with the vastness of the universe and how specific a planet needs to be, to be able to develop and sustain even the most primitive life. These together would mean that although there are/were intelligent species, they are so far away from each other, that we would never ever be able to witness their existence, let alone communicate with them. It’s like an ant and a penguin inhabiting Earth alone, one in Europe, one in Antarctica. What are the chances they’d ever meet? The ant barely lives a year, they could not travel that far on land, there is the impassable ocean between them, and even if they met, they would not even recognize each other as another living being (despite these two examples descending from the very same tree of life).

In short, sure, there must be similarly intelligent life out there, but I doubt two of these species would ever come in contact with each other.

Casey: In an interview you gave to DarkUndergroundMusicZine, you touched upon your love of H.P Lovecraft. Do you enjoy contemplating the Fermi paradox because it in some ways touches the notion of cosmic horror that Lovecraft so adeptly describes, that sense of awe at the momentous forces and vast distances involved?

BlackWeald: I adore his work, he is my favourite writer. Anything Lovecraftian you can throw at me and I’ll probably like it. But I have to agree with the general consensus that he isn’t technically the best writer, rather it’s the “universe” he created and the way he tells his stories, that’s what really resonates with me. It’s very much like what Hidetaka Miyazaki does with his games. You have to piece the puzzle yourself, and even then, many things are left ambiguous. Which is great, because you can put your own thoughts, fears, feelings into these stories, making them personal. Anything that’s too straightforward, without any room for imagination, well, those are just stories. Unlike these ambiguous works, which create a framework, then it’s up to you to fit yourself into that.

I think this is what Lovecraft gets right. Instead of spoon-feeding you something tangible that he finds scary, he rather makes you think about a concept that might kick your existential dread in. “The universe is incomprehensibly large, and compared to that, you are incomprehensibly small. What do you think about it?” or “Have you ever thought of ancient civilizations that were once thriving but now are buried underneath the soil?” These are more inspirational thoughts than anything.

I mean, one could say that Lovecraft himself made specific monsters, but I think even though we have a quite universally agreed representation of Cthulhu, it’s more about “What might lie beneath” than an actual monster.

Next to ambiguity, it’s important for me (either as a story-teller, or as a consumer) to actually take part in putting the story together, as opposed to just being told about the story. There is a very thin line between the two. Like, in a movie, when two dots should be connected, do you leave it up to the viewer to make that connection? You can give the viewer a flashback scene, or make a character say it out loud, but then the viewer does not actually participate in solving the mystery. But if you give them less, and let them figure it out, they will be like “Aha!” and it’s immediately more engaging.

Regarding how it’s tied to BlackWeald, I usually try to make my musical output ambiguous enough that there is always some room where the listeners can project themselves into. Some riddles to be solved, some connections to make yourself, something hidden, stuff that is not so obvious. This is why the song titles on The Fermi Exhibit are a bit shady. “Civilizations might be too far away from each other” not only sounds shit, but leaves no room to figure out what the song represents.

Of course it does not apply to all BlackWeald releases, e.g. Leonov and She and the Devil’s Sons follow a specific narrative, but I think it applies well for most of the others. Maybe on the “From Dust..” album the ambiguity went a bit too far and without the additional text, the framework of the album might not get through (the analogy between the timeline of a day and the timeline of a life). But e.g. with Sedna I tried to approach it in a Lovecraftian way. You know what happened, you know what it is capable of, but it’s up to you to imagine what it actually might be.

Casey: Why did you decide to form The Fermi Exhibit in the style of a museum exhibit, and what do the different sections represent?

BlackWeald: In short, if someone would have put a pistol to my head saying “You have to cut the album down to 2 hours!”, I would have chosen the first 13 tracks of the album. Fortunately I don’t have to tailor my output to any restrictions.

As a longer story, I started working on this album almost 3 years ago, right after 666 Minutes in Hell. As it happens often to me, a seemingly quick project turned into a huge monster. In a few weeks I found myself having 2000+ sound fragments and about 30 song concepts. Shaping it into finished songs seemed impossible and the weight of the project felt unbearable. So first I thought I’d slice the work up and have it released in a series of EPs. Then I got caught in the flow and during months of never-ending sessions, I finished everything at once.

When I saw that it turned out to be 8 hours long, I started cutting the fat off several songs and even threw away complete songs. I narrowed it down to 2 hours, having like a “best of” version of all the composed material, but I started missing many of the leftover material. I found myself listening to the “B-sides” more than the rest, so I just said “fuck it” and decided to keep quite a few of them. Today, I still have my own favourites in the more experimental, longer, less “traditional ambient” tracks. All that remains of this back-and-forth hassle is those two lines regarding the first 13 tracks being the “main hall” and the rest existing on the “gallery annex” of the exhibition.

Oh, and why an exhibition? Most of the stuff I release has some kind of narrative going through the whole album, but this one is among the few that is “just a bunch of tracks without any connection between them”, except for, of course, the overarching theme of the Fermi Paradox. My brain felt that I still needed to give the album a frame, which is this virtual exhibition, where each track is like a painting hanging on the wall, representing one solution to the Fermi Paradox.

Casey: When talking to The Dungeon in Deep Space, you explained that your music is created in a no budget, lo-fi kind of way, using an old PC, only using the integrated sound-card etc. Is this still the case, and what do you think that this minimalistic style of creation does for your creativity? I do a similar thing myself but it’s mainly to avoid overwhelm, perfectionism, and my OCD kicking my backside up and down all day long.

BlackWeald: Yeah, it’s still pretty much the case, although my PC aged 2 additional years, so it’s now 12 years old. Makes video rendering take ages. Although I bought the cheapest Behringer soundcard, so guitars and vocals can be recorded slightly more easily, but there are neither of them on The Fermi Exhibit.

The “no budget” nature is by my circumstances, not by my will. I’d love to have a dedicated room full of instruments and synths, having a top tier computer, etc, but that’s not my reality. Still, if you want to, you actually can compose and release with minimal gear and finances. Anyone saying otherwise is fooling themselves. My first few releases were made without a DAW, using only Audacity. Of course the methods used limit what the outcome can become. But, it is what it is.

Most of my favourite artists made music this way anyways. Sure, Swans has top tier gear, experience and several human talents behind them, but Dylan Carlson makes music almost all by himself, often with a single guitar only. Similarly, Hate Forest is practically one guy writing the best riffs ever and uses a drum machine. If my own favourites are often just “a dude with a guitar”, why would I fool myself thinking that gear matters the most.

I myself tend to overthink stuff by nature, so I have to keep pushing myself to accept “It’s good enough, move on!”. But also, restrictions can spark up creativity, whether they are artificial or not. So anyone planning a compilation work, feel free to ping me, as I love these kinds of works!

