Posted in Whathaveyou on March 26th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Whatever else Fimir might do going from their demos to the recording of what will be their Argonauta Records-delivered first LP, I hope they keep the same guitar tone. Take a listen to the track “Temple of Madness” streaming below and tell me if you don’t hear an undercurrent of black metal in that initial riff. Vocals drone over top effectively, and they work their way into a cool chug, but you can really get a sense of perspective coming from the band, four of whom are ex-members of Church of Void. That cut was put on Bandcamp early last year, so if I’m late to the party on it, sorry, but it’s pretty awesome and with the unveiling of the album title Tomb of God, I think they give a pretty fair look at where they’re coming from in terms of vibe.
You can find the announcement courtesy of the PR wire under the mostly-socially-distanced promo photo below:
Former CHURCH OF VOID members, FIMIR, Sign To Argonauta Records For Upcoming Debut Album!
Emerging from the ashes of CHURCH OF VOID, there is a new force rising up to pursue a path in the name of doom: FIMIR have inked a worldwide deal with Argonauta Records, who will proudly release the band’s upcoming debut album during 2021!
FIMIR was founded in 2019 by former CHURCH OF VOID members G. Funeral, Magus Corvus, H. Warlock, A.D. and Septic Apes’ drummer H. Wizzard. From a mere spark in the dark and a distant echo of forgotten riffs haunting in emptiness from a collapsed doomstar of their former band, FIMIR got rid of their ghosts and started to work on their first album right away, until the world shut down. Ultimately, the five-piece collective hailing from the frozen wastelands of Finland, used their time and creativity wisely and managed to put the final touches on their upcoming debut, which will be seeing the light of day through Argonauta Records soon! Tomb Of God will contain six tracks of heavy cosmic doom with a mix of hard riffing, traditional, classic yet occult doom metal served with an ambient soundsphere. To see its release with the Italian label was a clear choice for the band, as band mastermind G. Funeral states:
“We know the label boss Gero from our past and the good reputation and enormous growth of Argonauta Records easily convinced us to sign with them. We are proud to join their ranks.”
Label owner, Gero Lucisano adds:
“I’ve been a big fan of Church of Void since their early period, their unique sound made of doom metal and deathrock which made them something standing up in the current metal and rock scene. I was very surprised of their sudden split-up months ago, the same way now I’m totally excited to found again the guys with the new band FIMIR. A completely renewed attitude, enthusiasm and strength, traditional finnish doom at its very best, welcome back guys!”
Watch out for many more news and album details to follow in the not so distant future…
Denver-by-way-of-New-Mexico sludge extremists Oryx will release their third full-length, Lamenting a Dead World, on April 30. Their first offering made through Translation Loss, it is — no big surprise here — not the album they thought it would be a year ago. At that time, they were planning to hit Earhammer Studios in Oakland, California, with Brainoil‘s Greg Wilkinson (who wound up mixing/mastering) at the helm, and just like everyone else doing anything just about anywhere, they found themselves needing to change plans. Please try to contain your shock.
I can’t speak to what Lamenting a Dead World might’ve been in other circumstances, but in this reality’s 2021, it’s a fucking beast. Five tracks running from “Contempt” to the eerily hopeful and more-complex-than-you-probably-think-it-is 15-minute closer “Oblivion,” the Ben Romsdahl-produced affair finds Oryx‘s founding duo of drummer Abigail Davis and guitarist/vocalist Tommy Davis opening the band in new ways — not the least of which is the inclusion of a third party, bassist Eric Dodgion, in the creative process. Coming off of their 2018 sophomore LP, Stolen Absolution, which was produced for maximum mass by Dave Otero, the new record finds Oryx striking a balance between rawness and breadth and delivering both with volume and atmosphere that are consuming in kind.
