Live Report - SWR Barroselas Metalfest XX
…
Despite the numerous international acts formed in this country during the last couple of decades, Portugal’s relationship with metal is somewhat unique. While the US was celebrating Woodstock and a generation of hippies sang about love and unity, Portugal was ruled by one of the last dictatorships still in place in Western Europe – a country which was “proudly alone”, so put by authoritarian leader António Salazar. Rock was reviled by both the nationalist mob, which saw it as an affront to good customs, and the communists in the resistance, who saw it as a symbol of Yankee capitalism. With a reduced influence from the US or the UK, the counterculture found inspiration in similar movements around Spain and France. Portuguese music is often melancholic and, at the time, was packed with thinly veiled jabs against the government, explicit enough so that everyone got the hint, but covered in metaphors that allowed most musicians to avoid jail time or compulsory military service. A peaceful revolution brought democracy into the country in 1974, and 15 years of quick catching up led to a brimming rock and metal scene during the 90s.
At the turn of the century two teenage brothers, Tiago and Ricardo Veiga, decided to organize an event named “Steel Warriors Rebellion – Attack I”, with just three national bands accompanying the headliners Avulsed. Fittingly, it happened on April 25th, the anniversary of 1974’s revolution. Since then, a symbiotic relationship has formed, with the festival and the heavy metal scene feeding off each other – at Barroselas, Portuguese bands had one of the biggest crowds in the country, relationships were built which expanded the scene, and some of them last to this very day.
Steel Warriors Rebellion continues. Avulsed were invited back for this 20th anniversary and Goldenpyre, the band the Veiga brothers formed one year before the first edition, not only played as well but finally released their debut album. This year’s edition was marked by such little stories, which only serve to strengthen the fellowship that has been created throughout the years.
…
Day 0
…
…
There’s a folksy feeling that prevents us from believing that we’re actually going to the country’s most revered metal festival. From Porto, Portugal’s second biggest city, one has to catch an unremarkable train at an unremarkable station. Buildings quickly give way to the typical countryside homes with white exteriors and ceramic roofs, and one hour later we arrive at Barroselas. Every year, during an extended April weekend, this small town with a population of 4,000 hosts around 7,000 festivalgoers from Portugal and around the globe.
From the station, a camping site sits within walking distance, just across the road from an inconspicuous venue entrance. This is one of the two security checkpoints and the access to the SWR Arena, the free stage hosting a few shows on each day. All of Day 0 takes place here and, inside the large canvas tent ready to protect the crowd from the weather (don’t be fooled by the high temperatures and blue skies during the afternoon – it will rain during the festival, it always does), a handful of average Joes from the nearby towns join the metalheads out of curiosity or just plain boredom. One of them approaches me to snark that everyone’s dressed formally except for him.
He was just there “to watch the ballet”, a remark which was particularly amusing at that time, since the next band in line was Analepsy, one of the fastest-growing brutal death metal bands on this side of the Atlantic. It didn’t make much sense to have them squeezed in between heavy thrashers Toxikull and the classic, Dickinson-esque vocal delivery of Deadlyforce, but the schedule for the day was decided through a lottery and the crowd was simply happy to get yet another edition underway.
…
…
Test, the Brazilian duo tasked with headlining this warm-up, made the best use of their slot and teased the fervent crowd with endless back-and-forths between ugly blast beats and downtempo, absorbed moments, disorienting a mosh pit that showed no signs of giving up. Those who were left yearning for more Test would end up with more chances to see them – first a surprise show at the SWR Bar (an actual bar inside the precinct, where meet & greets with the bands, exhibitions and various other activities take place) and another right between the main stages on the final day, resulting in one of the most chaotic moments of the whole festival.
…
…
Day 1
…
…
After convincing performances by another couple of Brazilian acts – Aneurose and Chaos Synopsis – it was time to inaugurate the smaller of the two main stages. Though short, Valborg’s set was intense. The harsh German they sing in amplified the rawness of their uninviting doom-industrial-death metal combination. It was also a pleasant surprise for those who, like myself, didn’t know too much about them – more and more people entered the tent throughout the set and barely anyone left before the end. Just five minutes later, the larger, de facto main stage was invaded by Holocausto Canibal’s bloody deathgrind. Just like the festival, they celebrate 20 years in 2017 and marked the occasion by revisiting their discography throughout the set. Holocausto Canibal have played at SWR numerous times already, and as one of Portugal’s most renowned extreme metal acts they’re always a safe bet. Having them play right after Valborg wasn’t the best choice, but it segued nicely into Besta.
…
Stonecutters’ Unruly Metal Comes from the “Eye of the Skull” (Track-by-Track Breakdown)
Though it's normally a bit of a trite saying, Stonecutters have legitimately left a trail of blood, sweat, and tears across the United States in their almost twenty-year career. They're a band that have stuck to the grueling work of providing angry, independent metal to their hometown of Louisville, Kentucky and beyond (I saw them at Grand Bar in Chicago years ago, a venue which they've outlasted). Time and dedication has evolved their sound from a vile concoction of sludge, doom, and punk into an even more flesh-peeling brew that most dominantly taps into thrash metal as a violent base. Stonecutters combine genres like an archetypal mad scientist might gleefully toss together vials of foul-smelling liquids into an ominously smoking beaker, and the band's results are similarly explosive. Frankly, I think you only see cohesive, far-reaching blends like this succeed when there's enough time and history involved to make it all gel together–and history is something Stonecutters has plenty of.
On their new album Eye of the Skull, past grudges and struggles inform surly and discontent thrashers like "Scowlers," while at other points we get touches of forlorn beauty–the mid-track melodic riff on "The Search for Rest" comes as a shock after "Scowlers," but it's an enjoyable surprise. Doom and sludge are still a factor in Stonecutter's alchemical exploits, but they're wielded with strategic precision–the ol' "slow riff/fast riff" dynamic is just one of the tools Eye of the Skull uses to generate neck-snapping momentum.
Founding member Brian Omer's half-growl, half-shout vocals have adorned Stonecutter's records since their inception, and he certainly hasn't lost any of his vitriolic charm this time around. With the album out today, we asked Brian to give us some background on how each of the tracks on Eye of the Skull came to be. Check out a track-by-track breakdown of the album below: best read while jamming the record.
…
…
"Scowlers"
This song seems to be the anthem/sing-along of the album to get people going right from the start. Simple & heavy with that punk attitude. Pound your fists, bang your head, raise the dead!
"The Search For Rest"
For the first time we recorded this album ourselves and couldn't be more proud. Opening riff to this song comes out swinging with a great production. I wrote this one during the height of covid. Channeling myself and others frustrations looking ahead with such a bleak future. Really stoked on the way this song creeps to a sludgy ending.
"One of Us"
Every Stonecutters album has one song that is a tribute to early cinema horror. One of Us is a tribute to (Louisville native) Tod Browning's 1932 masterpiece 'Freaks'. This one has that Sabbath meets Slayer feel with the doomy intro that leads into fast thrash and ripping leads. It's one of the band's personal favorites, especially live.
"Brittle Chains"
Very personal and emotional song for me about the 30+ years I've grinded it out and sacrificed so much to do what I love. It's been quite the journey of ups and downs.
"Eye of the Skull"
A dark dirge with a powerful blow.
A prophetic warning of the awaiting apocalypse.
"Worms Will Feast"
A reminder of our mortality. This one grooves hard with an Iron Maiden meets speed metal solo section in the middle.
"Melting Moon"
This album somewhat tells a story. From here I mention the 'Rise of the Phoenix' and how we will overcome and conquer. Fire is predominant on this album. A Melting Moon drips down every tomb.
"Til The Last Blooddrop"
The final track on the album is a special one to me. I went through an extremely dark time dealing with former members and the Stonecutters name. This song is about how I'm doing whatever it takes to claim the Stonecutters name that I started back in 2005. Til the last blooddrop, onward we fight!
…
Eye of the Skull released digitally today via Bandcamp, and you can pre-order the physical version here (out September 15th).
The band is playing a release show on the 15th as well - details below.
Basilica Soundscape 2018 in review (Usnea, Insect Ark, Stephen O’Malley, Prurient, more)
Nick Zinner + The Haxan Cloak at Basilica Soundscape 2018 (photo via Nick Zinner Instagram)[/caption]
Often referred to as an “anti-festival,” Basilica Soundscape offers a weekend chock-full of experimental art at a warehouse in scenic Hudson, NY. Soundscape is certainly unlike most festivals, emphasizing strong live sound, broad genre representation, and a legitimately diverse lineup; there just aren’t many other settings where an unusual post-punk/electronic band like Boy Harsher can capture a sizable audience at a headlining time. By asking audiences to pay close attention to heady, drawn-out, sometimes abrasive performances, Soundscape challenges the notion that festivals exist more for partying or networking than serious artistic experiences. The festival, originally co-founded by Hole/Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf der Maur and now presented in collaboration with Brandon Stosuy of The Creative Independent, celebrated its 8th annual incarnation this year. Here were some of the highlights...
USNEA - One of the only strictly metal bands to play Soundscape this year, Usnea stood out as an early highlight. Booked at 7:15 in a small side room, a heavy band like Usnea could’ve been a difficult sell for many attendees who were just arriving, but the band transfixed a solid audience with their potent mixture of funeral doom and post-metal. They forged an oppressive atmosphere through enormous volume, dual harsh vocalists, and monolithically repetitive riffs. But through the inclusion of less exclusively “metal” elements, like emotional chord progressions and thoughtful dynamics, Usnea also made space for non-metalheads at Basilica — assumably a large percentage of attendees, given who this year’s top-booked acts were — to explore a niche style of music they otherwise might not have been exposed to.
EFRIM MANUEL MENUCK - Efrim Manuel Menuck of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and A Silver Mt. Zion played a powerful, if occasionally melodramatic, set midway through Friday night’s festivities. His performance consisted of vocals that spanned the divide between pitched chant and spoken-word poetry, all set over loud, swelling ambience. While this combination did at times feel effective — especially when the lyrics became noticeably charged politically — other parts just baffled, such as when Menuck would yell incomprehensibly at the audience between songs without a microphone.
STEPHEN O’MALLEY’S UN VIDE DANS LA CIEL (performed by THE ORCHESTRA NOW) - Though mostly known for his participation in monstrously heavy bands like SunnO))), Khanate, and Goatsnake, Southern Lord Records co-founder Stephen O’Malley also composes contemporary classical music. Soundscape’s main hall was an interesting choice of location for the US premiere of his dissonant, droney, 35-minute orchestral composition Un Vide Dans La Ciel by The Orchestra Now. While listeners appeared open to the piece’s disturbing harmonies and occasional smashes of percussive force, a great deal of attendees also talked loudly and walked around the hall during the performance, distracting from the piece. So, while the Basilica makes sense as a setting for O’Malley’s composition in that many attendees appreciate his pedigree in the experimental music world, it would have been an even better decision to premiere the piece in a side room with more effective sonic infrastructure.
GROUPER - Like O’Malley’s before hers, Grouper’s relatively quiet set wasn’t the best match for a headlining slot in the main hall. However, for those fans who were able to dissociate Grouper’s music from the sounds of the festival around them, the performance hit harder emotionally than just about anything else all weekend. Grouper played a number of gentle yet crushing cuts from her newest record, Grid of Points, as well as piano and guitar tracks from older releases, all interspersed with mysterious field recordings and splashes of staticky noise. In one sense, her set came off as deeply personal, like reading a friend’s secret diary. On the other hand, it also felt broadly relatable, full of mournful chords to tug at the heartstrings of anyone listening closely enough to catch them.
INSECT ARK - Kicking off the Saturday portion of the festival, Insect Ark’s desert rock-influenced sound perfectly suited the golden, late afternoon light that framed them throughout their set. Like Usnea’s, Insect Ark’s performance functioned within the canon of doom and sludge metal, full of plodding tempos, bluesy riffs, and even some double-kick drumming. However, Insect Ark seemed more suited to Soundscape in general: frontwoman Dana Schecter plays lap steel, bass, and electronics rather than guitar in a traditionally guitar-dominated genre, demonstrating the forward-thinking, experimental ethic that defined so many of Soundscape’s best acts.
PRURIENT - Prurient, the long-standing harsh noise project of prolific experimental musician Dominick Fernow, played a short yet devastating set. Characterized by extremely high-pitched feedback, aggressive vocals, and shocking volume, Prurient’s performance was easily one of the weekend’s most intense. Fernow created the impression that the set was a painful one for himself in addition to audience members; he engaged in a performative battle with his equipment on stage, twisting himself around cables and at one point screaming into three microphones at once. But Prurient wasn’t all brutality — the final cut revolved around a surprisingly clean piano sample, forming an eerie atmosphere that contrasted the rest of the set beautifully. Prurient raised the bar for noise at Soundscape, and heavier acts throughout the rest of the night had to reckon with this passionate performance.
LIGHTNING BOLT - Lightning Bolt’s headlining set Saturday night began with one of the most vital-sounding collaborations of the festival. YOKUBARI (of Black Dice and Kill Alters) had been blasting through a dancey set with an electronically manipulated drum kit high up in the warehouse, facing outward to the audience on the floor; suddenly, Lightning Bolt began to jam along with him from the main stage, resulting in a cacophonous, hardcore-influenced explosion of noise. Lightning Bolt’s set remained surprising and fun from this point onward, spanning from dissonant free jazz to blisteringly fast art rock. They seemed somewhat plagued by equipment issues throughout their performance, but even this felt like a perfect addition to their chaotic aesthetic.
THE HAXAN CLOAK + NICK ZINNER - Dark ambient producer The Haxan Cloak and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs played one of the loudest, most sonically rich sets of the weekend late Saturday night. Though the set mostly stuck within the thick, droney, minor-key formula The Haxan Cloak has become known for, moments of industrial/electronic percussion and Zinner’s soaring, shoegazey guitar leads helped the set stand out. In a sense, the pair’s performance functioned as a microcosm for the Soundscape ethos as a whole: collaborative, experimental, and truly, truly heavy.
Check out a few more videos/pictures from Basilica Soundscape below...
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnzhymFHK4D/?taken-at=1034686357
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bny5fYYhGlN/?taken-at=1034686357
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnxHC2RlXqI/?taken-at=1034686357
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnznIEdHBMr/?taken-at=1034686357
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnzhzusBW9a/?taken-at=1034686357
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnzUSa2DND1/?taken-at=1034686357
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn21MLEFDL_/?taken-at=1034686357
…
If Holocausto Canibal’s frontman Ricardo Silva’s persona is an imposing one, that of a self-assured predator after a killing, Besta’s Paulo Rui is a wild animal still thirsty for blood. Their politically-infused grind owes much to the crust side of things – the prey it chases are the injustices, imbalances and power dynamics of modern society. Dozens of minute-long manifestos were fired in quick succession throughout a set that kept punks and metalheads under the same canvas roof. They were then separated during the only overlapping shows of the day: La Hija Del Carroñero carried straight from where Besta left off, whereas Pillorian, frontlined by John Haughm, initiated the black metal division of the festival. Though the main stages’ tents ward off the sunlight through narrow entrances at the back, contemplative sets decidedly don’t work in this context. The sound gets too muffled, complex harmonies vanish, and all we’re left with is a glimpse of what could’ve been. The loss of energy results in a loss of interest, and this became evident not only during Pillorian but The Ruins of Beverast and Oranssi Pazuzu as well. Despite Nader Sadek’s similar emphasis on mood-setting (after all, he’s worked with Mayhem and Sunn O))), among others), his heavier set was able to keep its grip on a curious crowd enjoying, most likely for the first and last time, the sight of ex-Hate Eternal’s Derek Roddy, ex-Opeth’s Johan de Farfalla, ex-Zyklon’s Thor Anders Myhren, and ex-Obscura’s Tom Geldschläger simultaneously on stage.
…
…
For the remainder of the first day, the second stage offered Marginal’s Belgian anarchist crust, which could be labeled by-the-book if not for the oddly fitting death metal growls, and the recommended daily intake of classic thrash through Sweden’s Antichrist’s hand; as for the main stage, there were three worthy contenders for the title of headliners: Aborted, Inquisition and Master were equally impressive. The first ones had played the festival 15 years ago and were schedule to play it again last year, but a last-minute cancellation left their fans disappointed at first and jubilant soon afterwards as they were one of the first confirmations for this 20th anniversary. Their sound owes much to the three decades old Master, a band too often overlooked in death metal’s genealogy. Far from both Florida and California and too unstable in the early 80s to get themselves a good deal with any label, they remained underground until their 1990 Nuclear Blast debut. Calling them a household name may still be an overstatement, but their 2AM set was packed and presented a band at the top of their game.
Still, Inquisition were the most memorable band of the night. A voice which, in a live setting, sounds closer to the kargyraa style of throat singing than typical black metal shrieks provides the bottom end for a stripped-down band consisting of drums and a single guitar. This simplicity contributed to the clear, nearly-flawless sound they were gifted with. Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith, their latest album, was even more enthralling in a live setting.
…
…
For many attendees, the night ended after Master, but the free stage still had two performances in store. First up were The Ominous Circle, a band just recently out of the womb and straight into the abyss. This might’ve been only their second show, but the confidence of this band’s five scene veterans shone through their black hoods. Appalling Ascension, their debut album, is already a strong contender for album of the year and even when its catchy leads got lost inside the tent with the poorest sound the band remained as enticing as on record. Unfortunately, this also meant they eclipsed the first live appearance by Enlighten, another band with plenty of veterans and know-how. Less visually appealing than the previous act, they had no choice but to end the night on a lower note.
…
…
Day 2
…
…
As I was only tasked with shooting the fest, I’ve got to admit things get a bit hazy from here on out. In truth, this whole report was meant to be an introductory paragraph which got out of hand, and I’ll blame the typical post-festival depression as well as the urge to return to its weekend – in Portuguese, we’d call it “saudade”. While some sets are difficult to remember, Goldenpyre’s was remarkable due to their history, inextricably linked to the festival’s. It’s not every day that a band presents an album 20 years in the making and invites some of their past members on stage.
…
Thantifaxath Expand on The Introspective Philosophy Lurking in “Hive Mind Narcosis” (Interview)
Soon, Toronto’s Thantifaxath will hit the road in support of their latest album Hive Mind Narcosis. It’s recommended that you listen to it as soon as possible so you have enough time to digest what the hell is happening within its confines. It’s one of the best albums of the year, not only for its symbolism, sublime pacing, and forward-thinking compositions, but for how little it reveals about its identity while asking you to find yourself within it. Hive Mind Narcosis is both imposing and immediately gratifying, reeling you back in with the promise of exceptionally tight black metal only to pose questions you may not be willing to answer.
Ahead of their tour, we spoke with a Thantifaxath member to try and find out more about their philosophy. The thing is, crafting questions to ask the anonymous group was tricky. They’re more of an entity than a band, and all the information they release about their music only leads down rabbit holes.
For instance, the official description for Hive Mind Narcosis includes this quote, “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Mystery is imperative to Thantifaxath, though it’s not to build intrigue. It exists to purge the members’ identity from the music and remove any notions that could influence how one interprets them. Their craft exists in the obscured space between the audience and the performer, and in this distance Thantifaxath force listeners to discover their own conclusions.
As such, many of the questions we posed to their representative only caused us to consider why we asked them in the first place. Much like their music, the point isn’t the answer, but what lies beneath it. It’s more fruitful to examine how their ideas affect us than it is to find out the why of their origins. Sure, music is a shared tongue through which one can find a piece of themselves. Love songs are addictive because they deal with ubiquitous sentiments, and even the most braggadocious rap lyrics fulfill a power fantasy—It’s not that we’re excited Bobby Shmurda thinks that he’s Tom Cruise, but that we feel like we are Bobby with that tool.
Thantifaxath don’t engage with those universal emotions, though. Their imagery is stark yet inhuman. Their experiences are metaphorical. It’s daunting to investigate what’s just outside the frame because it teeters on an abyss, and you may not be prepared for it to stare back at you. However, Thantifaxath encourage you to take that plunge and confront that which you fear, whether it’s a circle of wolves or hungry ghosts.
As daunting as that sounds, their live shows transmute that energy into a somewhat digestible and, arguably, more impressive format. In their own words, “Playing live is a different machine. We've never tried to replicate our recorded music exactly live. Rather, it takes on its own life in rehearsal, and there’s a lot more free expression, chaos, and improvisation live.” So, if you’ve been holding off on Hive Mind Narcosis, or have a spare few dollars for a show, there are worse ways to spend a night than with Thantifaxath.
…
…
What inspired your interest in the unconscious?
When I was a child (7 or 8), I woke up with a splitting headache every day. I eventually found out that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep at night. An adult I was close to at that time had struggled with depression and a codeine addiction, and after many doctors, he decided to try hypnotherapy. He was able to second-hand teach me a simple self-hypnosis technique to stop grinding my teeth. He said I didn't need to believe it, just to keep doing it. In less than a week, my headaches disappeared and never returned. This was my first insight into the power of the unconscious.
In your print-only interview with Decibel Magazine, you said, “The most powerful art comes from a place you can’t understand consciously.” How do you create art if you don’t understand it on a conscious, or logical, level?
The only way I can respond to that question is with a series of questions: Where does creativity come from for you? Is it logical? Have you glimpsed its source? When nature creates beauty, is it conscious that it's trying to make art or is it just doing what it does? Can humans create like that?
In my experience, all I can do is show up for it. I have to sift through a lot of garbage before I find anything worth sharing. Much of the garbage is my own mind trying to make what it thinks art is. I don't think you can put "have a revelatory idea" into your daily planner.
Another quote you gave to Decibel that I love goes, “Pleasures feel empty; pain is avoided; all that’s left is an undercurrent of fear.” How does Thantifaxath interact with this cycle for you?
That statement was in reference to Carl Jung's "shadow self" as an unconscious manifestation of everything we hate and fear to look at in ourselves. It has both individual and collective levels to it. Looking at it is painful. Pain avoidance is a driving force in addiction and escapism.
I was suggesting that this Shadow, rather than being something to fight or avoid, could be something to look at and work with throughout your life. This is an abiding theme in Thantifaxath.
Why do you leave your music’s themes up to interpretation?
Even after the songs are finished, I'm often still working out exactly what they mean to me. Arguably, because I'm struggling to admit something to myself. The source of a gut feeling isn't always easy to identify or pleasant to look at. Likewise, once it's released, it's yours to experience. Who am I to deprive others of their personal interpretation?
On that note, I’d love it if you could give me more information on the album’s title, Hive Mind Narcosis. Can we interpret the title to mean that our society restricts us due to induced narcosis?
I wouldn't say it's that political or conspiratorial. Let's just say the title is less about the powers that be and more about you and how you relate to the whole. I'd prefer not to explain further than this.
However, your question inspired me to share a Lao Tsu quote someone recently read me. "As soon as beauty is known by the world, it becomes ugly. As soon as virtue is being known as good, it becomes evil."
How do you feel that Thantifaxath's anonymity bolsters your vision?
It is primarily a means to shift focus towards the art itself and not the personalities. It doesn't mean much to us beyond that. As we've stated in the past, we are not special as individuals. The image, or lack thereof, will be a mirror of whatever you want to see; it doesn't really matter to us.
Certain song titles make me think you’re mourning the loss of something from the past—“The Lost Wisdom of Wolves” and “Burning Kingdom of Now.” Is there any thematic connection between these titles?
I didn't see it at first, but there is a sort of "the fall" story working its way through the discography. If you're a human, somewhere deep down, you know your life is an opportunity, regardless of how hard it is. You could have been a sequence of myriad inanimate atoms and lower life forms since the beginning of the earth. And suddenly you get to be human. For a few decades, if you're lucky, then you're back to whatever you were before this. Some part of you knows this and fears losing the opportunity. As much as death, I believe we fear wasting our short time on this planet. What we've lost, as individuals and as a species, is time.
There’s a ton of imagery on Hive Mind Narcosis, particularly with wolves and hungry ghosts. I’m curious about what these two seemingly unrelated images represent.
Lyrics do something that logical, analytical language can't. So, I'm not interested in cementing the meaning of these images for people in that way. I've seen some great interpretations from fans.
Here's what I can say: Humans kill pretty much all the time, but we've forgotten how to kill with love. We've lost a sense of awe for the complexity of the natural systems we depend on. We're hoping those systems can keep up with the relentless hunger and restlessness that is so characteristic of our civilization. We hope some combination of amygdala fight-or-flight instincts and mathematics is enough to survive. We think we can live disconnected from nature and each other… and maybe we will soon. Just because we can, doesn't mean it's wise.
Your lyrics are quite poetic. How do they come to you? Is it in a similar fashion to the music, which you described as “showing up of its own accord?”
Yeah, it's similar. I can't really say where it comes from. I'm just a moderator for what feels more and less truthful. And that's a task that is never finished; it always requires scrutiny.
Much of the information available about Hive Mind Narcosis points that conceptually it's about an internal struggle - i.e., “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Can you describe why you obscured those two levels?
Because they mean more the less you say about them with words. The actual sonic characteristics of the music is where you hear it. If you pay careful attention, you can hear the dichotomy at play throughout the record. “Solar Witch” has a big example of this built into the song. See if you can find it.
Thantifaxath were not a band I’d expect to see at The Arcade [Note: The Arcade is a small, DIY house venue in Toronto that regularly hosts independent concerts]: Seeing you there was a nice merger of inclusive spaces and black metal. Why did you want to play there, and did you know much about the space beforehand?
This space seemed good to play, as there is a built-in community that might not normally see us—especially in such an intimate setting. I've been to a few events there. The sound is surprisingly great for a DIY space. The people who run the space are intelligent and friendly people. We'll definitely play there again.
Right from when we started out as a band, we've always liked playing DIY spaces. We don't get to very often, as they're rare in Toronto. At this point, any good DIY space left in Toronto is worth supporting and protecting.
…
Hive Mind Narcosis released June 2nd via Dark Descent Records. Over at the BV shop, we've got a sweet exclusive oxblood variant of the LP available, too.
Thantifaxath Tour Dates:
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
9/22 Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe Bar Spectacle
9/23 Ottawa, ON @ Dominion Tavern
9/24 Toronto, ON @ Monarch Tavern
9/25 Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary
9/26 Louisville, KY @ Portal
9/27 Atlanta, GA @ Boggs Social & Supply
9/28 Columbus, OH @ Spacebar
9/29 Cleveland, OH @ No Class
10/1 St Louis, MO @ The Sinkhole
10/2 Des Moines, IA @ Lefty's Live Music
10/3 Milwaukee, WI @ X-ray Arcade
10/4 Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge
10/5 Omaha, NE @ Sydney
10/6 Colorado Springs, CO @ Vultures
10/7 Albuquerque, NM @ Sister Bar
10/9 Mesa, AZ @ The Nile Underground
10/10 Las Vegas, NV @ The Griffin
THANTIFAXATH W/SUNLESS & AEVITERNE
10/11 Costa Mesa, CA @ The Wayfarer
10/12 San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick
10/13 Los Angeles, CA @ Knucklehead Bar
10/14 San Luis Obispo, CA @ Dark Nectar Coffee
10/15 Oakland, CA @ Stork Club
10/16 Portland, OR @ The High Water Mark
10/17 Seattle, WA @ Substation
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
10/18 Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall
10/20 Calgary, AB @ Palomino
10/21 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room
10/23 Winnipeg, MB @ The Park Theatre
Thantifaxath Expand on The Introspective Philosophy Lurking in “Hive Mind Narcosis” (Interview)
Soon, Toronto’s Thantifaxath will hit the road in support of their latest album Hive Mind Narcosis. It’s recommended that you listen to it as soon as possible so you have enough time to digest what the hell is happening within its confines. It’s one of the best albums of the year, not only for its symbolism, sublime pacing, and forward-thinking compositions, but for how little it reveals about its identity while asking you to find yourself within it. Hive Mind Narcosis is both imposing and immediately gratifying, reeling you back in with the promise of exceptionally tight black metal only to pose questions you may not be willing to answer.
Ahead of their tour, we spoke with a Thantifaxath member to try and find out more about their philosophy. The thing is, crafting questions to ask the anonymous group was tricky. They’re more of an entity than a band, and all the information they release about their music only leads down rabbit holes.
For instance, the official description for Hive Mind Narcosis includes this quote, “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Mystery is imperative to Thantifaxath, though it’s not to build intrigue. It exists to purge the members’ identity from the music and remove any notions that could influence how one interprets them. Their craft exists in the obscured space between the audience and the performer, and in this distance Thantifaxath force listeners to discover their own conclusions.
As such, many of the questions we posed to their representative only caused us to consider why we asked them in the first place. Much like their music, the point isn’t the answer, but what lies beneath it. It’s more fruitful to examine how their ideas affect us than it is to find out the why of their origins. Sure, music is a shared tongue through which one can find a piece of themselves. Love songs are addictive because they deal with ubiquitous sentiments, and even the most braggadocious rap lyrics fulfill a power fantasy—It’s not that we’re excited Bobby Shmurda thinks that he’s Tom Cruise, but that we feel like we are Bobby with that tool.
Thantifaxath don’t engage with those universal emotions, though. Their imagery is stark yet inhuman. Their experiences are metaphorical. It’s daunting to investigate what’s just outside the frame because it teeters on an abyss, and you may not be prepared for it to stare back at you. However, Thantifaxath encourage you to take that plunge and confront that which you fear, whether it’s a circle of wolves or hungry ghosts.
As daunting as that sounds, their live shows transmute that energy into a somewhat digestible and, arguably, more impressive format. In their own words, “Playing live is a different machine. We've never tried to replicate our recorded music exactly live. Rather, it takes on its own life in rehearsal, and there’s a lot more free expression, chaos, and improvisation live.” So, if you’ve been holding off on Hive Mind Narcosis, or have a spare few dollars for a show, there are worse ways to spend a night than with Thantifaxath.
…
…
What inspired your interest in the unconscious?
When I was a child (7 or 8), I woke up with a splitting headache every day. I eventually found out that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep at night. An adult I was close to at that time had struggled with depression and a codeine addiction, and after many doctors, he decided to try hypnotherapy. He was able to second-hand teach me a simple self-hypnosis technique to stop grinding my teeth. He said I didn't need to believe it, just to keep doing it. In less than a week, my headaches disappeared and never returned. This was my first insight into the power of the unconscious.
In your print-only interview with Decibel Magazine, you said, “The most powerful art comes from a place you can’t understand consciously.” How do you create art if you don’t understand it on a conscious, or logical, level?
The only way I can respond to that question is with a series of questions: Where does creativity come from for you? Is it logical? Have you glimpsed its source? When nature creates beauty, is it conscious that it's trying to make art or is it just doing what it does? Can humans create like that?
In my experience, all I can do is show up for it. I have to sift through a lot of garbage before I find anything worth sharing. Much of the garbage is my own mind trying to make what it thinks art is. I don't think you can put "have a revelatory idea" into your daily planner.
Another quote you gave to Decibel that I love goes, “Pleasures feel empty; pain is avoided; all that’s left is an undercurrent of fear.” How does Thantifaxath interact with this cycle for you?
That statement was in reference to Carl Jung's "shadow self" as an unconscious manifestation of everything we hate and fear to look at in ourselves. It has both individual and collective levels to it. Looking at it is painful. Pain avoidance is a driving force in addiction and escapism.
I was suggesting that this Shadow, rather than being something to fight or avoid, could be something to look at and work with throughout your life. This is an abiding theme in Thantifaxath.
Why do you leave your music’s themes up to interpretation?
Even after the songs are finished, I'm often still working out exactly what they mean to me. Arguably, because I'm struggling to admit something to myself. The source of a gut feeling isn't always easy to identify or pleasant to look at. Likewise, once it's released, it's yours to experience. Who am I to deprive others of their personal interpretation?
On that note, I’d love it if you could give me more information on the album’s title, Hive Mind Narcosis. Can we interpret the title to mean that our society restricts us due to induced narcosis?
I wouldn't say it's that political or conspiratorial. Let's just say the title is less about the powers that be and more about you and how you relate to the whole. I'd prefer not to explain further than this.
However, your question inspired me to share a Lao Tsu quote someone recently read me. "As soon as beauty is known by the world, it becomes ugly. As soon as virtue is being known as good, it becomes evil."
How do you feel that Thantifaxath's anonymity bolsters your vision?
It is primarily a means to shift focus towards the art itself and not the personalities. It doesn't mean much to us beyond that. As we've stated in the past, we are not special as individuals. The image, or lack thereof, will be a mirror of whatever you want to see; it doesn't really matter to us.
Certain song titles make me think you’re mourning the loss of something from the past—“The Lost Wisdom of Wolves” and “Burning Kingdom of Now.” Is there any thematic connection between these titles?
I didn't see it at first, but there is a sort of "the fall" story working its way through the discography. If you're a human, somewhere deep down, you know your life is an opportunity, regardless of how hard it is. You could have been a sequence of myriad inanimate atoms and lower life forms since the beginning of the earth. And suddenly you get to be human. For a few decades, if you're lucky, then you're back to whatever you were before this. Some part of you knows this and fears losing the opportunity. As much as death, I believe we fear wasting our short time on this planet. What we've lost, as individuals and as a species, is time.
There’s a ton of imagery on Hive Mind Narcosis, particularly with wolves and hungry ghosts. I’m curious about what these two seemingly unrelated images represent.
Lyrics do something that logical, analytical language can't. So, I'm not interested in cementing the meaning of these images for people in that way. I've seen some great interpretations from fans.
Here's what I can say: Humans kill pretty much all the time, but we've forgotten how to kill with love. We've lost a sense of awe for the complexity of the natural systems we depend on. We're hoping those systems can keep up with the relentless hunger and restlessness that is so characteristic of our civilization. We hope some combination of amygdala fight-or-flight instincts and mathematics is enough to survive. We think we can live disconnected from nature and each other… and maybe we will soon. Just because we can, doesn't mean it's wise.
Your lyrics are quite poetic. How do they come to you? Is it in a similar fashion to the music, which you described as “showing up of its own accord?”
Yeah, it's similar. I can't really say where it comes from. I'm just a moderator for what feels more and less truthful. And that's a task that is never finished; it always requires scrutiny.
Much of the information available about Hive Mind Narcosis points that conceptually it's about an internal struggle - i.e., “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Can you describe why you obscured those two levels?
Because they mean more the less you say about them with words. The actual sonic characteristics of the music is where you hear it. If you pay careful attention, you can hear the dichotomy at play throughout the record. “Solar Witch” has a big example of this built into the song. See if you can find it.