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Thanks so much to BlackWeald for his time spent answering my questions. If you would like to check out The Fermi Exhibit, you can find it on Bandcamp at this link. 

Stoic Interview: Daniel Riley

Daniel Riley is a personal development blogger with a fervent interest in productivity, health and philosophy. It is this latter area that brought us to this interview. Daniel has not only embraced Stoic philosophy in his life, but also went on to create Stoic Store UK, a website that offers people handy little reminder objects that he hopes will help them to deepen their experience of the philosophy, and ultimately, benefit their lives.

In this interview we cover how Daniel was first exposed to Stoic ideas, which book he found most helpful in bringing those ideas into his everyday life, and why he thinks a dose of Stoicism answers a need for the modern world.

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Casey: You created the Stoic Store UK website, and on your personal development website, you have a number of posts about how a variety of Stoic ideas have helped you with life. When were you first exposed to the Stoic philosophy and what were the elements of life that you thought it might improve for you?

Daniel: I was first introduced to Stoicism on the Tim Ferriss podcast. I had been fascinated by Tim and his work for a while, and the fact that he continuously recommended the philosophy as a tool to navigate modern life was enough for me to check it out. I absolutely loved all aspects of it, particularly its practical nature. I was generally interested in all areas of development then and there wasn’t a particular area that I hoped that Stoicism would improve. Luckily, I discovered that it is a tide that raises all boats anyway.

Casey: Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic is a book that you give great credit to for helping to change your life. Why do you think a book that takes the ‘daily reflection’ approach to change proved to be so useful for you, and what steps, if any, did you take to make sure that you kept the concept for the day alive in your mind or experience?

Daniel: The daily reflection approach is so effective, in my opinion, because it gives very small bits of wisdom for you to chew over at a time. I think some of the longer format content out there on Stoicism is great, but if it is read like a regular book and not mulled over for some time with regular reflection intervals, then many of the concepts and points are just read for momentary mental enjoyment and lost in the crowd. They don’t change anything in our actual lives, which we sometimes forget is the purpose of these sorts of books.

I actually still found it quite difficult to assimilate the Stoic ideas into my everyday life. Trying to remember them as thoughts or memories throughout the day I found to be quite disruptive and counter-productive. I was reading about inner peace but I was constantly disrupting my own inner peace trying hard to remember what Marcus Aurelius said about inner peace.

One of the reasons that I created Stoic Store UK and physical products was to solve this conundrum that I feel that many philosophy-enthusiasts face. A quick glance at a coin on your desk or a ring on your finger can bring that ‘a-ha’ remembrance, rather than trying to remember longer quotes or anything like that.

Casey: In an Indiehackers post, you explained that the Memento Mori (“Remember that you must die”) coin was the first that you designed when you created the Stoic Store UK in early 2020. This was due, you said, to the notion of Memento Mori having had the biggest impact on your life. How did your attitude to life change when you fully digested this notion, and was it a ‘lightening bolt’ type moment or did it take much pondering to bring it about?

Daniel: It was certainly a lot of pondering and exposure to the concept that helped it to become a regular part of my life. Even now I keep my Memento Mori coin on my desk everyday. In my experience, the reminder needs to be constant due to the fact that the whole of our lives - from the plans we make, to the holidays we plan, to the schedule we have - all assume that we are going to be here for a long time. That, of course, is never guaranteed and we can quickly slip into the assumption and all of the negative fallout from that.

Perhaps more powerful for me was the concept of Memento Mori not applied to my own life, but to the lives of others. I am lucky enough to have an amazing family and incredible friends. Remembering that every time I see them might be the last time I see them helps me to try and make every interaction more direct, present and ultimately, loving.

A few of the available products on The Stoic Store UK 

Casey: Since the release of your first coin, Stoic Store UK has expanded into all kinds of Stoic reminders and material, from medallions and t-shirts, to a Stoic teachings pack of exercise cards. In your own experience, and from what you’ve seen with your web store, how much of a thirst is there for Stoic wisdom in this current day and age, and on another level, in your opinion, how much would society benefit by embracing some of Stoicism’s concepts?

Daniel: I think that Stoicism is certainly becoming more popular as there are many more books being written about the philosophy, promotion of it from public figures and from people’s own experience, they generally find some amount of value in it.

I believe that the ‘thirst for Stoicism’ comes from a deeper thirst for some sort of meaning to our modern day lives, and it seems that in a lot of cases the Stoic philosophy resonates more deeply with people than alternatives for this thirst. Much of our culture is obsessed with materialism, gaining more stuff, and the plane on which many people live is extremely superficial. What I have found with other people interested in Stoicism as well as with my own experience, there comes a point where this superficiality no longer satisfies. There is a pull towards the deeper meanings of life, the bigger questions that need to be asked, and I think Stoicism does a great job in trying to tackle some of these questions.

I think society would hugely benefit from embracing some of Stoicism’s concepts. It is one of the most practical, down-to-earth philosophies that there is and its focus is on action, rather than on theory and hypothesis which often don’t create much change.

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Thanks to Daniel for taking the time to answer my questions.

You can read more from Daniel at his personal development website, at his Medium, and you can find some lovely Stoic products at Stoic Store UK.

Dark Ambient Interview: Jan Robbe

Jan Robbe is a composer, programmer, artist and sound designer, one with a love of broken rhythms, experimental electronic soundscapes, and the possibilities afforded by using technology in the creative process. Along with co-founding the netlabel Entity, Jan has various music projects to his name including UndaCova, Atomhead, Duncan Avoid and Diagnostic, the last of which is how we began chatting.

In this interview, Jan reveals how he got started with the tracker scene back in the 90s, the perils of getting stuck in one type of creative style, and who his inspirations are. He also tells us which software and hardware he likes to utilise, how he uses neural networks as an aid to his creations, and why he thinks that humans using A.I for creativity is a dance that benefits us greatly.

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Casey: The description of the latest album under your Diagnostic name, Morphology, tells the listener that you utilised things such as non-linear feedback loops and neural networks, among other approaches, when you created this album. Before we get to that though, in the 90’s, you experimented with tracker software on hardware that was far less powerful than that which is available today. What brought the young Jan Robbe to music creation, and what sort of software and hardware were you using back then?

Jan: Back then my interest in music creation coincided with the discovery of the tracker scene. Simply searching for free music on the internet, that was also small in download size (actually a factor at that time) led me to the Fasttracker / Impulse Tracker software that many artists were using. I remember being shocked by how good the music actually was, even though netlabels were putting it online for free, it was a true explosion of creativity.

So I used Fasttracker at first, but my music wasn't very good. It wasn't until Fruityloops came along, with the support of VST plugins, that things really got interesting. I understood that I didn't actually need to buy any sophisticated hardware to make pleasing sounds, in fact it was all pretty much free of charge.