With guest vocals on the early cut “Misery” by Erika Osterhout, synth on the aforementioned finale by Paul Riedl, textures and whatnot by Primitive Man‘s Ethan McCarthy (also Many Blessings) and an overall more experimental, broad-reaching approach that Tommy and Abigail credit in part to Romsdahl as producer and in part to being forced off the road to basically sit in quarantine with this material for the better part of 2020, Lamenting a Dead World exists in a space that is charred black with “Contempt,” ready to shut down its own mind in “Misery,” deathly in its force on centerpiece “Last Breath,” ambient in its title-track and finding rebirth in the end of all things at its close. It is an effective encapsulation of horror and succeeds with a creative voice that is abidingly and strikingly human.
I’ll not mince words: these two were sweethearts and this was a fun chat. I’d been forced to reschedule owing to family emergency and they very kindly obliged. When we “hung up” — or whatever it is you do on Zoom — I was glad that we’d been able to find a new time.
I hope you enjoy as well:
Oryx, Lamenting a Dead World Interview, March 22, 2021
Once again, Oryx‘s Lamenting a Dead World is out April 30 through Translation Loss. Preorders are up now.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 25th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
June 4 is the release date for Somnuri‘s second long-player and Blues Funeral Recordings debut, Nefarious Wave, and to correspond with announcing the details and preorders and so on they’ve got a new video now for “Beyond Your Last Breath,” which is the centerpiece of the record. Neat, sign me up. The Brooklynite trio made their self-titled debut (review here) in 2017 and followed that months later with a split with Godmaker (review here). Not to take away from anyone else’s work, but they pretty much owned Magnetic Eye‘s Alice in Chains Dirt: Redux (review here) last year, and I’ve been looking forward to whatever was coming next from them ever since. New record, you say? That’ll do nicely, thanks.
Preorders are up through the ol’ Bandcamp there, and you can dig into “Beyond Your Last Breath” below as well. And you should. I’ll hope to have more on the album prior to the release.
Until then, the PR wire:
Brooklyn progressive sludge metallers SOMNURI release new video “Beyond Your Last Breath” + details for new album on Blues Funeral Recordings
Brooklyn, NY’s sludge metal juggernauts SOMNURI arise to unleash the first video from their awaited new album ‘Nefarious Wave’, out June 4th on Blues Funeral Recordings. Watch the trio’s cathartic “Beyond Your Last Breath” video now!
SOMNURI’s sound weaves together breakneck energy, infectious melodies and slow-burning aggression, a cacophony of bludgeoning riffs and pounding grooves that shares DNA with High on Fire, Mastodon, Torche, even Soundgarden. Elements of the city surface throughout: brutality and spaciousness, stark dissonance, and delicate hush.
About the video, drummer Phil SanGiacomo comments: “Beyond Your Last Breath is about the cyclical and intertwined nature of life and death, and how the struggle to survive and find light can bring you to the brink of darkness and beyond. The video, directed by Susan Hunt of Five Sigma Films, weaves through a dreamlike environment and shows both the grittiness and beauty of Brooklyn and New York City, all through a surrealistic lens. The song also ties into the greater theme of the ‘Nefarious Wave’ album title, which alludes to a process that repeats endlessly throughout time. The idea of facing that wave head-on is prevalent throughout the record.”
A sprawling record full of time and tempo shifts, ‘Nefarious Wave’ is a story of survival and resilience. As naysayers flee the city, claiming the scene is dead and will never be what it used to, SOMNURI is alive, breathing, adapting and mutating into something greater, and continues to push the possibilities of heavy music and the ideals of how a DIY band fights for their place. Embodying their refusal to concede or compromise, ‘Nefarious Wave’ is a reflection of their undeniable ethic, a devastating musical worldview ready for those willing to inhabit it with them.
‘Nefarious Wave’ was mixed by Phil SanGiacomo, and mastered by Justin Mantooth at Westend Recording Studios KC. The artwork was designed by Dani Otrajki. It will be released on June 4th, 2021 worldwide on various vinyl formats, CD and digital through Blues Funeral Recordings.