Thantifaxath were not a band I’d expect to see at The Arcade [Note: The Arcade is a small, DIY house venue in Toronto that regularly hosts independent concerts]: Seeing you there was a nice merger of inclusive spaces and black metal. Why did you want to play there, and did you know much about the space beforehand?
This space seemed good to play, as there is a built-in community that might not normally see us—especially in such an intimate setting. I've been to a few events there. The sound is surprisingly great for a DIY space. The people who run the space are intelligent and friendly people. We'll definitely play there again.
Right from when we started out as a band, we've always liked playing DIY spaces. We don't get to very often, as they're rare in Toronto. At this point, any good DIY space left in Toronto is worth supporting and protecting.
…
Hive Mind Narcosis released June 2nd via Dark Descent Records. Over at the BV shop, we've got a sweet exclusive oxblood variant of the LP available, too.
Thantifaxath Tour Dates:
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
9/22 Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe Bar Spectacle
9/23 Ottawa, ON @ Dominion Tavern
9/24 Toronto, ON @ Monarch Tavern
9/25 Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary
9/26 Louisville, KY @ Portal
9/27 Atlanta, GA @ Boggs Social & Supply
9/28 Columbus, OH @ Spacebar
9/29 Cleveland, OH @ No Class
10/1 St Louis, MO @ The Sinkhole
10/2 Des Moines, IA @ Lefty's Live Music
10/3 Milwaukee, WI @ X-ray Arcade
10/4 Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge
10/5 Omaha, NE @ Sydney
10/6 Colorado Springs, CO @ Vultures
10/7 Albuquerque, NM @ Sister Bar
10/9 Mesa, AZ @ The Nile Underground
10/10 Las Vegas, NV @ The Griffin
THANTIFAXATH W/SUNLESS & AEVITERNE
10/11 Costa Mesa, CA @ The Wayfarer
10/12 San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick
10/13 Los Angeles, CA @ Knucklehead Bar
10/14 San Luis Obispo, CA @ Dark Nectar Coffee
10/15 Oakland, CA @ Stork Club
10/16 Portland, OR @ The High Water Mark
10/17 Seattle, WA @ Substation
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
10/18 Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall
10/20 Calgary, AB @ Palomino
10/21 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room
10/23 Winnipeg, MB @ The Park Theatre
Thantifaxath Expand on The Introspective Philosophy Lurking in “Hive Mind Narcosis” (Interview)
Soon, Toronto’s Thantifaxath will hit the road in support of their latest album Hive Mind Narcosis. It’s recommended that you listen to it as soon as possible so you have enough time to digest what the hell is happening within its confines. It’s one of the best albums of the year, not only for its symbolism, sublime pacing, and forward-thinking compositions, but for how little it reveals about its identity while asking you to find yourself within it. Hive Mind Narcosis is both imposing and immediately gratifying, reeling you back in with the promise of exceptionally tight black metal only to pose questions you may not be willing to answer.
Ahead of their tour, we spoke with a Thantifaxath member to try and find out more about their philosophy. The thing is, crafting questions to ask the anonymous group was tricky. They’re more of an entity than a band, and all the information they release about their music only leads down rabbit holes.
For instance, the official description for Hive Mind Narcosis includes this quote, “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Mystery is imperative to Thantifaxath, though it’s not to build intrigue. It exists to purge the members’ identity from the music and remove any notions that could influence how one interprets them. Their craft exists in the obscured space between the audience and the performer, and in this distance Thantifaxath force listeners to discover their own conclusions.
As such, many of the questions we posed to their representative only caused us to consider why we asked them in the first place. Much like their music, the point isn’t the answer, but what lies beneath it. It’s more fruitful to examine how their ideas affect us than it is to find out the why of their origins. Sure, music is a shared tongue through which one can find a piece of themselves. Love songs are addictive because they deal with ubiquitous sentiments, and even the most braggadocious rap lyrics fulfill a power fantasy—It’s not that we’re excited Bobby Shmurda thinks that he’s Tom Cruise, but that we feel like we are Bobby with that tool.
Thantifaxath don’t engage with those universal emotions, though. Their imagery is stark yet inhuman. Their experiences are metaphorical. It’s daunting to investigate what’s just outside the frame because it teeters on an abyss, and you may not be prepared for it to stare back at you. However, Thantifaxath encourage you to take that plunge and confront that which you fear, whether it’s a circle of wolves or hungry ghosts.
As daunting as that sounds, their live shows transmute that energy into a somewhat digestible and, arguably, more impressive format. In their own words, “Playing live is a different machine. We've never tried to replicate our recorded music exactly live. Rather, it takes on its own life in rehearsal, and there’s a lot more free expression, chaos, and improvisation live.” So, if you’ve been holding off on Hive Mind Narcosis, or have a spare few dollars for a show, there are worse ways to spend a night than with Thantifaxath.
…
…
What inspired your interest in the unconscious?
When I was a child (7 or 8), I woke up with a splitting headache every day. I eventually found out that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep at night. An adult I was close to at that time had struggled with depression and a codeine addiction, and after many doctors, he decided to try hypnotherapy. He was able to second-hand teach me a simple self-hypnosis technique to stop grinding my teeth. He said I didn't need to believe it, just to keep doing it. In less than a week, my headaches disappeared and never returned. This was my first insight into the power of the unconscious.
In your print-only interview with Decibel Magazine, you said, “The most powerful art comes from a place you can’t understand consciously.” How do you create art if you don’t understand it on a conscious, or logical, level?
The only way I can respond to that question is with a series of questions: Where does creativity come from for you? Is it logical? Have you glimpsed its source? When nature creates beauty, is it conscious that it's trying to make art or is it just doing what it does? Can humans create like that?
In my experience, all I can do is show up for it. I have to sift through a lot of garbage before I find anything worth sharing. Much of the garbage is my own mind trying to make what it thinks art is. I don't think you can put "have a revelatory idea" into your daily planner.
Another quote you gave to Decibel that I love goes, “Pleasures feel empty; pain is avoided; all that’s left is an undercurrent of fear.” How does Thantifaxath interact with this cycle for you?
That statement was in reference to Carl Jung's "shadow self" as an unconscious manifestation of everything we hate and fear to look at in ourselves. It has both individual and collective levels to it. Looking at it is painful. Pain avoidance is a driving force in addiction and escapism.
I was suggesting that this Shadow, rather than being something to fight or avoid, could be something to look at and work with throughout your life. This is an abiding theme in Thantifaxath.
Why do you leave your music’s themes up to interpretation?
Even after the songs are finished, I'm often still working out exactly what they mean to me. Arguably, because I'm struggling to admit something to myself. The source of a gut feeling isn't always easy to identify or pleasant to look at. Likewise, once it's released, it's yours to experience. Who am I to deprive others of their personal interpretation?
On that note, I’d love it if you could give me more information on the album’s title, Hive Mind Narcosis. Can we interpret the title to mean that our society restricts us due to induced narcosis?
I wouldn't say it's that political or conspiratorial. Let's just say the title is less about the powers that be and more about you and how you relate to the whole. I'd prefer not to explain further than this.
However, your question inspired me to share a Lao Tsu quote someone recently read me. "As soon as beauty is known by the world, it becomes ugly. As soon as virtue is being known as good, it becomes evil."
How do you feel that Thantifaxath's anonymity bolsters your vision?
It is primarily a means to shift focus towards the art itself and not the personalities. It doesn't mean much to us beyond that. As we've stated in the past, we are not special as individuals. The image, or lack thereof, will be a mirror of whatever you want to see; it doesn't really matter to us.
Certain song titles make me think you’re mourning the loss of something from the past—“The Lost Wisdom of Wolves” and “Burning Kingdom of Now.” Is there any thematic connection between these titles?
I didn't see it at first, but there is a sort of "the fall" story working its way through the discography. If you're a human, somewhere deep down, you know your life is an opportunity, regardless of how hard it is. You could have been a sequence of myriad inanimate atoms and lower life forms since the beginning of the earth. And suddenly you get to be human. For a few decades, if you're lucky, then you're back to whatever you were before this. Some part of you knows this and fears losing the opportunity. As much as death, I believe we fear wasting our short time on this planet. What we've lost, as individuals and as a species, is time.
There’s a ton of imagery on Hive Mind Narcosis, particularly with wolves and hungry ghosts. I’m curious about what these two seemingly unrelated images represent.
Lyrics do something that logical, analytical language can't. So, I'm not interested in cementing the meaning of these images for people in that way. I've seen some great interpretations from fans.
Here's what I can say: Humans kill pretty much all the time, but we've forgotten how to kill with love. We've lost a sense of awe for the complexity of the natural systems we depend on. We're hoping those systems can keep up with the relentless hunger and restlessness that is so characteristic of our civilization. We hope some combination of amygdala fight-or-flight instincts and mathematics is enough to survive. We think we can live disconnected from nature and each other… and maybe we will soon. Just because we can, doesn't mean it's wise.
Your lyrics are quite poetic. How do they come to you? Is it in a similar fashion to the music, which you described as “showing up of its own accord?”
Yeah, it's similar. I can't really say where it comes from. I'm just a moderator for what feels more and less truthful. And that's a task that is never finished; it always requires scrutiny.
Much of the information available about Hive Mind Narcosis points that conceptually it's about an internal struggle - i.e., “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Can you describe why you obscured those two levels?
Because they mean more the less you say about them with words. The actual sonic characteristics of the music is where you hear it. If you pay careful attention, you can hear the dichotomy at play throughout the record. “Solar Witch” has a big example of this built into the song. See if you can find it.
Thantifaxath were not a band I’d expect to see at The Arcade [Note: The Arcade is a small, DIY house venue in Toronto that regularly hosts independent concerts]: Seeing you there was a nice merger of inclusive spaces and black metal. Why did you want to play there, and did you know much about the space beforehand?
This space seemed good to play, as there is a built-in community that might not normally see us—especially in such an intimate setting. I've been to a few events there. The sound is surprisingly great for a DIY space. The people who run the space are intelligent and friendly people. We'll definitely play there again.
Right from when we started out as a band, we've always liked playing DIY spaces. We don't get to very often, as they're rare in Toronto. At this point, any good DIY space left in Toronto is worth supporting and protecting.
…
Hive Mind Narcosis released June 2nd via Dark Descent Records. Over at the BV shop, we've got a sweet exclusive oxblood variant of the LP available, too.
Thantifaxath Tour Dates:
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
9/22 Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe Bar Spectacle
9/23 Ottawa, ON @ Dominion Tavern
9/24 Toronto, ON @ Monarch Tavern
9/25 Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary
9/26 Louisville, KY @ Portal
9/27 Atlanta, GA @ Boggs Social & Supply
9/28 Columbus, OH @ Spacebar
9/29 Cleveland, OH @ No Class
10/1 St Louis, MO @ The Sinkhole
10/2 Des Moines, IA @ Lefty's Live Music
10/3 Milwaukee, WI @ X-ray Arcade
10/4 Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge
10/5 Omaha, NE @ Sydney
10/6 Colorado Springs, CO @ Vultures
10/7 Albuquerque, NM @ Sister Bar
10/9 Mesa, AZ @ The Nile Underground
10/10 Las Vegas, NV @ The Griffin
THANTIFAXATH W/SUNLESS & AEVITERNE
10/11 Costa Mesa, CA @ The Wayfarer
10/12 San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick
10/13 Los Angeles, CA @ Knucklehead Bar
10/14 San Luis Obispo, CA @ Dark Nectar Coffee
10/15 Oakland, CA @ Stork Club
10/16 Portland, OR @ The High Water Mark
10/17 Seattle, WA @ Substation
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
10/18 Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall
10/20 Calgary, AB @ Palomino
10/21 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room
10/23 Winnipeg, MB @ The Park Theatre
Thantifaxath Expand on The Introspective Philosophy Lurking in “Hive Mind Narcosis” (Interview)
Soon, Toronto’s Thantifaxath will hit the road in support of their latest album Hive Mind Narcosis. It’s recommended that you listen to it as soon as possible so you have enough time to digest what the hell is happening within its confines. It’s one of the best albums of the year, not only for its symbolism, sublime pacing, and forward-thinking compositions, but for how little it reveals about its identity while asking you to find yourself within it. Hive Mind Narcosis is both imposing and immediately gratifying, reeling you back in with the promise of exceptionally tight black metal only to pose questions you may not be willing to answer.
Ahead of their tour, we spoke with a Thantifaxath member to try and find out more about their philosophy. The thing is, crafting questions to ask the anonymous group was tricky. They’re more of an entity than a band, and all the information they release about their music only leads down rabbit holes.
For instance, the official description for Hive Mind Narcosis includes this quote, “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Mystery is imperative to Thantifaxath, though it’s not to build intrigue. It exists to purge the members’ identity from the music and remove any notions that could influence how one interprets them. Their craft exists in the obscured space between the audience and the performer, and in this distance Thantifaxath force listeners to discover their own conclusions.
As such, many of the questions we posed to their representative only caused us to consider why we asked them in the first place. Much like their music, the point isn’t the answer, but what lies beneath it. It’s more fruitful to examine how their ideas affect us than it is to find out the why of their origins. Sure, music is a shared tongue through which one can find a piece of themselves. Love songs are addictive because they deal with ubiquitous sentiments, and even the most braggadocious rap lyrics fulfill a power fantasy—It’s not that we’re excited Bobby Shmurda thinks that he’s Tom Cruise, but that we feel like we are Bobby with that tool.
Thantifaxath don’t engage with those universal emotions, though. Their imagery is stark yet inhuman. Their experiences are metaphorical. It’s daunting to investigate what’s just outside the frame because it teeters on an abyss, and you may not be prepared for it to stare back at you. However, Thantifaxath encourage you to take that plunge and confront that which you fear, whether it’s a circle of wolves or hungry ghosts.
As daunting as that sounds, their live shows transmute that energy into a somewhat digestible and, arguably, more impressive format. In their own words, “Playing live is a different machine. We've never tried to replicate our recorded music exactly live. Rather, it takes on its own life in rehearsal, and there’s a lot more free expression, chaos, and improvisation live.” So, if you’ve been holding off on Hive Mind Narcosis, or have a spare few dollars for a show, there are worse ways to spend a night than with Thantifaxath.
…
…
What inspired your interest in the unconscious?
When I was a child (7 or 8), I woke up with a splitting headache every day. I eventually found out that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep at night. An adult I was close to at that time had struggled with depression and a codeine addiction, and after many doctors, he decided to try hypnotherapy. He was able to second-hand teach me a simple self-hypnosis technique to stop grinding my teeth. He said I didn't need to believe it, just to keep doing it. In less than a week, my headaches disappeared and never returned. This was my first insight into the power of the unconscious.
In your print-only interview with Decibel Magazine, you said, “The most powerful art comes from a place you can’t understand consciously.” How do you create art if you don’t understand it on a conscious, or logical, level?
The only way I can respond to that question is with a series of questions: Where does creativity come from for you? Is it logical? Have you glimpsed its source? When nature creates beauty, is it conscious that it's trying to make art or is it just doing what it does? Can humans create like that?
In my experience, all I can do is show up for it. I have to sift through a lot of garbage before I find anything worth sharing. Much of the garbage is my own mind trying to make what it thinks art is. I don't think you can put "have a revelatory idea" into your daily planner.
Another quote you gave to Decibel that I love goes, “Pleasures feel empty; pain is avoided; all that’s left is an undercurrent of fear.” How does Thantifaxath interact with this cycle for you?
That statement was in reference to Carl Jung's "shadow self" as an unconscious manifestation of everything we hate and fear to look at in ourselves. It has both individual and collective levels to it. Looking at it is painful. Pain avoidance is a driving force in addiction and escapism.
I was suggesting that this Shadow, rather than being something to fight or avoid, could be something to look at and work with throughout your life. This is an abiding theme in Thantifaxath.
Why do you leave your music’s themes up to interpretation?
Even after the songs are finished, I'm often still working out exactly what they mean to me. Arguably, because I'm struggling to admit something to myself. The source of a gut feeling isn't always easy to identify or pleasant to look at. Likewise, once it's released, it's yours to experience. Who am I to deprive others of their personal interpretation?
On that note, I’d love it if you could give me more information on the album’s title, Hive Mind Narcosis. Can we interpret the title to mean that our society restricts us due to induced narcosis?
I wouldn't say it's that political or conspiratorial. Let's just say the title is less about the powers that be and more about you and how you relate to the whole. I'd prefer not to explain further than this.
However, your question inspired me to share a Lao Tsu quote someone recently read me. "As soon as beauty is known by the world, it becomes ugly. As soon as virtue is being known as good, it becomes evil."
How do you feel that Thantifaxath's anonymity bolsters your vision?
It is primarily a means to shift focus towards the art itself and not the personalities. It doesn't mean much to us beyond that. As we've stated in the past, we are not special as individuals. The image, or lack thereof, will be a mirror of whatever you want to see; it doesn't really matter to us.
Certain song titles make me think you’re mourning the loss of something from the past—“The Lost Wisdom of Wolves” and “Burning Kingdom of Now.” Is there any thematic connection between these titles?
I didn't see it at first, but there is a sort of "the fall" story working its way through the discography. If you're a human, somewhere deep down, you know your life is an opportunity, regardless of how hard it is. You could have been a sequence of myriad inanimate atoms and lower life forms since the beginning of the earth. And suddenly you get to be human. For a few decades, if you're lucky, then you're back to whatever you were before this. Some part of you knows this and fears losing the opportunity. As much as death, I believe we fear wasting our short time on this planet. What we've lost, as individuals and as a species, is time.
There’s a ton of imagery on Hive Mind Narcosis, particularly with wolves and hungry ghosts. I’m curious about what these two seemingly unrelated images represent.
Lyrics do something that logical, analytical language can't. So, I'm not interested in cementing the meaning of these images for people in that way. I've seen some great interpretations from fans.
Here's what I can say: Humans kill pretty much all the time, but we've forgotten how to kill with love. We've lost a sense of awe for the complexity of the natural systems we depend on. We're hoping those systems can keep up with the relentless hunger and restlessness that is so characteristic of our civilization. We hope some combination of amygdala fight-or-flight instincts and mathematics is enough to survive. We think we can live disconnected from nature and each other… and maybe we will soon. Just because we can, doesn't mean it's wise.
Your lyrics are quite poetic. How do they come to you? Is it in a similar fashion to the music, which you described as “showing up of its own accord?”
Yeah, it's similar. I can't really say where it comes from. I'm just a moderator for what feels more and less truthful. And that's a task that is never finished; it always requires scrutiny.
Much of the information available about Hive Mind Narcosis points that conceptually it's about an internal struggle - i.e., “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Can you describe why you obscured those two levels?
Because they mean more the less you say about them with words. The actual sonic characteristics of the music is where you hear it. If you pay careful attention, you can hear the dichotomy at play throughout the record. “Solar Witch” has a big example of this built into the song. See if you can find it.
Thantifaxath were not a band I’d expect to see at The Arcade [Note: The Arcade is a small, DIY house venue in Toronto that regularly hosts independent concerts]: Seeing you there was a nice merger of inclusive spaces and black metal. Why did you want to play there, and did you know much about the space beforehand?
This space seemed good to play, as there is a built-in community that might not normally see us—especially in such an intimate setting. I've been to a few events there. The sound is surprisingly great for a DIY space. The people who run the space are intelligent and friendly people. We'll definitely play there again.
Right from when we started out as a band, we've always liked playing DIY spaces. We don't get to very often, as they're rare in Toronto. At this point, any good DIY space left in Toronto is worth supporting and protecting.
…
Hive Mind Narcosis released June 2nd via Dark Descent Records. Over at the BV shop, we've got a sweet exclusive oxblood variant of the LP available, too.
Thantifaxath Tour Dates:
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
9/22 Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe Bar Spectacle
9/23 Ottawa, ON @ Dominion Tavern
9/24 Toronto, ON @ Monarch Tavern
9/25 Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary
9/26 Louisville, KY @ Portal
9/27 Atlanta, GA @ Boggs Social & Supply
9/28 Columbus, OH @ Spacebar
9/29 Cleveland, OH @ No Class
10/1 St Louis, MO @ The Sinkhole
10/2 Des Moines, IA @ Lefty's Live Music
10/3 Milwaukee, WI @ X-ray Arcade
10/4 Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge
10/5 Omaha, NE @ Sydney
10/6 Colorado Springs, CO @ Vultures
10/7 Albuquerque, NM @ Sister Bar
10/9 Mesa, AZ @ The Nile Underground
10/10 Las Vegas, NV @ The Griffin
THANTIFAXATH W/SUNLESS & AEVITERNE
10/11 Costa Mesa, CA @ The Wayfarer
10/12 San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick
10/13 Los Angeles, CA @ Knucklehead Bar
10/14 San Luis Obispo, CA @ Dark Nectar Coffee
10/15 Oakland, CA @ Stork Club
10/16 Portland, OR @ The High Water Mark
10/17 Seattle, WA @ Substation
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
10/18 Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall
10/20 Calgary, AB @ Palomino
10/21 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room
10/23 Winnipeg, MB @ The Park Theatre
Thantifaxath Expand on The Introspective Philosophy Lurking in “Hive Mind Narcosis” (Interview)
Soon, Toronto’s Thantifaxath will hit the road in support of their latest album Hive Mind Narcosis. It’s recommended that you listen to it as soon as possible so you have enough time to digest what the hell is happening within its confines. It’s one of the best albums of the year, not only for its symbolism, sublime pacing, and forward-thinking compositions, but for how little it reveals about its identity while asking you to find yourself within it. Hive Mind Narcosis is both imposing and immediately gratifying, reeling you back in with the promise of exceptionally tight black metal only to pose questions you may not be willing to answer.
Ahead of their tour, we spoke with a Thantifaxath member to try and find out more about their philosophy. The thing is, crafting questions to ask the anonymous group was tricky. They’re more of an entity than a band, and all the information they release about their music only leads down rabbit holes.
For instance, the official description for Hive Mind Narcosis includes this quote, “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Mystery is imperative to Thantifaxath, though it’s not to build intrigue. It exists to purge the members’ identity from the music and remove any notions that could influence how one interprets them. Their craft exists in the obscured space between the audience and the performer, and in this distance Thantifaxath force listeners to discover their own conclusions.
As such, many of the questions we posed to their representative only caused us to consider why we asked them in the first place. Much like their music, the point isn’t the answer, but what lies beneath it. It’s more fruitful to examine how their ideas affect us than it is to find out the why of their origins. Sure, music is a shared tongue through which one can find a piece of themselves. Love songs are addictive because they deal with ubiquitous sentiments, and even the most braggadocious rap lyrics fulfill a power fantasy—It’s not that we’re excited Bobby Shmurda thinks that he’s Tom Cruise, but that we feel like we are Bobby with that tool.
Thantifaxath don’t engage with those universal emotions, though. Their imagery is stark yet inhuman. Their experiences are metaphorical. It’s daunting to investigate what’s just outside the frame because it teeters on an abyss, and you may not be prepared for it to stare back at you. However, Thantifaxath encourage you to take that plunge and confront that which you fear, whether it’s a circle of wolves or hungry ghosts.
As daunting as that sounds, their live shows transmute that energy into a somewhat digestible and, arguably, more impressive format. In their own words, “Playing live is a different machine. We've never tried to replicate our recorded music exactly live. Rather, it takes on its own life in rehearsal, and there’s a lot more free expression, chaos, and improvisation live.” So, if you’ve been holding off on Hive Mind Narcosis, or have a spare few dollars for a show, there are worse ways to spend a night than with Thantifaxath.
…
…
What inspired your interest in the unconscious?
When I was a child (7 or 8), I woke up with a splitting headache every day. I eventually found out that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep at night. An adult I was close to at that time had struggled with depression and a codeine addiction, and after many doctors, he decided to try hypnotherapy. He was able to second-hand teach me a simple self-hypnosis technique to stop grinding my teeth. He said I didn't need to believe it, just to keep doing it. In less than a week, my headaches disappeared and never returned. This was my first insight into the power of the unconscious.
In your print-only interview with Decibel Magazine, you said, “The most powerful art comes from a place you can’t understand consciously.” How do you create art if you don’t understand it on a conscious, or logical, level?
The only way I can respond to that question is with a series of questions: Where does creativity come from for you? Is it logical? Have you glimpsed its source? When nature creates beauty, is it conscious that it's trying to make art or is it just doing what it does? Can humans create like that?
In my experience, all I can do is show up for it. I have to sift through a lot of garbage before I find anything worth sharing. Much of the garbage is my own mind trying to make what it thinks art is. I don't think you can put "have a revelatory idea" into your daily planner.
Another quote you gave to Decibel that I love goes, “Pleasures feel empty; pain is avoided; all that’s left is an undercurrent of fear.” How does Thantifaxath interact with this cycle for you?
That statement was in reference to Carl Jung's "shadow self" as an unconscious manifestation of everything we hate and fear to look at in ourselves. It has both individual and collective levels to it. Looking at it is painful. Pain avoidance is a driving force in addiction and escapism.
I was suggesting that this Shadow, rather than being something to fight or avoid, could be something to look at and work with throughout your life. This is an abiding theme in Thantifaxath.
Why do you leave your music’s themes up to interpretation?
Even after the songs are finished, I'm often still working out exactly what they mean to me. Arguably, because I'm struggling to admit something to myself. The source of a gut feeling isn't always easy to identify or pleasant to look at. Likewise, once it's released, it's yours to experience. Who am I to deprive others of their personal interpretation?
On that note, I’d love it if you could give me more information on the album’s title, Hive Mind Narcosis. Can we interpret the title to mean that our society restricts us due to induced narcosis?
I wouldn't say it's that political or conspiratorial. Let's just say the title is less about the powers that be and more about you and how you relate to the whole. I'd prefer not to explain further than this.
However, your question inspired me to share a Lao Tsu quote someone recently read me. "As soon as beauty is known by the world, it becomes ugly. As soon as virtue is being known as good, it becomes evil."
How do you feel that Thantifaxath's anonymity bolsters your vision?
It is primarily a means to shift focus towards the art itself and not the personalities. It doesn't mean much to us beyond that. As we've stated in the past, we are not special as individuals. The image, or lack thereof, will be a mirror of whatever you want to see; it doesn't really matter to us.
Certain song titles make me think you’re mourning the loss of something from the past—“The Lost Wisdom of Wolves” and “Burning Kingdom of Now.” Is there any thematic connection between these titles?
I didn't see it at first, but there is a sort of "the fall" story working its way through the discography. If you're a human, somewhere deep down, you know your life is an opportunity, regardless of how hard it is. You could have been a sequence of myriad inanimate atoms and lower life forms since the beginning of the earth. And suddenly you get to be human. For a few decades, if you're lucky, then you're back to whatever you were before this. Some part of you knows this and fears losing the opportunity. As much as death, I believe we fear wasting our short time on this planet. What we've lost, as individuals and as a species, is time.
There’s a ton of imagery on Hive Mind Narcosis, particularly with wolves and hungry ghosts. I’m curious about what these two seemingly unrelated images represent.
Lyrics do something that logical, analytical language can't. So, I'm not interested in cementing the meaning of these images for people in that way. I've seen some great interpretations from fans.
Here's what I can say: Humans kill pretty much all the time, but we've forgotten how to kill with love. We've lost a sense of awe for the complexity of the natural systems we depend on. We're hoping those systems can keep up with the relentless hunger and restlessness that is so characteristic of our civilization. We hope some combination of amygdala fight-or-flight instincts and mathematics is enough to survive. We think we can live disconnected from nature and each other… and maybe we will soon. Just because we can, doesn't mean it's wise.
Your lyrics are quite poetic. How do they come to you? Is it in a similar fashion to the music, which you described as “showing up of its own accord?”
Yeah, it's similar. I can't really say where it comes from. I'm just a moderator for what feels more and less truthful. And that's a task that is never finished; it always requires scrutiny.
Much of the information available about Hive Mind Narcosis points that conceptually it's about an internal struggle - i.e., “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Can you describe why you obscured those two levels?
Because they mean more the less you say about them with words. The actual sonic characteristics of the music is where you hear it. If you pay careful attention, you can hear the dichotomy at play throughout the record. “Solar Witch” has a big example of this built into the song. See if you can find it.
Thantifaxath were not a band I’d expect to see at The Arcade [Note: The Arcade is a small, DIY house venue in Toronto that regularly hosts independent concerts]: Seeing you there was a nice merger of inclusive spaces and black metal. Why did you want to play there, and did you know much about the space beforehand?
This space seemed good to play, as there is a built-in community that might not normally see us—especially in such an intimate setting. I've been to a few events there. The sound is surprisingly great for a DIY space. The people who run the space are intelligent and friendly people. We'll definitely play there again.
Right from when we started out as a band, we've always liked playing DIY spaces. We don't get to very often, as they're rare in Toronto. At this point, any good DIY space left in Toronto is worth supporting and protecting.
…
Hive Mind Narcosis released June 2nd via Dark Descent Records. Over at the BV shop, we've got a sweet exclusive oxblood variant of the LP available, too.
Thantifaxath Tour Dates:
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
9/22 Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe Bar Spectacle
9/23 Ottawa, ON @ Dominion Tavern
9/24 Toronto, ON @ Monarch Tavern
9/25 Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary
9/26 Louisville, KY @ Portal
9/27 Atlanta, GA @ Boggs Social & Supply
9/28 Columbus, OH @ Spacebar
9/29 Cleveland, OH @ No Class
10/1 St Louis, MO @ The Sinkhole
10/2 Des Moines, IA @ Lefty's Live Music
10/3 Milwaukee, WI @ X-ray Arcade
10/4 Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge
10/5 Omaha, NE @ Sydney
10/6 Colorado Springs, CO @ Vultures
10/7 Albuquerque, NM @ Sister Bar
10/9 Mesa, AZ @ The Nile Underground
10/10 Las Vegas, NV @ The Griffin
THANTIFAXATH W/SUNLESS & AEVITERNE
10/11 Costa Mesa, CA @ The Wayfarer
10/12 San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick
10/13 Los Angeles, CA @ Knucklehead Bar
10/14 San Luis Obispo, CA @ Dark Nectar Coffee
10/15 Oakland, CA @ Stork Club
10/16 Portland, OR @ The High Water Mark
10/17 Seattle, WA @ Substation
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
10/18 Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall
10/20 Calgary, AB @ Palomino
10/21 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room
10/23 Winnipeg, MB @ The Park Theatre
Thantifaxath Expand on The Introspective Philosophy Lurking in “Hive Mind Narcosis” (Interview)
Soon, Toronto’s Thantifaxath will hit the road in support of their latest album Hive Mind Narcosis. It’s recommended that you listen to it as soon as possible so you have enough time to digest what the hell is happening within its confines. It’s one of the best albums of the year, not only for its symbolism, sublime pacing, and forward-thinking compositions, but for how little it reveals about its identity while asking you to find yourself within it. Hive Mind Narcosis is both imposing and immediately gratifying, reeling you back in with the promise of exceptionally tight black metal only to pose questions you may not be willing to answer.
Ahead of their tour, we spoke with a Thantifaxath member to try and find out more about their philosophy. The thing is, crafting questions to ask the anonymous group was tricky. They’re more of an entity than a band, and all the information they release about their music only leads down rabbit holes.
For instance, the official description for Hive Mind Narcosis includes this quote, “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Mystery is imperative to Thantifaxath, though it’s not to build intrigue. It exists to purge the members’ identity from the music and remove any notions that could influence how one interprets them. Their craft exists in the obscured space between the audience and the performer, and in this distance Thantifaxath force listeners to discover their own conclusions.
As such, many of the questions we posed to their representative only caused us to consider why we asked them in the first place. Much like their music, the point isn’t the answer, but what lies beneath it. It’s more fruitful to examine how their ideas affect us than it is to find out the why of their origins. Sure, music is a shared tongue through which one can find a piece of themselves. Love songs are addictive because they deal with ubiquitous sentiments, and even the most braggadocious rap lyrics fulfill a power fantasy—It’s not that we’re excited Bobby Shmurda thinks that he’s Tom Cruise, but that we feel like we are Bobby with that tool.
Thantifaxath don’t engage with those universal emotions, though. Their imagery is stark yet inhuman. Their experiences are metaphorical. It’s daunting to investigate what’s just outside the frame because it teeters on an abyss, and you may not be prepared for it to stare back at you. However, Thantifaxath encourage you to take that plunge and confront that which you fear, whether it’s a circle of wolves or hungry ghosts.
As daunting as that sounds, their live shows transmute that energy into a somewhat digestible and, arguably, more impressive format. In their own words, “Playing live is a different machine. We've never tried to replicate our recorded music exactly live. Rather, it takes on its own life in rehearsal, and there’s a lot more free expression, chaos, and improvisation live.” So, if you’ve been holding off on Hive Mind Narcosis, or have a spare few dollars for a show, there are worse ways to spend a night than with Thantifaxath.
…
…
What inspired your interest in the unconscious?
When I was a child (7 or 8), I woke up with a splitting headache every day. I eventually found out that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep at night. An adult I was close to at that time had struggled with depression and a codeine addiction, and after many doctors, he decided to try hypnotherapy. He was able to second-hand teach me a simple self-hypnosis technique to stop grinding my teeth. He said I didn't need to believe it, just to keep doing it. In less than a week, my headaches disappeared and never returned. This was my first insight into the power of the unconscious.
In your print-only interview with Decibel Magazine, you said, “The most powerful art comes from a place you can’t understand consciously.” How do you create art if you don’t understand it on a conscious, or logical, level?
The only way I can respond to that question is with a series of questions: Where does creativity come from for you? Is it logical? Have you glimpsed its source? When nature creates beauty, is it conscious that it's trying to make art or is it just doing what it does? Can humans create like that?
In my experience, all I can do is show up for it. I have to sift through a lot of garbage before I find anything worth sharing. Much of the garbage is my own mind trying to make what it thinks art is. I don't think you can put "have a revelatory idea" into your daily planner.
Another quote you gave to Decibel that I love goes, “Pleasures feel empty; pain is avoided; all that’s left is an undercurrent of fear.” How does Thantifaxath interact with this cycle for you?
That statement was in reference to Carl Jung's "shadow self" as an unconscious manifestation of everything we hate and fear to look at in ourselves. It has both individual and collective levels to it. Looking at it is painful. Pain avoidance is a driving force in addiction and escapism.
I was suggesting that this Shadow, rather than being something to fight or avoid, could be something to look at and work with throughout your life. This is an abiding theme in Thantifaxath.
Why do you leave your music’s themes up to interpretation?
Even after the songs are finished, I'm often still working out exactly what they mean to me. Arguably, because I'm struggling to admit something to myself. The source of a gut feeling isn't always easy to identify or pleasant to look at. Likewise, once it's released, it's yours to experience. Who am I to deprive others of their personal interpretation?