Around 1999 was when I really caught the producing bug and decided I would make a track every day, with the sole mission of making something that I could be proud of, and perhaps also something that others would enjoy.

Casey: Committing to creating a track every day and doing it for the intrinsic feeling of satisfaction are both great ways to go about any sort of creative endeavour. Have there been periods where you fell out of love with the music or the process, for whatever reason, and are there any other mental approaches or techniques that you use to help to get yourself back on track?

Jan: Especially in the very beginning there were several moments where I simply gave up. It takes a lot of time to grasp all the concepts (synthesis, mixing, compression, fx, ...), but my love for music has always brought me back. By now it's my preferred creative outlet, I almost need it to feel sane, to catch emotional unease by the throat. Or simply for my own enjoyment.

There have been periods where I just lacked the time or inspiration, but I keep in mind that these are only temporary. Life gets in the way since it's never been a sustainable thing for me. Getting stuck in a singular style has also proven to be a problem, but changing up, learning new styles is just endless fun. There's always some artist that will inspire me to make something new.

Casey: Who were some of your biggest influences and inspirations when it came to the music that you wanted to create, and how might this have led to you co-founding the Entity website?

Jan: I remember feeling bothered with commercial electronic music being very repetitive and similar. There was a clear opportunity to just break things, you know, like broken rhythms, breakbeats, but not as a looping structure... I wanted it to just keep on breaking itself with endless variation. Aphex Twin seemed like one of the first to really execute this idea properly, with Squarepusher and Autechre working in parallel and really pushing the boundary of sound. Along came Venetian Snares, which really spoke to me as I always preferred the harder side of music.

But you know, life isn't all metal and violence, so in that regard, say around 2002, I found my counterpart in ambient and more specifically, dark ambient / drone music, just to cover a wider emotional spectrum, using music as therapy.

In 2003, with my friend Nico, we started a website to promote the experimental approach in electronic music. Something that wasn't genre-bound, but simply sounding good to our ears with the artists' authenticity shining through: Entity. This way we got to really know and discover artists, work with them and help them reach some listeners, however small the audience, it didn't matter much as we felt connected in our cause. We all know we are an odd bunch anyway.

Fast forward to today, the list of artists I appreciate just keeps on growing. In my current playlist there's KK Null, SØS Gunver Ryberg, Fernanda Martins, Alphaxone, ProtoU, Marco Monfardini, Oophoi and Ionosphere to name a few.

Casey: As with so much in the music world, the technological world has advanced a great deal in a few short decades. What have been some of the most exciting tools for you to use during that time, and what does your current composing/creation environment include?

Jan: Along came things like Native Instruments Reaktor, Absynth and granular synths (most notably the native Granulizer in FLStudio and Robert Henke's Granulator) which really took sampling to the next level. In later Atomhead works I got a bit obsessed with Rob Papen's Subboombass which served as the basis for a lot of my drums / bass sequences. UHE Bazille became my go-to modular emulator, and eventually got me into the analog modular domain.

For a couple of years now I've collected Eurorack modules and experimented with them, and while there is certainly a uniqueness to this approach, and improvisation is very gratifying, I find myself returning to the digital domain since I see myself more as a composer / programmer / sound designer than a performer.

Casey: For Morphology, you made use of machine learning to create the sounds it contains. What need does machine learning fulfil in your creative process, and how do you train the neural network to give you output that is in the ballpark of what you are looking for... Or do you use it more as an element of chaos and let it throw up things for you to spring off from?

Jan: I've always had an interest in how the brain works, how we perceive music and sound, so when the opportunity arises to experiment I gladly jump on the train. A.I is an important evolution, of which we are only scratching the surface. It is evolving at an enormous pace, it's actually hard to keep up, but using Google Colab's cloud computing service it became more convenient as some of the notebooks are easier to grasp and don't require an advanced degree in programming to use.

Using the Jukebox AI notebooks, there are a couple ways to go about it. One method is to prompt it with a piece of music, and have it "guess" what the continuation might be, based on a large pre-trained database of music or "model". When you are in a creative rut, it's obvious how this output could be used to your advantage since the results are entirely unpredictable.

For Morphology I found it more apt to train my own neural network, based on the material that I had already created, in order for it to produce variations of itself. Most of the time it tends to output a mess of unintelligible garble. But once in a while, something entirely unique comes out of it, something that also displays actual emotive content, that I wouldn't have created myself, though it still contains the gist of the sources so it would "fit" with the rest.

Casey: The other element mentioned in the description of Morphology is chaos, by way of non-linear feedback loops. I’d imagine that your neural network’s output produced plenty of chaos that also made it into the track. How important was it for you to have some chaos in Morphology, why does it appeal to you, and why are non-linear feedback loops a fine place to find it?

Jan: Chaos is not just a kind of randomness, it's best understood in terms of Chaos Theory, a chapter in System Dynamics, which covers emergent complexity.

Using modular synths, chaotic feedback systems can be quite easily achieved. My favourite method is to patch the output of an oscillator into a filter, then feed it back into the oscillator (SYNC or FM inputs). Many strange noises will ensue and it doesn't take a lot for it to go completely haywire, going off on its own tangents (simply automate the filter cutoff or something).

There's more methods, for example there are modules which can create Lorenz Attractors or similar chaotic functions. They can act like an LFO, without exactly repeating themselves. So it's non-repetitive, much like a non-periodic tiling (e.g. Escher or Penrose), it tends to sound more interesting, alive, unpredictable, than something which simply repeats itself.

Casey: Alongside your music creation projects, you’ve long had an interest in generative design, making use of its concepts when it comes to your fractal computer artwork, and in your 2014 game Hyperspace Invaders. At the moment, a key element seems to be the human involvement in training or assessing what the software outputs, making sure that it achieves a certain task or function. What advancements in areas such as machine learning, would you most like to see with regards to things that you might currently find restrictive or a struggle, and do you have any concerns about the paths that A.I might take us down when it comes to the creation of art in whichever form?

Hyperspace Invaders Screenshot

Jan: I can't wait for these systems to become faster and more convenient. I don't see a problem for creativity, quite the contrary. Humans will adapt to this technology, like a dance. I've heard someone say that "the code is the art", and while I agree, I also still think that selecting and applying the output are creative choices. For example, text to image, where you prompt the neural network with keywords (like "a cat in a bag travelling into another dimension")... it generates a picture based on your description. It could be the final form. Or it could inspire you to make a game or movie concept or anything you can imagine. Imagination is limitless. A.I is simply an extra tool for us to employ. An extremely powerful one at that.

Casey: As someone with a finger in so many creative pies, what does the immediate future hold for your creative endeavours?