Posted in audiObelisk on March 25th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Virginia Beach heavy rockers Freedom Hawk will release their new single ‘Liftoff’ on April 2. At nine minutes long, reportedly completely improvised and captured on the first take, it’s about as raw as the four-piece have ever presented themselves. Their reputation, at least as far as I’m concerned, is for being a songwriting-minded band. They’re never too flashy on a technical level, and even when they jam out, they do so in a structural context. Well, like so many of the rules by which the world has previously been governed, all that goes out the window here. Do I think Freedom Hawk are turning into a heavy jam band and that their next album is going to be just like this? Nope. But as a one-off, it’s a pretty killer look at the basic dynamic of what happens when these guys get together and just let sound flow.
You might recall last summer when Freedom Hawk — guitarist/vocalist T.R. Morton, guitarist Brendan O’Neill, bassist Mark Cave and drummer Lenny Hines — got together and did a rehearsal-space livestream (review here) that, among other tunes culled from their catalog, featured a few new songs. “Liftoff” might have been born in the same room, but it’s a different intent, and in terms of sound it goes more to showing how the band start sculpting their material rather than how they refine it once the structure is set. In another context, in another time, parts of “Liftoff” might become something else — they still might for all I know — or end up on the backburner like any number of other jams any number of other bands tool around with along the way in their respective practice spots.
What makes “Liftoff” different? Well, it works well on its own terms, but frankly, if it didn’t the band probably wouldn’t bother to put it out at all. The airy, lead-soaked progression is mellow but held together by the drums such that when it bursts out it doesn’t do so out of nowhere, and I mean, not for nothing, but Freedom Hawk do this kind of spaciousness pretty well. I know their thing is usually more locked down, but they’ve had psychedelia in their playbook for a long time. “Liftoff” proves they’re able to pull it off in a way to which they haven’t treated their listeners before.
The video below is found footage that seems largely geared toward enhancing the atmosphere and giving you something to watch while you float along with the band. It does what it needs to do in that regard, and as always, I hope you enjoy.
Info on the single release follows, as well as confirmation of Freedom Hawk‘s next LP’s hopeful arrival in August.
Dig:
Freedom Hawk, “Liftoff” official track premiere
April 2nd – Single Release – “Liftoff”
Despite the pandemic wave cancelling our tour mid-run and cancelled future tours we channeled all our creative energy into setting up our own recording/rehearsal space and writing a new 9 song album. We are right now recording these 9 songs for an Aug release via Ripple Music!
Part of this journey allowed us to record every rehearsal and spontaneous jam. This is one of them – a 9-minute spontaneous live jam single. This is a first take. This jam was captured on Sept, 30, 2020.
This will be a digital only release through our 2008 imprint Magic Lady Records in partnership with Ripple Music.
Killer cover artwork from the aerosol master – Mark Fussell
If you sign up on our email list atwww.freedomhawk.net you can get it early.
Lyrics: You tell us…. we can’t remember.
Live Recording from Freedom Hawk’s Rehearsal Space
Mixing Engineer: Ian Watts The Magic Closet South, Portland, OR
Mastering Engineer: Chris Goosman Baseline Audio Labs, Ann Arbor, MI www.baselineaudio.com
Posted in Reviews on March 25th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Behold Greenleaf in their element. The Swedish heavy rockers date back to the turn of the century with their someday-I-will-own-that-vinyl self-titled EP, and Echoes From a Mass is their eighth album and third for Napalm Records. It arrives some 20 years on from their 2001 debut, Revolution Rock (discussed here), and finds them a more stable band than perhaps founding guitarist Tommi Holappa, also of Dozer, ever expected them to be.
Crucially, this is the fourth offering since Arvid Hällagård came aboard as vocalist, and like each of its predecessors, it finds the Holappa/Hällagård dynamic growing in exciting ways that are only bolstered by the rhythm section of bassist Hans Frölich and drummer Sebastian Olsson. Holappa has always been a songwriter as the catalogs of Greenleaf and Dozer both demonstrate, but with Echoes From a Mass even more than 2018’s Hear the Rivers (review here), the guitar parts sound as though they were constructed with the vocal accompaniment in mind.