On that note, I’d love it if you could give me more information on the album’s title, Hive Mind Narcosis. Can we interpret the title to mean that our society restricts us due to induced narcosis?
I wouldn't say it's that political or conspiratorial. Let's just say the title is less about the powers that be and more about you and how you relate to the whole. I'd prefer not to explain further than this.
However, your question inspired me to share a Lao Tsu quote someone recently read me. "As soon as beauty is known by the world, it becomes ugly. As soon as virtue is being known as good, it becomes evil."
How do you feel that Thantifaxath's anonymity bolsters your vision?
It is primarily a means to shift focus towards the art itself and not the personalities. It doesn't mean much to us beyond that. As we've stated in the past, we are not special as individuals. The image, or lack thereof, will be a mirror of whatever you want to see; it doesn't really matter to us.
Certain song titles make me think you’re mourning the loss of something from the past—“The Lost Wisdom of Wolves” and “Burning Kingdom of Now.” Is there any thematic connection between these titles?
I didn't see it at first, but there is a sort of "the fall" story working its way through the discography. If you're a human, somewhere deep down, you know your life is an opportunity, regardless of how hard it is. You could have been a sequence of myriad inanimate atoms and lower life forms since the beginning of the earth. And suddenly you get to be human. For a few decades, if you're lucky, then you're back to whatever you were before this. Some part of you knows this and fears losing the opportunity. As much as death, I believe we fear wasting our short time on this planet. What we've lost, as individuals and as a species, is time.
There’s a ton of imagery on Hive Mind Narcosis, particularly with wolves and hungry ghosts. I’m curious about what these two seemingly unrelated images represent.
Lyrics do something that logical, analytical language can't. So, I'm not interested in cementing the meaning of these images for people in that way. I've seen some great interpretations from fans.
Here's what I can say: Humans kill pretty much all the time, but we've forgotten how to kill with love. We've lost a sense of awe for the complexity of the natural systems we depend on. We're hoping those systems can keep up with the relentless hunger and restlessness that is so characteristic of our civilization. We hope some combination of amygdala fight-or-flight instincts and mathematics is enough to survive. We think we can live disconnected from nature and each other… and maybe we will soon. Just because we can, doesn't mean it's wise.
Your lyrics are quite poetic. How do they come to you? Is it in a similar fashion to the music, which you described as “showing up of its own accord?”
Yeah, it's similar. I can't really say where it comes from. I'm just a moderator for what feels more and less truthful. And that's a task that is never finished; it always requires scrutiny.
Much of the information available about Hive Mind Narcosis points that conceptually it's about an internal struggle - i.e., “The album has two levels working in dichotomy with one another. On one level, there is a strong resistance to something, and on the other, there is a total acceptance of that same thing.” Can you describe why you obscured those two levels?
Because they mean more the less you say about them with words. The actual sonic characteristics of the music is where you hear it. If you pay careful attention, you can hear the dichotomy at play throughout the record. “Solar Witch” has a big example of this built into the song. See if you can find it.
Thantifaxath were not a band I’d expect to see at The Arcade [Note: The Arcade is a small, DIY house venue in Toronto that regularly hosts independent concerts]: Seeing you there was a nice merger of inclusive spaces and black metal. Why did you want to play there, and did you know much about the space beforehand?
This space seemed good to play, as there is a built-in community that might not normally see us—especially in such an intimate setting. I've been to a few events there. The sound is surprisingly great for a DIY space. The people who run the space are intelligent and friendly people. We'll definitely play there again.
Right from when we started out as a band, we've always liked playing DIY spaces. We don't get to very often, as they're rare in Toronto. At this point, any good DIY space left in Toronto is worth supporting and protecting.
…
Hive Mind Narcosis released June 2nd via Dark Descent Records. Over at the BV shop, we've got a sweet exclusive oxblood variant of the LP available, too.
Thantifaxath Tour Dates:
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
9/22 Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe Bar Spectacle
9/23 Ottawa, ON @ Dominion Tavern
9/24 Toronto, ON @ Monarch Tavern
9/25 Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary
9/26 Louisville, KY @ Portal
9/27 Atlanta, GA @ Boggs Social & Supply
9/28 Columbus, OH @ Spacebar
9/29 Cleveland, OH @ No Class
10/1 St Louis, MO @ The Sinkhole
10/2 Des Moines, IA @ Lefty's Live Music
10/3 Milwaukee, WI @ X-ray Arcade
10/4 Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge
10/5 Omaha, NE @ Sydney
10/6 Colorado Springs, CO @ Vultures
10/7 Albuquerque, NM @ Sister Bar
10/9 Mesa, AZ @ The Nile Underground
10/10 Las Vegas, NV @ The Griffin
THANTIFAXATH W/SUNLESS & AEVITERNE
10/11 Costa Mesa, CA @ The Wayfarer
10/12 San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick
10/13 Los Angeles, CA @ Knucklehead Bar
10/14 San Luis Obispo, CA @ Dark Nectar Coffee
10/15 Oakland, CA @ Stork Club
10/16 Portland, OR @ The High Water Mark
10/17 Seattle, WA @ Substation
THANTIFAXATH W/ SUNLESS
10/18 Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall
10/20 Calgary, AB @ Palomino
10/21 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room
10/23 Winnipeg, MB @ The Park Theatre
…
Vircator and My Master The Sun started off the second day in front of a small but respectful crowd. We’re much more used to seeing them in stoner fests than right before Fides Inversa, an abrasive black metal act that shares its drummer/vocalist with Darvaza, who played the same stage two hours later. The core of the latter is drummer Omega (Blut aus Nord) and vocalist Wraath (Behexen), and they lean towards Behexen’s style of black metal, bold and ruthless. Someone tried to offer the vocalist a beer and got his cup kicked out of his hand; someone else committed the sin of resting an elbow on the stage floor and got kicked as well. It was the polar opposite of Cobalt, who make black metal – is that what they play? – fun. “Hunt the Buffalo”, their opener both in 2016’s “Slow Forever” and in this set, started with a lead reminiscent of the stoner bands we’d just witnessed moments before, but as soon as Charlie Fell stepped onto the stage we couldn’t get our eyes off of him. Any lyric-free passage was an excuse to strut, dance, or simply get carried away by the music. If their musical direction in their latest album was already hard to predict, nothing could’ve prepared us for this kind of performance. Equally unexpected was seeing their guitarist sporting the only “Good Night White Pride” t-shirt visible throughout the festival.
…
Reclaiming Wlad Drakksteim’s Lost Kingdom (Interview)
In 2006 I was living in Brooklyn and I asked someone at a record store if they had anything by Prurient, who I'd heard about but had never actually heard. The guy said he didn't but 'the Prurient guy owns a record store, on 3rd St in Manhattan. at the back of Jammyland, down the hole'. So I went to this reggae store called Jammyland and sure enough in the back of the store there was a small hole in the floor with noise blasting out, and I descended a ladder and was in a small black room face to face with an intense young man behind the counter named Dominick. We got to talking and he was serious, peculiar, and very funny, and Hospital became my favorite place in New York for a couple of years. Dom was putting out a ton of great music of his own and of others, and I got a crash course in both noise and black metal. Specifically I got pretty into Branikald, Bone Awl, Ildjarn, Skuggeheim, and Beherit, all of whom I still enjoy.
In 2007 I was playing guitar in Thurston Moore's band, and while touring the west coast we stopped at Zion's Gate, a big metal and reggae shop. Thurston and the bassist, Matt Heyner, were both big on black metal at the time and both pulled out a cd by Vlad Tepes called March To The Black Holocaust and said to me 'you need to get this, it's essential and not easy to find'. So I brought it home and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the whole vibe, it felt very noisy and punk, but moreover the songs were amazing, just epic.
One of the things I loved about the arc of the Vlad Tepes catalog was: the more sophisticated the playing became, the worse the recording quality was. Like this increasingly stunning band was just being buried alive; or like they were in too much of a hurry to get down what they were doing to bother with decent audio. I loved how the last song on their very last album ended with this sound in the background, getting louder and louder, which you eventually realize is the sound of a knife being sharpened, until it takes over the mix and - the song ends. And that's the end of the band! Such high drama. They were really not fucking around.
I got into black metal at a time when social media was really starting to rise, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be 'reach as many people as possible', and I loved that black metal seemed so secretive, so hidden. You really had to make an effort to access it. Something about that felt good to me. I didn't really know anything else about the culture; if I thought hard about it I felt like an interloper, but I didn't care, I just liked the records and tapes and cds. I was happy to enjoy it in isolation, like artifacts from another planet.
In 2008 I got the idea to make an album of acoustic guitar music that might expand some parameters of acoustic guitar. Side two is an 18 minute track of acoustic guitar going through a wall of amps and doing feedback overtones in C; side one was all 'straight' acoustic guitar, including a cover of 'Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple' by Vlad Tepes. It seemed their masterpiece, and I thought that transcribing all 12 minutes of it for acoustic would be challenging, fun, kind of funny, kind of badass, a little bit 'fuck you'. Hopefully not silly. It's an incredible piece of music and I wanted to do right by it. Even though I figured Vlad Tepes (were they even still alive?) would definitely never hear it. I released the album 'Canaris' as a cd, the first release on my new label, Capitan. The people who normally bought my music liked it, I think, while mostly not commenting one way or another on a Vlad Tepes cover.
Around 2013 I got an email from Wlad Drakksteim. His manner of writing was distinct and unusual, almost poetic, but what he said was: he had heard the cover, and liked it, and wanted to include it in a cd reissue that would include a couple of VT covers. Needless to say I was stunned, and flattered, but moreover had the feeling like it wasn't real, like I was communicating with a myth or a ghost. We wrote each other more. He asked if I had any other Vlad Tepes covers (!) - I told him I'd always wanted to cover 'Ravens Hike'. He kind of chuckled and said that it was based on an old Breton song. I ended up recording a not-very-good version in a studio in Australia while on tour. He included both in the compilation.
In 2015 he emailed and said he was going to take the train from Brest five hours to Paris to see me play. Could we meet for dinner, I asked? We met that night and I was breathless. He walked in and no, he was not in corpse paint, etc - he was a neatly dressed, composed French man. Dinner was surreal, very intense. I felt like we really bonded. It felt like a remarkable meeting.
We met again at a show in Rennes in 2018, and at the Invisible Festival in 2019, where he and I had a little jam session with Thurston Moore. Last time we met was in 2022 in Rennes. He wanted me to go in the studio with him at midnight, after a Come show, but I was too tired and had to leave early the next day.
He's become a friend. I hope we can maybe make music together at some point, but if not that's ok too. In this sense, he's like a number of musicians I've befriended over the years. I admire his work, and respect both his legacy and the privacy that's obviously important to him and I think part of that legacy. I think it's great that he's working on new music as VarvLoar1476, and would love to hear a whole album, but again it's fine if that doesn't happen. I play in a band called Codeine, who made music from 1989-1994, at which point the main songwriter, Stephen Immerwahr, stopped making new music. As a fan of Steve's songs, I wish he would make more, but I'm also okay with it being a small slice of time and body of work. I guess I feel the same way about Vlad Tepes.
–Chris Brokaw
…
The Black Legions. Les Légions Noires. The mythical LLN: a sub-underground circle of bands, solo projects, and collaborations based out of the Brest area in France throughout the early-and-mid '90s (though it has roots that date back as far as the late '80s). Incomprehensible band names, a unified and heavily Xeroxed aesthetic, a con-lang called Gloatre, and countless larger than life stories ranging from demos recorded in a French castle to an ambient song based around a recording of a microphone being inserted into a (living) rat, the LLN was a whisper on the Internet for years, relegated to nerds and forum-goers (like yours truly) alike. Bootlegged tapes which were supposedly and originally limited to single-and-double digits, made for friends and compatriots only (along with properly released material on the obscure Embassy Productions) made their way onto the Internet and were met with curiosity and obsession alike. Though the LLN proper dissolved almost thirty years ago, the library of works this small handful of artists made, ranging from the rawest of black metal to the most terrifying of ambient and atmospheric recordings, remained a central source of intrigue to many.
It was Chaos (a proper noun) which drove the LLN. Chaos, Satan, and the Evil that both resulted from and fueled the aforementioned. Though the LLN is synonymous with its de facto leader Vordb (also known as Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, Thörgammaton Blackvomit, Vórdb Báthor Ecsed, Avaëtre, and, most recently, Vordb Na R.iidr), it was Vlad Tepes–named, of course, for the famed masochistic, murderous despot–who made the LLN's most breathtaking and memorable recordings. With progressions so beautiful and sinister that former Codeine drummer and Come frontman Chris Brokaw went so far as to record an entire twelve-minute epic ("Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple") as a solo acoustic guitar piece, Vlad Tepes was a bit of an anomaly in the largely anti-musical LLN (save a few equally as beautiful projects. Where did you go, Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh?). When compared with Belkètre's more atonal moments and Brenoritvrezorkre's partially improvised chaos, the black metal found in Vlad Tepes' discography was melodic and, for all intents and purposes, beautiful, but the intent was certainly not there.
In interviews, Vlad Tepes was more interested in evil and the romanticizing of it, but, most importantly, they were interested in maintaining an air of mystery, both avoiding direct answers and keeping their own identities shrouded in confusion and uncertainty. Even now, the human names for Wlad and Vorlok Drakksteim (at the time assumed to be brothers, but have since been revealed to have been "artistic brothers" rather than actually related) are rumored but never confirmed. During a time of conflict and pugnaciousness in the black metal underground by artists and budding journalists/zine writers alike, it was in Kill Yourself Zine that what would now be called a "doxxing attempt" was made against the Drakksteim duo, featuring full names and mailing addresses alike (this was also done to Vordb!). In return, the infamous rumor has it that Vlad Tepes both threatened to kill Full Moon Productions proprietor/Kill Yourself Zine editor Jon and also mailed him a box filled with dead rats. Evil. There are so many more Vlad Tepes stories that either are or are not true, and the A Catharsis for Human Illness discography box set lays them all bare in a comprehensive zine (if you can find a copy), but rehashing the past is not why we are here today.
Vlad Tepes went the way of many demo-only black metal projects in the '90s: they got tired and subsequently broke up, apparently in or around 1997 (complete with never-before-heard demos which date that far, at least according to Vordb's now-defunct Kaleidarkness site). Then, nothing. The years came and went, the rumors and legends becoming more ridiculous over time. I mean, a microphone in a rat? A castle? Who is to say whether or not these are real, and the artists behind the legends are none too willing to reveal the truths or lies behind them. The LLN is an anachronism in that sense: its creators maintain their credo and remain in the past, never willing to let Modernity take what they crafted.
It was a great surprise to see someone who was supposedly half of Vlad Tepes in an Instagram post over a decade and a half after my obsession with the LLN first began, let alone a photo with Sonic Youth co-songwriter and black metal obsessive Thurston Moore. There was even a photo of Wlad jamming as part of a guitar trio with Moore and the aforementioned Chris Brokaw. Though this happened a couple years after a band-sanctioned reissue series on French label Drakkar Productions (and later on Black Gangrene Productions), an LLN-related label dating back to the Circle's heyday, a clear photo of someone who was essentially a ghost for two decades at that point was… it was unexpected.
Suddenly, everything was available again. No more bootleg LPs I happened upon at Metal Haven and eBay, and it was all at the hands of a reactivated Wlad Drakksteim (Vorlok has yet to be heard from, and it is unlikely that we will ever have the privilege). Now semi-newly active with a new project he calls VarvLoar1476, Wlad returns to reclaim the throne he never got to sit in back in the '90s. In a very rare new interview, Wlad discusses life beyond Vlad Tepes and what it was like to return to a kingdom he abandoned.
…
What made you want to come out of underground music retirement? What was it like "resurrecting" the Wlad Drakksteim identity?
Hi Jon, first of all thank you for this interview. I generally don't respond to the many interview offers I receive because I don't think I have anything interesting to tell about my distant past. All the questions I usually get asked are about the Vlad Tepes/LLN (Les Légions Noires) era and all the fakes going around... Guys, this was all 30 years ago! It's time to let go. There is no (legitimate) information that is not already available today to those who are eager to know.
Well, what made me want to come out of underground music retirement? I think it was around 2012/2013. That was the time when I really (belatedly, even though I already knew something like that was happening in those years, but not to that extent) discovered all the Internet buzz that grew in the 2000s, all the bootleg madness, the prices madness, the lack of respect. All of this made me decide that it was time to properly collect all of Vlad Tepes' works and publish them as they could (should?) have been published to the faithful in due time, even though it really wasn't the idea 15 years earlier. Times are changing and we have to adapt.
This was around the same time that Drakkar released the 2013 Vlad Tepes reissues. With the exception of War Funeral March and the March To The Black Holocaust split which resulted from the Embassy Productions deal, the other releases came from shitty cassette copies. I assume that these reissues were endorsed by Vorlok Drakksteim but it was not clear to me (to be precise, I have not had any contact with him since 1997, and to anticipate the questions that I am always asked, there's no reason, everyone has their own path in life... That's all.). These editions came out while I was working in parallel on my own reissues. So I contacted Drakkar and we agreed to release the “good” reissues a little later.
So I remixed all my 4-track masters and everything was released the following years by Drakkar & Black Gangrene. Another reason was that I found Vordb again after 15 years of losing contact when he launched his first site Kaleidarkness. All of the above initiated a new time of emulation for me.
The identity of “Wlad Drakksteim” never disappeared for me. It was always hiding in a corner of my mind despite everything that was happening in my life, we could talk about my own psychology but that would touch on very personal points which must remain only mine.
...
...
Did you ever actually stop making underground style music since Vlad Tepes' ending?
Yes, after the circle ended in 1997, I stopped any active creation of music and art in general because I no longer needed it. All of this was interrupted, but still hidden in the back of my mind, as I explained above. I had a few unused riffs that survived the end of Vlad Tepes and bounced around in my mind for years, some that I eventually played in my later project VarvLoar1476.
I created the latter when I was working on my old Vlad Tepes masters. Coming back to these old pieces reignited the little flame that was hiding in my mind, so I started composing again from 2013 until today and so on... Drop by drop, like a poison slowly paralyzes its prey .
What continues to interest you about black metal?
I'm not really interested in Black Metal any more than the other styles I grew up with. I'm still on my old classics and I don't make much effort to move away from them. The only Black Metal that can interest me today is that made by people with whom I am in contact and who know how to explain their approach, their sincerity, the goal of their music and of course, the music must touch me. On top of that, the world is too big and cannot be fully explored. I let it come and I take what can impress me, Black Metal or not.
But if your question is why do I play this kind of music? That's what I do. I don't tell myself that I play Black Metal. It's not important anymore and I'm not here to tell people what to do. Humanity is a self-made and self-destructive species, so be it.
You have a new project that has a few demos up on Bandcamp and a new split release announced on Those Opposed Records. What can you tell me about VarvLoar1476?
It's not that new, I created the name around 2013/14, when I was working on Vlad Tepess reissues. “Varv Loar” simply means “Morte Lune” (Dead Moon) in the Breton language, it fits perfectly as a spiritual continuation of what I have done on my previous projects. As explained above, creativity came back to me so I started recording some stuff without a real plan, using old unused riffs, creating new ones, hence my low production rate. As for Vlad Tepes, I don't do that for others, neither fame nor glory. This project doesn't have any ambition other than my own expression, an interface for my relation to my surroundings and my feelings about it, for my own sake. Anyway, I am making it freely available to the few interested. I've been asked a lot about physical releases, maybe one day if enough material is recorded some sort of compilation of it all might come out if I don't die first... Who lives will see. I still have a lot of rough material to record but I'm just following what I think needs to be done. The last track I made,
"Noyant Les Masses," was requested by Ur Èmdr Œrvn from Avsolutized [and Arkha Sva, among many other projects] to appear on the split-CD N.O.I.R. III which was released recently with Those Opposed records. So, Ur being an old friend, I prioritized this for him.
Overall, this project is the reminiscence of that “Wlad Drakksteim” part in my mind that will never go away. Composing, recording for it is like going into a trance, like a journey through time where nothing else matters. I always come back purified from these sessions, these are transcendent rituals to my condition of being organic trapped in a physical sum of atoms and electrical reactions... Or what we can call the soul, which is beyond all this matter.
…
…
VarvLoar1476 released a re-recorded version of Vlad Tepes song "Frozen Dead's Kingdom." What made you want to revisit this song in particular?
Around 2015/2016 I was in contact with Rebecca who ran her online Metal clothing store called Hellcouture (she still does in fact). At the time, she was making one-shot clothes for Vlad Tepes. At one point she had the idea of putting out a compilation of the bands she was doing merch with and she asked me for a Vlad Tepes track.
Instead of giving her another old thing, I decided to make a new version of "Frozen Dead's Kingdom". In the end, the compilation was never released but that's another story. Still, the song was finished.
I chose this track because it's the first one I composed entirely for Vlad Tepes, without older riffs. Additionally, I felt like the original Vlad Tepes releases didn't deliver the full potential of the riffs due to the "exceptional technical recording conditions" we had at the time in 1994. I was satisfied with that point with the new recording, it represented very well the sounds I wanted it to render in 2016.
How do you view the work you created in your youth? What do you strive to create now?
My youth was a complicated period, a permanent struggle against myself and the world around me, feelings of hatred, sadness, loss, an alignment of the plates of Reason which provoked the meeting of the members of the Circle, then Brothers, in our same dissonant feelings, provoking an emulation leading to a spiral of destruction of the limits imposed by, you name it, humanity, society, religion, the state, the family... This is how my work was created to express what I was experiencing, avoiding my self-destruction. This spiral ended like a star collapsing in on itself to a black hole when all my confused feelings collapsed into oblivion. A monster slain, a catharsis.
It took me many years and a lot of stepping back to deal with it all again to finally master it and everything it meant to me. But as twisted as it may sound, it was a solid foundation for the person I am today and what I have been striving to create for over three decades now. It's a well-balanced mix of all the feelings that burned in me at the time but adding my experience to it and making it stronger. But my only desire is to follow what the cosmos has in store for me. So no one knows, but whoever survives will have to endure it…
Though I know he is a rabid black metal fan, I was surprised to see your photo taken with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. How did you two meet? Were you happy to see this photo of you published?
I have a friend in Brest, namely Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, who discovered during the 2000s in New Noise magazine that Thurston Moore was a big fan of the "Légions Noires, a BM collective based in Brest in the nineties." At this time, Arnaud had never heard of these Légions Noires even though he lived in Brest for two decades. He unsuccessfully tried to find clues about them for many years until he met one of my acquaintances at their respective daughters' school fair. Around the conversation, they came to talk about Black Metal and Arnaud's obsession for LLN, always running in the background of his mind for years. Mind which exploded when my acquaintance told him he knew me! Arnaud finally found something hot, a contact, mine (never underestimate what can happen in school fairs...). It was in 2015. So I met a stressful man at first but meeting after meeting, we talked and exchanged a lot about music and many other topics until today (We even recorded a strange project together this year as a four-men chaotic orchestra. To come some day, sooner or later...).
At one time, Arnaud being the organizer of “Le Festival Invisible'', a music/art festival about outsider artists taking place every year in Brest since 2005, asked me if he could organize a meeting between me and Thurston Moore and kill two birds with one stone hit, by having Thurston play at the festival. This is what happened in November 2018.
Of course, I don't like being exposed publicly because it goes against my approach, anyway you can't control everything. But who knows? Is that really me in these pictures… Ha ha!
…
…
I understand you recorded music as a trio with Thurston Moore and Codeine/Come's Chris Brokaw. Will this ever see the light of day? How did this project come to be in the first place?
No, we just jammed together as old "garage teenagers" during the above-mentioned meeting, nothing was recorded except for a few private video excerpts of the session and some pictures, but not worth being released. Nothing to see, move along.
How did you get back in contact with Vordb? What is it like creating music together now as opposed to the LLN days?
I found by chance his early Kaleidarkness website so we could get in contact again after 15 years. Then we exchanged a lot but didn't create much together. The few we recorded were finishing a Vzaéurvbtre piece begun in 1995 and a Vèrmibdrèb one from 1996. But I guess that we acted the same as 20 years earlier, except that the hardware wasn't anymore a Fostex 4-tracks or some tape recorder. Not much more to say about it…
What are your thoughts on current black metal? Do you pay attention at all?
Not really except for very few exceptions. There is certainly some worthy stuff around, but I don't search for it because my feeling is that the "underground" (if this word still means something) is drowned under tons of garbage. Everyone today seems to have a "Black Metal" project, uninteresting, just kill yourself and save me bandwidth, it's being years since the train passed, you missed it. Invent something else, something new before the internet/social network era sterilizes every creativity, rebel against your time!
On the other hand, the easily available stuff is mostly popular, commercial plastic-sounding and boring cash-grabbing nonsense. I already have plenty of old meaningful stuff to listen to everyday 'till my death and beyond (and some more recent too, but a lot less...) so I don't need more. I'm conscious that I sound like an old fart, but I'm grateful for being from my generation and not from what came after... Poor kids.
I was once told you were to join the now-defunct band Zépülkr [Editor's Note: Zépülkr is now known as Sépulcre] on drums. Was this true? Did you ever end up recording anything with this band?
I never played drums for Zépülkr because I'm an untrained drummer, but I did vocals, guitars and lyrics for the late album Héritrage Posthume, then Khräss stopped the project. He told me years ago that one of the goals of this project was to pay homage to his influences (naming Vlad Tepes and Peste Noire among others) and to get a collaboration as a cherry on the cake. Finally, he got Famine helping on his first album Nécrofrancie and myself on his second and posthumous album.
Vordb has told me he hasn't been in contact with Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh for some time–similarly, are you in contact with Vorlok at all?
Not at all since 1997. And not searching for it. He lives his life, I live mine and that's perfect this way. We did what we had to do together and we parted ways with no hard feelings.
...
...
The A Catharsis for Human Illness box set came with a pretty extensive zine which tells the full Vlad Tepes story (which is why I'm not asking you about that band). That being said, what was revisiting the Vlad Tepes days like for that project?
This box is well named. Vlad Tepes was a catharsis and, as I exposed earlier in this interview, it doesn't represent the happiest part of my life. So coming back to it was like some exorcism. I also had the goal to settle all this, for me but also for the devotees by delivering thems the best aspect of what it was as Art and music, a testimony for each and every one of them. I know today against all odds, through many messages I got since, that this music left a strong impression on many people. So this is my mark of respect to them. That being said, the Vlad Tepes matter is clearly settled for me now.
There are many tales and legends surrounding the LLN, and sometimes even fake bands made by trolls or misinterpreted by superfans from LLN-obsessed places like the streetmetal forum (if you ever saw that). What has it been like watching your old antics become something larger than life? Do you pay attention to things like this?
It was partly why I decided to reissue my projects properly. I could have chosen to let it be in the hands of unrespectful or greedy people. But ask yourself, if it was yours, what would you do ? Leave it like that or take it back ? I choose to handle it back and you know the rest.
About the tales and legends, where's the fun without some mystery?.. Some were true, some not…
What in your opinion makes music evil or evil sounding? What records would you consider evil or evil sounding?
Odd question... The tritone chord!
Joking aside, it depends on what one considers being evil. That's a matter of point of view. To quote famous Black Metal examples : Immortal's first album (their best by far) sounds cold and evil to me, but Abbath seems to be the warmest and most friendly guy around. Similar to Darkthrone, some evil sounding incredible stuff, but Fenriz is so lovable and fun, ha ha. Well, in fact, evil is lovable. What's important is what you bring as an artist, what you express, what your goal is. It also depends on the listener's receptiveness. It has to match on both sides and then, sparkles happen!
Talking about Metal and evil, Bathory's The Return...... comes first in my mind. Music spectrum is so wide in the feelings it can provide (and it clearly shouldn't be bordered on evil)... But to answer the question, I could quote such opposite works from Ahpdegma, Diamanda Galas, Slayer, Zero Kama, Deicide, Sister Iodine and go on and on... Some Black Legions projects too, ha ha…
The music you made in your youth has left quite a legacy with many "wannabes" and soundalikes trying to capitalize on the Vlad Tepes sound and aesthetic. What would you say to these people if you were given the chance?
I would tell them to identify their limits, to ask them why they stick on being "wannabes" or copycats. Ask them what their goal really is and explode it all! Transcend it and make it yours, express yourself, don't be a mirror, break it
Or maybe they just can't... Sorry for them. My advice then would be for them to be eco-friendly and kill themselves... And save me bandwidth once and for all!
Here I will leave the floor open to you: is there anything you would like to say that we haven't covered already?
The floor being opened, I'll get directly to my cave and record the next VarvLoar1476 piece (or not), witnessing the world's collapse, waiting for it to end at last.
Thanks Jon.
…
Vlad Tepes material is available mostly aftermarket, but can be found at a variety of distributors. I recommend checking The Metal Detektor or Discogs. VarvLoar1476 CDs are available exclusively from Those Opposed Records.
…
When Geoff Tate and the rest of Queensrÿche had a falling out there was a period when two “Queensrÿches” toured, one with Geoff Tate and one with the remainder of the band before the break-up. At least Venom make things easier for the fans, as there are currently “Venom” and Venom Inc. While the former has been kept alive by Cronos since 2005, the latter were formed in 2015 by original drummer Abaddon, original guitarist Mantas and 1989-1992 bassist/vocalist Demolition Man. It was this trio who visited Barroselas and, while a few fans had complained about Cronos’ absence, Venom Inc managed to quickly shut them down. Revered by punks and metalheads alike, the band was greeted by one of the largest crowds of the festival and they were visibly proud of the feat, with Demolition Man insisting that genres don’t matter as long as metal unites people from all walks of life. Right afterwards, a well-spirited Mantas took credit for composing a song three decades ago that would become the blueprint for black metal. If anyone decided to see them in order to mock a tacky, outdated performance, they’d be the only ones disappointed. Not only was their good mood contagious, but “Black Metal”, “Welcome to Hell”, “Countess Bathory” and their numerous other hits sounded tighter now than when they were recorded. These guys still know what they’re doing.
…
…
Venom Inc left us in such high spirits that it’s hard to gauge whether Nashgul’s performance was really as good as it seemed, but the Spanish grindcore act was as tireless as the front rows. This might’ve been another reason for the seemingly underwhelming Oranssi Pazuzu performance that followed, as it required an abrupt change of gears, but Grog left us hyped up again. Possibly the longest-running Portuguese extreme metal act, there were plenty of fans ready to see them once again, especially now that they’ve just released Ablutionary Rituals, their fourth full-length album.
Speaking of early precursors, Extreme Noise Terror could have been considered this day’s co-headliners. In what was probably the drunkest show of the festival (who needs to sing all the lyrics when the crowd can chant them?), it’s still uncommon to see such big acts with dual vocals. Although Phil Vane passed away a few years ago, Ben McCrow can no longer be seen as merely a replacement or as the “other” ENT vocalist, but rather an integral part of the band and an effective hype man. As if two weren’t enough, we then got three vocalists on stage when Holocausto Canibal’s Ricardo Silva made a surprise appearance to sing “Raping the Earth”, a song his own band covered a couple of times in the past.
…
Reclaiming Wlad Drakksteim’s Lost Kingdom (Interview)
In 2006 I was living in Brooklyn and I asked someone at a record store if they had anything by Prurient, who I'd heard about but had never actually heard. The guy said he didn't but 'the Prurient guy owns a record store, on 3rd St in Manhattan. at the back of Jammyland, down the hole'. So I went to this reggae store called Jammyland and sure enough in the back of the store there was a small hole in the floor with noise blasting out, and I descended a ladder and was in a small black room face to face with an intense young man behind the counter named Dominick. We got to talking and he was serious, peculiar, and very funny, and Hospital became my favorite place in New York for a couple of years. Dom was putting out a ton of great music of his own and of others, and I got a crash course in both noise and black metal. Specifically I got pretty into Branikald, Bone Awl, Ildjarn, Skuggeheim, and Beherit, all of whom I still enjoy.
In 2007 I was playing guitar in Thurston Moore's band, and while touring the west coast we stopped at Zion's Gate, a big metal and reggae shop. Thurston and the bassist, Matt Heyner, were both big on black metal at the time and both pulled out a cd by Vlad Tepes called March To The Black Holocaust and said to me 'you need to get this, it's essential and not easy to find'. So I brought it home and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the whole vibe, it felt very noisy and punk, but moreover the songs were amazing, just epic.
I got into black metal at a time when social media was really starting to rise, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be 'reach as many people as possible', and I loved that black metal seemed so secretive, so hidden. You really had to make an effort to access it. Something about that felt good to me. I didn't really know anything else about the culture; if I thought hard about it I felt like an interloper, but I didn't care, I just liked the records and tapes and cds. I was happy to enjoy it in isolation, like artifacts from another planet.
In 2008 I got the idea to make an album of acoustic guitar music that might expand some parameters of acoustic guitar. Side two is an 18 minute track of acoustic guitar going through a wall of amps and doing feedback overtones in C; side one was all 'straight' acoustic guitar, including a cover of 'Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple' by Vlad Tepes. It seemed their masterpiece, and I thought that transcribing all 12 minutes of it for acoustic would be challenging, fun, kind of funny, kind of badass, a little bit 'fuck you'. Hopefully not silly. It's an incredible piece of music and I wanted to do right by it. Even though I figured Vlad Tepes (were they even still alive?) would definitely never hear it. I released the album 'Canaris' as a cd, the first release on my new label, Capitan. The people who normally bought my music liked it, I think, while mostly not commenting one way or another on a Vlad Tepes cover.
Around 2013 I got an email from Wlad Drakkstein. His manner of writing was distinct and unusual, almost poetic, but what he said was: he had heard the cover, and liked it, and wanted to include it in a cd reissue that would include a couple of VT covers. Needless to say I was stunned, and flattered, but moreover had the feeling like it wasn't real, like I was communicating with a myth or a ghost. We wrote each other more. He asked if I had any other Vlad Tepes covers (!) - I told him I'd always wanted to cover 'Ravens Hike'. He kind of chuckled and said that it was based on an old Breton song. I ended up recording a not-very-good version in a studio in Australia while on tour. He included both in the compilation.
In 2015 he emailed and said he was going to take the train from Brest five hours to Paris to see me play. Could we meet for dinner, I asked? We met that night and I was breathless. He walked in and no, he was not in corpse paint, etc - he was a neatly dressed, composed French man. Dinner was surreal, very intense. I felt like we really bonded. It felt like a remarkable meeting.
We met again at a show in Rennes in 2018, and at the Invisible Festival in 2019, where he and I had a little jam session with Thurston Moore. Last time we met was in 2022 in Rennes. He wanted me to go in the studio with him at midnight, after a Come show, but I was too tired and had to leave early the next day.