Jan: I'm focusing on sound design and composition for video games, at least I will try and see if that's a feasible thing to find a job in. I want to check out more A.I. scripts, both in audio & image/video, it's very exciting.

Perhaps at some point I will have another stab at a mini Hyperspace Invaders iteration (hyper casual), if the situation permits it.

I'm finishing a flashcore EP with my friend Eelke of Anti-Narcose Records which will probably be my next release.

I definitely want to make more ambient-style things too, both in collab and solo. I would love to dedicate more time to Entity. But as you can probably tell, that's a lot for one plate, so, don't wait up, just have a check now & then :)

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Thanks so much to Jan for taking the time to chat with me. If you’d like to read more about Morphology, I’ll be writing and posting my impressions in the coming days. (Casey from the future says looky here).

You can find Jan’s creations in a variety of places, such as Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Facebook. You’ll find his digital art (such as the picture below) at FRAMEofMIND, and the netlabel at Entity. You an also find Hyperspace Invaders on Steam.

Catharsis by FRAMEofMIND

Dark Ambient Interview: Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse

Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse is a dark ambient musician whose music features unnerving atmospheres, spacious claustrophobia, and impressions of murk and horror that provide a soothing escape from the mundane. His YouTube channel has videos with views in the millions, and his music is often used as the backing for creepy story readings and video games.

In the interview below, Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse shares why dark ambient music is an escape for him, and why dark things can exert such a pull. He shares some of the elements of his creative process, such as the tools he uses and the feelings that he is aiming for. He also discusses some of the music that most influenced his own tastes, and how he grew his YouTube channel over the years.

I hope you enjoy reading this interview as much as I enjoyed learning about him.

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Casey: In your 2019 interview with Readersvoice.com, you revealed that you started making music when you were 12, and that you made your first ambient tracks around that time. What do you think drew the young ICA into creating music at that time in your life, which other styles/genres did you experiment with, and what do you think eventually brought you into focussing on the dark ambient genre in recent years?

Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse: Music was an escape for me. Creating, also, was an escape. With the exception of movies, I've always created my own forms of every media I've enjoyed. When I was young I was very much into visual arts, first, but that went by the wayside when I lost all the comics I collected. Music felt more like a career possibility, too. Also, music was more of an escape for me. I could lay down and listen to it in the dark for hours and just zone out. A more passive experience, you might say.

I think my best memories of being a kid were when I was entirely alone in an empty house, with no responsibilities, and I was just creating or consuming media. I'd say that there's been aspirational quality in my music, in the sense that it's an audible way to access a better reality. Or unreality, rather. I want to make music that sounds like the world I'd rather live in.

I've done a lot of different styles over the years, but I tend to focus on minimal and hypnotic things. Nothing has really felt true to myself but dark ambient, however. Well, harsh noise is something I also enjoy and feel a kinship with, but I'm not really satisfied with the results when I make it. I think it lacks the textural subtleties I want. And, realistically, it's not healthy for me to make anymore, considering I already have a little tinnitus going on.

Casey: Music certainly seems to have therapeutic power, whether helping someone to escape from mundane reality, or a particular issue that is dragging them down. Was there a particular period in your past where you felt that consuming or creating music, whether dark ambient or not, probably saved your life, and if so, is it something you can speak about a little?

Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse: Music definitely gave me something to do when I really needed distractions. Also, I think having some of kind skill to hone was also useful. There were many times when music provided an oasis of escape. I prefer people hear my music in light of their own interpretation and experiences, so I don't want to get into specifics, but a lot of my sound comes from very dark times. Even better than the distracting aspects, I think making music allowed me to do something with my inner poison rather than just letting it erode my mind. I suspect that's true of a lot of art. It's an escape, a distraction and also a form of sublimation.

Also, a lot of times music has allowed me to deal with negative emotions in a way that gave them a sense of "place" or "context" rather than them being just these jagged, terrible things. A type of self-communication. Many musicians have said things I felt, but more eloquently, and their eloquence gave me more clarity. A good example, to me, is Chris Cornell. I think he has one of the best voices in music and there's so many songs of his that seem to embody my life. It may be overplayed by now, but when I first heard Black Hole Sun around age ten, it was like a religious experience. I think it was the first time I heard a song that made it okay to wish for the destruction of all things, including myself. Socially, it probably had a bad effect on me and increased my desire to be a delinquent, but it felt really good to hear. It was honest. Before I heard stuff like Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Tool, etc. I only heard my mom's religious music, Michael Jackson and Billy Ray Cyrus. And both were way too hopeful for my actual temperament. Hearing Grunge for the first time gave me access to a whole new approach to music.

Later I got more into extreme forms of music, dark ambient being one, but I think the same principle applies. Being able to aesthetically reconcile, and embrace, one's own demise, and the demise of everything, is useful, to say the least.

Casey: I feel the same way about dark ambient music, in the way that it feels true to my own self. I think, for me, it stems from being so afraid of the dark, or the things that might lurk in it, when I was younger. Now, when I hear a dark ambient track that inspires awe with rumbling drones and strange scratches, it feels like I’m immersing myself in the beauty of the thing that used to scare me. A letting go maybe. What feelings or impressions do you most enjoy when listening to dark ambient music, and do you have a dark ambient track or album that you’ve listened to more than any others?

Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse: I relate to dark ambient and all "horror"-themed media in the same way. I suspect the concept of a "counterphobic attitude" probably describes some of the appeal of art with dark themes. Not all of it, but there's something psychologically satisfying about getting close to the things that frighten, sadden and agonize oneself, but without them being real. Symbolic or abstract things are a way to do this. I would be constantly interested in dark fictional media even while very young while, at the same time, trying desperately to escape the real darkness and threats that were in my life.

Brian Eno's Neroli is the dark ambient piece I've listened to the most. He called it "thinking music," I believe. It's not the most distinguished piece, but it's wickedly effective.

There's a few songs I'd like to mention, also, which will give an insight into how I formed my sound. They are:

Last Ap Roach by Squarepusher.
Wildlife by Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
Flowered Knife Shadows by Harold Budd.

Of these, Flowered Knife Shadows is almost up there with Eno's Neroli. The music of Sunn O))) and Thomas Koner's works like Daikan, Teimo and Permafrost are hugely influential, too. After hearing these works, you can see how nothing I do is very original. It's a recreation of stuff I've most enjoyed.

I'd say dark ambient takes me to a place I'd much rather be. A world without people or things. Just large, empty buildings, barren mountains, gray skies. When I played Doom a lot as a kid, I wish I lived there. I would see the backgrounds and the sky and it was just so much better than anything else. I'd also see artist's depictions of the early earth, before life evolved, and those always seemed much better.