From opener “Tides” onward through the 10-track/46-minute release, Greenleaf and longtime-associate/producer Karl Daniel Lidén create a world with these songs that is at once contemplative as the boldly-chosen leadoff is, and also decidedly blues-based, as cuts like “Good God I Better Run Away,” “Bury Me My Son” and “Hang On” demonstrate. Hear the Rivers and 2016’s Rise Above the Meadow (review here) before it seemed to reach for the same kind of spaciousness in sound — Hällagård‘s first record with the band, 2014’s Trails and Passes (review here), was somewhat more earthbound in its production — and Echoes From a Mass pushes further in inhabiting that space, with melodies floating in vocals echoes above even what in other contexts might be a driving straightforward riff on “Love Undone” or a hook conjured by lead guitar in early cut “Needle in My Eye.”
As one would expect, it’s not all atmospherics and moody sounds, with Olsson leading the way into “Good God I Better Run Away” and the title-line there making for one of the album’s most memorable impressions — there’s stiff competition — or (presumed) side B opener “A Hand of Might” with its classic and signature Holappa boogie, each riff cycle seeming to try to push the one before it out of its way en route to the listener. The tradeoffs throughout between loud and quiet, faster and subdued, etc., bring to light the chemistry in the band at this point.
This is Frölich‘s second long-player with Greenleaf, Olsson‘s fourth, and, as noted, Hällagård‘s fourth. For a band who throughout the last 20 years has seen players come and go, come and go and come and go, the solidified lineup feels like a novelty, but it’s one that allows for a new kind of development in the band’s sound and purpose. It’s not just about Holappa paying homage to classic ’70s rock anymore — in fact it hasn’t been for some time — but about what this whole group brings to the material.
To wit, the near-proggy rhythmic tension coinciding with the chug of “Needle in My Eye” and the thickened stomp in the penultimate “On Wings of Gold,” which suitably enough seems to take flight ahead of closer “What Have We Become,” that quieter, purposefully understated finish a key-laced showpiece for Hällagård and an occasion to which he every bit rises.
The same could be said of everyone throughout, and though one doesn’t necessarily go to ‘album number eight’ as a landmark happening in the tenure of a given group, Greenleaf engage a somewhat fraught emotional perspective — see titles like “Good God I Better Run Away,” “Needle in My Eye,” “Love Undone” and “Bury Me My Son” — early on and answer with a bit of hope in “Hang On” and “On Wings of Gold” before finally looking back to ask “What Have We Become” at the end. The answer to that question is, at least as far as the album is concerned, that Greenleaf have become a full band with an increasingly complex perspective and a greater depth of sound than they’ve ever had before.
Considering the places Greenleaf have gone stylistically in their time — still under an umbrella of heavy rock, but ever more characteristically so — that’s not saying nothing, but to hear even the downer sway in “Bury Me My Son” as it moves into the bell-of-the-ride hits that start the creeping-into-surge intro of “A Hand of Might,” the subtle turn of defeat to persistence isn’t lost, and the rush of that track helps the band build momentum as they move through Echoes From a Mass‘ second half, with “March on Higher Grounds” arriving not with fanfare but as a melodic highlight nonetheless. Its riff careens deceptively forward and and where one might expect Hällagård to belt it out in the hook à la “Bury Me My Son,” the decision otherwise speaks to how able Greenleaf are at this point to see the bigger picture of what the album needs at any given point.
The flow continues through “Hang On” and “On Wings of Gold” as one would hope, with the latter the longest track at 6:28 and the crescendo for the LP as a whole, bringing together the blues and the heft and the space and putting everything in its proper place without losing the emotional force behind it — that force only getting further prevalence on “What Have We Become,” which seems to call back to “Tides” even as it refuses the temptation to hit into the same kind of largesse. Or maybe that’s just me going back to the start and playing the record again.