He's become a friend. I hope we can maybe make music together at some point, but if not that's ok too. In this sense, he's like a number of musicians I've befriended over the years. I admire his work, and respect both his legacy and the privacy that's obviously important to him and I think part of that legacy. I think it's great that he's working on new music as VarvLoar1476, and would love to hear a whole album, but again it's fine if that doesn't happen. I play in a band called Codeine, who made music from 1989-1994, at which point the main songwriter, Stephen Immerwahr, stopped making new music. As a fan of Steve's songs, I wish he would make more, but I'm also okay with it being a small slice of time and body of work. I guess I feel the same way about Vlad Tepes.
–Chris Brokaw
…
The Black Legions. Les Légions Noires. The mythical LLN: a sub-underground circle of bands, solo projects, and collaborations based out of the Brest area in France throughout the early-and-mid '90s (though it has roots that date back as far as the late '80s). Incomprehensible band names, a unified and heavily Xeroxed aesthetic, a con-lang called Gloatre, and countless larger than life stories ranging from demos recorded in a French castle to an ambient song based around a recording of a microphone being inserted into a (living) rat, the LLN was a whisper on the Internet for years, relegated to nerds and forum-goers (like yours truly) alike. Bootlegged tapes which were supposedly and originally limited to single-and-double digits, made for friends and compatriots only (along with properly released material on the obscure Embassy Productions) made their way onto the Internet and were met with curiosity and obsession alike. Though the LLN proper dissolved almost thirty years ago, the library of works this small handful of artists made, ranging from the rawest of black metal to the most terrifying of ambient and atmospheric recordings, remained a central source of intrigue to many.
It was Chaos (a proper noun) which drove the LLN. Chaos, Satan, and the Evil that both resulted from and fueled the aforementioned. Though the LLN is synonymous with its de facto leader Vordb (also known as Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, Thörgammaton Blackvomit, Vórdb Báthor Ecsed, Avaëtre, and, most recently, Vordb Na R.iidr), it was Vlad Tepes–named, of course, for the famed masochistic, murderous despot–who made the LLN's most breathtaking and memorable recordings. With progressions so beautiful and sinister that former Codeine drummer and Come frontman Chris Brokaw went so far as to record an entire twelve-minute epic ("Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple") as a solo acoustic guitar piece, Vlad Tepes was a bit of an anomaly in the largely anti-musical LLN (save a few equally as beautiful projects. Where did you go, Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh?). When compared with Belkètre's more atonal moments and Brenoritvrezorkre's partially improvised chaos, the black metal found in Vlad Tepes' discography was melodic and, for all intents and purposes, beautiful, but the intent was certainly not there.
In interviews, Vlad Tepes was more interested in evil and the romanticizing of it, but, most importantly, they were interested in maintaining an air of mystery, both avoiding direct answers and keeping their own identities shrouded in confusion and uncertainty. Even now, the human names for Wlad and Vorlok Drakksteim (at the time assumed to be brothers, but have since been revealed to have been "artistic brothers" rather than actually related) are rumored but never confirmed. During a time of conflict and pugnaciousness in the black metal underground by artists and budding journalists/zine writers alike, it was in Kill Yourself Zine that what would now be called a "doxxing attempt" was made against the Drakksteim duo, featuring full names and mailing addresses alike (this was also done to Vordb!). In return, the infamous rumor has it that Vlad Tepes both threatened to kill Full Moon Productions proprietor/Kill Yourself Zine editor Jon and also mailed him a box filled with dead rats. Evil. There are so many more Vlad Tepes stories that either are or are not true, and the A Catharsis for Human Illness discography box set lays them all bare in a comprehensive zine (if you can find a copy), but rehashing the past is not why we are here today.
Vlad Tepes went the way of many demo-only black metal projects in the '90s: they got tired and subsequently broke up, apparently in or around 1997 (complete with never-before-heard demos which date that far, at least according to Vordb's now-defunct Kaleidarkness site). Then, nothing. The years came and went, the rumors and legends becoming more ridiculous over time. I mean, a microphone in a rat? A castle? Who is to say whether or not these are real, and the artists behind the legends are none too willing to reveal the truths or lies behind them. The LLN is an anachronism in that sense: its creators maintain their credo and remain in the past, never willing to let Modernity take what they crafted.
It was a great surprise to see someone who was supposedly half of Vlad Tepes in an Instagram post over a decade and a half after my obsession with the LLN first began, let alone a photo with Sonic Youth co-songwriter and black metal obsessive Thurston Moore. There was even a photo of Wlad jamming as part of a guitar trio with Moore and the aforementioned Chris Brokaw. Though this happened a couple years after a band-sanctioned reissue series on French label Drakkar Productions (and later on Black Gangrene Productions), an LLN-related label dating back to the Circle's heyday, a clear photo of someone who was essentially a ghost for two decades at that point was… it was unexpected.
Suddenly, everything was available again. No more bootleg LPs I happened upon at Metal Haven and eBay, and it was all at the hands of a reactivated Wlad Drakksteim (Vorlok has yet to be heard from, and it is unlikely that we will ever have the privilege). Now semi-newly active with a new project he calls VarvLoar1476, Wlad returns to reclaim the throne he never got to sit in back in the '90s. In a very rare new interview, Wlad discusses life beyond Vlad Tepes and what it was like to return to a kingdom he abandoned.
…
What made you want to come out of underground music retirement? What was it like "resurrecting" the Wlad Drakksteim identity?
Hi Jon, first of all thank you for this interview. I generally don't respond to the many interview offers I receive because I don't think I have anything interesting to tell about my distant past. All the questions I usually get asked are about the Vlad Tepes/LLN (Les Légions Noires) era and all the fakes going around... Guys, this was all 30 years ago! It's time to let go. There is no (legitimate) information that is not already available today to those who are eager to know.
Well, what made me want to come out of underground music retirement? I think it was around 2012/2013. That was the time when I really (belatedly, even though I already knew something like that was happening in those years, but not to that extent) discovered all the Internet buzz that grew in the 2000s, all the bootleg madness, the prices madness, the lack of respect. All of this made me decide that it was time to properly collect all of Vlad Tepes' works and publish them as they could (should?) have been published to the faithful in due time, even though it really wasn't the idea 15 years earlier. Times are changing and we have to adapt.
This was around the same time that Drakkar released the 2013 Vlad Tepes reissues. With the exception of War Funeral March and the March To The Black Holocaust split which resulted from the Embassy Productions deal, the other releases came from shitty cassette copies. I assume that these reissues were endorsed by Vorlok Drakksteim but it was not clear to me (to be precise, I have not had any contact with him since 1997, and to anticipate the questions that I am always asked, there's no reason, everyone has their own path in life... That's all.). These editions came out while I was working in parallel on my own reissues. So I contacted Drakkar and we agreed to release the “good” reissues a little later.
So I remixed all my 4-track masters and everything was released the following years by Drakkar & Black Gangrene. Another reason was that I found Vordb again after 15 years of losing contact when he launched his first site Kaleidarkness. All of the above initiated a new time of emulation for me.
The identity of “Wlad Drakksteim” never disappeared for me. It was always hiding in a corner of my mind despite everything that was happening in my life, we could talk about my own psychology but that would touch on very personal points which must remain only mine.
...
...
Did you ever actually stop making underground style music since Vlad Tepes' ending?
Yes, after the circle ended in 1997, I stopped any active creation of music and art in general because I no longer needed it. All of this was interrupted, but still hidden in the back of my mind, as I explained above. I had a few unused riffs that survived the end of Vlad Tepes and bounced around in my mind for years, some that I eventually played in my later project VarvLoar1476.
I created the latter when I was working on my old Vlad Tepes masters. Coming back to these old pieces reignited the little flame that was hiding in my mind, so I started composing again from 2013 until today and so on... Drop by drop, like a poison slowly paralyzes its prey .
What continues to interest you about black metal?
I'm not really interested in Black Metal any more than the other styles I grew up with. I'm still on my old classics and I don't make much effort to move away from them. The only Black Metal that can interest me today is that made by people with whom I am in contact and who know how to explain their approach, their sincerity, the goal of their music and of course, the music must touch me. On top of that, the world is too big and cannot be fully explored. I let it come and I take what can impress me, Black Metal or not.
But if your question is why do I play this kind of music? That's what I do. I don't tell myself that I play Black Metal. It's not important anymore and I'm not here to tell people what to do. Humanity is a self-made and self-destructive species, so be it.
You have a new project that has a few demos up on Bandcamp and a new split release announced on Those Opposed Records. What can you tell me about VarvLoar1476?
It's not that new, I created the name around 2013/14, when I was working on Vlad Tepess reissues. “Varv Loar” simply means “Morte Lune” (Dead Moon) in the Breton language, it fits perfectly as a spiritual continuation of what I have done on my previous projects. As explained above, creativity came back to me so I started recording some stuff without a real plan, using old unused riffs, creating new ones, hence my low production rate. As for Vlad Tepes, I don't do that for others, neither fame nor glory. This project doesn't have any ambition other than my own expression, an interface for my relation to my surroundings and my feelings about it, for my own sake. Anyway, I am making it freely available to the few interested. I've been asked a lot about physical releases, maybe one day if enough material is recorded some sort of compilation of it all might come out if I don't die first... Who lives will see. I still have a lot of rough material to record but I'm just following what I think needs to be done. The last track I made,
"Noyant Les Masses," was requested by Ur Èmdr Œrvn from Avsolutized [and Arkha Sva, among many other projects] to appear on the split-CD N.O.I.R. III which was released recently with Those Opposed records. So, Ur being an old friend, I prioritized this for him.
Overall, this project is the reminiscence of that “Wlad Drakksteim” part in my mind that will never go away. Composing, recording for it is like going into a trance, like a journey through time where nothing else matters. I always come back purified from these sessions, these are transcendent rituals to my condition of being organic trapped in a physical sum of atoms and electrical reactions... Or what we can call the soul, which is beyond all this matter.
…
…
VarvLoar1476 released a re-recorded version of Vlad Tepes song "Frozen Dead's Kingdom." What made you want to revisit this song in particular?
Around 2015/2016 I was in contact with Rebecca who ran her online Metal clothing store called Hellcouture (she still does in fact). At the time, she was making one-shot clothes for Vlad Tepes. At one point she had the idea of putting out a compilation of the bands she was doing merch with and she asked me for a Vlad Tepes track.
Instead of giving her another old thing, I decided to make a new version of "Frozen Dead's Kingdom". In the end, the compilation was never released but that's another story. Still, the song was finished.
I chose this track because it's the first one I composed entirely for Vlad Tepes, without older riffs. Additionally, I felt like the original Vlad Tepes releases didn't deliver the full potential of the riffs due to the "exceptional technical recording conditions" we had at the time in 1994. I was satisfied with that point with the new recording, it represented very well the sounds I wanted it to render in 2016.
How do you view the work you created in your youth? What do you strive to create now?
My youth was a complicated period, a permanent struggle against myself and the world around me, feelings of hatred, sadness, loss, an alignment of the plates of Reason which provoked the meeting of the members of the Circle, then Brothers, in our same dissonant feelings, provoking an emulation leading to a spiral of destruction of the limits imposed by, you name it, humanity, society, religion, the state, the family... This is how my work was created to express what I was experiencing, avoiding my self-destruction. This spiral ended like a star collapsing in on itself to a black hole when all my confused feelings collapsed into oblivion. A monster slain, a catharsis.
It took me many years and a lot of stepping back to deal with it all again to finally master it and everything it meant to me. But as twisted as it may sound, it was a solid foundation for the person I am today and what I have been striving to create for over three decades now. It's a well-balanced mix of all the feelings that burned in me at the time but adding my experience to it and making it stronger. But my only desire is to follow what the cosmos has in store for me. So no one knows, but whoever survives will have to endure it…
Though I know he is a rabid black metal fan, I was surprised to see your photo taken with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. How did you two meet? Were you happy to see this photo of you published?
I have a friend in Brest, namely Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, who discovered during the 2000s in New Noise magazine that Thurston Moore was a big fan of the "Légions Noires, a BM collective based in Brest in the nineties." At this time, Arnaud had never heard of these Légions Noires even though he lived in Brest for two decades. He unsuccessfully tried to find clues about them for many years until he met one of my acquaintances at their respective daughters' school fair. Around the conversation, they came to talk about Black Metal and Arnaud's obsession for LLN, always running in the background of his mind for years. Mind which exploded when my acquaintance told him he knew me! Arnaud finally found something hot, a contact, mine (never underestimate what can happen in school fairs...). It was in 2015. So I met a stressful man at first but meeting after meeting, we talked and exchanged a lot about music and many other topics until today (We even recorded a strange project together this year as a four-men chaotic orchestra. To come some day, sooner or later...).
At one time, Arnaud being the organizer of “Le Festival Invisible'', a music/art festival about outsider artists taking place every year in Brest since 2005, asked me if he could organize a meeting between me and Thurston Moore and kill two birds with one stone hit, by having Thurston play at the festival. This is what happened in November 2018.
Of course, I don't like being exposed publicly because it goes against my approach, anyway you can't control everything. But who knows? Is that really me in these pictures… Ha ha!
…
…
I understand you recorded music as a trio with Thurston Moore and Codeine/Come's Chris Brokaw. Will this ever see the light of day? How did this project come to be in the first place?
No, we just jammed together as old "garage teenagers" during the above-mentioned meeting, nothing was recorded except for a few private video excerpts of the session and some pictures, but not worth being released. Nothing to see, move along.
How did you get back in contact with Vordb? What is it like creating music together now as opposed to the LLN days?
I found by chance his early Kaleidarkness website so we could get in contact again after 15 years. Then we exchanged a lot but didn't create much together. The few we recorded were finishing a Vzaéurvbtre piece begun in 1995 and a Vèrmibdrèb one from 1996. But I guess that we acted the same as 20 years earlier, except that the hardware wasn't anymore a Fostex 4-tracks or some tape recorder. Not much more to say about it…
What are your thoughts on current black metal? Do you pay attention at all?
Not really except for very few exceptions. There is certainly some worthy stuff around, but I don't search for it because my feeling is that the "underground" (if this word still means something) is drowned under tons of garbage. Everyone today seems to have a "Black Metal" project, uninteresting, just kill yourself and save me bandwidth, it's being years since the train passed, you missed it. Invent something else, something new before the internet/social network era sterilizes every creativity, rebel against your time!
On the other hand, the easily available stuff is mostly popular, commercial plastic-sounding and boring cash-grabbing nonsense. I already have plenty of old meaningful stuff to listen to everyday 'till my death and beyond (and some more recent too, but a lot less...) so I don't need more. I'm conscious that I sound like an old fart, but I'm grateful for being from my generation and not from what came after... Poor kids.
I was once told you were to join the now-defunct band Zépülkr [Editor's Note: Zépülkr is now known as Sépulcre] on drums. Was this true? Did you ever end up recording anything with this band?
I never played drums for Zépülkr because I'm an untrained drummer, but I did vocals, guitars and lyrics for the late album Héritrage Posthume, then Khräss stopped the project. He told me years ago that one of the goals of this project was to pay homage to his influences (naming Vlad Tepes and Peste Noire among others) and to get a collaboration as a cherry on the cake. Finally, he got Famine helping on his first album Nécrofrancie and myself on his second and posthumous album.
Vordb has told me he hasn't been in contact with Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh for some time–similarly, are you in contact with Vorlok at all?
Not at all since 1997. And not searching for it. He lives his life, I live mine and that's perfect this way. We did what we had to do together and we parted ways with no hard feelings.
...
...
The A Catharsis for Human Illness box set came with a pretty extensive zine which tells the full Vlad Tepes story (which is why I'm not asking you about that band). That being said, what was revisiting the Vlad Tepes days like for that project?
This box is well named. Vlad Tepes was a catharsis and, as I exposed earlier in this interview, it doesn't represent the happiest part of my life. So coming back to it was like some exorcism. I also had the goal to settle all this, for me but also for the devotees by delivering thems the best aspect of what it was as Art and music, a testimony for each and every one of them. I know today against all odds, through many messages I got since, that this music left a strong impression on many people. So this is my mark of respect to them. That being said, the Vlad Tepes matter is clearly settled for me now.
There are many tales and legends surrounding the LLN, and sometimes even fake bands made by trolls or misinterpreted by superfans from LLN-obsessed places like the streetmetal forum (if you ever saw that). What has it been like watching your old antics become something larger than life? Do you pay attention to things like this?
It was partly why I decided to reissue my projects properly. I could have chosen to let it be in the hands of unrespectful or greedy people. But ask yourself, if it was yours, what would you do ? Leave it like that or take it back ? I choose to handle it back and you know the rest.
About the tales and legends, where's the fun without some mystery?.. Some were true, some not…
What in your opinion makes music evil or evil sounding? What records would you consider evil or evil sounding?
Odd question... The tritone chord!
Joking aside, it depends on what one considers being evil. That's a matter of point of view. To quote famous Black Metal examples : Immortal's first album (their best by far) sounds cold and evil to me, but Abbath seems to be the warmest and most friendly guy around. Similar to Darkthrone, some evil sounding incredible stuff, but Fenriz is so lovable and fun, ha ha. Well, in fact, evil is lovable. What's important is what you bring as an artist, what you express, what your goal is. It also depends on the listener's receptiveness. It has to match on both sides and then, sparkles happen!
Talking about Metal and evil, Bathory's The Return...... comes first in my mind. Music spectrum is so wide in the feelings it can provide (and it clearly shouldn't be bordered on evil)... But to answer the question, I could quote such opposite works from Ahpdegma, Diamanda Galas, Slayer, Zero Kama, Deicide, Sister Iodine and go on and on... Some Black Legions projects too, ha ha…
The music you made in your youth has left quite a legacy with many "wannabes" and soundalikes trying to capitalize on the Vlad Tepes sound and aesthetic. What would you say to these people if you were given the chance?
I would tell them to identify their limits, to ask them why they stick on being "wannabes" or copycats. Ask them what their goal really is and explode it all! Transcend it and make it yours, express yourself, don't be a mirror, break it
Or maybe they just can't... Sorry for them. My advice then would be for them to be eco-friendly and kill themselves... And save me bandwidth once and for all!
Here I will leave the floor open to you: is there anything you would like to say that we haven't covered already?
The floor being opened, I'll get directly to my cave and record the next VarvLoar1476 piece (or not), witnessing the world's collapse, waiting for it to end at last.
Thanks Jon.
…
Vlad Tepes material is available mostly aftermarket, but can be found at a variety of distributors. I recommend checking The Metal Detektor or Discogs. VarvLoar1476 CDs are available exclusively from Those Opposed Records.
Reclaiming Wlad Drakksteim’s Lost Kingdom (Interview)
In 2006 I was living in Brooklyn and I asked someone at a record store if they had anything by Prurient, who I'd heard about but had never actually heard. The guy said he didn't but 'the Prurient guy owns a record store, on 3rd St in Manhattan. at the back of Jammyland, down the hole'. So I went to this reggae store called Jammyland and sure enough in the back of the store there was a small hole in the floor with noise blasting out, and I descended a ladder and was in a small black room face to face with an intense young man behind the counter named Dominick. We got to talking and he was serious, peculiar, and very funny, and Hospital became my favorite place in New York for a couple of years. Dom was putting out a ton of great music of his own and of others, and I got a crash course in both noise and black metal. Specifically I got pretty into Branikald, Bone Awl, Ildjarn, Skuggeheim, and Beherit, all of whom I still enjoy.
In 2007 I was playing guitar in Thurston Moore's band, and while touring the west coast we stopped at Zion's Gate, a big metal and reggae shop. Thurston and the bassist, Matt Heyner, were both big on black metal at the time and both pulled out a cd by Vlad Tepes called March To The Black Holocaust and said to me 'you need to get this, it's essential and not easy to find'. So I brought it home and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the whole vibe, it felt very noisy and punk, but moreover the songs were amazing, just epic.
I got into black metal at a time when social media was really starting to rise, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be 'reach as many people as possible', and I loved that black metal seemed so secretive, so hidden. You really had to make an effort to access it. Something about that felt good to me. I didn't really know anything else about the culture; if I thought hard about it I felt like an interloper, but I didn't care, I just liked the records and tapes and cds. I was happy to enjoy it in isolation, like artifacts from another planet.
In 2008 I got the idea to make an album of acoustic guitar music that might expand some parameters of acoustic guitar. Side two is an 18 minute track of acoustic guitar going through a wall of amps and doing feedback overtones in C; side one was all 'straight' acoustic guitar, including a cover of 'Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple' by Vlad Tepes. It seemed their masterpiece, and I thought that transcribing all 12 minutes of it for acoustic would be challenging, fun, kind of funny, kind of badass, a little bit 'fuck you'. Hopefully not silly. It's an incredible piece of music and I wanted to do right by it. Even though I figured Vlad Tepes (were they even still alive?) would definitely never hear it. I released the album 'Canaris' as a cd, the first release on my new label, Capitan. The people who normally bought my music liked it, I think, while mostly not commenting one way or another on a Vlad Tepes cover.
Around 2013 I got an email from Wlad Drakkstein. His manner of writing was distinct and unusual, almost poetic, but what he said was: he had heard the cover, and liked it, and wanted to include it in a cd reissue that would include a couple of VT covers. Needless to say I was stunned, and flattered, but moreover had the feeling like it wasn't real, like I was communicating with a myth or a ghost. We wrote each other more. He asked if I had any other Vlad Tepes covers (!) - I told him I'd always wanted to cover 'Ravens Hike'. He kind of chuckled and said that it was based on an old Breton song. I ended up recording a not-very-good version in a studio in Australia while on tour. He included both in the compilation.
In 2015 he emailed and said he was going to take the train from Brest five hours to Paris to see me play. Could we meet for dinner, I asked? We met that night and I was breathless. He walked in and no, he was not in corpse paint, etc - he was a neatly dressed, composed French man. Dinner was surreal, very intense. I felt like we really bonded. It felt like a remarkable meeting.
We met again at a show in Rennes in 2018, and at the Invisible Festival in 2019, where he and I had a little jam session with Thurston Moore. Last time we met was in 2022 in Rennes. He wanted me to go in the studio with him at midnight, after a Come show, but I was too tired and had to leave early the next day.
He's become a friend. I hope we can maybe make music together at some point, but if not that's ok too. In this sense, he's like a number of musicians I've befriended over the years. I admire his work, and respect both his legacy and the privacy that's obviously important to him and I think part of that legacy. I think it's great that he's working on new music as VarvLoar1476, and would love to hear a whole album, but again it's fine if that doesn't happen. I play in a band called Codeine, who made music from 1989-1994, at which point the main songwriter, Stephen Immerwahr, stopped making new music. As a fan of Steve's songs, I wish he would make more, but I'm also okay with it being a small slice of time and body of work. I guess I feel the same way about Vlad Tepes.
–Chris Brokaw
…
The Black Legions. Les Légions Noires. The mythical LLN: a sub-underground circle of bands, solo projects, and collaborations based out of the Brest area in France throughout the early-and-mid '90s (though it has roots that date back as far as the late '80s). Incomprehensible band names, a unified and heavily Xeroxed aesthetic, a con-lang called Gloatre, and countless larger than life stories ranging from demos recorded in a French castle to an ambient song based around a recording of a microphone being inserted into a (living) rat, the LLN was a whisper on the Internet for years, relegated to nerds and forum-goers (like yours truly) alike. Bootlegged tapes which were supposedly and originally limited to single-and-double digits, made for friends and compatriots only (along with properly released material on the obscure Embassy Productions) made their way onto the Internet and were met with curiosity and obsession alike. Though the LLN proper dissolved almost thirty years ago, the library of works this small handful of artists made, ranging from the rawest of black metal to the most terrifying of ambient and atmospheric recordings, remained a central source of intrigue to many.
It was Chaos (a proper noun) which drove the LLN. Chaos, Satan, and the Evil that both resulted from and fueled the aforementioned. Though the LLN is synonymous with its de facto leader Vordb (also known as Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, Thörgammaton Blackvomit, Vórdb Báthor Ecsed, Avaëtre, and, most recently, Vordb Na R.iidr), it was Vlad Tepes–named, of course, for the famed masochistic, murderous despot–who made the LLN's most breathtaking and memorable recordings. With progressions so beautiful and sinister that former Codeine drummer and Come frontman Chris Brokaw went so far as to record an entire twelve-minute epic ("Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple") as a solo acoustic guitar piece, Vlad Tepes was a bit of an anomaly in the largely anti-musical LLN (save a few equally as beautiful projects. Where did you go, Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh?). When compared with Belkètre's more atonal moments and Brenoritvrezorkre's partially improvised chaos, the black metal found in Vlad Tepes' discography was melodic and, for all intents and purposes, beautiful, but the intent was certainly not there.
In interviews, Vlad Tepes was more interested in evil and the romanticizing of it, but, most importantly, they were interested in maintaining an air of mystery, both avoiding direct answers and keeping their own identities shrouded in confusion and uncertainty. Even now, the human names for Wlad and Vorlok Drakksteim (at the time assumed to be brothers, but have since been revealed to have been "artistic brothers" rather than actually related) are rumored but never confirmed. During a time of conflict and pugnaciousness in the black metal underground by artists and budding journalists/zine writers alike, it was in Kill Yourself Zine that what would now be called a "doxxing attempt" was made against the Drakksteim duo, featuring full names and mailing addresses alike (this was also done to Vordb!). In return, the infamous rumor has it that Vlad Tepes both threatened to kill Full Moon Productions proprietor/Kill Yourself Zine editor Jon and also mailed him a box filled with dead rats. Evil. There are so many more Vlad Tepes stories that either are or are not true, and the A Catharsis for Human Illness discography box set lays them all bare in a comprehensive zine (if you can find a copy), but rehashing the past is not why we are here today.
Vlad Tepes went the way of many demo-only black metal projects in the '90s: they got tired and subsequently broke up, apparently in or around 1997 (complete with never-before-heard demos which date that far, at least according to Vordb's now-defunct Kaleidarkness site). Then, nothing. The years came and went, the rumors and legends becoming more ridiculous over time. I mean, a microphone in a rat? A castle? Who is to say whether or not these are real, and the artists behind the legends are none too willing to reveal the truths or lies behind them. The LLN is an anachronism in that sense: its creators maintain their credo and remain in the past, never willing to let Modernity take what they crafted.
It was a great surprise to see someone who was supposedly half of Vlad Tepes in an Instagram post over a decade and a half after my obsession with the LLN first began, let alone a photo with Sonic Youth co-songwriter and black metal obsessive Thurston Moore. There was even a photo of Wlad jamming as part of a guitar trio with Moore and the aforementioned Chris Brokaw. Though this happened a couple years after a band-sanctioned reissue series on French label Drakkar Productions (and later on Black Gangrene Productions), an LLN-related label dating back to the Circle's heyday, a clear photo of someone who was essentially a ghost for two decades at that point was… it was unexpected.
Suddenly, everything was available again. No more bootleg LPs I happened upon at Metal Haven and eBay, and it was all at the hands of a reactivated Wlad Drakksteim (Vorlok has yet to be heard from, and it is unlikely that we will ever have the privilege). Now semi-newly active with a new project he calls VarvLoar1476, Wlad returns to reclaim the throne he never got to sit in back in the '90s. In a very rare new interview, Wlad discusses life beyond Vlad Tepes and what it was like to return to a kingdom he abandoned.
…
What made you want to come out of underground music retirement? What was it like "resurrecting" the Wlad Drakksteim identity?
Hi Jon, first of all thank you for this interview. I generally don't respond to the many interview offers I receive because I don't think I have anything interesting to tell about my distant past. All the questions I usually get asked are about the Vlad Tepes/LLN (Les Légions Noires) era and all the fakes going around... Guys, this was all 30 years ago! It's time to let go. There is no (legitimate) information that is not already available today to those who are eager to know.
Well, what made me want to come out of underground music retirement? I think it was around 2012/2013. That was the time when I really (belatedly, even though I already knew something like that was happening in those years, but not to that extent) discovered all the Internet buzz that grew in the 2000s, all the bootleg madness, the prices madness, the lack of respect. All of this made me decide that it was time to properly collect all of Vlad Tepes' works and publish them as they could (should?) have been published to the faithful in due time, even though it really wasn't the idea 15 years earlier. Times are changing and we have to adapt.
This was around the same time that Drakkar released the 2013 Vlad Tepes reissues. With the exception of War Funeral March and the March To The Black Holocaust split which resulted from the Embassy Productions deal, the other releases came from shitty cassette copies. I assume that these reissues were endorsed by Vorlok Drakksteim but it was not clear to me (to be precise, I have not had any contact with him since 1997, and to anticipate the questions that I am always asked, there's no reason, everyone has their own path in life... That's all.). These editions came out while I was working in parallel on my own reissues. So I contacted Drakkar and we agreed to release the “good” reissues a little later.
So I remixed all my 4-track masters and everything was released the following years by Drakkar & Black Gangrene. Another reason was that I found Vordb again after 15 years of losing contact when he launched his first site Kaleidarkness. All of the above initiated a new time of emulation for me.
The identity of “Wlad Drakksteim” never disappeared for me. It was always hiding in a corner of my mind despite everything that was happening in my life, we could talk about my own psychology but that would touch on very personal points which must remain only mine.
...
...
Did you ever actually stop making underground style music since Vlad Tepes' ending?
Yes, after the circle ended in 1997, I stopped any active creation of music and art in general because I no longer needed it. All of this was interrupted, but still hidden in the back of my mind, as I explained above. I had a few unused riffs that survived the end of Vlad Tepes and bounced around in my mind for years, some that I eventually played in my later project VarvLoar1476.
I created the latter when I was working on my old Vlad Tepes masters. Coming back to these old pieces reignited the little flame that was hiding in my mind, so I started composing again from 2013 until today and so on... Drop by drop, like a poison slowly paralyzes its prey .
What continues to interest you about black metal?
I'm not really interested in Black Metal any more than the other styles I grew up with. I'm still on my old classics and I don't make much effort to move away from them. The only Black Metal that can interest me today is that made by people with whom I am in contact and who know how to explain their approach, their sincerity, the goal of their music and of course, the music must touch me. On top of that, the world is too big and cannot be fully explored. I let it come and I take what can impress me, Black Metal or not.
But if your question is why do I play this kind of music? That's what I do. I don't tell myself that I play Black Metal. It's not important anymore and I'm not here to tell people what to do. Humanity is a self-made and self-destructive species, so be it.
You have a new project that has a few demos up on Bandcamp and a new split release announced on Those Opposed Records. What can you tell me about VarvLoar1476?
It's not that new, I created the name around 2013/14, when I was working on Vlad Tepess reissues. “Varv Loar” simply means “Morte Lune” (Dead Moon) in the Breton language, it fits perfectly as a spiritual continuation of what I have done on my previous projects. As explained above, creativity came back to me so I started recording some stuff without a real plan, using old unused riffs, creating new ones, hence my low production rate. As for Vlad Tepes, I don't do that for others, neither fame nor glory. This project doesn't have any ambition other than my own expression, an interface for my relation to my surroundings and my feelings about it, for my own sake. Anyway, I am making it freely available to the few interested. I've been asked a lot about physical releases, maybe one day if enough material is recorded some sort of compilation of it all might come out if I don't die first... Who lives will see. I still have a lot of rough material to record but I'm just following what I think needs to be done. The last track I made,
"Noyant Les Masses," was requested by Ur Èmdr Œrvn from Avsolutized [and Arkha Sva, among many other projects] to appear on the split-CD N.O.I.R. III which was released recently with Those Opposed records. So, Ur being an old friend, I prioritized this for him.
Overall, this project is the reminiscence of that “Wlad Drakksteim” part in my mind that will never go away. Composing, recording for it is like going into a trance, like a journey through time where nothing else matters. I always come back purified from these sessions, these are transcendent rituals to my condition of being organic trapped in a physical sum of atoms and electrical reactions... Or what we can call the soul, which is beyond all this matter.
…
…
VarvLoar1476 released a re-recorded version of Vlad Tepes song "Frozen Dead's Kingdom." What made you want to revisit this song in particular?
Around 2015/2016 I was in contact with Rebecca who ran her online Metal clothing store called Hellcouture (she still does in fact). At the time, she was making one-shot clothes for Vlad Tepes. At one point she had the idea of putting out a compilation of the bands she was doing merch with and she asked me for a Vlad Tepes track.
Instead of giving her another old thing, I decided to make a new version of "Frozen Dead's Kingdom". In the end, the compilation was never released but that's another story. Still, the song was finished.
I chose this track because it's the first one I composed entirely for Vlad Tepes, without older riffs. Additionally, I felt like the original Vlad Tepes releases didn't deliver the full potential of the riffs due to the "exceptional technical recording conditions" we had at the time in 1994. I was satisfied with that point with the new recording, it represented very well the sounds I wanted it to render in 2016.
How do you view the work you created in your youth? What do you strive to create now?
My youth was a complicated period, a permanent struggle against myself and the world around me, feelings of hatred, sadness, loss, an alignment of the plates of Reason which provoked the meeting of the members of the Circle, then Brothers, in our same dissonant feelings, provoking an emulation leading to a spiral of destruction of the limits imposed by, you name it, humanity, society, religion, the state, the family... This is how my work was created to express what I was experiencing, avoiding my self-destruction. This spiral ended like a star collapsing in on itself to a black hole when all my confused feelings collapsed into oblivion. A monster slain, a catharsis.
It took me many years and a lot of stepping back to deal with it all again to finally master it and everything it meant to me. But as twisted as it may sound, it was a solid foundation for the person I am today and what I have been striving to create for over three decades now. It's a well-balanced mix of all the feelings that burned in me at the time but adding my experience to it and making it stronger. But my only desire is to follow what the cosmos has in store for me. So no one knows, but whoever survives will have to endure it…
Though I know he is a rabid black metal fan, I was surprised to see your photo taken with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. How did you two meet? Were you happy to see this photo of you published?
I have a friend in Brest, namely Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, who discovered during the 2000s in New Noise magazine that Thurston Moore was a big fan of the "Légions Noires, a BM collective based in Brest in the nineties." At this time, Arnaud had never heard of these Légions Noires even though he lived in Brest for two decades. He unsuccessfully tried to find clues about them for many years until he met one of my acquaintances at their respective daughters' school fair. Around the conversation, they came to talk about Black Metal and Arnaud's obsession for LLN, always running in the background of his mind for years. Mind which exploded when my acquaintance told him he knew me! Arnaud finally found something hot, a contact, mine (never underestimate what can happen in school fairs...). It was in 2015. So I met a stressful man at first but meeting after meeting, we talked and exchanged a lot about music and many other topics until today (We even recorded a strange project together this year as a four-men chaotic orchestra. To come some day, sooner or later...).
