Escumergamënt Interview
Voices (of Wonder) has whispered about a new band lately. A project that is said to convey what happened in the Norwegian forests some time ago. Hence there were no choice for Hinsides Magazine but to enter this successfully preserved realm.
A realm where a sombre black flame still burns in glorious might. Meet a cult that aims at the stars in its very own way and prefer to remain unknown in its flesh.
Text: Hinsides 2021
Images: Used under kind permission of the artist
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Be greeted honorable mediator of malicious noise! Please introduce yourself and reveal what you like most about the place where you are right now.
- Hails! I’m the one in Escumergamënt that is primarily responsible for the vocals, lyrics and layout parts. I’m writing this from an old house in the forest. The fireplace is lit, darkness has descended upon the land and the temperature is way below zero. A perfect place to be. Not a single sound is to be heard, except for the occasional rat in the walls.
So, why is it that Escumergamënt has arrived in this specific slot of time, and what´s the story behind the name of the band?
- The name and album title is in a language called occitan. A language mainly used during the medieval era, but is now slowly fading away from existence. Escumergamënt means “Abomination” and the album title is a short passage taken from a longer text found in the holy bible. People who are interested in old languages and solving riddles could decipher this and find out certain parts of our overall concept.
The arrival of Escumergamënt has been a long and clandestine journey, starting about five years ago and now revealing its ugly head with the release of “...ni degu fazentz escumergamënt e mesorga...”.
How would you describe the members of the band based on personalities? How did you get to know each other and what are your strengths versus weaknesses when you act together as a group?
- Four multi-instrumentalists that all have strong opinions about everything but have a mutual understanding when it comes to the vision about what black metal should be. We came in contact through our work in other projects and realized rather quickly that we should and could create something rather unique together. No shade on our other projects, but what we create in Escumergamënt could only be created under that banner. Since we all have, like I said, extremely strong opinions about most things in life I figured that there would be more conflicts, but everything from the musical parts to the lyrical side to the layout and so on has been without any bigger struggles. We all want the same goal, but how to achieve it can differ. The biggest strengths are our past experiences and focus. We can all rely that all of us will perform on the level that is needed and understand what is important. Something that is quite crucial since we live in completely different parts of the country. Before the recording of the album we rehearsed one time and that was almost a year before the actual recording took place. Since the album was recorded more or less live everyone had to be focused and well-prepared.
Regarding weaknesses … well, since we all sail the seas of negativity and are occupied with other projects, not only music, there can be long periods of hibernation. Which is perfectly fine in my book. There is no need to challenge Horna for example when it comes to which band has released the most albums.
The band has not been public for so long but still you´ve managed to create a sense of mystery around the name and who is behind this project. How serious are you about keeping certain information secret and what are the reasons for this attitude? What kind of image is it that you seek to convey?
- It is almost impossible to keep the line-up a secret in 2021, but we try to do our best to keep a low profile when it comes to Escumergamënt. Since what we create is so different from our past work, we don’t want any wrongful preconceptions that could cloud the experience. The image we are trying to convey is the sense of mystery and dread. Take the band Kvist for example. No photos, no line-up, no thank you-list. Just an amazing album and a sense of mystery. This had a strong impact on me when I was a teenager in the 90s. All these amazing albums and tapes, but almost never any band photos or info in the booklet, and if there were photos, they were dark and grim, providing the perfect mood. I don’t care about the real names of the people involved or if they thank their partners or the local pizzeria in the thank you-list. These are things that are highly irrelevant and almost always spoil the experience. Things have not gotten any better with the arrival of social media. If someone had told me in the 90s that they had a dream about the future where they saw Nergal from Behemoth selling dog food and doing yoga on this new thing called the Internet, I would have called the insane asylum. For both him and me.
And if you were to explain the concept of Escumergamënt to someone unaware of your influences and what kind of music you make, what would you say?
- Eerie and obscure black metal with a different kind of darkness than your typical juvenile Wikipedia-satanist band. Conceptually we work with riddles and clues, inspired by authors such as Arthur Machen and Clark Ashton Smith. We want the listener to receive something way more substantial than just a slab of music with lyrics and layout that are there just to be there. Secrets are to be found.
Your debut Lp will be released through Avantgarde records. Tell us how you managed to close a deal with this notorious company and why you agreed to collaborate with them? Were there any other labels in question?