A weird horror writer I like, Thomas Ligotti, spoke of the aesthetics of decay. That's also something I'm very into. Not the decay of organisms, but old buildings decaying, old objects. Moth and rust, corrupting it all. I've had the pleasure of exploring such buildings before and there's always a peaceful, dark sense to them. Same with natural landscapes where there aren't many people. Old photographs, too, are very interesting to me.

In many of my videos, I try to have images that represent what the music sounds like to me. Not all of them, but a lot of the desolate images are very much a visual parallel to the sounds.

If my nausea could handle VR, I'd try to stay in places that looked like that as much as possible.

Casey: Something else that you said in the Readersvoice.com interview is a remark about how you make your dark ambient music, calling it a “very mechanical and unintuitive process”. I really liked your honesty in describing your process in this way, as in the age of social media, it’s so easy to be tempted into embellishing or overcomplicating things in an effort to gain clout, or mystique, or whatever. When you’re exploring and manipulating sounds, how do you know when you’ve found something that feels right, that seems to be what you are looking for, and how often are you surprised by the things that emerge?

Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse: With my music now, I just polish it until it sounds addictive. When the song sounds like something I could listen to for hours, then I know it's done. It's really as simple as that.

I'm part of the audience when I create, but, for example, when I do visual art, the main goal is to see how distortion changes the feel of an image. In the same way, it's the effects and distortions and blemishes that form the addictive and attractive qualities of the dark ambient. I especially do this with my project, Death on Cassette. With that, I wanted to make something even more personally rewarding. It aligns with my aesthetics even more so than Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse, usually. At least lately. I'm often surprised by what emerges.

To clarify about the unintuitiveness of it, though, I would say it's not at all like playing an instrument, which I see as more intuitive and interactive. In the way I create, it's more like working with images. Taking a single image and juxtaposing it with other images, or decaying and distorting and filtering the image until new qualities are seen in it. It's more detached and cerebral than coming from a place of feeling. It's construction rather than expression.

Casey: What equipment or software do you currently use when creating your dark ambient tracks, what does your creative workflow tend to look like, and how do you deal with things such as motivation, energy management etc.?

Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse: I use FL Studio, Ambient Grains, Ambient by Audio Bulb and Audacity, primarily. The workflow is always the same:

1. Start with a simple motif. Could be a drone, or a bit of noise. Something that sounds good.

2. Slowly add in other sounds that complement it, or distort it through effects.

3. Keep doing this until the desired result is achieved.

It really is not complicated. I have done much more complicated music before and this is nowhere near as involved.

Motivation is never a problem. I monitor my mental states, constantly. If I feel like it's time to make music, and I have time, then I make it. It's a compulsion. I have to create things. I'll stop when I'm dead. I may not do music forever, but I'll be doing something. I think if people find trouble being motivated to create art (of any kind), they're probably not cut out for it.

Saying that, a lack of motivation may come from someone not being really clear to themselves about what they want. There's a difference between thinking you want something and really wanting it. If the sounds are compelling, I'll be motivated to make more of them. Even though I can technically do more complex and "normal" stuff, I just don't feel the need or interest.

Energy management is harder to deal with, though. I tend to be lethargic or irritated a lot of the time. I don't have nearly as much energy as I'd like. So, when I feel like I have the energy to do something, I always do it. I don't know when I'll get another chance.

Casey: Your YouTube channel currently gains around 300,000 views and 1,000 subs per month, and certain of your videos sit at over one million total views. Have you made use of any particular strategies for growing your channel, and what do you think about the general appetite for dark ambient out in the big wide world? I ask this second part as someone who finds it incredibly rare to meet someone who has even heard of the genre.

Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse: When it comes to growing a channel, the best strategy I've employed is make a video that a lot of people will click on. It's an algorithm game, really. YouTube controls your reach. That's just a fact. So, you have to play their game. There's no getting around it. Something simple and direct like "Nuclear Winter" did great. Simple and direct usually does, so long as the image is good. I don't do it with every video, but it's helpful.

That all said, growing a channel is a very slow process. G. M. Danielson made a video about me very early on and I immediately started getting more views. I'm eternally grateful to him for that. Other narrators like Lets Read also used my audio early on. I advertised that narrators could use my sounds in their videos, royalty free, and that definitely helped my work spread. I think a lot of artists start out asking for too much money and being too controlling of their work. I like Creepy Pastas and audio narration things, so it's just cool to me that I can be a part of that. But even beyond that, it's a smart move to get one's name out there.

As far as the general appetite for dark ambient, I don't know what I think, really. It might get more popular. It might get less popular. It's really hard to say. I think, though, that ambient music in general is becoming more popular. Even "lo fi beats for study" is technically used as a form of ambient music, in the sense that Brian Eno defined "ambient". YouTube makes it easier. So, while the interest in "dark" ambient may have an ebb and flow over time, I think ambient music in general is here to stay. Or, rather, people will be using instrumental music in more ambient ways. It will become more common as a way to enhance other activities.

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Thanks very much to Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse for taking the time to answer my questions.

You can find the dark ambient of Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse and his other project Death on Cassette on Bandcamp:

https://ironcthulhuapocalypse.bandcamp.com/

https://deathoncassette.bandcamp.com/

On YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/c/IronCthulhuApocalypse/featured

And also by searching on platforms such as Spotify, iTunes, Amazon and Google Play.

You can also read my review of one of his Death on Cassette releases: The Dead Dreamer Tapes.

 Dark Ambient & VR: An Interview with Phantom Astronaut

Dark ambient music creates incredible moods and a sense of immersion. Virtual reality, in the right hands, can do the same. When the world of dark ambient meets the technology of VR, the experience can be astounding. Sadly, I’ve not experienced VR, but you only have to read or watch others to see that it can be a powerful playground. With that in mind, in the coming months, I will be posting a series of interviews with creators who straddle the worlds of dark ambient and virtual reality. This is the first of those interviews, and it’s with Phantom Astronaut, aka Dekker Dreyer.

Dekker Dreyer is a man that wears many creative hats. He composes dark ambient soundscapes as Phantom Astronaut, he creates and directs immersive VR horror films, and he also writes Amazon top 20 selling novellas. As a first interview subject, he certainly ticks all the boxes. Below, we talk about how he came to the idea of merging his art with his music, the roll of dreams, the intimacy of VR, along with the influence of horror, folklore and the occult. I hope you enjoy it.

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Casey: In an article on Entrepreneur.com, your view that VR is about a feeling, and not a narrative is one of the topics covered. Dark ambient music also, for the most part, seems to be about the same thing. When and how were you first exposed to dark ambient, or the idea of it, and why do you think melding dark ambient and VR together is such a powerful combination?

Dekker: I think we've all been exposed to ambient music in one way or another without realizing it. I remember being very small and hearing an orchestra warming up and that chaos-- those tones all blending together-- it stuck with me as musical.