Either way, as a fan of Greenleaf, Echoes From a Mass excites not only in the continued quality of its songwriting — Holappa is name-brand as far as that goes — but in the increasing cohesion of its performance and how the production seems to highlight the band simply melting together as a single unit. It is immersive and progressive in a way Greenleaf have not always sought to be, and that too stands as testament to just how special they are, to be trying and achieving new things and building on their past in this manner some 21 years on. One of 2021’s best in heavy rock, no question.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 25th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Yes I’m stoked there’s a new Cult of Dom Keller and that part of you that’s an unrepentant weirdo should be as well, but I can’t help but look at the title of said album, They Carried the Dead in a U.F.O, and want to put a period after the ‘o’ in UFO or otherwise forget the punctuation altogether. I know that’s a dopey thing to hone in on when I should probably be hyping up the album — because, yes, a fifth Cult of Dom Keller LP is an exciting prospect and I can only wonder at the marvels they might’ve conjured up last year when they were writing in pandemic-mandated isolation — but I’m an editor by trade and my eye goes right there every time.
Does it ultimately matter? Nah. Might be a UK English convention for all I know. What matters is the record, which is up for preorder now from Fuzz Club and Levitation in the US, and the fact that they’re streaming the tumultuous album closer “Last King of Hell” now ahead of the release. As a next step in the four-piece’s continual anti-genre becoming, it holds much promise in its build and stately-if-the-state-is-in-another-dimension payoff.
Art, info, audio. You know how this goes:
CULT OF DOM KELLER – “THEY CARRIED THE DEAD IN A U.F.O”
Cult of Dom Keller will release their fifth album, ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’, on May 21st via Fuzz Club Records. Since 2007 the British band have been leaving a trail of sonic fever dreams, dark psychedelia and experimentalism that beats with a heavy industrial heart and the forthcoming LP sees them conjuring their heaviest and most adventurous work to date.
Channelling recent limitations and turning them to their advantage, Cult of Dom Keller found themselves radically altering their creative approach and morphing their sound into a whole new beast.
Detailing the ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’ LP, the band said: “We managed to create our most experimental and exciting album to date without being in the same room together. U.F.O. was recorded, mixed and produced by ourselves, meaning we had total control over every noise on the record. This was the exact record we wanted to make: Experimental and playful; moments of light and pure dark… we wanted to f*ck with the listener and pull them in with moments of beauty and chaos.”
Opening track ‘Run From The Gullskinna’ demonstrates this duality straight off the bat. It contrasts bittersweet shoegaze melodies with a motorik rhythm section that drives the song into a nightmarish finale at a breakneck pace. There’s also the abrasive psychedelia of ‘Infernal Heads’ (which the band describe as a “twisted pop song” at heart) and the more cinematic and slow-burning ‘Cage The Masters’, an engrossing track which feels as cathartic as the title imagines.
‘They Carried The Dead In The U.F.O’ is littered with the band’s heaviest work to date and it’s here where we really see them throw themselves into their new direction with unapologetic intent. Taking its name from the Greek goddess of rage, ‘Lyssa’ is an outpouring of discordant, industrial noise-rock that’s centred around dissonant guitars, explosive walls of sound and unsettling electronics: “With ‘Lyssa’ we wanted to make a track that channelled that discontent currently being felt across the world. It’s about dissonance, anger and how misdirection and misinformation is used to control and weaponise people against their own interests.”
Cult of Dom Keller have long been at the forefront of the contemporary British psych scene but their notorious reputation also extends much further afield too. They’ve done several tours around the UK, Europe and US and shared the stage with greats like Roky Erickson, Spectrum, Silver Apples and The Sisters of Mercy, as well as contemporaries like The Black Angels, Fat White Family and Temples (they even had fellow Nottingham troublemakers Sleaford Mods support them in the early days.)
‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’ arrives off the back of last year’s mostly-instrumental ‘Ascend!’ LP and their third full-length ‘Goodbye To The Light’, released back in 2016. Fierce experimentalists, no Cult of Dom Keller record has ever sounded the same (to quote the band: “Who wants to make the same record twice? We just do what the f*ck we feel like making”) and the forthcoming ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’ is by no different. Here, the experimental onslaught that ensues is not only another new direction but their best one yet.
[Click play above to stream ‘The Waning Pt. 1’ from Motorpsycho’s Kingdom of Oblivion. Album is out April 16 on Stickman Records and Rune Grammofon.]
The heavy prog Kings in the North — Trondheim isn’t Tromsø, but it’s far enough up — Motorpsycho return on the relative quick after wrapping up a trilogy between 2017’s The Tower (review here), 2019’s The Crucible (review here) and 2020’s Spellmannprisen-nominated The All is One (review here) with the new 70-minute 2LP Kingdom of Oblivion, a record that seems to speak to current times without necessarily being of them stylistically. Also without not. Trust me, it makes sense.
Now, to be sure, Motorpsycho are beyond review. I could say anything here and it doesn’t matter. To new listeners, their massive, decades-spanning discography might seem insurmountable, and indeed it might very well be a lifetime project of listening. Even their post-Heavy Metal Fruit (2010 and on) catalog is a mountain to climb, and perhaps an intimidating prospect.
More than that, though, Motorpsycho know what they’re doing and they have for some time. Kingdom of Oblivion enacts this massive span of work, but also makes it genuinely digestible with each side functioning as a piece of the whole. But with Motorpsycho, there’s just about no way founding members Bent Sæther (bass, lead vocals) and Hand Magnus “Snah” Ryan (guitar/vocals) as well as Swedish import drummer Tomas Järmyr, with the band since 2017, aren’t going to deliver the album they wanted to make.
Even as they’ve consistently explored varying textures and sides of alternative rock, indie, classic heavy riffs and vibes — dig that solo three minutes into “The United Debased” — and keyboard-laced progressive serenity, among others, they’ve carved out an identity that is wholly their own and is maintained on Kingdom of Oblivion. Motorpsycho said they wanted to make a heavier record. So guess what? They did.
Of course it’s not that simple even on its face, but with any new Motorpsycho release, the assumption going into it is that the listener is being placed in the hands of masters, and that’s basically how it works out across Kingdom of Oblivion‘s span. These players are not fools and they do not make foolish decisions in terms of craft. They cast purpose across the punchier beginning the record gets in “The Waning Pt. 1 & 2” and “Kingdom of Oblivion” and the folkish harmonies of the subsequent “Lady May 1,” the experimental atmospherics of “The Watcher (Including the Crimson Eye)” and “Dreamkiller” after “The United Debased” (which, yeah, fair), as they make ready to dig into the post-jazz “Atet” and revive the more rocking progressions on “At Empire’s End,” offsetting with acoustic stretches as they careen between styles and motivations.
Kingdom of Oblivion, which on headphones functions with a smoothness that’s outright beautiful in how it uses bass to emphasize melody as well as rhythm alongside the guitar and drums, is patient in its execution and refuses to go anywhere it doesn’t want to go, but that doesn’t at all mean Motorpsycho are doing only one thing throughout, because they’re simply not. Even in the earliest going — which is unquestionably where the harder hitting material lies and is the first impression the band wanted to make as a lead-in for all that follows — the songs aren’t entirely singular in their purpose as the second part of “The Waning” picks up motorik in the second half of that 7:30 track and the title-track meets its early fuzz with later wash of keys ahead of the guitar solo that borders on orchestral.