At one time, Arnaud being the organizer of “Le Festival Invisible'', a music/art festival about outsider artists taking place every year in Brest since 2005, asked me if he could organize a meeting between me and Thurston Moore and kill two birds with one stone hit, by having Thurston play at the festival. This is what happened in November 2018.
Of course, I don't like being exposed publicly because it goes against my approach, anyway you can't control everything. But who knows? Is that really me in these pictures… Ha ha!
…
…
I understand you recorded music as a trio with Thurston Moore and Codeine/Come's Chris Brokaw. Will this ever see the light of day? How did this project come to be in the first place?
No, we just jammed together as old "garage teenagers" during the above-mentioned meeting, nothing was recorded except for a few private video excerpts of the session and some pictures, but not worth being released. Nothing to see, move along.
How did you get back in contact with Vordb? What is it like creating music together now as opposed to the LLN days?
I found by chance his early Kaleidarkness website so we could get in contact again after 15 years. Then we exchanged a lot but didn't create much together. The few we recorded were finishing a Vzaéurvbtre piece begun in 1995 and a Vèrmibdrèb one from 1996. But I guess that we acted the same as 20 years earlier, except that the hardware wasn't anymore a Fostex 4-tracks or some tape recorder. Not much more to say about it…
What are your thoughts on current black metal? Do you pay attention at all?
Not really except for very few exceptions. There is certainly some worthy stuff around, but I don't search for it because my feeling is that the "underground" (if this word still means something) is drowned under tons of garbage. Everyone today seems to have a "Black Metal" project, uninteresting, just kill yourself and save me bandwidth, it's being years since the train passed, you missed it. Invent something else, something new before the internet/social network era sterilizes every creativity, rebel against your time!
On the other hand, the easily available stuff is mostly popular, commercial plastic-sounding and boring cash-grabbing nonsense. I already have plenty of old meaningful stuff to listen to everyday 'till my death and beyond (and some more recent too, but a lot less...) so I don't need more. I'm conscious that I sound like an old fart, but I'm grateful for being from my generation and not from what came after... Poor kids.
I was once told you were to join the now-defunct band Zépülkr [Editor's Note: Zépülkr is now known as Sépulcre] on drums. Was this true? Did you ever end up recording anything with this band?
I never played drums for Zépülkr because I'm an untrained drummer, but I did vocals, guitars and lyrics for the late album Héritrage Posthume, then Khräss stopped the project. He told me years ago that one of the goals of this project was to pay homage to his influences (naming Vlad Tepes and Peste Noire among others) and to get a collaboration as a cherry on the cake. Finally, he got Famine helping on his first album Nécrofrancie and myself on his second and posthumous album.
Vordb has told me he hasn't been in contact with Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh for some time–similarly, are you in contact with Vorlok at all?
Not at all since 1997. And not searching for it. He lives his life, I live mine and that's perfect this way. We did what we had to do together and we parted ways with no hard feelings.
...
...
The A Catharsis for Human Illness box set came with a pretty extensive zine which tells the full Vlad Tepes story (which is why I'm not asking you about that band). That being said, what was revisiting the Vlad Tepes days like for that project?
This box is well named. Vlad Tepes was a catharsis and, as I exposed earlier in this interview, it doesn't represent the happiest part of my life. So coming back to it was like some exorcism. I also had the goal to settle all this, for me but also for the devotees by delivering thems the best aspect of what it was as Art and music, a testimony for each and every one of them. I know today against all odds, through many messages I got since, that this music left a strong impression on many people. So this is my mark of respect to them. That being said, the Vlad Tepes matter is clearly settled for me now.
There are many tales and legends surrounding the LLN, and sometimes even fake bands made by trolls or misinterpreted by superfans from LLN-obsessed places like the streetmetal forum (if you ever saw that). What has it been like watching your old antics become something larger than life? Do you pay attention to things like this?
It was partly why I decided to reissue my projects properly. I could have chosen to let it be in the hands of unrespectful or greedy people. But ask yourself, if it was yours, what would you do ? Leave it like that or take it back ? I choose to handle it back and you know the rest.
About the tales and legends, where's the fun without some mystery?.. Some were true, some not…
What in your opinion makes music evil or evil sounding? What records would you consider evil or evil sounding?
Odd question... The tritone chord!
Joking aside, it depends on what one considers being evil. That's a matter of point of view. To quote famous Black Metal examples : Immortal's first album (their best by far) sounds cold and evil to me, but Abbath seems to be the warmest and most friendly guy around. Similar to Darkthrone, some evil sounding incredible stuff, but Fenriz is so lovable and fun, ha ha. Well, in fact, evil is lovable. What's important is what you bring as an artist, what you express, what your goal is. It also depends on the listener's receptiveness. It has to match on both sides and then, sparkles happen!
Talking about Metal and evil, Bathory's The Return...... comes first in my mind. Music spectrum is so wide in the feelings it can provide (and it clearly shouldn't be bordered on evil)... But to answer the question, I could quote such opposite works from Ahpdegma, Diamanda Galas, Slayer, Zero Kama, Deicide, Sister Iodine and go on and on... Some Black Legions projects too, ha ha…
The music you made in your youth has left quite a legacy with many "wannabes" and soundalikes trying to capitalize on the Vlad Tepes sound and aesthetic. What would you say to these people if you were given the chance?
I would tell them to identify their limits, to ask them why they stick on being "wannabes" or copycats. Ask them what their goal really is and explode it all! Transcend it and make it yours, express yourself, don't be a mirror, break it
Or maybe they just can't... Sorry for them. My advice then would be for them to be eco-friendly and kill themselves... And save me bandwidth once and for all!
Here I will leave the floor open to you: is there anything you would like to say that we haven't covered already?
The floor being opened, I'll get directly to my cave and record the next VarvLoar1476 piece (or not), witnessing the world's collapse, waiting for it to end at last.
Thanks Jon.
…
Vlad Tepes material is available mostly aftermarket, but can be found at a variety of distributors. I recommend checking The Metal Detektor or Discogs. VarvLoar1476 CDs are available exclusively from Those Opposed Records.
Reclaiming Wlad Drakksteim’s Lost Kingdom (Interview)
In 2006 I was living in Brooklyn and I asked someone at a record store if they had anything by Prurient, who I'd heard about but had never actually heard. The guy said he didn't but 'the Prurient guy owns a record store, on 3rd St in Manhattan. at the back of Jammyland, down the hole'. So I went to this reggae store called Jammyland and sure enough in the back of the store there was a small hole in the floor with noise blasting out, and I descended a ladder and was in a small black room face to face with an intense young man behind the counter named Dominick. We got to talking and he was serious, peculiar, and very funny, and Hospital became my favorite place in New York for a couple of years. Dom was putting out a ton of great music of his own and of others, and I got a crash course in both noise and black metal. Specifically I got pretty into Branikald, Bone Awl, Ildjarn, Skuggeheim, and Beherit, all of whom I still enjoy.
In 2007 I was playing guitar in Thurston Moore's band, and while touring the west coast we stopped at Zion's Gate, a big metal and reggae shop. Thurston and the bassist, Matt Heyner, were both big on black metal at the time and both pulled out a cd by Vlad Tepes called March To The Black Holocaust and said to me 'you need to get this, it's essential and not easy to find'. So I brought it home and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the whole vibe, it felt very noisy and punk, but moreover the songs were amazing, just epic.
I got into black metal at a time when social media was really starting to rise, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be 'reach as many people as possible', and I loved that black metal seemed so secretive, so hidden. You really had to make an effort to access it. Something about that felt good to me. I didn't really know anything else about the culture; if I thought hard about it I felt like an interloper, but I didn't care, I just liked the records and tapes and cds. I was happy to enjoy it in isolation, like artifacts from another planet.
In 2008 I got the idea to make an album of acoustic guitar music that might expand some parameters of acoustic guitar. Side two is an 18 minute track of acoustic guitar going through a wall of amps and doing feedback overtones in C; side one was all 'straight' acoustic guitar, including a cover of 'Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple' by Vlad Tepes. It seemed their masterpiece, and I thought that transcribing all 12 minutes of it for acoustic would be challenging, fun, kind of funny, kind of badass, a little bit 'fuck you'. Hopefully not silly. It's an incredible piece of music and I wanted to do right by it. Even though I figured Vlad Tepes (were they even still alive?) would definitely never hear it. I released the album 'Canaris' as a cd, the first release on my new label, Capitan. The people who normally bought my music liked it, I think, while mostly not commenting one way or another on a Vlad Tepes cover.
Around 2013 I got an email from Wlad Drakkstein. His manner of writing was distinct and unusual, almost poetic, but what he said was: he had heard the cover, and liked it, and wanted to include it in a cd reissue that would include a couple of VT covers. Needless to say I was stunned, and flattered, but moreover had the feeling like it wasn't real, like I was communicating with a myth or a ghost. We wrote each other more. He asked if I had any other Vlad Tepes covers (!) - I told him I'd always wanted to cover 'Ravens Hike'. He kind of chuckled and said that it was based on an old Breton song. I ended up recording a not-very-good version in a studio in Australia while on tour. He included both in the compilation.
In 2015 he emailed and said he was going to take the train from Brest five hours to Paris to see me play. Could we meet for dinner, I asked? We met that night and I was breathless. He walked in and no, he was not in corpse paint, etc - he was a neatly dressed, composed French man. Dinner was surreal, very intense. I felt like we really bonded. It felt like a remarkable meeting.
We met again at a show in Rennes in 2018, and at the Invisible Festival in 2019, where he and I had a little jam session with Thurston Moore. Last time we met was in 2022 in Rennes. He wanted me to go in the studio with him at midnight, after a Come show, but I was too tired and had to leave early the next day.
He's become a friend. I hope we can maybe make music together at some point, but if not that's ok too. In this sense, he's like a number of musicians I've befriended over the years. I admire his work, and respect both his legacy and the privacy that's obviously important to him and I think part of that legacy. I think it's great that he's working on new music as VarvLoar1476, and would love to hear a whole album, but again it's fine if that doesn't happen. I play in a band called Codeine, who made music from 1989-1994, at which point the main songwriter, Stephen Immerwahr, stopped making new music. As a fan of Steve's songs, I wish he would make more, but I'm also okay with it being a small slice of time and body of work. I guess I feel the same way about Vlad Tepes.
–Chris Brokaw
…
The Black Legions. Les Légions Noires. The mythical LLN: a sub-underground circle of bands, solo projects, and collaborations based out of the Brest area in France throughout the early-and-mid '90s (though it has roots that date back as far as the late '80s). Incomprehensible band names, a unified and heavily Xeroxed aesthetic, a con-lang called Gloatre, and countless larger than life stories ranging from demos recorded in a French castle to an ambient song based around a recording of a microphone being inserted into a (living) rat, the LLN was a whisper on the Internet for years, relegated to nerds and forum-goers (like yours truly) alike. Bootlegged tapes which were supposedly and originally limited to single-and-double digits, made for friends and compatriots only (along with properly released material on the obscure Embassy Productions) made their way onto the Internet and were met with curiosity and obsession alike. Though the LLN proper dissolved almost thirty years ago, the library of works this small handful of artists made, ranging from the rawest of black metal to the most terrifying of ambient and atmospheric recordings, remained a central source of intrigue to many.
It was Chaos (a proper noun) which drove the LLN. Chaos, Satan, and the Evil that both resulted from and fueled the aforementioned. Though the LLN is synonymous with its de facto leader Vordb (also known as Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, Thörgammaton Blackvomit, Vórdb Báthor Ecsed, Avaëtre, and, most recently, Vordb Na R.iidr), it was Vlad Tepes–named, of course, for the famed masochistic, murderous despot–who made the LLN's most breathtaking and memorable recordings. With progressions so beautiful and sinister that former Codeine drummer and Come frontman Chris Brokaw went so far as to record an entire twelve-minute epic ("Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple") as a solo acoustic guitar piece, Vlad Tepes was a bit of an anomaly in the largely anti-musical LLN (save a few equally as beautiful projects. Where did you go, Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh?). When compared with Belkètre's more atonal moments and Brenoritvrezorkre's partially improvised chaos, the black metal found in Vlad Tepes' discography was melodic and, for all intents and purposes, beautiful, but the intent was certainly not there.
In interviews, Vlad Tepes was more interested in evil and the romanticizing of it, but, most importantly, they were interested in maintaining an air of mystery, both avoiding direct answers and keeping their own identities shrouded in confusion and uncertainty. Even now, the human names for Wlad and Vorlok Drakksteim (at the time assumed to be brothers, but have since been revealed to have been "artistic brothers" rather than actually related) are rumored but never confirmed. During a time of conflict and pugnaciousness in the black metal underground by artists and budding journalists/zine writers alike, it was in Kill Yourself Zine that what would now be called a "doxxing attempt" was made against the Drakksteim duo, featuring full names and mailing addresses alike (this was also done to Vordb!). In return, the infamous rumor has it that Vlad Tepes both threatened to kill Full Moon Productions proprietor/Kill Yourself Zine editor Jon and also mailed him a box filled with dead rats. Evil. There are so many more Vlad Tepes stories that either are or are not true, and the A Catharsis for Human Illness discography box set lays them all bare in a comprehensive zine (if you can find a copy), but rehashing the past is not why we are here today.
Vlad Tepes went the way of many demo-only black metal projects in the '90s: they got tired and subsequently broke up, apparently in or around 1997 (complete with never-before-heard demos which date that far, at least according to Vordb's now-defunct Kaleidarkness site). Then, nothing. The years came and went, the rumors and legends becoming more ridiculous over time. I mean, a microphone in a rat? A castle? Who is to say whether or not these are real, and the artists behind the legends are none too willing to reveal the truths or lies behind them. The LLN is an anachronism in that sense: its creators maintain their credo and remain in the past, never willing to let Modernity take what they crafted.
It was a great surprise to see someone who was supposedly half of Vlad Tepes in an Instagram post over a decade and a half after my obsession with the LLN first began, let alone a photo with Sonic Youth co-songwriter and black metal obsessive Thurston Moore. There was even a photo of Wlad jamming as part of a guitar trio with Moore and the aforementioned Chris Brokaw. Though this happened a couple years after a band-sanctioned reissue series on French label Drakkar Productions (and later on Black Gangrene Productions), an LLN-related label dating back to the Circle's heyday, a clear photo of someone who was essentially a ghost for two decades at that point was… it was unexpected.
Suddenly, everything was available again. No more bootleg LPs I happened upon at Metal Haven and eBay, and it was all at the hands of a reactivated Wlad Drakksteim (Vorlok has yet to be heard from, and it is unlikely that we will ever have the privilege). Now semi-newly active with a new project he calls VarvLoar1476, Wlad returns to reclaim the throne he never got to sit in back in the '90s. In a very rare new interview, Wlad discusses life beyond Vlad Tepes and what it was like to return to a kingdom he abandoned.
…
What made you want to come out of underground music retirement? What was it like "resurrecting" the Wlad Drakksteim identity?
Hi Jon, first of all thank you for this interview. I generally don't respond to the many interview offers I receive because I don't think I have anything interesting to tell about my distant past. All the questions I usually get asked are about the Vlad Tepes/LLN (Les Légions Noires) era and all the fakes going around... Guys, this was all 30 years ago! It's time to let go. There is no (legitimate) information that is not already available today to those who are eager to know.
Well, what made me want to come out of underground music retirement? I think it was around 2012/2013. That was the time when I really (belatedly, even though I already knew something like that was happening in those years, but not to that extent) discovered all the Internet buzz that grew in the 2000s, all the bootleg madness, the prices madness, the lack of respect. All of this made me decide that it was time to properly collect all of Vlad Tepes' works and publish them as they could (should?) have been published to the faithful in due time, even though it really wasn't the idea 15 years earlier. Times are changing and we have to adapt.
This was around the same time that Drakkar released the 2013 Vlad Tepes reissues. With the exception of War Funeral March and the March To The Black Holocaust split which resulted from the Embassy Productions deal, the other releases came from shitty cassette copies. I assume that these reissues were endorsed by Vorlok Drakksteim but it was not clear to me (to be precise, I have not had any contact with him since 1997, and to anticipate the questions that I am always asked, there's no reason, everyone has their own path in life... That's all.). These editions came out while I was working in parallel on my own reissues. So I contacted Drakkar and we agreed to release the “good” reissues a little later.
So I remixed all my 4-track masters and everything was released the following years by Drakkar & Black Gangrene. Another reason was that I found Vordb again after 15 years of losing contact when he launched his first site Kaleidarkness. All of the above initiated a new time of emulation for me.
The identity of “Wlad Drakksteim” never disappeared for me. It was always hiding in a corner of my mind despite everything that was happening in my life, we could talk about my own psychology but that would touch on very personal points which must remain only mine.
...
...
Did you ever actually stop making underground style music since Vlad Tepes' ending?
Yes, after the circle ended in 1997, I stopped any active creation of music and art in general because I no longer needed it. All of this was interrupted, but still hidden in the back of my mind, as I explained above. I had a few unused riffs that survived the end of Vlad Tepes and bounced around in my mind for years, some that I eventually played in my later project VarvLoar1476.
I created the latter when I was working on my old Vlad Tepes masters. Coming back to these old pieces reignited the little flame that was hiding in my mind, so I started composing again from 2013 until today and so on... Drop by drop, like a poison slowly paralyzes its prey .
What continues to interest you about black metal?
I'm not really interested in Black Metal any more than the other styles I grew up with. I'm still on my old classics and I don't make much effort to move away from them. The only Black Metal that can interest me today is that made by people with whom I am in contact and who know how to explain their approach, their sincerity, the goal of their music and of course, the music must touch me. On top of that, the world is too big and cannot be fully explored. I let it come and I take what can impress me, Black Metal or not.
But if your question is why do I play this kind of music? That's what I do. I don't tell myself that I play Black Metal. It's not important anymore and I'm not here to tell people what to do. Humanity is a self-made and self-destructive species, so be it.
You have a new project that has a few demos up on Bandcamp and a new split release announced on Those Opposed Records. What can you tell me about VarvLoar1476?
It's not that new, I created the name around 2013/14, when I was working on Vlad Tepess reissues. “Varv Loar” simply means “Morte Lune” (Dead Moon) in the Breton language, it fits perfectly as a spiritual continuation of what I have done on my previous projects. As explained above, creativity came back to me so I started recording some stuff without a real plan, using old unused riffs, creating new ones, hence my low production rate. As for Vlad Tepes, I don't do that for others, neither fame nor glory. This project doesn't have any ambition other than my own expression, an interface for my relation to my surroundings and my feelings about it, for my own sake. Anyway, I am making it freely available to the few interested. I've been asked a lot about physical releases, maybe one day if enough material is recorded some sort of compilation of it all might come out if I don't die first... Who lives will see. I still have a lot of rough material to record but I'm just following what I think needs to be done. The last track I made,
"Noyant Les Masses," was requested by Ur Èmdr Œrvn from Avsolutized [and Arkha Sva, among many other projects] to appear on the split-CD N.O.I.R. III which was released recently with Those Opposed records. So, Ur being an old friend, I prioritized this for him.
Overall, this project is the reminiscence of that “Wlad Drakksteim” part in my mind that will never go away. Composing, recording for it is like going into a trance, like a journey through time where nothing else matters. I always come back purified from these sessions, these are transcendent rituals to my condition of being organic trapped in a physical sum of atoms and electrical reactions... Or what we can call the soul, which is beyond all this matter.
…
…
VarvLoar1476 released a re-recorded version of Vlad Tepes song "Frozen Dead's Kingdom." What made you want to revisit this song in particular?
Around 2015/2016 I was in contact with Rebecca who ran her online Metal clothing store called Hellcouture (she still does in fact). At the time, she was making one-shot clothes for Vlad Tepes. At one point she had the idea of putting out a compilation of the bands she was doing merch with and she asked me for a Vlad Tepes track.
Instead of giving her another old thing, I decided to make a new version of "Frozen Dead's Kingdom". In the end, the compilation was never released but that's another story. Still, the song was finished.
I chose this track because it's the first one I composed entirely for Vlad Tepes, without older riffs. Additionally, I felt like the original Vlad Tepes releases didn't deliver the full potential of the riffs due to the "exceptional technical recording conditions" we had at the time in 1994. I was satisfied with that point with the new recording, it represented very well the sounds I wanted it to render in 2016.
How do you view the work you created in your youth? What do you strive to create now?
My youth was a complicated period, a permanent struggle against myself and the world around me, feelings of hatred, sadness, loss, an alignment of the plates of Reason which provoked the meeting of the members of the Circle, then Brothers, in our same dissonant feelings, provoking an emulation leading to a spiral of destruction of the limits imposed by, you name it, humanity, society, religion, the state, the family... This is how my work was created to express what I was experiencing, avoiding my self-destruction. This spiral ended like a star collapsing in on itself to a black hole when all my confused feelings collapsed into oblivion. A monster slain, a catharsis.
It took me many years and a lot of stepping back to deal with it all again to finally master it and everything it meant to me. But as twisted as it may sound, it was a solid foundation for the person I am today and what I have been striving to create for over three decades now. It's a well-balanced mix of all the feelings that burned in me at the time but adding my experience to it and making it stronger. But my only desire is to follow what the cosmos has in store for me. So no one knows, but whoever survives will have to endure it…
Though I know he is a rabid black metal fan, I was surprised to see your photo taken with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. How did you two meet? Were you happy to see this photo of you published?
I have a friend in Brest, namely Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, who discovered during the 2000s in New Noise magazine that Thurston Moore was a big fan of the "Légions Noires, a BM collective based in Brest in the nineties." At this time, Arnaud had never heard of these Légions Noires even though he lived in Brest for two decades. He unsuccessfully tried to find clues about them for many years until he met one of my acquaintances at their respective daughters' school fair. Around the conversation, they came to talk about Black Metal and Arnaud's obsession for LLN, always running in the background of his mind for years. Mind which exploded when my acquaintance told him he knew me! Arnaud finally found something hot, a contact, mine (never underestimate what can happen in school fairs...). It was in 2015. So I met a stressful man at first but meeting after meeting, we talked and exchanged a lot about music and many other topics until today (We even recorded a strange project together this year as a four-men chaotic orchestra. To come some day, sooner or later...).
At one time, Arnaud being the organizer of “Le Festival Invisible'', a music/art festival about outsider artists taking place every year in Brest since 2005, asked me if he could organize a meeting between me and Thurston Moore and kill two birds with one stone hit, by having Thurston play at the festival. This is what happened in November 2018.
Of course, I don't like being exposed publicly because it goes against my approach, anyway you can't control everything. But who knows? Is that really me in these pictures… Ha ha!
…
…
I understand you recorded music as a trio with Thurston Moore and Codeine/Come's Chris Brokaw. Will this ever see the light of day? How did this project come to be in the first place?
No, we just jammed together as old "garage teenagers" during the above-mentioned meeting, nothing was recorded except for a few private video excerpts of the session and some pictures, but not worth being released. Nothing to see, move along.
How did you get back in contact with Vordb? What is it like creating music together now as opposed to the LLN days?
I found by chance his early Kaleidarkness website so we could get in contact again after 15 years. Then we exchanged a lot but didn't create much together. The few we recorded were finishing a Vzaéurvbtre piece begun in 1995 and a Vèrmibdrèb one from 1996. But I guess that we acted the same as 20 years earlier, except that the hardware wasn't anymore a Fostex 4-tracks or some tape recorder. Not much more to say about it…
What are your thoughts on current black metal? Do you pay attention at all?
Not really except for very few exceptions. There is certainly some worthy stuff around, but I don't search for it because my feeling is that the "underground" (if this word still means something) is drowned under tons of garbage. Everyone today seems to have a "Black Metal" project, uninteresting, just kill yourself and save me bandwidth, it's being years since the train passed, you missed it. Invent something else, something new before the internet/social network era sterilizes every creativity, rebel against your time!
On the other hand, the easily available stuff is mostly popular, commercial plastic-sounding and boring cash-grabbing nonsense. I already have plenty of old meaningful stuff to listen to everyday 'till my death and beyond (and some more recent too, but a lot less...) so I don't need more. I'm conscious that I sound like an old fart, but I'm grateful for being from my generation and not from what came after... Poor kids.
I was once told you were to join the now-defunct band Zépülkr [Editor's Note: Zépülkr is now known as Sépulcre] on drums. Was this true? Did you ever end up recording anything with this band?
I never played drums for Zépülkr because I'm an untrained drummer, but I did vocals, guitars and lyrics for the late album Héritrage Posthume, then Khräss stopped the project. He told me years ago that one of the goals of this project was to pay homage to his influences (naming Vlad Tepes and Peste Noire among others) and to get a collaboration as a cherry on the cake. Finally, he got Famine helping on his first album Nécrofrancie and myself on his second and posthumous album.
Vordb has told me he hasn't been in contact with Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh for some time–similarly, are you in contact with Vorlok at all?
Not at all since 1997. And not searching for it. He lives his life, I live mine and that's perfect this way. We did what we had to do together and we parted ways with no hard feelings.
...
...
The A Catharsis for Human Illness box set came with a pretty extensive zine which tells the full Vlad Tepes story (which is why I'm not asking you about that band). That being said, what was revisiting the Vlad Tepes days like for that project?
This box is well named. Vlad Tepes was a catharsis and, as I exposed earlier in this interview, it doesn't represent the happiest part of my life. So coming back to it was like some exorcism. I also had the goal to settle all this, for me but also for the devotees by delivering thems the best aspect of what it was as Art and music, a testimony for each and every one of them. I know today against all odds, through many messages I got since, that this music left a strong impression on many people. So this is my mark of respect to them. That being said, the Vlad Tepes matter is clearly settled for me now.
There are many tales and legends surrounding the LLN, and sometimes even fake bands made by trolls or misinterpreted by superfans from LLN-obsessed places like the streetmetal forum (if you ever saw that). What has it been like watching your old antics become something larger than life? Do you pay attention to things like this?
It was partly why I decided to reissue my projects properly. I could have chosen to let it be in the hands of unrespectful or greedy people. But ask yourself, if it was yours, what would you do ? Leave it like that or take it back ? I choose to handle it back and you know the rest.
About the tales and legends, where's the fun without some mystery?.. Some were true, some not…
What in your opinion makes music evil or evil sounding? What records would you consider evil or evil sounding?
Odd question... The tritone chord!
Joking aside, it depends on what one considers being evil. That's a matter of point of view. To quote famous Black Metal examples : Immortal's first album (their best by far) sounds cold and evil to me, but Abbath seems to be the warmest and most friendly guy around. Similar to Darkthrone, some evil sounding incredible stuff, but Fenriz is so lovable and fun, ha ha. Well, in fact, evil is lovable. What's important is what you bring as an artist, what you express, what your goal is. It also depends on the listener's receptiveness. It has to match on both sides and then, sparkles happen!
Talking about Metal and evil, Bathory's The Return...... comes first in my mind. Music spectrum is so wide in the feelings it can provide (and it clearly shouldn't be bordered on evil)... But to answer the question, I could quote such opposite works from Ahpdegma, Diamanda Galas, Slayer, Zero Kama, Deicide, Sister Iodine and go on and on... Some Black Legions projects too, ha ha…
The music you made in your youth has left quite a legacy with many "wannabes" and soundalikes trying to capitalize on the Vlad Tepes sound and aesthetic. What would you say to these people if you were given the chance?
I would tell them to identify their limits, to ask them why they stick on being "wannabes" or copycats. Ask them what their goal really is and explode it all! Transcend it and make it yours, express yourself, don't be a mirror, break it
Or maybe they just can't... Sorry for them. My advice then would be for them to be eco-friendly and kill themselves... And save me bandwidth once and for all!
Here I will leave the floor open to you: is there anything you would like to say that we haven't covered already?
The floor being opened, I'll get directly to my cave and record the next VarvLoar1476 piece (or not), witnessing the world's collapse, waiting for it to end at last.
Thanks Jon.
…
Vlad Tepes material is available mostly aftermarket, but can be found at a variety of distributors. I recommend checking The Metal Detektor or Discogs. VarvLoar1476 CDs are available exclusively from Those Opposed Records.
Reclaiming Wlad Drakksteim’s Lost Kingdom (Interview)
In 2006 I was living in Brooklyn and I asked someone at a record store if they had anything by Prurient, who I'd heard about but had never actually heard. The guy said he didn't but 'the Prurient guy owns a record store, on 3rd St in Manhattan. at the back of Jammyland, down the hole'. So I went to this reggae store called Jammyland and sure enough in the back of the store there was a small hole in the floor with noise blasting out, and I descended a ladder and was in a small black room face to face with an intense young man behind the counter named Dominick. We got to talking and he was serious, peculiar, and very funny, and Hospital became my favorite place in New York for a couple of years. Dom was putting out a ton of great music of his own and of others, and I got a crash course in both noise and black metal. Specifically I got pretty into Branikald, Bone Awl, Ildjarn, Skuggeheim, and Beherit, all of whom I still enjoy.
In 2007 I was playing guitar in Thurston Moore's band, and while touring the west coast we stopped at Zion's Gate, a big metal and reggae shop. Thurston and the bassist, Matt Heyner, were both big on black metal at the time and both pulled out a cd by Vlad Tepes called March To The Black Holocaust and said to me 'you need to get this, it's essential and not easy to find'. So I brought it home and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the whole vibe, it felt very noisy and punk, but moreover the songs were amazing, just epic.
I got into black metal at a time when social media was really starting to rise, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be 'reach as many people as possible', and I loved that black metal seemed so secretive, so hidden. You really had to make an effort to access it. Something about that felt good to me. I didn't really know anything else about the culture; if I thought hard about it I felt like an interloper, but I didn't care, I just liked the records and tapes and cds. I was happy to enjoy it in isolation, like artifacts from another planet.
In 2008 I got the idea to make an album of acoustic guitar music that might expand some parameters of acoustic guitar. Side two is an 18 minute track of acoustic guitar going through a wall of amps and doing feedback overtones in C; side one was all 'straight' acoustic guitar, including a cover of 'Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple' by Vlad Tepes. It seemed their masterpiece, and I thought that transcribing all 12 minutes of it for acoustic would be challenging, fun, kind of funny, kind of badass, a little bit 'fuck you'. Hopefully not silly. It's an incredible piece of music and I wanted to do right by it. Even though I figured Vlad Tepes (were they even still alive?) would definitely never hear it. I released the album 'Canaris' as a cd, the first release on my new label, Capitan. The people who normally bought my music liked it, I think, while mostly not commenting one way or another on a Vlad Tepes cover.
Around 2013 I got an email from Wlad Drakkstein. His manner of writing was distinct and unusual, almost poetic, but what he said was: he had heard the cover, and liked it, and wanted to include it in a cd reissue that would include a couple of VT covers. Needless to say I was stunned, and flattered, but moreover had the feeling like it wasn't real, like I was communicating with a myth or a ghost. We wrote each other more. He asked if I had any other Vlad Tepes covers (!) - I told him I'd always wanted to cover 'Ravens Hike'. He kind of chuckled and said that it was based on an old Breton song. I ended up recording a not-very-good version in a studio in Australia while on tour. He included both in the compilation.
In 2015 he emailed and said he was going to take the train from Brest five hours to Paris to see me play. Could we meet for dinner, I asked? We met that night and I was breathless. He walked in and no, he was not in corpse paint, etc - he was a neatly dressed, composed French man. Dinner was surreal, very intense. I felt like we really bonded. It felt like a remarkable meeting.
We met again at a show in Rennes in 2018, and at the Invisible Festival in 2019, where he and I had a little jam session with Thurston Moore. Last time we met was in 2022 in Rennes. He wanted me to go in the studio with him at midnight, after a Come show, but I was too tired and had to leave early the next day.
He's become a friend. I hope we can maybe make music together at some point, but if not that's ok too. In this sense, he's like a number of musicians I've befriended over the years. I admire his work, and respect both his legacy and the privacy that's obviously important to him and I think part of that legacy. I think it's great that he's working on new music as VarvLoar1476, and would love to hear a whole album, but again it's fine if that doesn't happen. I play in a band called Codeine, who made music from 1989-1994, at which point the main songwriter, Stephen Immerwahr, stopped making new music. As a fan of Steve's songs, I wish he would make more, but I'm also okay with it being a small slice of time and body of work. I guess I feel the same way about Vlad Tepes.
–Chris Brokaw
…
The Black Legions. Les Légions Noires. The mythical LLN: a sub-underground circle of bands, solo projects, and collaborations based out of the Brest area in France throughout the early-and-mid '90s (though it has roots that date back as far as the late '80s). Incomprehensible band names, a unified and heavily Xeroxed aesthetic, a con-lang called Gloatre, and countless larger than life stories ranging from demos recorded in a French castle to an ambient song based around a recording of a microphone being inserted into a (living) rat, the LLN was a whisper on the Internet for years, relegated to nerds and forum-goers (like yours truly) alike. Bootlegged tapes which were supposedly and originally limited to single-and-double digits, made for friends and compatriots only (along with properly released material on the obscure Embassy Productions) made their way onto the Internet and were met with curiosity and obsession alike. Though the LLN proper dissolved almost thirty years ago, the library of works this small handful of artists made, ranging from the rawest of black metal to the most terrifying of ambient and atmospheric recordings, remained a central source of intrigue to many.
It was Chaos (a proper noun) which drove the LLN. Chaos, Satan, and the Evil that both resulted from and fueled the aforementioned. Though the LLN is synonymous with its de facto leader Vordb (also known as Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, Thörgammaton Blackvomit, Vórdb Báthor Ecsed, Avaëtre, and, most recently, Vordb Na R.iidr), it was Vlad Tepes–named, of course, for the famed masochistic, murderous despot–who made the LLN's most breathtaking and memorable recordings. With progressions so beautiful and sinister that former Codeine drummer and Come frontman Chris Brokaw went so far as to record an entire twelve-minute epic ("Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple") as a solo acoustic guitar piece, Vlad Tepes was a bit of an anomaly in the largely anti-musical LLN (save a few equally as beautiful projects. Where did you go, Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh?). When compared with Belkètre's more atonal moments and Brenoritvrezorkre's partially improvised chaos, the black metal found in Vlad Tepes' discography was melodic and, for all intents and purposes, beautiful, but the intent was certainly not there.