One of my earliest projects was a short film to accompany a movie called Naqoyqatsi, this ambient film scored by Philip Glass. That was probably my first head-on collision with ambient music.

My creative partner Cyr3n pushed me much deeper though. She turned me on to sound baths and places like the Integratron out in the California desert, and the La Monte Young's Mela Foundation in New York.

I took all of that in and started wondering how I could integrate this music with the kinds of themes I explore in my art and I stumbled onto this rich universe of "dark ambient".

I approach all of my projects from the same starting point; I want the audience to experience something emotionally more than intellectually.

I create things that you'll play at midnight, laying on your back, getting lost in the textures. Dark ambient, to me, works best when you feel it, physically. I love playing in domes and halls and places where the audience can lay back and let the bass radiate through them. It's a very physical music, it engulfs you, just like VR. I also pair my music with visuals so it's all part of a single sensory experience.

Casey: At the end of 2019, you released an immersive visual album, Lucid, under your music name Phantom Astronaut. In Lucid, the experiencer gets to explore five dreamscapes that bring about emotions from the darker side of life. The audio-visual experience also invites the person to ponder parts of their own morality. Which is the dreamscape that you are most pleased with, and what was the inspiration behind it?

Dekker: I can't play favorites on Lucid, I love all of it, but I can talk about how it came about.

Did you know that we don't really know what dreams are? Science, as of this moment, doesn't know for sure why we dream. There's also no clear universal definition of consciousness. That fascinates me.

Artists and philosophers have been preoccupied with dreams since the dawn of time. We live a quarter or more of our lives in the dreamscape and yet we can't share that between each other. It’s so lonely to think about that. The road to VR is paved with cobblestones made of history's dream journals. For the first time we're able to create environments that allow others to walk into our dreams... it's very intimate. I'm still not sure how I feel about that aspect of it.

Casey: It is certainly an intimate notion, but at the least, if you have created something to show one of your dreamscapes, you are giving permission for someone to visit and experience that. Are you concerned that someone might learn something about you that maybe even you aren’t aware of, or do you think it boils down to more general hopes and fears that someone will “get” what you hope to convey from it?

Dekker: The nature of privacy is changing and I think that humans have this inherent alienation that can't be soothed. No matter how well I know someone I can never truly know them in the way they know themselves. Communication and art and storytelling is a manifestation of our desire to be closer. I don't believe that someone exploring one of my dreamscapes will walk away with the same interpretation as me, so I just hope they find something that's meaningful to them in that shared space.

Casey: In an interview with Voyage LA, you revealed how you thought that your experience and admiration of the Disney World theme-park might have informed your desire to create your own virtual realities. What was it about the experience of being in that place that you think appealed to your world-building inclinations, and how has this merged with your love of horror and folklore?

Dekker: I end up talking about Disney a lot. It's funny how that's a recurring theme in my life. I want to be very clear because sometimes people conflate my interest in theme park design as an interest in how Disney chooses to use the medium. I'm inspired by this brilliant moment in history where humans have decided that they want so deeply to live in alternate realities for days or weeks at a time that they'll pay extraordinary prices for it. I see that as beautiful. I see that as a willingness for us to collectively embrace imagined worlds. That's what inspired me about the Disney parks.

I see that desire for people to experience environments and characters and I answer that from my own perspective which is informed by paganism, cults, the occult, and the supernatural. These themes, in our majority Christian culture, happen to be connected to horror. Many fairy-tales or myths or folk traditions are firmly in the horror genre when examined through our current sensibilities.

As for why I'm attracted to these themes? I'm not sure. It could be about embracing the powerlessness of humanity on an individual level when up against nature. We're very fragile creatures and our main strength has always been our ability to create social groups. When you watch a horror movie or experience a VR world you're inherently alone in the forest. That position tells you a lot about yourself.

Dekker Dreyer

Casey: While talking to the Good Men Project, you raised the issue of how art is emotional communication, but that in most forms, it is filtered in some way, and that the effect is easily broken. Why is virtual reality such a powerful platform for creating more immersive experiences, and, if one stands out, what was a time when you felt that you were most immersed while engaging with any variety of art?

Dekker: I think this comes from the element of isolation I mentioned earlier. We're all a child, standing at the top of the basement stares, timidly holding a flashlight.

Unfortunately, I have a hard time becoming immersed in any virtual worlds anymore. That's what happens to anything when you know how it's built. I can tell you about the strongest reactions I've seen in VR though. I was showing a series I created called The Depths, a horror series that takes place in a capsized ship, and one person screamed and threw the headset across the room. They were crying and couldn't speak. I felt proud of that. I'd never seen someone react to a movie like that. If I had to guess why it was, it was a combination of isolation plus the claustrophobia of that rising water and darkness... music designed to make you feel uneasy... throw a creature into that scenario and it transports people so completely, that their bodies react.

Casey: The various viewing and production elements of The Depths came together very nicely to cause that tearful scream. Do you think that, as VR technology improves, it will be easier, or more common, to cause that kind of emotional reaction in the audience, and if so, how would you like to see it evolve?

Dekker: I don't think that any tool makes the creative process easier. Our conversation with media is always changing, so that means that the audience will come to expect something different as technology and culture change. I imagine hearing this same question when the first films were being publicly shown and people were running for cover when they saw a train coming at them on the screen. It won't be easier, just different.

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Thanks so much to Dekker for taking the time to answer my questions. You can find him at his website, and you can find his many creations through any of the links above.

Dark Ambient Interview: Scott Lawlor

Anyone who knows Scott Lawlor will be all too aware of how prolific he is with his music releases. It’s a good thing that his music is well worth listening to! Scott kindly agreed to share a few words with me in this interview. We touch on how he can be so prolific, the challenges of composing music as a blind person, the virtue of creative constraint versus total freedom, and the most mundane sound he feels that he has ever recorded. Thanks for joining us and I hope you enjoy the interview.

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Casey: Scott, even though I am familiar with how prolific you are with your music releases, it still surprises me just how frequently I see that you’ve released a new album on Bandcamp. What are the main factors in your life, that you think may contribute to how you can achieve such a release rate, how does this current rate compare with periods earlier in your musical life, where you felt the need to take a break from things, and what was different between the two periods?

Scott: I am a stay-at-home dad and since my kids are in school, I have a lot of time to compose and release music. Some years have been busier than others regarding actual number of releases but through all of that time, my situation has been the same.

I've got many more albums on our network that I've recorded over the last 7 years, so if I quit writing new music right now, I'd still have releases for a long time to come. I'm always working on new music so the odds of catching up to myself are astronomically impossible at this point.

Casey: As a blind composer, I know that you occasionally tweet about accessibility issues with the tools or apps that you want to use. What kinds of accessibility issue do you find the most irritating, which apps or tools do you use that you feel handle things really well, and more broadly, what is your usual process for composing a new track, which tools do you tend to use the most etc.?