None of these moves are particularly unexpected for Motorpsycho, but that doesn’t make the journey less thrilling, and their embrace of a heavier push early gives the subsequent semi-extended pieces like “The United Debased” (9:04), “At Empire’s End” (8:36) and “The Transmutation of Cosmoctopus Lurker” (10:56) — each one featuring on its own side like the showcase work it is — all the more of a dynamic range to work from. Same goes for the acoustic work throughout and other more classically progressive moments.
“Lady May 1” feels like a nature-worshiping take on Simon & Garfunkel (that’s a compliment) and though “Dreamkiller” surges from its minimal beginning to striking heft, it flows easily to the wandering guitar of the two-minute “Atet” ahead of the grooving volume trades and engrossing payoff that “At Emipre’s End” provides, backed by “The Hunt,” a folkier jaunt that teases Tull-ish storytelling without going all-in with the flute and leg kick. Fair enough.
The softest and quietest Motorpsycho get on Kingdom of Oblivion is on side D, where the subdued “After the Fair” and the closer “Cormorant” surround on either side of “The Transmutation of Cosmoctopus Lurker.” As for the quizzically named longest cut on the record itself, it is duly dizzying in its riffs and solo work and melodically grand, vocals hitting an apex in the midsection leading to a guitar-and-keys chase that is, yes, head-spinning in King Crimsony tradition. They bring it down, threaten to build it up again, then leave it to quietest bass and ambience to cap, with silence as prelude to “Cormorant”‘s avant, far-off marching finish. An epilogue well earned, and they know it.
Here’s the thing. Yes, Motorpsycho put out a lot of records. Can’t be denied. I won’t pretend to have heard all of them. Yes, they have a history that goes back to 1989. Yes, it’s a lot. What matters more than quantity of the work they’ve done/do, however, is of course the quality of that work, and with Kingdom of Oblivion, Motorpsycho emphasize that the most essential moment is not the past but the present.
Motorpsycho are creating pivotal heavy progressive and psychedelic rock right now. Not in 1989. Not in 2015. Now. Before you feel overwhelmed by the prospect of taking on listening to them, not knowing where to start and so on, stop for a second and take it one thing at a time. Kingdom of Oblivion, oddly enough since some of it was recorded at the same time, works as an entry point even better than the prior trilogy because while one can hardly call it restrained across its run, it nonetheless brings to light so much of what makes Motorpsycho the crucial and influential band they are. I’m not saying ignore history and context altogether, but Kingdom of Oblivion stands on its own and is worth experiencing in that light.
Posted in Questionnaire on March 24th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Justin Sanetra of Blue Dream, Strange Foliage & Hot Box Sound Machine
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Constantly trying to pursue creative desires and immerse myself in whatever opportunities come my way. I’ve been writing and creating things as long as I can remember and started playing guitar when I was 14. I started to find people wanting to form a band and then began singing and writing songs. Eventually that snowballed into booking gigs and recording demos. With everything being online I was able to contact DIY houses, venues, bars, and art spaces all around the USA and Canada. This led to releasing music and booking tours and I’ve been doing that ever since.
Describe your first musical memory.
One of the places I lived at as a kid was a couple blocks away from a street festival that happens every summer. I remember sitting on the roof listening to all the bands play.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Way too many to choose from! Just being able to record music and travel around the country playing it provided amazing experiences that created some of my best memories.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Every time I experiment with high doses of certain substances my beliefs are tested. One day I found out that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I think it leads to innovation and discovery that brings us closer to our own individuality. We all have influences that we emulate in everything we do. When we add our personal experiences and personal touch into the mix, it creates a never ending chain of artistic progression.
How do you define success?
Having the freedom to do what you want to do. Elevating the people around you and bringing about a positive influence in this world. Love is the law.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The News, Late-Night Talk Shows, Awards Shows, and any other media that is propaganda disguised as entertainment and information.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
A device that can transfer the music in your head directly into a DAW, Tape Machine, or other recording equipment.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To communicate emotions, ideas, and messages that reflect the reality you live in.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Setting all the vague optimism aside and society being open again. Everyone is essential.