In interviews, Vlad Tepes was more interested in evil and the romanticizing of it, but, most importantly, they were interested in maintaining an air of mystery, both avoiding direct answers and keeping their own identities shrouded in confusion and uncertainty. Even now, the human names for Wlad and Vorlok Drakksteim (at the time assumed to be brothers, but have since been revealed to have been "artistic brothers" rather than actually related) are rumored but never confirmed. During a time of conflict and pugnaciousness in the black metal underground by artists and budding journalists/zine writers alike, it was in Kill Yourself Zine that what would now be called a "doxxing attempt" was made against the Drakksteim duo, featuring full names and mailing addresses alike (this was also done to Vordb!). In return, the infamous rumor has it that Vlad Tepes both threatened to kill Full Moon Productions proprietor/Kill Yourself Zine editor Jon and also mailed him a box filled with dead rats. Evil. There are so many more Vlad Tepes stories that either are or are not true, and the A Catharsis for Human Illness discography box set lays them all bare in a comprehensive zine (if you can find a copy), but rehashing the past is not why we are here today.
Vlad Tepes went the way of many demo-only black metal projects in the '90s: they got tired and subsequently broke up, apparently in or around 1997 (complete with never-before-heard demos which date that far, at least according to Vordb's now-defunct Kaleidarkness site). Then, nothing. The years came and went, the rumors and legends becoming more ridiculous over time. I mean, a microphone in a rat? A castle? Who is to say whether or not these are real, and the artists behind the legends are none too willing to reveal the truths or lies behind them. The LLN is an anachronism in that sense: its creators maintain their credo and remain in the past, never willing to let Modernity take what they crafted.
It was a great surprise to see someone who was supposedly half of Vlad Tepes in an Instagram post over a decade and a half after my obsession with the LLN first began, let alone a photo with Sonic Youth co-songwriter and black metal obsessive Thurston Moore. There was even a photo of Wlad jamming as part of a guitar trio with Moore and the aforementioned Chris Brokaw. Though this happened a couple years after a band-sanctioned reissue series on French label Drakkar Productions (and later on Black Gangrene Productions), an LLN-related label dating back to the Circle's heyday, a clear photo of someone who was essentially a ghost for two decades at that point was… it was unexpected.
Suddenly, everything was available again. No more bootleg LPs I happened upon at Metal Haven and eBay, and it was all at the hands of a reactivated Wlad Drakksteim (Vorlok has yet to be heard from, and it is unlikely that we will ever have the privilege). Now semi-newly active with a new project he calls VarvLoar1476, Wlad returns to reclaim the throne he never got to sit in back in the '90s. In a very rare new interview, Wlad discusses life beyond Vlad Tepes and what it was like to return to a kingdom he abandoned.
…
What made you want to come out of underground music retirement? What was it like "resurrecting" the Wlad Drakksteim identity?
Hi Jon, first of all thank you for this interview. I generally don't respond to the many interview offers I receive because I don't think I have anything interesting to tell about my distant past. All the questions I usually get asked are about the Vlad Tepes/LLN (Les Légions Noires) era and all the fakes going around... Guys, this was all 30 years ago! It's time to let go. There is no (legitimate) information that is not already available today to those who are eager to know.
Well, what made me want to come out of underground music retirement? I think it was around 2012/2013. That was the time when I really (belatedly, even though I already knew something like that was happening in those years, but not to that extent) discovered all the Internet buzz that grew in the 2000s, all the bootleg madness, the prices madness, the lack of respect. All of this made me decide that it was time to properly collect all of Vlad Tepes' works and publish them as they could (should?) have been published to the faithful in due time, even though it really wasn't the idea 15 years earlier. Times are changing and we have to adapt.
This was around the same time that Drakkar released the 2013 Vlad Tepes reissues. With the exception of War Funeral March and the March To The Black Holocaust split which resulted from the Embassy Productions deal, the other releases came from shitty cassette copies. I assume that these reissues were endorsed by Vorlok Drakksteim but it was not clear to me (to be precise, I have not had any contact with him since 1997, and to anticipate the questions that I am always asked, there's no reason, everyone has their own path in life... That's all.). These editions came out while I was working in parallel on my own reissues. So I contacted Drakkar and we agreed to release the “good” reissues a little later.
So I remixed all my 4-track masters and everything was released the following years by Drakkar & Black Gangrene. Another reason was that I found Vordb again after 15 years of losing contact when he launched his first site Kaleidarkness. All of the above initiated a new time of emulation for me.
The identity of “Wlad Drakksteim” never disappeared for me. It was always hiding in a corner of my mind despite everything that was happening in my life, we could talk about my own psychology but that would touch on very personal points which must remain only mine.
...
...
Did you ever actually stop making underground style music since Vlad Tepes' ending?
Yes, after the circle ended in 1997, I stopped any active creation of music and art in general because I no longer needed it. All of this was interrupted, but still hidden in the back of my mind, as I explained above. I had a few unused riffs that survived the end of Vlad Tepes and bounced around in my mind for years, some that I eventually played in my later project VarvLoar1476.
I created the latter when I was working on my old Vlad Tepes masters. Coming back to these old pieces reignited the little flame that was hiding in my mind, so I started composing again from 2013 until today and so on... Drop by drop, like a poison slowly paralyzes its prey .
What continues to interest you about black metal?
I'm not really interested in Black Metal any more than the other styles I grew up with. I'm still on my old classics and I don't make much effort to move away from them. The only Black Metal that can interest me today is that made by people with whom I am in contact and who know how to explain their approach, their sincerity, the goal of their music and of course, the music must touch me. On top of that, the world is too big and cannot be fully explored. I let it come and I take what can impress me, Black Metal or not.
But if your question is why do I play this kind of music? That's what I do. I don't tell myself that I play Black Metal. It's not important anymore and I'm not here to tell people what to do. Humanity is a self-made and self-destructive species, so be it.
You have a new project that has a few demos up on Bandcamp and a new split release announced on Those Opposed Records. What can you tell me about VarvLoar1476?
It's not that new, I created the name around 2013/14, when I was working on Vlad Tepess reissues. “Varv Loar” simply means “Morte Lune” (Dead Moon) in the Breton language, it fits perfectly as a spiritual continuation of what I have done on my previous projects. As explained above, creativity came back to me so I started recording some stuff without a real plan, using old unused riffs, creating new ones, hence my low production rate. As for Vlad Tepes, I don't do that for others, neither fame nor glory. This project doesn't have any ambition other than my own expression, an interface for my relation to my surroundings and my feelings about it, for my own sake. Anyway, I am making it freely available to the few interested. I've been asked a lot about physical releases, maybe one day if enough material is recorded some sort of compilation of it all might come out if I don't die first... Who lives will see. I still have a lot of rough material to record but I'm just following what I think needs to be done. The last track I made,
"Noyant Les Masses," was requested by Ur Èmdr Œrvn from Avsolutized [and Arkha Sva, among many other projects] to appear on the split-CD N.O.I.R. III which was released recently with Those Opposed records. So, Ur being an old friend, I prioritized this for him.
Overall, this project is the reminiscence of that “Wlad Drakksteim” part in my mind that will never go away. Composing, recording for it is like going into a trance, like a journey through time where nothing else matters. I always come back purified from these sessions, these are transcendent rituals to my condition of being organic trapped in a physical sum of atoms and electrical reactions... Or what we can call the soul, which is beyond all this matter.
…
…
VarvLoar1476 released a re-recorded version of Vlad Tepes song "Frozen Dead's Kingdom." What made you want to revisit this song in particular?
Around 2015/2016 I was in contact with Rebecca who ran her online Metal clothing store called Hellcouture (she still does in fact). At the time, she was making one-shot clothes for Vlad Tepes. At one point she had the idea of putting out a compilation of the bands she was doing merch with and she asked me for a Vlad Tepes track.
Instead of giving her another old thing, I decided to make a new version of "Frozen Dead's Kingdom". In the end, the compilation was never released but that's another story. Still, the song was finished.
I chose this track because it's the first one I composed entirely for Vlad Tepes, without older riffs. Additionally, I felt like the original Vlad Tepes releases didn't deliver the full potential of the riffs due to the "exceptional technical recording conditions" we had at the time in 1994. I was satisfied with that point with the new recording, it represented very well the sounds I wanted it to render in 2016.
How do you view the work you created in your youth? What do you strive to create now?
My youth was a complicated period, a permanent struggle against myself and the world around me, feelings of hatred, sadness, loss, an alignment of the plates of Reason which provoked the meeting of the members of the Circle, then Brothers, in our same dissonant feelings, provoking an emulation leading to a spiral of destruction of the limits imposed by, you name it, humanity, society, religion, the state, the family... This is how my work was created to express what I was experiencing, avoiding my self-destruction. This spiral ended like a star collapsing in on itself to a black hole when all my confused feelings collapsed into oblivion. A monster slain, a catharsis.
It took me many years and a lot of stepping back to deal with it all again to finally master it and everything it meant to me. But as twisted as it may sound, it was a solid foundation for the person I am today and what I have been striving to create for over three decades now. It's a well-balanced mix of all the feelings that burned in me at the time but adding my experience to it and making it stronger. But my only desire is to follow what the cosmos has in store for me. So no one knows, but whoever survives will have to endure it…
Though I know he is a rabid black metal fan, I was surprised to see your photo taken with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. How did you two meet? Were you happy to see this photo of you published?
I have a friend in Brest, namely Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, who discovered during the 2000s in New Noise magazine that Thurston Moore was a big fan of the "Légions Noires, a BM collective based in Brest in the nineties." At this time, Arnaud had never heard of these Légions Noires even though he lived in Brest for two decades. He unsuccessfully tried to find clues about them for many years until he met one of my acquaintances at their respective daughters' school fair. Around the conversation, they came to talk about Black Metal and Arnaud's obsession for LLN, always running in the background of his mind for years. Mind which exploded when my acquaintance told him he knew me! Arnaud finally found something hot, a contact, mine (never underestimate what can happen in school fairs...). It was in 2015. So I met a stressful man at first but meeting after meeting, we talked and exchanged a lot about music and many other topics until today (We even recorded a strange project together this year as a four-men chaotic orchestra. To come some day, sooner or later...).
At one time, Arnaud being the organizer of “Le Festival Invisible'', a music/art festival about outsider artists taking place every year in Brest since 2005, asked me if he could organize a meeting between me and Thurston Moore and kill two birds with one stone hit, by having Thurston play at the festival. This is what happened in November 2018.
Of course, I don't like being exposed publicly because it goes against my approach, anyway you can't control everything. But who knows? Is that really me in these pictures… Ha ha!
…
…
I understand you recorded music as a trio with Thurston Moore and Codeine/Come's Chris Brokaw. Will this ever see the light of day? How did this project come to be in the first place?
No, we just jammed together as old "garage teenagers" during the above-mentioned meeting, nothing was recorded except for a few private video excerpts of the session and some pictures, but not worth being released. Nothing to see, move along.
How did you get back in contact with Vordb? What is it like creating music together now as opposed to the LLN days?
I found by chance his early Kaleidarkness website so we could get in contact again after 15 years. Then we exchanged a lot but didn't create much together. The few we recorded were finishing a Vzaéurvbtre piece begun in 1995 and a Vèrmibdrèb one from 1996. But I guess that we acted the same as 20 years earlier, except that the hardware wasn't anymore a Fostex 4-tracks or some tape recorder. Not much more to say about it…
What are your thoughts on current black metal? Do you pay attention at all?
Not really except for very few exceptions. There is certainly some worthy stuff around, but I don't search for it because my feeling is that the "underground" (if this word still means something) is drowned under tons of garbage. Everyone today seems to have a "Black Metal" project, uninteresting, just kill yourself and save me bandwidth, it's being years since the train passed, you missed it. Invent something else, something new before the internet/social network era sterilizes every creativity, rebel against your time!
On the other hand, the easily available stuff is mostly popular, commercial plastic-sounding and boring cash-grabbing nonsense. I already have plenty of old meaningful stuff to listen to everyday 'till my death and beyond (and some more recent too, but a lot less...) so I don't need more. I'm conscious that I sound like an old fart, but I'm grateful for being from my generation and not from what came after... Poor kids.
I was once told you were to join the now-defunct band Zépülkr [Editor's Note: Zépülkr is now known as Sépulcre] on drums. Was this true? Did you ever end up recording anything with this band?
I never played drums for Zépülkr because I'm an untrained drummer, but I did vocals, guitars and lyrics for the late album Héritrage Posthume, then Khräss stopped the project. He told me years ago that one of the goals of this project was to pay homage to his influences (naming Vlad Tepes and Peste Noire among others) and to get a collaboration as a cherry on the cake. Finally, he got Famine helping on his first album Nécrofrancie and myself on his second and posthumous album.
Vordb has told me he hasn't been in contact with Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh for some time–similarly, are you in contact with Vorlok at all?
Not at all since 1997. And not searching for it. He lives his life, I live mine and that's perfect this way. We did what we had to do together and we parted ways with no hard feelings.
...
...
The A Catharsis for Human Illness box set came with a pretty extensive zine which tells the full Vlad Tepes story (which is why I'm not asking you about that band). That being said, what was revisiting the Vlad Tepes days like for that project?
This box is well named. Vlad Tepes was a catharsis and, as I exposed earlier in this interview, it doesn't represent the happiest part of my life. So coming back to it was like some exorcism. I also had the goal to settle all this, for me but also for the devotees by delivering thems the best aspect of what it was as Art and music, a testimony for each and every one of them. I know today against all odds, through many messages I got since, that this music left a strong impression on many people. So this is my mark of respect to them. That being said, the Vlad Tepes matter is clearly settled for me now.
There are many tales and legends surrounding the LLN, and sometimes even fake bands made by trolls or misinterpreted by superfans from LLN-obsessed places like the streetmetal forum (if you ever saw that). What has it been like watching your old antics become something larger than life? Do you pay attention to things like this?
It was partly why I decided to reissue my projects properly. I could have chosen to let it be in the hands of unrespectful or greedy people. But ask yourself, if it was yours, what would you do ? Leave it like that or take it back ? I choose to handle it back and you know the rest.
About the tales and legends, where's the fun without some mystery?.. Some were true, some not…
What in your opinion makes music evil or evil sounding? What records would you consider evil or evil sounding?
Odd question... The tritone chord!
Joking aside, it depends on what one considers being evil. That's a matter of point of view. To quote famous Black Metal examples : Immortal's first album (their best by far) sounds cold and evil to me, but Abbath seems to be the warmest and most friendly guy around. Similar to Darkthrone, some evil sounding incredible stuff, but Fenriz is so lovable and fun, ha ha. Well, in fact, evil is lovable. What's important is what you bring as an artist, what you express, what your goal is. It also depends on the listener's receptiveness. It has to match on both sides and then, sparkles happen!
Talking about Metal and evil, Bathory's The Return...... comes first in my mind. Music spectrum is so wide in the feelings it can provide (and it clearly shouldn't be bordered on evil)... But to answer the question, I could quote such opposite works from Ahpdegma, Diamanda Galas, Slayer, Zero Kama, Deicide, Sister Iodine and go on and on... Some Black Legions projects too, ha ha…
The music you made in your youth has left quite a legacy with many "wannabes" and soundalikes trying to capitalize on the Vlad Tepes sound and aesthetic. What would you say to these people if you were given the chance?
I would tell them to identify their limits, to ask them why they stick on being "wannabes" or copycats. Ask them what their goal really is and explode it all! Transcend it and make it yours, express yourself, don't be a mirror, break it
Or maybe they just can't... Sorry for them. My advice then would be for them to be eco-friendly and kill themselves... And save me bandwidth once and for all!
Here I will leave the floor open to you: is there anything you would like to say that we haven't covered already?
The floor being opened, I'll get directly to my cave and record the next VarvLoar1476 piece (or not), witnessing the world's collapse, waiting for it to end at last.
Thanks Jon.
…
Vlad Tepes material is available mostly aftermarket, but can be found at a variety of distributors. I recommend checking The Metal Detektor or Discogs. VarvLoar1476 CDs are available exclusively from Those Opposed Records.
Reclaiming Wlad Drakksteim’s Lost Kingdom (Interview)
In 2006 I was living in Brooklyn and I asked someone at a record store if they had anything by Prurient, who I'd heard about but had never actually heard. The guy said he didn't but 'the Prurient guy owns a record store, on 3rd St in Manhattan. at the back of Jammyland, down the hole'. So I went to this reggae store called Jammyland and sure enough in the back of the store there was a small hole in the floor with noise blasting out, and I descended a ladder and was in a small black room face to face with an intense young man behind the counter named Dominick. We got to talking and he was serious, peculiar, and very funny, and Hospital became my favorite place in New York for a couple of years. Dom was putting out a ton of great music of his own and of others, and I got a crash course in both noise and black metal. Specifically I got pretty into Branikald, Bone Awl, Ildjarn, Skuggeheim, and Beherit, all of whom I still enjoy.
In 2007 I was playing guitar in Thurston Moore's band, and while touring the west coast we stopped at Zion's Gate, a big metal and reggae shop. Thurston and the bassist, Matt Heyner, were both big on black metal at the time and both pulled out a cd by Vlad Tepes called March To The Black Holocaust and said to me 'you need to get this, it's essential and not easy to find'. So I brought it home and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the whole vibe, it felt very noisy and punk, but moreover the songs were amazing, just epic.
I got into black metal at a time when social media was really starting to rise, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be 'reach as many people as possible', and I loved that black metal seemed so secretive, so hidden. You really had to make an effort to access it. Something about that felt good to me. I didn't really know anything else about the culture; if I thought hard about it I felt like an interloper, but I didn't care, I just liked the records and tapes and cds. I was happy to enjoy it in isolation, like artifacts from another planet.
In 2008 I got the idea to make an album of acoustic guitar music that might expand some parameters of acoustic guitar. Side two is an 18 minute track of acoustic guitar going through a wall of amps and doing feedback overtones in C; side one was all 'straight' acoustic guitar, including a cover of 'Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple' by Vlad Tepes. It seemed their masterpiece, and I thought that transcribing all 12 minutes of it for acoustic would be challenging, fun, kind of funny, kind of badass, a little bit 'fuck you'. Hopefully not silly. It's an incredible piece of music and I wanted to do right by it. Even though I figured Vlad Tepes (were they even still alive?) would definitely never hear it. I released the album 'Canaris' as a cd, the first release on my new label, Capitan. The people who normally bought my music liked it, I think, while mostly not commenting one way or another on a Vlad Tepes cover.
Around 2013 I got an email from Wlad Drakkstein. His manner of writing was distinct and unusual, almost poetic, but what he said was: he had heard the cover, and liked it, and wanted to include it in a cd reissue that would include a couple of VT covers. Needless to say I was stunned, and flattered, but moreover had the feeling like it wasn't real, like I was communicating with a myth or a ghost. We wrote each other more. He asked if I had any other Vlad Tepes covers (!) - I told him I'd always wanted to cover 'Ravens Hike'. He kind of chuckled and said that it was based on an old Breton song. I ended up recording a not-very-good version in a studio in Australia while on tour. He included both in the compilation.
In 2015 he emailed and said he was going to take the train from Brest five hours to Paris to see me play. Could we meet for dinner, I asked? We met that night and I was breathless. He walked in and no, he was not in corpse paint, etc - he was a neatly dressed, composed French man. Dinner was surreal, very intense. I felt like we really bonded. It felt like a remarkable meeting.
We met again at a show in Rennes in 2018, and at the Invisible Festival in 2019, where he and I had a little jam session with Thurston Moore. Last time we met was in 2022 in Rennes. He wanted me to go in the studio with him at midnight, after a Come show, but I was too tired and had to leave early the next day.
He's become a friend. I hope we can maybe make music together at some point, but if not that's ok too. In this sense, he's like a number of musicians I've befriended over the years. I admire his work, and respect both his legacy and the privacy that's obviously important to him and I think part of that legacy. I think it's great that he's working on new music as VarvLoar1476, and would love to hear a whole album, but again it's fine if that doesn't happen. I play in a band called Codeine, who made music from 1989-1994, at which point the main songwriter, Stephen Immerwahr, stopped making new music. As a fan of Steve's songs, I wish he would make more, but I'm also okay with it being a small slice of time and body of work. I guess I feel the same way about Vlad Tepes.
–Chris Brokaw
…
The Black Legions. Les Légions Noires. The mythical LLN: a sub-underground circle of bands, solo projects, and collaborations based out of the Brest area in France throughout the early-and-mid '90s (though it has roots that date back as far as the late '80s). Incomprehensible band names, a unified and heavily Xeroxed aesthetic, a con-lang called Gloatre, and countless larger than life stories ranging from demos recorded in a French castle to an ambient song based around a recording of a microphone being inserted into a (living) rat, the LLN was a whisper on the Internet for years, relegated to nerds and forum-goers (like yours truly) alike. Bootlegged tapes which were supposedly and originally limited to single-and-double digits, made for friends and compatriots only (along with properly released material on the obscure Embassy Productions) made their way onto the Internet and were met with curiosity and obsession alike. Though the LLN proper dissolved almost thirty years ago, the library of works this small handful of artists made, ranging from the rawest of black metal to the most terrifying of ambient and atmospheric recordings, remained a central source of intrigue to many.
It was Chaos (a proper noun) which drove the LLN. Chaos, Satan, and the Evil that both resulted from and fueled the aforementioned. Though the LLN is synonymous with its de facto leader Vordb (also known as Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, Thörgammaton Blackvomit, Vórdb Báthor Ecsed, Avaëtre, and, most recently, Vordb Na R.iidr), it was Vlad Tepes–named, of course, for the famed masochistic, murderous despot–who made the LLN's most breathtaking and memorable recordings. With progressions so beautiful and sinister that former Codeine drummer and Come frontman Chris Brokaw went so far as to record an entire twelve-minute epic ("Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple") as a solo acoustic guitar piece, Vlad Tepes was a bit of an anomaly in the largely anti-musical LLN (save a few equally as beautiful projects. Where did you go, Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh?). When compared with Belkètre's more atonal moments and Brenoritvrezorkre's partially improvised chaos, the black metal found in Vlad Tepes' discography was melodic and, for all intents and purposes, beautiful, but the intent was certainly not there.
In interviews, Vlad Tepes was more interested in evil and the romanticizing of it, but, most importantly, they were interested in maintaining an air of mystery, both avoiding direct answers and keeping their own identities shrouded in confusion and uncertainty. Even now, the human names for Wlad and Vorlok Drakksteim (at the time assumed to be brothers, but have since been revealed to have been "artistic brothers" rather than actually related) are rumored but never confirmed. During a time of conflict and pugnaciousness in the black metal underground by artists and budding journalists/zine writers alike, it was in Kill Yourself Zine that what would now be called a "doxxing attempt" was made against the Drakksteim duo, featuring full names and mailing addresses alike (this was also done to Vordb!). In return, the infamous rumor has it that Vlad Tepes both threatened to kill Full Moon Productions proprietor/Kill Yourself Zine editor Jon and also mailed him a box filled with dead rats. Evil. There are so many more Vlad Tepes stories that either are or are not true, and the A Catharsis for Human Illness discography box set lays them all bare in a comprehensive zine (if you can find a copy), but rehashing the past is not why we are here today.
Vlad Tepes went the way of many demo-only black metal projects in the '90s: they got tired and subsequently broke up, apparently in or around 1997 (complete with never-before-heard demos which date that far, at least according to Vordb's now-defunct Kaleidarkness site). Then, nothing. The years came and went, the rumors and legends becoming more ridiculous over time. I mean, a microphone in a rat? A castle? Who is to say whether or not these are real, and the artists behind the legends are none too willing to reveal the truths or lies behind them. The LLN is an anachronism in that sense: its creators maintain their credo and remain in the past, never willing to let Modernity take what they crafted.
It was a great surprise to see someone who was supposedly half of Vlad Tepes in an Instagram post over a decade and a half after my obsession with the LLN first began, let alone a photo with Sonic Youth co-songwriter and black metal obsessive Thurston Moore. There was even a photo of Wlad jamming as part of a guitar trio with Moore and the aforementioned Chris Brokaw. Though this happened a couple years after a band-sanctioned reissue series on French label Drakkar Productions (and later on Black Gangrene Productions), an LLN-related label dating back to the Circle's heyday, a clear photo of someone who was essentially a ghost for two decades at that point was… it was unexpected.
Suddenly, everything was available again. No more bootleg LPs I happened upon at Metal Haven and eBay, and it was all at the hands of a reactivated Wlad Drakksteim (Vorlok has yet to be heard from, and it is unlikely that we will ever have the privilege). Now semi-newly active with a new project he calls VarvLoar1476, Wlad returns to reclaim the throne he never got to sit in back in the '90s. In a very rare new interview, Wlad discusses life beyond Vlad Tepes and what it was like to return to a kingdom he abandoned.
…
What made you want to come out of underground music retirement? What was it like "resurrecting" the Wlad Drakksteim identity?
Hi Jon, first of all thank you for this interview. I generally don't respond to the many interview offers I receive because I don't think I have anything interesting to tell about my distant past. All the questions I usually get asked are about the Vlad Tepes/LLN (Les Légions Noires) era and all the fakes going around... Guys, this was all 30 years ago! It's time to let go. There is no (legitimate) information that is not already available today to those who are eager to know.
Well, what made me want to come out of underground music retirement? I think it was around 2012/2013. That was the time when I really (belatedly, even though I already knew something like that was happening in those years, but not to that extent) discovered all the Internet buzz that grew in the 2000s, all the bootleg madness, the prices madness, the lack of respect. All of this made me decide that it was time to properly collect all of Vlad Tepes' works and publish them as they could (should?) have been published to the faithful in due time, even though it really wasn't the idea 15 years earlier. Times are changing and we have to adapt.
This was around the same time that Drakkar released the 2013 Vlad Tepes reissues. With the exception of War Funeral March and the March To The Black Holocaust split which resulted from the Embassy Productions deal, the other releases came from shitty cassette copies. I assume that these reissues were endorsed by Vorlok Drakksteim but it was not clear to me (to be precise, I have not had any contact with him since 1997, and to anticipate the questions that I am always asked, there's no reason, everyone has their own path in life... That's all.). These editions came out while I was working in parallel on my own reissues. So I contacted Drakkar and we agreed to release the “good” reissues a little later.
So I remixed all my 4-track masters and everything was released the following years by Drakkar & Black Gangrene. Another reason was that I found Vordb again after 15 years of losing contact when he launched his first site Kaleidarkness. All of the above initiated a new time of emulation for me.
The identity of “Wlad Drakksteim” never disappeared for me. It was always hiding in a corner of my mind despite everything that was happening in my life, we could talk about my own psychology but that would touch on very personal points which must remain only mine.
...
...
Did you ever actually stop making underground style music since Vlad Tepes' ending?
Yes, after the circle ended in 1997, I stopped any active creation of music and art in general because I no longer needed it. All of this was interrupted, but still hidden in the back of my mind, as I explained above. I had a few unused riffs that survived the end of Vlad Tepes and bounced around in my mind for years, some that I eventually played in my later project VarvLoar1476.
I created the latter when I was working on my old Vlad Tepes masters. Coming back to these old pieces reignited the little flame that was hiding in my mind, so I started composing again from 2013 until today and so on... Drop by drop, like a poison slowly paralyzes its prey .
What continues to interest you about black metal?
I'm not really interested in Black Metal any more than the other styles I grew up with. I'm still on my old classics and I don't make much effort to move away from them. The only Black Metal that can interest me today is that made by people with whom I am in contact and who know how to explain their approach, their sincerity, the goal of their music and of course, the music must touch me. On top of that, the world is too big and cannot be fully explored. I let it come and I take what can impress me, Black Metal or not.
But if your question is why do I play this kind of music? That's what I do. I don't tell myself that I play Black Metal. It's not important anymore and I'm not here to tell people what to do. Humanity is a self-made and self-destructive species, so be it.
You have a new project that has a few demos up on Bandcamp and a new split release announced on Those Opposed Records. What can you tell me about VarvLoar1476?
It's not that new, I created the name around 2013/14, when I was working on Vlad Tepess reissues. “Varv Loar” simply means “Morte Lune” (Dead Moon) in the Breton language, it fits perfectly as a spiritual continuation of what I have done on my previous projects. As explained above, creativity came back to me so I started recording some stuff without a real plan, using old unused riffs, creating new ones, hence my low production rate. As for Vlad Tepes, I don't do that for others, neither fame nor glory. This project doesn't have any ambition other than my own expression, an interface for my relation to my surroundings and my feelings about it, for my own sake. Anyway, I am making it freely available to the few interested. I've been asked a lot about physical releases, maybe one day if enough material is recorded some sort of compilation of it all might come out if I don't die first... Who lives will see. I still have a lot of rough material to record but I'm just following what I think needs to be done. The last track I made,
"Noyant Les Masses," was requested by Ur Èmdr Œrvn from Avsolutized [and Arkha Sva, among many other projects] to appear on the split-CD N.O.I.R. III which was released recently with Those Opposed records. So, Ur being an old friend, I prioritized this for him.
Overall, this project is the reminiscence of that “Wlad Drakksteim” part in my mind that will never go away. Composing, recording for it is like going into a trance, like a journey through time where nothing else matters. I always come back purified from these sessions, these are transcendent rituals to my condition of being organic trapped in a physical sum of atoms and electrical reactions... Or what we can call the soul, which is beyond all this matter.
…
…
VarvLoar1476 released a re-recorded version of Vlad Tepes song "Frozen Dead's Kingdom." What made you want to revisit this song in particular?
Around 2015/2016 I was in contact with Rebecca who ran her online Metal clothing store called Hellcouture (she still does in fact). At the time, she was making one-shot clothes for Vlad Tepes. At one point she had the idea of putting out a compilation of the bands she was doing merch with and she asked me for a Vlad Tepes track.
Instead of giving her another old thing, I decided to make a new version of "Frozen Dead's Kingdom". In the end, the compilation was never released but that's another story. Still, the song was finished.
I chose this track because it's the first one I composed entirely for Vlad Tepes, without older riffs. Additionally, I felt like the original Vlad Tepes releases didn't deliver the full potential of the riffs due to the "exceptional technical recording conditions" we had at the time in 1994. I was satisfied with that point with the new recording, it represented very well the sounds I wanted it to render in 2016.
How do you view the work you created in your youth? What do you strive to create now?
My youth was a complicated period, a permanent struggle against myself and the world around me, feelings of hatred, sadness, loss, an alignment of the plates of Reason which provoked the meeting of the members of the Circle, then Brothers, in our same dissonant feelings, provoking an emulation leading to a spiral of destruction of the limits imposed by, you name it, humanity, society, religion, the state, the family... This is how my work was created to express what I was experiencing, avoiding my self-destruction. This spiral ended like a star collapsing in on itself to a black hole when all my confused feelings collapsed into oblivion. A monster slain, a catharsis.
It took me many years and a lot of stepping back to deal with it all again to finally master it and everything it meant to me. But as twisted as it may sound, it was a solid foundation for the person I am today and what I have been striving to create for over three decades now. It's a well-balanced mix of all the feelings that burned in me at the time but adding my experience to it and making it stronger. But my only desire is to follow what the cosmos has in store for me. So no one knows, but whoever survives will have to endure it…
Though I know he is a rabid black metal fan, I was surprised to see your photo taken with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. How did you two meet? Were you happy to see this photo of you published?
I have a friend in Brest, namely Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, who discovered during the 2000s in New Noise magazine that Thurston Moore was a big fan of the "Légions Noires, a BM collective based in Brest in the nineties." At this time, Arnaud had never heard of these Légions Noires even though he lived in Brest for two decades. He unsuccessfully tried to find clues about them for many years until he met one of my acquaintances at their respective daughters' school fair. Around the conversation, they came to talk about Black Metal and Arnaud's obsession for LLN, always running in the background of his mind for years. Mind which exploded when my acquaintance told him he knew me! Arnaud finally found something hot, a contact, mine (never underestimate what can happen in school fairs...). It was in 2015. So I met a stressful man at first but meeting after meeting, we talked and exchanged a lot about music and many other topics until today (We even recorded a strange project together this year as a four-men chaotic orchestra. To come some day, sooner or later...).
At one time, Arnaud being the organizer of “Le Festival Invisible'', a music/art festival about outsider artists taking place every year in Brest since 2005, asked me if he could organize a meeting between me and Thurston Moore and kill two birds with one stone hit, by having Thurston play at the festival. This is what happened in November 2018.
Of course, I don't like being exposed publicly because it goes against my approach, anyway you can't control everything. But who knows? Is that really me in these pictures… Ha ha!
…
…
I understand you recorded music as a trio with Thurston Moore and Codeine/Come's Chris Brokaw. Will this ever see the light of day? How did this project come to be in the first place?
No, we just jammed together as old "garage teenagers" during the above-mentioned meeting, nothing was recorded except for a few private video excerpts of the session and some pictures, but not worth being released. Nothing to see, move along.
How did you get back in contact with Vordb? What is it like creating music together now as opposed to the LLN days?
I found by chance his early Kaleidarkness website so we could get in contact again after 15 years. Then we exchanged a lot but didn't create much together. The few we recorded were finishing a Vzaéurvbtre piece begun in 1995 and a Vèrmibdrèb one from 1996. But I guess that we acted the same as 20 years earlier, except that the hardware wasn't anymore a Fostex 4-tracks or some tape recorder. Not much more to say about it…
What are your thoughts on current black metal? Do you pay attention at all?
Not really except for very few exceptions. There is certainly some worthy stuff around, but I don't search for it because my feeling is that the "underground" (if this word still means something) is drowned under tons of garbage. Everyone today seems to have a "Black Metal" project, uninteresting, just kill yourself and save me bandwidth, it's being years since the train passed, you missed it. Invent something else, something new before the internet/social network era sterilizes every creativity, rebel against your time!
On the other hand, the easily available stuff is mostly popular, commercial plastic-sounding and boring cash-grabbing nonsense. I already have plenty of old meaningful stuff to listen to everyday 'till my death and beyond (and some more recent too, but a lot less...) so I don't need more. I'm conscious that I sound like an old fart, but I'm grateful for being from my generation and not from what came after... Poor kids.
I was once told you were to join the now-defunct band Zépülkr [Editor's Note: Zépülkr is now known as Sépulcre] on drums. Was this true? Did you ever end up recording anything with this band?
I never played drums for Zépülkr because I'm an untrained drummer, but I did vocals, guitars and lyrics for the late album Héritrage Posthume, then Khräss stopped the project. He told me years ago that one of the goals of this project was to pay homage to his influences (naming Vlad Tepes and Peste Noire among others) and to get a collaboration as a cherry on the cake. Finally, he got Famine helping on his first album Nécrofrancie and myself on his second and posthumous album.
Vordb has told me he hasn't been in contact with Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh for some time–similarly, are you in contact with Vorlok at all?