- Since Malicious Records and Misanthropy Records are long defunct labels, we contacted Avantgarde Music since we wanted to work with an old label that has released albums that are important for us. Roberto has released Mayhem’s “Live in Leipzig”, Katatonia, Obtained Enslavement, Kvist, early Carpathian Forest, Dolorian, Monumentum, just to name a few. Artists and albums that have meant a lot to us. We offered him two songs from the album as a promo, and he responded that he was interested after three hours. A good sign since none of us had worked with him in the past. So far, our greatest battles have been about multicolored vinyl since we are a bunch of traditionalists who don’t like the notion of a LP in other colors than black.
What can you tell us about the six songs that landed on your debut Lp? How and by who are they written, and are there any particular aspects of the material that you want to shed some extra light upon?
- The album is divided in six songs, each song a key that opens a far greater concept. Just like the artwork we wanted to introduce the beholder to something rather compelling, just to slowly plunge him/her slowly deeper into the abyss. The first lyric, Of old night and winter, and the last, Black ash and ruin, are a beginning and an end of this cycle. Where the first song is about the deep-rooted wish to extinguish all the stars in the universe, and the last one a story about the last remaining lingering souls gazing into a universe devoid of all light and life.
Most of our material is written traditionally on guitars by the, in this constellation, main guitarist and main drummer, but we have done our best to not make it a typical guitar driven album. Regarding arrangements, leads, and extras like samples and synthesizers we have all worked together. Like every good band it is important to have a main composer though, and in this case, it is the main guitarist who is the biggest source of musical ideas for Escumergamënt.
While contemplating on both the sound and the structures of your songwriting it seems as if this project has more in common with the experimental side of the Norwegian scene in the early nineties than with the Swedish ekvivalent. Do you agree on this observation, and if so, what would you say are the reasons to why Escumergamënt sounds more like Ved Buens Ende than Marduk or Dark Funeral?
- That is correct. From day one we had this goal to create something eerie with a different kind of darkness than the typical Scandinavian blast beat inferno. A sound that Manes, Inflabitan, Ved Buens Ende, Strid among others perfected in their early years. A more obscure and unnerving musical and lyrical experience with a lyrical concept that doesn’t hit the listener over the head. Mysteries are here to be found and discovered for those who are not afraid to venture into the starless nights.
Print found on a flea market. Artist unknown.
Last time Hinsides spoke with one of the members of Escumergamënt he reviled quite an intriguing story about how you performed a kind of ”unplugged” concert with this setting in a chapel, called ”Capel of the Wanderer”, and that you later returned there to record the songs on your debut. How did you manage to get access to this place once again, and why did you choose this location? Since you decision reeks of artistic hybris and discomfort it would be interesting to hear the whole story of how this particular recording came together?
- We have not truly decided if we will perform live again, so our first attempt was an experiment and a perfect way for us to perform our songs with a completely different approach and set of instruments. We were invited to perform a midnight show at a highly selective festival. Not a metal festival at all. So instead of using our typical line up of guitars, bass, drums, keys and vocals, we decided to perform only with samples, percussion, synthesizers and vocals. Somewhere in between ambient and power electronics, with a large focus on improvisation. The venue for the night was a small wooden chapel called “Chapel of the wanderer”. During our preparations the bass player placed a hand made terracotta altar piece on the altar in the chapel, a gift to him from a rather notorious devoted Satanist. Much to our surprise, it flew off the altar and made a strange electric sound. Me, being the cynical asshole was quite perplexed by this.
Me, personally, I hate playing and watching live shows since it´s almost always a complete waste of everyone’s time. With that said, performing a show or watching a performance where everything is perfectly aligned, and you are completely absorbed by the current is something that is unlike anything else. Normally I only reach that level beyond human during the creative phase. Needless to say, I had no high expectations when the chapel filled up with people. But when we started the atmosphere quickly shifted and we all were thrown into that trancelike state. Most vocal parts were completely improvised, and later used on the album. When our set ended, we put out all the candles and figured that the audience, who were quite intoxicated by all sorts of substances, would leave since the chapel was now in complete darkness. None left, they sat on the floor in complete darkness and silence in what felt like an eternity. An extremely powerful experience. With that said, some people did leave during our performance. They were under the influence and could not, quote “handle the darkness because it got too intense”. Those who endured went straight to bed afterwards. I think we quite effectively killed all sense of party mood.
The next day an old couple visited the chapel and were not pleased at all with our redecorations, so they contacted the church and … well, it was quite a ride for the organizers. In the end the chapel got dechristianized and we decided then and there that we would record our album there. Haunting the chapel once more.
You´ve just read an excerpt from a longer interview that will be featured in its entirely in the next issue of Hinsides Magazine. The last copies of the first issue are still available here