Scott: Well, for a long time, I had a Roland fa08, Sound Forge and Audacity as my main way of composing music and though this set of tools allowed me to create many albums over the 6 years that I used them, they weren't as accessible as the current tools I utilize.

The menus on the Roland didn't talk and I was limited in how I could shape sound from within the synth, so this lead me to using things like Audacity for shaping recorded sound from the Roland into something totally different. Even though it was an interesting experience to do things this way and I got quite proficient after developing such a streamlined workflow, the results from one project to another weren't as different sonically as I thought they'd be.

As an example, Paul Stretch is a tool that I used to use quite a lot in my early work and though it can create some interesting results, if you change the default values, it's something I hardly ever use anymore, or, if I do use it, it's part of something with a good many more layers and elements mixed in.

I think part of the reason PS has such a bad rap in the ambient community is probably because people didn't change the values, and just released things that were run through it with no further processing after the fact. Just look at all the videos of popular songs that were run through this plugin and uploaded to YouTube as an example.

The same can be said for other effects inside the box and so the point of all this is to say that, though for me, this method worked for a while, it's actually pretty easy to tell which effects I used, particularly on the noise projects that I've done over the years.

Now that I've said all that, the tools that I use now are totally different and they're accessible with speech so it's much easier to manipulate sound and add interesting effects where this wasn't possible before. I use Komplete Kontrol from Native Instruments, and various third party instruments by companies like Soundiron, Soniccouture, Luftrum, Sudden Audio and, of course other things from Native Instruments themselves.

The most time consuming part of composing now is deciding on which sound to use. Sometimes it takes me longer to find the sound I want than it does to create the actual work in question.

Casey: In an interview with the From Corners Unknown podcast, you touched on the topic of how constraints can often aid creativity, talking about how contests like the ambientonline.org forum’s One Sample Dare Challenge can give creating a different focus and challenge you in different ways. How much constraint do you enjoy before you feel it becomes a true hindrance, how often might you sit and compose with no purpose in mind, and the theme later suggests itself, and do you prefer one approach over the other?

Scott: Most of the time, I compose without constraint, just letting the improvisation go where it will as I play on the keyboard and upon playback over time, a theme or concept will come to me for the music. I do prefer this approach but am thinking of revisiting the ambientonline.org One Sample Dare challenges since I have new effects, software and hardware that are much more accessible.

Casey: In the aforementioned From Corners Unknown interview, you talked about some of the sounds that you recorded, including workmen breaking your house windows, at the time that it was your turn to submit the sample for the One Sample Dare Challenge. I was wondering, what is the strangest or most obscure sound that you can ever remember sampling, and which mundane thing have you recorded, that gave you the most surprising and satisfying sound, once you started experimenting with it?

Scott: The most mundane thing I've ever recorded was the spin cycle of my old washing machine and I took that recording and created an album called Spin Drone, which, looking back, isn't really that interesting but some people really seem to love that album.

I think the most interesting thing I recorded was different objects in our old clothes dryer which I then used for an album called the Ambient Series 1, Symphony for Prepared Dryer. I put many different things in the dryer including silverware, wooden alphabet blocks, shoes, coins, and even sweet potatoes, recorded from 19 seconds to 3 minutes, depending on the item and then processed those sounds to create the album.

My wife wouldn't allow me to put her pipe wrench or glass in the appliance and you can hear her promptly rejecting both ideas in the last track of the album which is the documentary for the project.

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Thanks very much to Scott for answering my questions. If you’d like to find Scott’s music, you can find him on Bandcamp at this link.

 Dark Ambient Interview: Mombi Yuleman

I first became aware of dark ambient artist Mombi Yuleman when our paths crossed on Twitter and he sent me a code for his Storm-Maker Red Horse album. Since that time, I’ve come to appreciate Mombi’s particular brand of dark ambient music, something that I’d describe as part retro horror soundtrack and part “spirit of Halloween in a bottle”. Mombi kindly agreed to an interview, the result of which you can read below. We take in such topics as John Carpenter’s soundtracks, our joint experience of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, religion, music as a means of communication, and of course, dark ambient.

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Casey: You are known for your monster-fuelled, mysterious dark ambient albums, but your music didn’t begin with the genre. How did you discover ambient, and the dark ambient genre in particular, what do you enjoy about creating this style of music, and what role does your love of horror soundtracks play in the way that you create?

Mombi: I got into music production over ten years ago with an industrial project called "Junkyard Apocalypse". I was really inspired by artists like Front Line Assembly and Dismantled but more than anything I was inspired by film scores and soundtracks. I grew up listening to composers like Jerry Goldsmith, Ennio Morricone, and most of all John Carpenter. The soundtrack stuff is what I mostly had playing in my ears from as far back I remember. So the cinematic element was very important to me when creating my own music.

After I created an album and some demos, I pretty much dropped "Junkyard Apocalypse" and music as a whole for many years for various reasons. During this period of time I was heavy into creating industrial sculptures and housewares out of found objects. I called this project "Junkyard Avenue". I had a YouTube channel at the time showing how I created these weird lamps and art decor out of metal pipes, pulleys, and giant gears. Much of it had a steampunk theme. I'd listen to a lot of those soundtracks I grew up with while building artwork, but I remember specifically trying to find soundscapes that sounded like a factory in the distance, with steam and metal clangs to further enhance the atmosphere when I was creating these things at home. I found out about an industrial noise act called Stratvm Terror that I fell in love with, and that's when I discovered some mixes by Cryo Chamber on YouTube as well. This would have been circa 2012 or so.

After some years, the "Junkyard Avenue" project fell through because I was moving so much, and carrying hundreds of pounds of found objects from state to state is exhausting. It was sad because I didn't have a passion project anymore. So, after some time I started going to music festivals. Particularly psytrance parties. These events inspired me to get into music again. While, I wasn't attempting to make psytrance music, I thought I would get into weird cinematic influenced EDM again. I branded myself as Mombi Yuleman and churned out a six track EDM EP. It was a good way of getting familiar with a DAW again. I had a lot of trouble getting my ideas together for a second release.

I was listening to all kinds of genres within the underground dance scene. Stuff like dark techno, psytrance, psychill. Thing is, rather than take a genre and really learn it and craft pieces that fell within those genres, I would take ideas from those genres and form my own EDM sound. And in all honesty, many of those tracks were never sounding quite right to me. Too many ideas and not enough focus. One of the things that was recurring within all of these sounds though, was a cinematic mood driven element. My girlfriend would put on a lot of ambient music at night time to sleep to. Some of these tracks were often quite bleak and mood driven. Even cinematic. That's when a light bulb went off and I realized that's the kind of thing I should have been taking a stab at all along! Dark mood driven cinematic music with no real necessity to follow a predictable pattern, rhythm or theme. Soundtracks to films that don't exist. Of course! I totally wanted Mombi Yuleman to represent my own unique take on this whole cinematic dark ambient thing, and dropped dance music altogether under the Mombi name.