Not at all since 1997. And not searching for it. He lives his life, I live mine and that's perfect this way. We did what we had to do together and we parted ways with no hard feelings.
...
...
The A Catharsis for Human Illness box set came with a pretty extensive zine which tells the full Vlad Tepes story (which is why I'm not asking you about that band). That being said, what was revisiting the Vlad Tepes days like for that project?
This box is well named. Vlad Tepes was a catharsis and, as I exposed earlier in this interview, it doesn't represent the happiest part of my life. So coming back to it was like some exorcism. I also had the goal to settle all this, for me but also for the devotees by delivering thems the best aspect of what it was as Art and music, a testimony for each and every one of them. I know today against all odds, through many messages I got since, that this music left a strong impression on many people. So this is my mark of respect to them. That being said, the Vlad Tepes matter is clearly settled for me now.
There are many tales and legends surrounding the LLN, and sometimes even fake bands made by trolls or misinterpreted by superfans from LLN-obsessed places like the streetmetal forum (if you ever saw that). What has it been like watching your old antics become something larger than life? Do you pay attention to things like this?
It was partly why I decided to reissue my projects properly. I could have chosen to let it be in the hands of unrespectful or greedy people. But ask yourself, if it was yours, what would you do ? Leave it like that or take it back ? I choose to handle it back and you know the rest.
About the tales and legends, where's the fun without some mystery?.. Some were true, some not…
What in your opinion makes music evil or evil sounding? What records would you consider evil or evil sounding?
Odd question... The tritone chord!
Joking aside, it depends on what one considers being evil. That's a matter of point of view. To quote famous Black Metal examples : Immortal's first album (their best by far) sounds cold and evil to me, but Abbath seems to be the warmest and most friendly guy around. Similar to Darkthrone, some evil sounding incredible stuff, but Fenriz is so lovable and fun, ha ha. Well, in fact, evil is lovable. What's important is what you bring as an artist, what you express, what your goal is. It also depends on the listener's receptiveness. It has to match on both sides and then, sparkles happen!
Talking about Metal and evil, Bathory's The Return...... comes first in my mind. Music spectrum is so wide in the feelings it can provide (and it clearly shouldn't be bordered on evil)... But to answer the question, I could quote such opposite works from Ahpdegma, Diamanda Galas, Slayer, Zero Kama, Deicide, Sister Iodine and go on and on... Some Black Legions projects too, ha ha…
The music you made in your youth has left quite a legacy with many "wannabes" and soundalikes trying to capitalize on the Vlad Tepes sound and aesthetic. What would you say to these people if you were given the chance?
I would tell them to identify their limits, to ask them why they stick on being "wannabes" or copycats. Ask them what their goal really is and explode it all! Transcend it and make it yours, express yourself, don't be a mirror, break it
Or maybe they just can't... Sorry for them. My advice then would be for them to be eco-friendly and kill themselves... And save me bandwidth once and for all!
Here I will leave the floor open to you: is there anything you would like to say that we haven't covered already?
The floor being opened, I'll get directly to my cave and record the next VarvLoar1476 piece (or not), witnessing the world's collapse, waiting for it to end at last.
Thanks Jon.
…
Vlad Tepes material is available mostly aftermarket, but can be found at a variety of distributors. I recommend checking The Metal Detektor or Discogs. VarvLoar1476 CDs are available exclusively from Those Opposed Records.
Reclaiming Wlad Drakksteim’s Lost Kingdom (Interview)
In 2006 I was living in Brooklyn and I asked someone at a record store if they had anything by Prurient, who I'd heard about but had never actually heard. The guy said he didn't but 'the Prurient guy owns a record store, on 3rd St in Manhattan. at the back of Jammyland, down the hole'. So I went to this reggae store called Jammyland and sure enough in the back of the store there was a small hole in the floor with noise blasting out, and I descended a ladder and was in a small black room face to face with an intense young man behind the counter named Dominick. We got to talking and he was serious, peculiar, and very funny, and Hospital became my favorite place in New York for a couple of years. Dom was putting out a ton of great music of his own and of others, and I got a crash course in both noise and black metal. Specifically I got pretty into Branikald, Bone Awl, Ildjarn, Skuggeheim, and Beherit, all of whom I still enjoy.
In 2007 I was playing guitar in Thurston Moore's band, and while touring the west coast we stopped at Zion's Gate, a big metal and reggae shop. Thurston and the bassist, Matt Heyner, were both big on black metal at the time and both pulled out a cd by Vlad Tepes called March To The Black Holocaust and said to me 'you need to get this, it's essential and not easy to find'. So I brought it home and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the whole vibe, it felt very noisy and punk, but moreover the songs were amazing, just epic.
I got into black metal at a time when social media was really starting to rise, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be 'reach as many people as possible', and I loved that black metal seemed so secretive, so hidden. You really had to make an effort to access it. Something about that felt good to me. I didn't really know anything else about the culture; if I thought hard about it I felt like an interloper, but I didn't care, I just liked the records and tapes and cds. I was happy to enjoy it in isolation, like artifacts from another planet.
In 2008 I got the idea to make an album of acoustic guitar music that might expand some parameters of acoustic guitar. Side two is an 18 minute track of acoustic guitar going through a wall of amps and doing feedback overtones in C; side one was all 'straight' acoustic guitar, including a cover of 'Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple' by Vlad Tepes. It seemed their masterpiece, and I thought that transcribing all 12 minutes of it for acoustic would be challenging, fun, kind of funny, kind of badass, a little bit 'fuck you'. Hopefully not silly. It's an incredible piece of music and I wanted to do right by it. Even though I figured Vlad Tepes (were they even still alive?) would definitely never hear it. I released the album 'Canaris' as a cd, the first release on my new label, Capitan. The people who normally bought my music liked it, I think, while mostly not commenting one way or another on a Vlad Tepes cover.
Around 2013 I got an email from Wlad Drakkstein. His manner of writing was distinct and unusual, almost poetic, but what he said was: he had heard the cover, and liked it, and wanted to include it in a cd reissue that would include a couple of VT covers. Needless to say I was stunned, and flattered, but moreover had the feeling like it wasn't real, like I was communicating with a myth or a ghost. We wrote each other more. He asked if I had any other Vlad Tepes covers (!) - I told him I'd always wanted to cover 'Ravens Hike'. He kind of chuckled and said that it was based on an old Breton song. I ended up recording a not-very-good version in a studio in Australia while on tour. He included both in the compilation.
In 2015 he emailed and said he was going to take the train from Brest five hours to Paris to see me play. Could we meet for dinner, I asked? We met that night and I was breathless. He walked in and no, he was not in corpse paint, etc - he was a neatly dressed, composed French man. Dinner was surreal, very intense. I felt like we really bonded. It felt like a remarkable meeting.
We met again at a show in Rennes in 2018, and at the Invisible Festival in 2019, where he and I had a little jam session with Thurston Moore. Last time we met was in 2022 in Rennes. He wanted me to go in the studio with him at midnight, after a Come show, but I was too tired and had to leave early the next day.
He's become a friend. I hope we can maybe make music together at some point, but if not that's ok too. In this sense, he's like a number of musicians I've befriended over the years. I admire his work, and respect both his legacy and the privacy that's obviously important to him and I think part of that legacy. I think it's great that he's working on new music as VarvLoar1476, and would love to hear a whole album, but again it's fine if that doesn't happen. I play in a band called Codeine, who made music from 1989-1994, at which point the main songwriter, Stephen Immerwahr, stopped making new music. As a fan of Steve's songs, I wish he would make more, but I'm also okay with it being a small slice of time and body of work. I guess I feel the same way about Vlad Tepes.
–Chris Brokaw
…
The Black Legions. Les Légions Noires. The mythical LLN: a sub-underground circle of bands, solo projects, and collaborations based out of the Brest area in France throughout the early-and-mid '90s (though it has roots that date back as far as the late '80s). Incomprehensible band names, a unified and heavily Xeroxed aesthetic, a con-lang called Gloatre, and countless larger than life stories ranging from demos recorded in a French castle to an ambient song based around a recording of a microphone being inserted into a (living) rat, the LLN was a whisper on the Internet for years, relegated to nerds and forum-goers (like yours truly) alike. Bootlegged tapes which were supposedly and originally limited to single-and-double digits, made for friends and compatriots only (along with properly released material on the obscure Embassy Productions) made their way onto the Internet and were met with curiosity and obsession alike. Though the LLN proper dissolved almost thirty years ago, the library of works this small handful of artists made, ranging from the rawest of black metal to the most terrifying of ambient and atmospheric recordings, remained a central source of intrigue to many.
It was Chaos (a proper noun) which drove the LLN. Chaos, Satan, and the Evil that both resulted from and fueled the aforementioned. Though the LLN is synonymous with its de facto leader Vordb (also known as Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, Thörgammaton Blackvomit, Vórdb Báthor Ecsed, Avaëtre, and, most recently, Vordb Na R.iidr), it was Vlad Tepes–named, of course, for the famed masochistic, murderous despot–who made the LLN's most breathtaking and memorable recordings. With progressions so beautiful and sinister that former Codeine drummer and Come frontman Chris Brokaw went so far as to record an entire twelve-minute epic ("Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple") as a solo acoustic guitar piece, Vlad Tepes was a bit of an anomaly in the largely anti-musical LLN (save a few equally as beautiful projects. Where did you go, Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh?). When compared with Belkètre's more atonal moments and Brenoritvrezorkre's partially improvised chaos, the black metal found in Vlad Tepes' discography was melodic and, for all intents and purposes, beautiful, but the intent was certainly not there.
In interviews, Vlad Tepes was more interested in evil and the romanticizing of it, but, most importantly, they were interested in maintaining an air of mystery, both avoiding direct answers and keeping their own identities shrouded in confusion and uncertainty. Even now, the human names for Wlad and Vorlok Drakksteim (at the time assumed to be brothers, but have since been revealed to have been "artistic brothers" rather than actually related) are rumored but never confirmed. During a time of conflict and pugnaciousness in the black metal underground by artists and budding journalists/zine writers alike, it was in Kill Yourself Zine that what would now be called a "doxxing attempt" was made against the Drakksteim duo, featuring full names and mailing addresses alike (this was also done to Vordb!). In return, the infamous rumor has it that Vlad Tepes both threatened to kill Full Moon Productions proprietor/Kill Yourself Zine editor Jon and also mailed him a box filled with dead rats. Evil. There are so many more Vlad Tepes stories that either are or are not true, and the A Catharsis for Human Illness discography box set lays them all bare in a comprehensive zine (if you can find a copy), but rehashing the past is not why we are here today.
Vlad Tepes went the way of many demo-only black metal projects in the '90s: they got tired and subsequently broke up, apparently in or around 1997 (complete with never-before-heard demos which date that far, at least according to Vordb's now-defunct Kaleidarkness site). Then, nothing. The years came and went, the rumors and legends becoming more ridiculous over time. I mean, a microphone in a rat? A castle? Who is to say whether or not these are real, and the artists behind the legends are none too willing to reveal the truths or lies behind them. The LLN is an anachronism in that sense: its creators maintain their credo and remain in the past, never willing to let Modernity take what they crafted.
It was a great surprise to see someone who was supposedly half of Vlad Tepes in an Instagram post over a decade and a half after my obsession with the LLN first began, let alone a photo with Sonic Youth co-songwriter and black metal obsessive Thurston Moore. There was even a photo of Wlad jamming as part of a guitar trio with Moore and the aforementioned Chris Brokaw. Though this happened a couple years after a band-sanctioned reissue series on French label Drakkar Productions (and later on Black Gangrene Productions), an LLN-related label dating back to the Circle's heyday, a clear photo of someone who was essentially a ghost for two decades at that point was… it was unexpected.
Suddenly, everything was available again. No more bootleg LPs I happened upon at Metal Haven and eBay, and it was all at the hands of a reactivated Wlad Drakksteim (Vorlok has yet to be heard from, and it is unlikely that we will ever have the privilege). Now semi-newly active with a new project he calls VarvLoar1476, Wlad returns to reclaim the throne he never got to sit in back in the '90s. In a very rare new interview, Wlad discusses life beyond Vlad Tepes and what it was like to return to a kingdom he abandoned.
…
What made you want to come out of underground music retirement? What was it like "resurrecting" the Wlad Drakksteim identity?
Hi Jon, first of all thank you for this interview. I generally don't respond to the many interview offers I receive because I don't think I have anything interesting to tell about my distant past. All the questions I usually get asked are about the Vlad Tepes/LLN (Les Légions Noires) era and all the fakes going around... Guys, this was all 30 years ago! It's time to let go. There is no (legitimate) information that is not already available today to those who are eager to know.
Well, what made me want to come out of underground music retirement? I think it was around 2012/2013. That was the time when I really (belatedly, even though I already knew something like that was happening in those years, but not to that extent) discovered all the Internet buzz that grew in the 2000s, all the bootleg madness, the prices madness, the lack of respect. All of this made me decide that it was time to properly collect all of Vlad Tepes' works and publish them as they could (should?) have been published to the faithful in due time, even though it really wasn't the idea 15 years earlier. Times are changing and we have to adapt.
This was around the same time that Drakkar released the 2013 Vlad Tepes reissues. With the exception of War Funeral March and the March To The Black Holocaust split which resulted from the Embassy Productions deal, the other releases came from shitty cassette copies. I assume that these reissues were endorsed by Vorlok Drakksteim but it was not clear to me (to be precise, I have not had any contact with him since 1997, and to anticipate the questions that I am always asked, there's no reason, everyone has their own path in life... That's all.). These editions came out while I was working in parallel on my own reissues. So I contacted Drakkar and we agreed to release the “good” reissues a little later.
So I remixed all my 4-track masters and everything was released the following years by Drakkar & Black Gangrene. Another reason was that I found Vordb again after 15 years of losing contact when he launched his first site Kaleidarkness. All of the above initiated a new time of emulation for me.
The identity of “Wlad Drakksteim” never disappeared for me. It was always hiding in a corner of my mind despite everything that was happening in my life, we could talk about my own psychology but that would touch on very personal points which must remain only mine.
...
...
Did you ever actually stop making underground style music since Vlad Tepes' ending?
Yes, after the circle ended in 1997, I stopped any active creation of music and art in general because I no longer needed it. All of this was interrupted, but still hidden in the back of my mind, as I explained above. I had a few unused riffs that survived the end of Vlad Tepes and bounced around in my mind for years, some that I eventually played in my later project VarvLoar1476.
I created the latter when I was working on my old Vlad Tepes masters. Coming back to these old pieces reignited the little flame that was hiding in my mind, so I started composing again from 2013 until today and so on... Drop by drop, like a poison slowly paralyzes its prey .
What continues to interest you about black metal?
I'm not really interested in Black Metal any more than the other styles I grew up with. I'm still on my old classics and I don't make much effort to move away from them. The only Black Metal that can interest me today is that made by people with whom I am in contact and who know how to explain their approach, their sincerity, the goal of their music and of course, the music must touch me. On top of that, the world is too big and cannot be fully explored. I let it come and I take what can impress me, Black Metal or not.
But if your question is why do I play this kind of music? That's what I do. I don't tell myself that I play Black Metal. It's not important anymore and I'm not here to tell people what to do. Humanity is a self-made and self-destructive species, so be it.
You have a new project that has a few demos up on Bandcamp and a new split release announced on Those Opposed Records. What can you tell me about VarvLoar1476?
It's not that new, I created the name around 2013/14, when I was working on Vlad Tepess reissues. “Varv Loar” simply means “Morte Lune” (Dead Moon) in the Breton language, it fits perfectly as a spiritual continuation of what I have done on my previous projects. As explained above, creativity came back to me so I started recording some stuff without a real plan, using old unused riffs, creating new ones, hence my low production rate. As for Vlad Tepes, I don't do that for others, neither fame nor glory. This project doesn't have any ambition other than my own expression, an interface for my relation to my surroundings and my feelings about it, for my own sake. Anyway, I am making it freely available to the few interested. I've been asked a lot about physical releases, maybe one day if enough material is recorded some sort of compilation of it all might come out if I don't die first... Who lives will see. I still have a lot of rough material to record but I'm just following what I think needs to be done. The last track I made,
"Noyant Les Masses," was requested by Ur Èmdr Œrvn from Avsolutized [and Arkha Sva, among many other projects] to appear on the split-CD N.O.I.R. III which was released recently with Those Opposed records. So, Ur being an old friend, I prioritized this for him.
Overall, this project is the reminiscence of that “Wlad Drakksteim” part in my mind that will never go away. Composing, recording for it is like going into a trance, like a journey through time where nothing else matters. I always come back purified from these sessions, these are transcendent rituals to my condition of being organic trapped in a physical sum of atoms and electrical reactions... Or what we can call the soul, which is beyond all this matter.
…
…
VarvLoar1476 released a re-recorded version of Vlad Tepes song "Frozen Dead's Kingdom." What made you want to revisit this song in particular?
Around 2015/2016 I was in contact with Rebecca who ran her online Metal clothing store called Hellcouture (she still does in fact). At the time, she was making one-shot clothes for Vlad Tepes. At one point she had the idea of putting out a compilation of the bands she was doing merch with and she asked me for a Vlad Tepes track.
Instead of giving her another old thing, I decided to make a new version of "Frozen Dead's Kingdom". In the end, the compilation was never released but that's another story. Still, the song was finished.
I chose this track because it's the first one I composed entirely for Vlad Tepes, without older riffs. Additionally, I felt like the original Vlad Tepes releases didn't deliver the full potential of the riffs due to the "exceptional technical recording conditions" we had at the time in 1994. I was satisfied with that point with the new recording, it represented very well the sounds I wanted it to render in 2016.
How do you view the work you created in your youth? What do you strive to create now?
My youth was a complicated period, a permanent struggle against myself and the world around me, feelings of hatred, sadness, loss, an alignment of the plates of Reason which provoked the meeting of the members of the Circle, then Brothers, in our same dissonant feelings, provoking an emulation leading to a spiral of destruction of the limits imposed by, you name it, humanity, society, religion, the state, the family... This is how my work was created to express what I was experiencing, avoiding my self-destruction. This spiral ended like a star collapsing in on itself to a black hole when all my confused feelings collapsed into oblivion. A monster slain, a catharsis.
It took me many years and a lot of stepping back to deal with it all again to finally master it and everything it meant to me. But as twisted as it may sound, it was a solid foundation for the person I am today and what I have been striving to create for over three decades now. It's a well-balanced mix of all the feelings that burned in me at the time but adding my experience to it and making it stronger. But my only desire is to follow what the cosmos has in store for me. So no one knows, but whoever survives will have to endure it…
Though I know he is a rabid black metal fan, I was surprised to see your photo taken with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. How did you two meet? Were you happy to see this photo of you published?
I have a friend in Brest, namely Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, who discovered during the 2000s in New Noise magazine that Thurston Moore was a big fan of the "Légions Noires, a BM collective based in Brest in the nineties." At this time, Arnaud had never heard of these Légions Noires even though he lived in Brest for two decades. He unsuccessfully tried to find clues about them for many years until he met one of my acquaintances at their respective daughters' school fair. Around the conversation, they came to talk about Black Metal and Arnaud's obsession for LLN, always running in the background of his mind for years. Mind which exploded when my acquaintance told him he knew me! Arnaud finally found something hot, a contact, mine (never underestimate what can happen in school fairs...). It was in 2015. So I met a stressful man at first but meeting after meeting, we talked and exchanged a lot about music and many other topics until today (We even recorded a strange project together this year as a four-men chaotic orchestra. To come some day, sooner or later...).
At one time, Arnaud being the organizer of “Le Festival Invisible'', a music/art festival about outsider artists taking place every year in Brest since 2005, asked me if he could organize a meeting between me and Thurston Moore and kill two birds with one stone hit, by having Thurston play at the festival. This is what happened in November 2018.
Of course, I don't like being exposed publicly because it goes against my approach, anyway you can't control everything. But who knows? Is that really me in these pictures… Ha ha!
…
…
I understand you recorded music as a trio with Thurston Moore and Codeine/Come's Chris Brokaw. Will this ever see the light of day? How did this project come to be in the first place?
No, we just jammed together as old "garage teenagers" during the above-mentioned meeting, nothing was recorded except for a few private video excerpts of the session and some pictures, but not worth being released. Nothing to see, move along.
How did you get back in contact with Vordb? What is it like creating music together now as opposed to the LLN days?
I found by chance his early Kaleidarkness website so we could get in contact again after 15 years. Then we exchanged a lot but didn't create much together. The few we recorded were finishing a Vzaéurvbtre piece begun in 1995 and a Vèrmibdrèb one from 1996. But I guess that we acted the same as 20 years earlier, except that the hardware wasn't anymore a Fostex 4-tracks or some tape recorder. Not much more to say about it…
What are your thoughts on current black metal? Do you pay attention at all?
Not really except for very few exceptions. There is certainly some worthy stuff around, but I don't search for it because my feeling is that the "underground" (if this word still means something) is drowned under tons of garbage. Everyone today seems to have a "Black Metal" project, uninteresting, just kill yourself and save me bandwidth, it's being years since the train passed, you missed it. Invent something else, something new before the internet/social network era sterilizes every creativity, rebel against your time!
On the other hand, the easily available stuff is mostly popular, commercial plastic-sounding and boring cash-grabbing nonsense. I already have plenty of old meaningful stuff to listen to everyday 'till my death and beyond (and some more recent too, but a lot less...) so I don't need more. I'm conscious that I sound like an old fart, but I'm grateful for being from my generation and not from what came after... Poor kids.
I was once told you were to join the now-defunct band Zépülkr [Editor's Note: Zépülkr is now known as Sépulcre] on drums. Was this true? Did you ever end up recording anything with this band?
I never played drums for Zépülkr because I'm an untrained drummer, but I did vocals, guitars and lyrics for the late album Héritrage Posthume, then Khräss stopped the project. He told me years ago that one of the goals of this project was to pay homage to his influences (naming Vlad Tepes and Peste Noire among others) and to get a collaboration as a cherry on the cake. Finally, he got Famine helping on his first album Nécrofrancie and myself on his second and posthumous album.
Vordb has told me he hasn't been in contact with Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh for some time–similarly, are you in contact with Vorlok at all?
Not at all since 1997. And not searching for it. He lives his life, I live mine and that's perfect this way. We did what we had to do together and we parted ways with no hard feelings.
...
...
The A Catharsis for Human Illness box set came with a pretty extensive zine which tells the full Vlad Tepes story (which is why I'm not asking you about that band). That being said, what was revisiting the Vlad Tepes days like for that project?
This box is well named. Vlad Tepes was a catharsis and, as I exposed earlier in this interview, it doesn't represent the happiest part of my life. So coming back to it was like some exorcism. I also had the goal to settle all this, for me but also for the devotees by delivering thems the best aspect of what it was as Art and music, a testimony for each and every one of them. I know today against all odds, through many messages I got since, that this music left a strong impression on many people. So this is my mark of respect to them. That being said, the Vlad Tepes matter is clearly settled for me now.
There are many tales and legends surrounding the LLN, and sometimes even fake bands made by trolls or misinterpreted by superfans from LLN-obsessed places like the streetmetal forum (if you ever saw that). What has it been like watching your old antics become something larger than life? Do you pay attention to things like this?
It was partly why I decided to reissue my projects properly. I could have chosen to let it be in the hands of unrespectful or greedy people. But ask yourself, if it was yours, what would you do ? Leave it like that or take it back ? I choose to handle it back and you know the rest.
About the tales and legends, where's the fun without some mystery?.. Some were true, some not…
What in your opinion makes music evil or evil sounding? What records would you consider evil or evil sounding?
Odd question... The tritone chord!
Joking aside, it depends on what one considers being evil. That's a matter of point of view. To quote famous Black Metal examples : Immortal's first album (their best by far) sounds cold and evil to me, but Abbath seems to be the warmest and most friendly guy around. Similar to Darkthrone, some evil sounding incredible stuff, but Fenriz is so lovable and fun, ha ha. Well, in fact, evil is lovable. What's important is what you bring as an artist, what you express, what your goal is. It also depends on the listener's receptiveness. It has to match on both sides and then, sparkles happen!
Talking about Metal and evil, Bathory's The Return...... comes first in my mind. Music spectrum is so wide in the feelings it can provide (and it clearly shouldn't be bordered on evil)... But to answer the question, I could quote such opposite works from Ahpdegma, Diamanda Galas, Slayer, Zero Kama, Deicide, Sister Iodine and go on and on... Some Black Legions projects too, ha ha…
The music you made in your youth has left quite a legacy with many "wannabes" and soundalikes trying to capitalize on the Vlad Tepes sound and aesthetic. What would you say to these people if you were given the chance?
I would tell them to identify their limits, to ask them why they stick on being "wannabes" or copycats. Ask them what their goal really is and explode it all! Transcend it and make it yours, express yourself, don't be a mirror, break it
Or maybe they just can't... Sorry for them. My advice then would be for them to be eco-friendly and kill themselves... And save me bandwidth once and for all!
Here I will leave the floor open to you: is there anything you would like to say that we haven't covered already?
The floor being opened, I'll get directly to my cave and record the next VarvLoar1476 piece (or not), witnessing the world's collapse, waiting for it to end at last.
Thanks Jon.
…
Vlad Tepes material is available mostly aftermarket, but can be found at a variety of distributors. I recommend checking The Metal Detektor or Discogs. VarvLoar1476 CDs are available exclusively from Those Opposed Records.
Reclaiming Wlad Drakksteim’s Lost Kingdom (Interview)
In 2006 I was living in Brooklyn and I asked someone at a record store if they had anything by Prurient, who I'd heard about but had never actually heard. The guy said he didn't but 'the Prurient guy owns a record store, on 3rd St in Manhattan. at the back of Jammyland, down the hole'. So I went to this reggae store called Jammyland and sure enough in the back of the store there was a small hole in the floor with noise blasting out, and I descended a ladder and was in a small black room face to face with an intense young man behind the counter named Dominick. We got to talking and he was serious, peculiar, and very funny, and Hospital became my favorite place in New York for a couple of years. Dom was putting out a ton of great music of his own and of others, and I got a crash course in both noise and black metal. Specifically I got pretty into Branikald, Bone Awl, Ildjarn, Skuggeheim, and Beherit, all of whom I still enjoy.
In 2007 I was playing guitar in Thurston Moore's band, and while touring the west coast we stopped at Zion's Gate, a big metal and reggae shop. Thurston and the bassist, Matt Heyner, were both big on black metal at the time and both pulled out a cd by Vlad Tepes called March To The Black Holocaust and said to me 'you need to get this, it's essential and not easy to find'. So I brought it home and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the whole vibe, it felt very noisy and punk, but moreover the songs were amazing, just epic.
I got into black metal at a time when social media was really starting to rise, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be 'reach as many people as possible', and I loved that black metal seemed so secretive, so hidden. You really had to make an effort to access it. Something about that felt good to me. I didn't really know anything else about the culture; if I thought hard about it I felt like an interloper, but I didn't care, I just liked the records and tapes and cds. I was happy to enjoy it in isolation, like artifacts from another planet.
In 2008 I got the idea to make an album of acoustic guitar music that might expand some parameters of acoustic guitar. Side two is an 18 minute track of acoustic guitar going through a wall of amps and doing feedback overtones in C; side one was all 'straight' acoustic guitar, including a cover of 'Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple' by Vlad Tepes. It seemed their masterpiece, and I thought that transcribing all 12 minutes of it for acoustic would be challenging, fun, kind of funny, kind of badass, a little bit 'fuck you'. Hopefully not silly. It's an incredible piece of music and I wanted to do right by it. Even though I figured Vlad Tepes (were they even still alive?) would definitely never hear it. I released the album 'Canaris' as a cd, the first release on my new label, Capitan. The people who normally bought my music liked it, I think, while mostly not commenting one way or another on a Vlad Tepes cover.
Around 2013 I got an email from Wlad Drakkstein. His manner of writing was distinct and unusual, almost poetic, but what he said was: he had heard the cover, and liked it, and wanted to include it in a cd reissue that would include a couple of VT covers. Needless to say I was stunned, and flattered, but moreover had the feeling like it wasn't real, like I was communicating with a myth or a ghost. We wrote each other more. He asked if I had any other Vlad Tepes covers (!) - I told him I'd always wanted to cover 'Ravens Hike'. He kind of chuckled and said that it was based on an old Breton song. I ended up recording a not-very-good version in a studio in Australia while on tour. He included both in the compilation.
In 2015 he emailed and said he was going to take the train from Brest five hours to Paris to see me play. Could we meet for dinner, I asked? We met that night and I was breathless. He walked in and no, he was not in corpse paint, etc - he was a neatly dressed, composed French man. Dinner was surreal, very intense. I felt like we really bonded. It felt like a remarkable meeting.
We met again at a show in Rennes in 2018, and at the Invisible Festival in 2019, where he and I had a little jam session with Thurston Moore. Last time we met was in 2022 in Rennes. He wanted me to go in the studio with him at midnight, after a Come show, but I was too tired and had to leave early the next day.
He's become a friend. I hope we can maybe make music together at some point, but if not that's ok too. In this sense, he's like a number of musicians I've befriended over the years. I admire his work, and respect both his legacy and the privacy that's obviously important to him and I think part of that legacy. I think it's great that he's working on new music as VarvLoar1476, and would love to hear a whole album, but again it's fine if that doesn't happen. I play in a band called Codeine, who made music from 1989-1994, at which point the main songwriter, Stephen Immerwahr, stopped making new music. As a fan of Steve's songs, I wish he would make more, but I'm also okay with it being a small slice of time and body of work. I guess I feel the same way about Vlad Tepes.
–Chris Brokaw
…
The Black Legions. Les Légions Noires. The mythical LLN: a sub-underground circle of bands, solo projects, and collaborations based out of the Brest area in France throughout the early-and-mid '90s (though it has roots that date back as far as the late '80s). Incomprehensible band names, a unified and heavily Xeroxed aesthetic, a con-lang called Gloatre, and countless larger than life stories ranging from demos recorded in a French castle to an ambient song based around a recording of a microphone being inserted into a (living) rat, the LLN was a whisper on the Internet for years, relegated to nerds and forum-goers (like yours truly) alike. Bootlegged tapes which were supposedly and originally limited to single-and-double digits, made for friends and compatriots only (along with properly released material on the obscure Embassy Productions) made their way onto the Internet and were met with curiosity and obsession alike. Though the LLN proper dissolved almost thirty years ago, the library of works this small handful of artists made, ranging from the rawest of black metal to the most terrifying of ambient and atmospheric recordings, remained a central source of intrigue to many.
It was Chaos (a proper noun) which drove the LLN. Chaos, Satan, and the Evil that both resulted from and fueled the aforementioned. Though the LLN is synonymous with its de facto leader Vordb (also known as Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, Thörgammaton Blackvomit, Vórdb Báthor Ecsed, Avaëtre, and, most recently, Vordb Na R.iidr), it was Vlad Tepes–named, of course, for the famed masochistic, murderous despot–who made the LLN's most breathtaking and memorable recordings. With progressions so beautiful and sinister that former Codeine drummer and Come frontman Chris Brokaw went so far as to record an entire twelve-minute epic ("Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple") as a solo acoustic guitar piece, Vlad Tepes was a bit of an anomaly in the largely anti-musical LLN (save a few equally as beautiful projects. Where did you go, Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh?). When compared with Belkètre's more atonal moments and Brenoritvrezorkre's partially improvised chaos, the black metal found in Vlad Tepes' discography was melodic and, for all intents and purposes, beautiful, but the intent was certainly not there.
In interviews, Vlad Tepes was more interested in evil and the romanticizing of it, but, most importantly, they were interested in maintaining an air of mystery, both avoiding direct answers and keeping their own identities shrouded in confusion and uncertainty. Even now, the human names for Wlad and Vorlok Drakksteim (at the time assumed to be brothers, but have since been revealed to have been "artistic brothers" rather than actually related) are rumored but never confirmed. During a time of conflict and pugnaciousness in the black metal underground by artists and budding journalists/zine writers alike, it was in Kill Yourself Zine that what would now be called a "doxxing attempt" was made against the Drakksteim duo, featuring full names and mailing addresses alike (this was also done to Vordb!). In return, the infamous rumor has it that Vlad Tepes both threatened to kill Full Moon Productions proprietor/Kill Yourself Zine editor Jon and also mailed him a box filled with dead rats. Evil. There are so many more Vlad Tepes stories that either are or are not true, and the A Catharsis for Human Illness discography box set lays them all bare in a comprehensive zine (if you can find a copy), but rehashing the past is not why we are here today.
Vlad Tepes went the way of many demo-only black metal projects in the '90s: they got tired and subsequently broke up, apparently in or around 1997 (complete with never-before-heard demos which date that far, at least according to Vordb's now-defunct Kaleidarkness site). Then, nothing. The years came and went, the rumors and legends becoming more ridiculous over time. I mean, a microphone in a rat? A castle? Who is to say whether or not these are real, and the artists behind the legends are none too willing to reveal the truths or lies behind them. The LLN is an anachronism in that sense: its creators maintain their credo and remain in the past, never willing to let Modernity take what they crafted.
It was a great surprise to see someone who was supposedly half of Vlad Tepes in an Instagram post over a decade and a half after my obsession with the LLN first began, let alone a photo with Sonic Youth co-songwriter and black metal obsessive Thurston Moore. There was even a photo of Wlad jamming as part of a guitar trio with Moore and the aforementioned Chris Brokaw. Though this happened a couple years after a band-sanctioned reissue series on French label Drakkar Productions (and later on Black Gangrene Productions), an LLN-related label dating back to the Circle's heyday, a clear photo of someone who was essentially a ghost for two decades at that point was… it was unexpected.
Suddenly, everything was available again. No more bootleg LPs I happened upon at Metal Haven and eBay, and it was all at the hands of a reactivated Wlad Drakksteim (Vorlok has yet to be heard from, and it is unlikely that we will ever have the privilege). Now semi-newly active with a new project he calls VarvLoar1476, Wlad returns to reclaim the throne he never got to sit in back in the '90s. In a very rare new interview, Wlad discusses life beyond Vlad Tepes and what it was like to return to a kingdom he abandoned.
…
What made you want to come out of underground music retirement? What was it like "resurrecting" the Wlad Drakksteim identity?
Hi Jon, first of all thank you for this interview. I generally don't respond to the many interview offers I receive because I don't think I have anything interesting to tell about my distant past. All the questions I usually get asked are about the Vlad Tepes/LLN (Les Légions Noires) era and all the fakes going around... Guys, this was all 30 years ago! It's time to let go. There is no (legitimate) information that is not already available today to those who are eager to know.