Casey: In an interview with horror writer David Allen Voyles, you discussed your Witch-Works album, saying that ever since you got your first synthesizer, you always wanted to make an album like Witch-Works, and then adding that you could probably die happy having now made it. That’s quite a statement! When you listen back to Witch-Works, which elements are you the most fulfilled by, the components that you listen to and know that you nailed it. Also, which pieces of equipment do you most enjoy playing with when it comes to your music creation?

Mombi: Yes, as mentioned, I love listening to film scores, and to the film scores of John Carpenter, specifically the ones where he collaborated with Alan Howarth, had a sound that I was fond of more than any other synth based soundtrack artist at the time. I wanted to compose a soundtrack with a Halloween theme that was in alignment with that same sound but give it my own spin and incorporate some subtle orchestral and industrial elements here and there. I tip my hat to some other horror composers in that one but it's mostly John Carpenter influenced. Jars of Spiders, Dance of the Scarecrows and Through the Pumpkin Swamp are certainly tracks I feel particularly fond of. Leaves is also a sorrowful track that I feel really embraces some of my own inner turmoil.

I really only work with VST's rather than hardware synths, even though I had a Roland JP-8000 for years but it was unfortunately damaged during one of my many moves. I use Omnisphere in almost all of my work. There's just so much I love about the sounds within that magnificent synth. I tend to use a lot of programs by Native Instruments as well, the Symphony Series comes to my aid where appropriate. I lack the knowledge on how to orchestrate full blown symphonies, but using those instruments as elements with a soundtrack or a dark ambient album is so much fun.

Casey: In one of your YouTube videos, you said that you make music because you feel that your life depends on it, with the spectre of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) looming over you. What are some of the ways that your OCD has manifested in the past, and is your creative practise a refuge from the OCD, or does it sometimes encroach on your music composing as well? I ask as a fellow OCD sufferer, and for me, OCD always seems to attach to the things that I care about.

Mombi: OCD made itself manifest in my life at a very young age. It started out by washing my hands over and over. Eventually as years passed, guilt over intrusive thoughts had me performing seemingly bizarre rituals over and over, like running up and down stairs, or I'd stare at walls for hours while I think a certain pattern of thoughts in a particular arrangement, until it felt right to let them go. I spent the majority of my teen years going through this. It wasn't until my early twenties, when I left the town I grew up in that the extreme side of OCD started to lose it's grasp. When I discovered that I no longer felt a need to have religion in my life, things got a lot better as well.

Though I still suffer forms of OCD, it's not nearly as bad as it used to be and I mostly deal with anxiety and the occasional existential crisis these days. There are times where OCD rears it's ugly head during the production process, to some degree it's beneficial. I'm never completely satisfied with my work. I often re-render files over and over to get them to where I feel they are just right, when perhaps the sounds were perfectly fine before. But this is also where I feel OCD benefits me to some degree, as long as I'm not tearing my hair out over it. A lot of work goes into an album and my OCD mostly seems to help me strive to be better for the most part. If it gets out of hand and I'm stressing too much, I recognize this and I take a break from making music altogether. I try to come back to it with fresh ears and usually it's not nearly as bad as I thought it was. I am often quite pleased with where I ended up after I've taken breaks.

Casey: I’m a big fan of taking breaks from creative work too. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve hated something I’ve written, but after returning to it with a clearer head, I often wonder why I was so critical of it. You mentioned religion, which I know can be a miserable subject to OCD sufferers that happen to suffer with scrupulosity issues. Which religion did you engage with or belong to, and how do you think this interacted with your OCD tendencies? I know that when I was struggling with my OCD at one of my worst points, my interest/mild belief in the occult wasn't particularly helpful. I still have a mild belief/interest, but I'm now more interested in perspectives that simplify or ease my life, rather than make it more complicated!

Mombi: I grew up in a very traditional southern baptist Christian bubble. The fear of Hell was instilled in me at a very young age. The idea of eternity in Hell really messed with me and I'm so happy I became a free thinker in my mid twenties. I understand how if you're constantly validated in a fear-based belief system by your family and friends it's nearly impossible to leave that. A belief system that makes you feel guilty for questioning it can be extremely hard to turn your back on.

When I left religion behind a lot of my OCD left with it. I was no longer afraid of constantly offending a deity I no longer had faith in and I'm so much happier for it. I love philosophy and obviously have an affinity for the occult. Though, because of the monumental task of overcoming the Christian belief system, I've learned to question everything and raise an eyebrow to anything that relies on me having to have faith. Existence, reality, consciousness and the cosmos are a true wonder to behold. Religion, to me, dumbs it down. Reality is much stranger and much more marvellous than fiction!

Casey: In the same YouTube video in which you mentioned your life depending on your music creation, you also mentioned that you are an introvert and that music is your way of communicating with people. What do you hope to communicate, by way of your music, and does the music sometimes reflect something back to you that you didn’t know about yourself previously?

Mombi: In group settings, I don't know how to really communicate. People can be going back and forth and I just don't know how to chime in. I'm the quiet one in a group and I prefer to listen whilst forming and keeping opinions to myself. Creating music gives me a way to boldly speak in a way an extrovert might. I hope the feelings evoked in the music can bring about thoughts that are both fantastic and relatable to those who listen. As in the case of my album, Storm-Maker Red Horse, I had the idea of an album where the subject matter was about a perpetual storm where a tornado just continued to grow and ravished the land until who knows when, as the listener becomes a victim themselves by the end of it. Indeed though, this particular album was much more about my own inner turmoil, depression and uncertainty that I was going through at the time. I do feel like there are folks who can listen to that one and relate to the chaos within.

Certainly there are themes and melodies that are born that I didn't know I've had in me but are very reflective of me upon listening. There's one in particular, a favourite progressive piece of mine written for an abandoned album concept and now I just can't figure out what to release it on. It starts out bombastic, goes into drone, then turns into a piano piece. Truly very progressive cinematic stuff and one that is very "me" that I had no idea was in me. It's been waiting to be released for years but I won't release it until it neatly fits on an EP or album or something. But for the most part, I'd say that I feel more relief that I'm actually able to finally get some of these sounds and melodies out of my head and into the world.

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Thanks again to Mombi for providing such fascinating and in-depth answers to my questions. If you’d like to check out Mombi’s music, you can find him on Bandcamp and YouTube, among other places. You might also like to join his Facebook Group: Unearthing Your Internal Monsters, a group created to bring anyone who struggles with life, and who uses their creative endeavours to cope with it, together.