Well, what made me want to come out of underground music retirement? I think it was around 2012/2013. That was the time when I really (belatedly, even though I already knew something like that was happening in those years, but not to that extent) discovered all the Internet buzz that grew in the 2000s, all the bootleg madness, the prices madness, the lack of respect. All of this made me decide that it was time to properly collect all of Vlad Tepes' works and publish them as they could (should?) have been published to the faithful in due time, even though it really wasn't the idea 15 years earlier. Times are changing and we have to adapt.
This was around the same time that Drakkar released the 2013 Vlad Tepes reissues. With the exception of War Funeral March and the March To The Black Holocaust split which resulted from the Embassy Productions deal, the other releases came from shitty cassette copies. I assume that these reissues were endorsed by Vorlok Drakksteim but it was not clear to me (to be precise, I have not had any contact with him since 1997, and to anticipate the questions that I am always asked, there's no reason, everyone has their own path in life... That's all.). These editions came out while I was working in parallel on my own reissues. So I contacted Drakkar and we agreed to release the “good” reissues a little later.
So I remixed all my 4-track masters and everything was released the following years by Drakkar & Black Gangrene. Another reason was that I found Vordb again after 15 years of losing contact when he launched his first site Kaleidarkness. All of the above initiated a new time of emulation for me.
The identity of “Wlad Drakksteim” never disappeared for me. It was always hiding in a corner of my mind despite everything that was happening in my life, we could talk about my own psychology but that would touch on very personal points which must remain only mine.
...
...
Did you ever actually stop making underground style music since Vlad Tepes' ending?
Yes, after the circle ended in 1997, I stopped any active creation of music and art in general because I no longer needed it. All of this was interrupted, but still hidden in the back of my mind, as I explained above. I had a few unused riffs that survived the end of Vlad Tepes and bounced around in my mind for years, some that I eventually played in my later project VarvLoar1476.
I created the latter when I was working on my old Vlad Tepes masters. Coming back to these old pieces reignited the little flame that was hiding in my mind, so I started composing again from 2013 until today and so on... Drop by drop, like a poison slowly paralyzes its prey .
What continues to interest you about black metal?
I'm not really interested in Black Metal any more than the other styles I grew up with. I'm still on my old classics and I don't make much effort to move away from them. The only Black Metal that can interest me today is that made by people with whom I am in contact and who know how to explain their approach, their sincerity, the goal of their music and of course, the music must touch me. On top of that, the world is too big and cannot be fully explored. I let it come and I take what can impress me, Black Metal or not.
But if your question is why do I play this kind of music? That's what I do. I don't tell myself that I play Black Metal. It's not important anymore and I'm not here to tell people what to do. Humanity is a self-made and self-destructive species, so be it.
You have a new project that has a few demos up on Bandcamp and a new split release announced on Those Opposed Records. What can you tell me about VarvLoar1476?
It's not that new, I created the name around 2013/14, when I was working on Vlad Tepess reissues. “Varv Loar” simply means “Morte Lune” (Dead Moon) in the Breton language, it fits perfectly as a spiritual continuation of what I have done on my previous projects. As explained above, creativity came back to me so I started recording some stuff without a real plan, using old unused riffs, creating new ones, hence my low production rate. As for Vlad Tepes, I don't do that for others, neither fame nor glory. This project doesn't have any ambition other than my own expression, an interface for my relation to my surroundings and my feelings about it, for my own sake. Anyway, I am making it freely available to the few interested. I've been asked a lot about physical releases, maybe one day if enough material is recorded some sort of compilation of it all might come out if I don't die first... Who lives will see. I still have a lot of rough material to record but I'm just following what I think needs to be done. The last track I made,
"Noyant Les Masses," was requested by Ur Èmdr Œrvn from Avsolutized [and Arkha Sva, among many other projects] to appear on the split-CD N.O.I.R. III which was released recently with Those Opposed records. So, Ur being an old friend, I prioritized this for him.
Overall, this project is the reminiscence of that “Wlad Drakksteim” part in my mind that will never go away. Composing, recording for it is like going into a trance, like a journey through time where nothing else matters. I always come back purified from these sessions, these are transcendent rituals to my condition of being organic trapped in a physical sum of atoms and electrical reactions... Or what we can call the soul, which is beyond all this matter.
…
…
VarvLoar1476 released a re-recorded version of Vlad Tepes song "Frozen Dead's Kingdom." What made you want to revisit this song in particular?
Around 2015/2016 I was in contact with Rebecca who ran her online Metal clothing store called Hellcouture (she still does in fact). At the time, she was making one-shot clothes for Vlad Tepes. At one point she had the idea of putting out a compilation of the bands she was doing merch with and she asked me for a Vlad Tepes track.
Instead of giving her another old thing, I decided to make a new version of "Frozen Dead's Kingdom". In the end, the compilation was never released but that's another story. Still, the song was finished.
I chose this track because it's the first one I composed entirely for Vlad Tepes, without older riffs. Additionally, I felt like the original Vlad Tepes releases didn't deliver the full potential of the riffs due to the "exceptional technical recording conditions" we had at the time in 1994. I was satisfied with that point with the new recording, it represented very well the sounds I wanted it to render in 2016.
How do you view the work you created in your youth? What do you strive to create now?
My youth was a complicated period, a permanent struggle against myself and the world around me, feelings of hatred, sadness, loss, an alignment of the plates of Reason which provoked the meeting of the members of the Circle, then Brothers, in our same dissonant feelings, provoking an emulation leading to a spiral of destruction of the limits imposed by, you name it, humanity, society, religion, the state, the family... This is how my work was created to express what I was experiencing, avoiding my self-destruction. This spiral ended like a star collapsing in on itself to a black hole when all my confused feelings collapsed into oblivion. A monster slain, a catharsis.
It took me many years and a lot of stepping back to deal with it all again to finally master it and everything it meant to me. But as twisted as it may sound, it was a solid foundation for the person I am today and what I have been striving to create for over three decades now. It's a well-balanced mix of all the feelings that burned in me at the time but adding my experience to it and making it stronger. But my only desire is to follow what the cosmos has in store for me. So no one knows, but whoever survives will have to endure it…
Though I know he is a rabid black metal fan, I was surprised to see your photo taken with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. How did you two meet? Were you happy to see this photo of you published?
I have a friend in Brest, namely Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, who discovered during the 2000s in New Noise magazine that Thurston Moore was a big fan of the "Légions Noires, a BM collective based in Brest in the nineties." At this time, Arnaud had never heard of these Légions Noires even though he lived in Brest for two decades. He unsuccessfully tried to find clues about them for many years until he met one of my acquaintances at their respective daughters' school fair. Around the conversation, they came to talk about Black Metal and Arnaud's obsession for LLN, always running in the background of his mind for years. Mind which exploded when my acquaintance told him he knew me! Arnaud finally found something hot, a contact, mine (never underestimate what can happen in school fairs...). It was in 2015. So I met a stressful man at first but meeting after meeting, we talked and exchanged a lot about music and many other topics until today (We even recorded a strange project together this year as a four-men chaotic orchestra. To come some day, sooner or later...).
At one time, Arnaud being the organizer of “Le Festival Invisible'', a music/art festival about outsider artists taking place every year in Brest since 2005, asked me if he could organize a meeting between me and Thurston Moore and kill two birds with one stone hit, by having Thurston play at the festival. This is what happened in November 2018.
Of course, I don't like being exposed publicly because it goes against my approach, anyway you can't control everything. But who knows? Is that really me in these pictures… Ha ha!
…
…
I understand you recorded music as a trio with Thurston Moore and Codeine/Come's Chris Brokaw. Will this ever see the light of day? How did this project come to be in the first place?
No, we just jammed together as old "garage teenagers" during the above-mentioned meeting, nothing was recorded except for a few private video excerpts of the session and some pictures, but not worth being released. Nothing to see, move along.
How did you get back in contact with Vordb? What is it like creating music together now as opposed to the LLN days?
I found by chance his early Kaleidarkness website so we could get in contact again after 15 years. Then we exchanged a lot but didn't create much together. The few we recorded were finishing a Vzaéurvbtre piece begun in 1995 and a Vèrmibdrèb one from 1996. But I guess that we acted the same as 20 years earlier, except that the hardware wasn't anymore a Fostex 4-tracks or some tape recorder. Not much more to say about it…
What are your thoughts on current black metal? Do you pay attention at all?
Not really except for very few exceptions. There is certainly some worthy stuff around, but I don't search for it because my feeling is that the "underground" (if this word still means something) is drowned under tons of garbage. Everyone today seems to have a "Black Metal" project, uninteresting, just kill yourself and save me bandwidth, it's being years since the train passed, you missed it. Invent something else, something new before the internet/social network era sterilizes every creativity, rebel against your time!
On the other hand, the easily available stuff is mostly popular, commercial plastic-sounding and boring cash-grabbing nonsense. I already have plenty of old meaningful stuff to listen to everyday 'till my death and beyond (and some more recent too, but a lot less...) so I don't need more. I'm conscious that I sound like an old fart, but I'm grateful for being from my generation and not from what came after... Poor kids.
I was once told you were to join the now-defunct band Zépülkr [Editor's Note: Zépülkr is now known as Sépulcre] on drums. Was this true? Did you ever end up recording anything with this band?
I never played drums for Zépülkr because I'm an untrained drummer, but I did vocals, guitars and lyrics for the late album Héritrage Posthume, then Khräss stopped the project. He told me years ago that one of the goals of this project was to pay homage to his influences (naming Vlad Tepes and Peste Noire among others) and to get a collaboration as a cherry on the cake. Finally, he got Famine helping on his first album Nécrofrancie and myself on his second and posthumous album.
Vordb has told me he hasn't been in contact with Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh for some time–similarly, are you in contact with Vorlok at all?
Not at all since 1997. And not searching for it. He lives his life, I live mine and that's perfect this way. We did what we had to do together and we parted ways with no hard feelings.
...
...
The A Catharsis for Human Illness box set came with a pretty extensive zine which tells the full Vlad Tepes story (which is why I'm not asking you about that band). That being said, what was revisiting the Vlad Tepes days like for that project?
This box is well named. Vlad Tepes was a catharsis and, as I exposed earlier in this interview, it doesn't represent the happiest part of my life. So coming back to it was like some exorcism. I also had the goal to settle all this, for me but also for the devotees by delivering thems the best aspect of what it was as Art and music, a testimony for each and every one of them. I know today against all odds, through many messages I got since, that this music left a strong impression on many people. So this is my mark of respect to them. That being said, the Vlad Tepes matter is clearly settled for me now.
There are many tales and legends surrounding the LLN, and sometimes even fake bands made by trolls or misinterpreted by superfans from LLN-obsessed places like the streetmetal forum (if you ever saw that). What has it been like watching your old antics become something larger than life? Do you pay attention to things like this?
It was partly why I decided to reissue my projects properly. I could have chosen to let it be in the hands of unrespectful or greedy people. But ask yourself, if it was yours, what would you do ? Leave it like that or take it back ? I choose to handle it back and you know the rest.
About the tales and legends, where's the fun without some mystery?.. Some were true, some not…
What in your opinion makes music evil or evil sounding? What records would you consider evil or evil sounding?
Odd question... The tritone chord!
Joking aside, it depends on what one considers being evil. That's a matter of point of view. To quote famous Black Metal examples : Immortal's first album (their best by far) sounds cold and evil to me, but Abbath seems to be the warmest and most friendly guy around. Similar to Darkthrone, some evil sounding incredible stuff, but Fenriz is so lovable and fun, ha ha. Well, in fact, evil is lovable. What's important is what you bring as an artist, what you express, what your goal is. It also depends on the listener's receptiveness. It has to match on both sides and then, sparkles happen!
Talking about Metal and evil, Bathory's The Return...... comes first in my mind. Music spectrum is so wide in the feelings it can provide (and it clearly shouldn't be bordered on evil)... But to answer the question, I could quote such opposite works from Ahpdegma, Diamanda Galas, Slayer, Zero Kama, Deicide, Sister Iodine and go on and on... Some Black Legions projects too, ha ha…
The music you made in your youth has left quite a legacy with many "wannabes" and soundalikes trying to capitalize on the Vlad Tepes sound and aesthetic. What would you say to these people if you were given the chance?
I would tell them to identify their limits, to ask them why they stick on being "wannabes" or copycats. Ask them what their goal really is and explode it all! Transcend it and make it yours, express yourself, don't be a mirror, break it
Or maybe they just can't... Sorry for them. My advice then would be for them to be eco-friendly and kill themselves... And save me bandwidth once and for all!
Here I will leave the floor open to you: is there anything you would like to say that we haven't covered already?
The floor being opened, I'll get directly to my cave and record the next VarvLoar1476 piece (or not), witnessing the world's collapse, waiting for it to end at last.
Thanks Jon.
…
Vlad Tepes material is available mostly aftermarket, but can be found at a variety of distributors. I recommend checking The Metal Detektor or Discogs. VarvLoar1476 CDs are available exclusively from Those Opposed Records.
Reclaiming Wlad Drakksteim’s Lost Kingdom (Interview)
In 2006 I was living in Brooklyn and I asked someone at a record store if they had anything by Prurient, who I'd heard about but had never actually heard. The guy said he didn't but 'the Prurient guy owns a record store, on 3rd St in Manhattan. at the back of Jammyland, down the hole'. So I went to this reggae store called Jammyland and sure enough in the back of the store there was a small hole in the floor with noise blasting out, and I descended a ladder and was in a small black room face to face with an intense young man behind the counter named Dominick. We got to talking and he was serious, peculiar, and very funny, and Hospital became my favorite place in New York for a couple of years. Dom was putting out a ton of great music of his own and of others, and I got a crash course in both noise and black metal. Specifically I got pretty into Branikald, Bone Awl, Ildjarn, Skuggeheim, and Beherit, all of whom I still enjoy.
In 2007 I was playing guitar in Thurston Moore's band, and while touring the west coast we stopped at Zion's Gate, a big metal and reggae shop. Thurston and the bassist, Matt Heyner, were both big on black metal at the time and both pulled out a cd by Vlad Tepes called March To The Black Holocaust and said to me 'you need to get this, it's essential and not easy to find'. So I brought it home and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the whole vibe, it felt very noisy and punk, but moreover the songs were amazing, just epic.
I got into black metal at a time when social media was really starting to rise, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be 'reach as many people as possible', and I loved that black metal seemed so secretive, so hidden. You really had to make an effort to access it. Something about that felt good to me. I didn't really know anything else about the culture; if I thought hard about it I felt like an interloper, but I didn't care, I just liked the records and tapes and cds. I was happy to enjoy it in isolation, like artifacts from another planet.
In 2008 I got the idea to make an album of acoustic guitar music that might expand some parameters of acoustic guitar. Side two is an 18 minute track of acoustic guitar going through a wall of amps and doing feedback overtones in C; side one was all 'straight' acoustic guitar, including a cover of 'Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple' by Vlad Tepes. It seemed their masterpiece, and I thought that transcribing all 12 minutes of it for acoustic would be challenging, fun, kind of funny, kind of badass, a little bit 'fuck you'. Hopefully not silly. It's an incredible piece of music and I wanted to do right by it. Even though I figured Vlad Tepes (were they even still alive?) would definitely never hear it. I released the album 'Canaris' as a cd, the first release on my new label, Capitan. The people who normally bought my music liked it, I think, while mostly not commenting one way or another on a Vlad Tepes cover.
Around 2013 I got an email from Wlad Drakkstein. His manner of writing was distinct and unusual, almost poetic, but what he said was: he had heard the cover, and liked it, and wanted to include it in a cd reissue that would include a couple of VT covers. Needless to say I was stunned, and flattered, but moreover had the feeling like it wasn't real, like I was communicating with a myth or a ghost. We wrote each other more. He asked if I had any other Vlad Tepes covers (!) - I told him I'd always wanted to cover 'Ravens Hike'. He kind of chuckled and said that it was based on an old Breton song. I ended up recording a not-very-good version in a studio in Australia while on tour. He included both in the compilation.
In 2015 he emailed and said he was going to take the train from Brest five hours to Paris to see me play. Could we meet for dinner, I asked? We met that night and I was breathless. He walked in and no, he was not in corpse paint, etc - he was a neatly dressed, composed French man. Dinner was surreal, very intense. I felt like we really bonded. It felt like a remarkable meeting.
We met again at a show in Rennes in 2018, and at the Invisible Festival in 2019, where he and I had a little jam session with Thurston Moore. Last time we met was in 2022 in Rennes. He wanted me to go in the studio with him at midnight, after a Come show, but I was too tired and had to leave early the next day.
He's become a friend. I hope we can maybe make music together at some point, but if not that's ok too. In this sense, he's like a number of musicians I've befriended over the years. I admire his work, and respect both his legacy and the privacy that's obviously important to him and I think part of that legacy. I think it's great that he's working on new music as VarvLoar1476, and would love to hear a whole album, but again it's fine if that doesn't happen. I play in a band called Codeine, who made music from 1989-1994, at which point the main songwriter, Stephen Immerwahr, stopped making new music. As a fan of Steve's songs, I wish he would make more, but I'm also okay with it being a small slice of time and body of work. I guess I feel the same way about Vlad Tepes.
–Chris Brokaw
…
The Black Legions. Les Légions Noires. The mythical LLN: a sub-underground circle of bands, solo projects, and collaborations based out of the Brest area in France throughout the early-and-mid '90s (though it has roots that date back as far as the late '80s). Incomprehensible band names, a unified and heavily Xeroxed aesthetic, a con-lang called Gloatre, and countless larger than life stories ranging from demos recorded in a French castle to an ambient song based around a recording of a microphone being inserted into a (living) rat, the LLN was a whisper on the Internet for years, relegated to nerds and forum-goers (like yours truly) alike. Bootlegged tapes which were supposedly and originally limited to single-and-double digits, made for friends and compatriots only (along with properly released material on the obscure Embassy Productions) made their way onto the Internet and were met with curiosity and obsession alike. Though the LLN proper dissolved almost thirty years ago, the library of works this small handful of artists made, ranging from the rawest of black metal to the most terrifying of ambient and atmospheric recordings, remained a central source of intrigue to many.
It was Chaos (a proper noun) which drove the LLN. Chaos, Satan, and the Evil that both resulted from and fueled the aforementioned. Though the LLN is synonymous with its de facto leader Vordb (also known as Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, Thörgammaton Blackvomit, Vórdb Báthor Ecsed, Avaëtre, and, most recently, Vordb Na R.iidr), it was Vlad Tepes–named, of course, for the famed masochistic, murderous despot–who made the LLN's most breathtaking and memorable recordings. With progressions so beautiful and sinister that former Codeine drummer and Come frontman Chris Brokaw went so far as to record an entire twelve-minute epic ("Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple") as a solo acoustic guitar piece, Vlad Tepes was a bit of an anomaly in the largely anti-musical LLN (save a few equally as beautiful projects. Where did you go, Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh?). When compared with Belkètre's more atonal moments and Brenoritvrezorkre's partially improvised chaos, the black metal found in Vlad Tepes' discography was melodic and, for all intents and purposes, beautiful, but the intent was certainly not there.
In interviews, Vlad Tepes was more interested in evil and the romanticizing of it, but, most importantly, they were interested in maintaining an air of mystery, both avoiding direct answers and keeping their own identities shrouded in confusion and uncertainty. Even now, the human names for Wlad and Vorlok Drakksteim (at the time assumed to be brothers, but have since been revealed to have been "artistic brothers" rather than actually related) are rumored but never confirmed. During a time of conflict and pugnaciousness in the black metal underground by artists and budding journalists/zine writers alike, it was in Kill Yourself Zine that what would now be called a "doxxing attempt" was made against the Drakksteim duo, featuring full names and mailing addresses alike (this was also done to Vordb!). In return, the infamous rumor has it that Vlad Tepes both threatened to kill Full Moon Productions proprietor/Kill Yourself Zine editor Jon and also mailed him a box filled with dead rats. Evil. There are so many more Vlad Tepes stories that either are or are not true, and the A Catharsis for Human Illness discography box set lays them all bare in a comprehensive zine (if you can find a copy), but rehashing the past is not why we are here today.
Vlad Tepes went the way of many demo-only black metal projects in the '90s: they got tired and subsequently broke up, apparently in or around 1997 (complete with never-before-heard demos which date that far, at least according to Vordb's now-defunct Kaleidarkness site). Then, nothing. The years came and went, the rumors and legends becoming more ridiculous over time. I mean, a microphone in a rat? A castle? Who is to say whether or not these are real, and the artists behind the legends are none too willing to reveal the truths or lies behind them. The LLN is an anachronism in that sense: its creators maintain their credo and remain in the past, never willing to let Modernity take what they crafted.
It was a great surprise to see someone who was supposedly half of Vlad Tepes in an Instagram post over a decade and a half after my obsession with the LLN first began, let alone a photo with Sonic Youth co-songwriter and black metal obsessive Thurston Moore. There was even a photo of Wlad jamming as part of a guitar trio with Moore and the aforementioned Chris Brokaw. Though this happened a couple years after a band-sanctioned reissue series on French label Drakkar Productions (and later on Black Gangrene Productions), an LLN-related label dating back to the Circle's heyday, a clear photo of someone who was essentially a ghost for two decades at that point was… it was unexpected.
Suddenly, everything was available again. No more bootleg LPs I happened upon at Metal Haven and eBay, and it was all at the hands of a reactivated Wlad Drakksteim (Vorlok has yet to be heard from, and it is unlikely that we will ever have the privilege). Now semi-newly active with a new project he calls VarvLoar1476, Wlad returns to reclaim the throne he never got to sit in back in the '90s. In a very rare new interview, Wlad discusses life beyond Vlad Tepes and what it was like to return to a kingdom he abandoned.
…
What made you want to come out of underground music retirement? What was it like "resurrecting" the Wlad Drakksteim identity?
Hi Jon, first of all thank you for this interview. I generally don't respond to the many interview offers I receive because I don't think I have anything interesting to tell about my distant past. All the questions I usually get asked are about the Vlad Tepes/LLN (Les Légions Noires) era and all the fakes going around... Guys, this was all 30 years ago! It's time to let go. There is no (legitimate) information that is not already available today to those who are eager to know.
Well, what made me want to come out of underground music retirement? I think it was around 2012/2013. That was the time when I really (belatedly, even though I already knew something like that was happening in those years, but not to that extent) discovered all the Internet buzz that grew in the 2000s, all the bootleg madness, the prices madness, the lack of respect. All of this made me decide that it was time to properly collect all of Vlad Tepes' works and publish them as they could (should?) have been published to the faithful in due time, even though it really wasn't the idea 15 years earlier. Times are changing and we have to adapt.
This was around the same time that Drakkar released the 2013 Vlad Tepes reissues. With the exception of War Funeral March and the March To The Black Holocaust split which resulted from the Embassy Productions deal, the other releases came from shitty cassette copies. I assume that these reissues were endorsed by Vorlok Drakksteim but it was not clear to me (to be precise, I have not had any contact with him since 1997, and to anticipate the questions that I am always asked, there's no reason, everyone has their own path in life... That's all.). These editions came out while I was working in parallel on my own reissues. So I contacted Drakkar and we agreed to release the “good” reissues a little later.
So I remixed all my 4-track masters and everything was released the following years by Drakkar & Black Gangrene. Another reason was that I found Vordb again after 15 years of losing contact when he launched his first site Kaleidarkness. All of the above initiated a new time of emulation for me.
The identity of “Wlad Drakksteim” never disappeared for me. It was always hiding in a corner of my mind despite everything that was happening in my life, we could talk about my own psychology but that would touch on very personal points which must remain only mine.
...
...
Did you ever actually stop making underground style music since Vlad Tepes' ending?
Yes, after the circle ended in 1997, I stopped any active creation of music and art in general because I no longer needed it. All of this was interrupted, but still hidden in the back of my mind, as I explained above. I had a few unused riffs that survived the end of Vlad Tepes and bounced around in my mind for years, some that I eventually played in my later project VarvLoar1476.
I created the latter when I was working on my old Vlad Tepes masters. Coming back to these old pieces reignited the little flame that was hiding in my mind, so I started composing again from 2013 until today and so on... Drop by drop, like a poison slowly paralyzes its prey .
What continues to interest you about black metal?
I'm not really interested in Black Metal any more than the other styles I grew up with. I'm still on my old classics and I don't make much effort to move away from them. The only Black Metal that can interest me today is that made by people with whom I am in contact and who know how to explain their approach, their sincerity, the goal of their music and of course, the music must touch me. On top of that, the world is too big and cannot be fully explored. I let it come and I take what can impress me, Black Metal or not.
But if your question is why do I play this kind of music? That's what I do. I don't tell myself that I play Black Metal. It's not important anymore and I'm not here to tell people what to do. Humanity is a self-made and self-destructive species, so be it.
You have a new project that has a few demos up on Bandcamp and a new split release announced on Those Opposed Records. What can you tell me about VarvLoar1476?
It's not that new, I created the name around 2013/14, when I was working on Vlad Tepess reissues. “Varv Loar” simply means “Morte Lune” (Dead Moon) in the Breton language, it fits perfectly as a spiritual continuation of what I have done on my previous projects. As explained above, creativity came back to me so I started recording some stuff without a real plan, using old unused riffs, creating new ones, hence my low production rate. As for Vlad Tepes, I don't do that for others, neither fame nor glory. This project doesn't have any ambition other than my own expression, an interface for my relation to my surroundings and my feelings about it, for my own sake. Anyway, I am making it freely available to the few interested. I've been asked a lot about physical releases, maybe one day if enough material is recorded some sort of compilation of it all might come out if I don't die first... Who lives will see. I still have a lot of rough material to record but I'm just following what I think needs to be done. The last track I made,
"Noyant Les Masses," was requested by Ur Èmdr Œrvn from Avsolutized [and Arkha Sva, among many other projects] to appear on the split-CD N.O.I.R. III which was released recently with Those Opposed records. So, Ur being an old friend, I prioritized this for him.
Overall, this project is the reminiscence of that “Wlad Drakksteim” part in my mind that will never go away. Composing, recording for it is like going into a trance, like a journey through time where nothing else matters. I always come back purified from these sessions, these are transcendent rituals to my condition of being organic trapped in a physical sum of atoms and electrical reactions... Or what we can call the soul, which is beyond all this matter.
…
…
VarvLoar1476 released a re-recorded version of Vlad Tepes song "Frozen Dead's Kingdom." What made you want to revisit this song in particular?
Around 2015/2016 I was in contact with Rebecca who ran her online Metal clothing store called Hellcouture (she still does in fact). At the time, she was making one-shot clothes for Vlad Tepes. At one point she had the idea of putting out a compilation of the bands she was doing merch with and she asked me for a Vlad Tepes track.
Instead of giving her another old thing, I decided to make a new version of "Frozen Dead's Kingdom". In the end, the compilation was never released but that's another story. Still, the song was finished.
I chose this track because it's the first one I composed entirely for Vlad Tepes, without older riffs. Additionally, I felt like the original Vlad Tepes releases didn't deliver the full potential of the riffs due to the "exceptional technical recording conditions" we had at the time in 1994. I was satisfied with that point with the new recording, it represented very well the sounds I wanted it to render in 2016.
How do you view the work you created in your youth? What do you strive to create now?
My youth was a complicated period, a permanent struggle against myself and the world around me, feelings of hatred, sadness, loss, an alignment of the plates of Reason which provoked the meeting of the members of the Circle, then Brothers, in our same dissonant feelings, provoking an emulation leading to a spiral of destruction of the limits imposed by, you name it, humanity, society, religion, the state, the family... This is how my work was created to express what I was experiencing, avoiding my self-destruction. This spiral ended like a star collapsing in on itself to a black hole when all my confused feelings collapsed into oblivion. A monster slain, a catharsis.
It took me many years and a lot of stepping back to deal with it all again to finally master it and everything it meant to me. But as twisted as it may sound, it was a solid foundation for the person I am today and what I have been striving to create for over three decades now. It's a well-balanced mix of all the feelings that burned in me at the time but adding my experience to it and making it stronger. But my only desire is to follow what the cosmos has in store for me. So no one knows, but whoever survives will have to endure it…
Though I know he is a rabid black metal fan, I was surprised to see your photo taken with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. How did you two meet? Were you happy to see this photo of you published?
I have a friend in Brest, namely Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, who discovered during the 2000s in New Noise magazine that Thurston Moore was a big fan of the "Légions Noires, a BM collective based in Brest in the nineties." At this time, Arnaud had never heard of these Légions Noires even though he lived in Brest for two decades. He unsuccessfully tried to find clues about them for many years until he met one of my acquaintances at their respective daughters' school fair. Around the conversation, they came to talk about Black Metal and Arnaud's obsession for LLN, always running in the background of his mind for years. Mind which exploded when my acquaintance told him he knew me! Arnaud finally found something hot, a contact, mine (never underestimate what can happen in school fairs...). It was in 2015. So I met a stressful man at first but meeting after meeting, we talked and exchanged a lot about music and many other topics until today (We even recorded a strange project together this year as a four-men chaotic orchestra. To come some day, sooner or later...).
At one time, Arnaud being the organizer of “Le Festival Invisible'', a music/art festival about outsider artists taking place every year in Brest since 2005, asked me if he could organize a meeting between me and Thurston Moore and kill two birds with one stone hit, by having Thurston play at the festival. This is what happened in November 2018.
Of course, I don't like being exposed publicly because it goes against my approach, anyway you can't control everything. But who knows? Is that really me in these pictures… Ha ha!
…
…
I understand you recorded music as a trio with Thurston Moore and Codeine/Come's Chris Brokaw. Will this ever see the light of day? How did this project come to be in the first place?
No, we just jammed together as old "garage teenagers" during the above-mentioned meeting, nothing was recorded except for a few private video excerpts of the session and some pictures, but not worth being released. Nothing to see, move along.
How did you get back in contact with Vordb? What is it like creating music together now as opposed to the LLN days?
I found by chance his early Kaleidarkness website so we could get in contact again after 15 years. Then we exchanged a lot but didn't create much together. The few we recorded were finishing a Vzaéurvbtre piece begun in 1995 and a Vèrmibdrèb one from 1996. But I guess that we acted the same as 20 years earlier, except that the hardware wasn't anymore a Fostex 4-tracks or some tape recorder. Not much more to say about it…
What are your thoughts on current black metal? Do you pay attention at all?
Not really except for very few exceptions. There is certainly some worthy stuff around, but I don't search for it because my feeling is that the "underground" (if this word still means something) is drowned under tons of garbage. Everyone today seems to have a "Black Metal" project, uninteresting, just kill yourself and save me bandwidth, it's being years since the train passed, you missed it. Invent something else, something new before the internet/social network era sterilizes every creativity, rebel against your time!
On the other hand, the easily available stuff is mostly popular, commercial plastic-sounding and boring cash-grabbing nonsense. I already have plenty of old meaningful stuff to listen to everyday 'till my death and beyond (and some more recent too, but a lot less...) so I don't need more. I'm conscious that I sound like an old fart, but I'm grateful for being from my generation and not from what came after... Poor kids.
I was once told you were to join the now-defunct band Zépülkr [Editor's Note: Zépülkr is now known as Sépulcre] on drums. Was this true? Did you ever end up recording anything with this band?
I never played drums for Zépülkr because I'm an untrained drummer, but I did vocals, guitars and lyrics for the late album Héritrage Posthume, then Khräss stopped the project. He told me years ago that one of the goals of this project was to pay homage to his influences (naming Vlad Tepes and Peste Noire among others) and to get a collaboration as a cherry on the cake. Finally, he got Famine helping on his first album Nécrofrancie and myself on his second and posthumous album.
Vordb has told me he hasn't been in contact with Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh for some time–similarly, are you in contact with Vorlok at all?
Not at all since 1997. And not searching for it. He lives his life, I live mine and that's perfect this way. We did what we had to do together and we parted ways with no hard feelings.
...
...
The A Catharsis for Human Illness box set came with a pretty extensive zine which tells the full Vlad Tepes story (which is why I'm not asking you about that band). That being said, what was revisiting the Vlad Tepes days like for that project?
This box is well named. Vlad Tepes was a catharsis and, as I exposed earlier in this interview, it doesn't represent the happiest part of my life. So coming back to it was like some exorcism. I also had the goal to settle all this, for me but also for the devotees by delivering thems the best aspect of what it was as Art and music, a testimony for each and every one of them. I know today against all odds, through many messages I got since, that this music left a strong impression on many people. So this is my mark of respect to them. That being said, the Vlad Tepes matter is clearly settled for me now.
There are many tales and legends surrounding the LLN, and sometimes even fake bands made by trolls or misinterpreted by superfans from LLN-obsessed places like the streetmetal forum (if you ever saw that). What has it been like watching your old antics become something larger than life? Do you pay attention to things like this?
It was partly why I decided to reissue my projects properly. I could have chosen to let it be in the hands of unrespectful or greedy people. But ask yourself, if it was yours, what would you do ? Leave it like that or take it back ? I choose to handle it back and you know the rest.
About the tales and legends, where's the fun without some mystery?.. Some were true, some not…
What in your opinion makes music evil or evil sounding? What records would you consider evil or evil sounding?
Odd question... The tritone chord!
Joking aside, it depends on what one considers being evil. That's a matter of point of view. To quote famous Black Metal examples : Immortal's first album (their best by far) sounds cold and evil to me, but Abbath seems to be the warmest and most friendly guy around. Similar to Darkthrone, some evil sounding incredible stuff, but Fenriz is so lovable and fun, ha ha. Well, in fact, evil is lovable. What's important is what you bring as an artist, what you express, what your goal is. It also depends on the listener's receptiveness. It has to match on both sides and then, sparkles happen!
Talking about Metal and evil, Bathory's The Return...... comes first in my mind. Music spectrum is so wide in the feelings it can provide (and it clearly shouldn't be bordered on evil)... But to answer the question, I could quote such opposite works from Ahpdegma, Diamanda Galas, Slayer, Zero Kama, Deicide, Sister Iodine and go on and on... Some Black Legions projects too, ha ha…
The music you made in your youth has left quite a legacy with many "wannabes" and soundalikes trying to capitalize on the Vlad Tepes sound and aesthetic. What would you say to these people if you were given the chance?
I would tell them to identify their limits, to ask them why they stick on being "wannabes" or copycats. Ask them what their goal really is and explode it all! Transcend it and make it yours, express yourself, don't be a mirror, break it
Or maybe they just can't... Sorry for them. My advice then would be for them to be eco-friendly and kill themselves... And save me bandwidth once and for all!
Here I will leave the floor open to you: is there anything you would like to say that we haven't covered already?
The floor being opened, I'll get directly to my cave and record the next VarvLoar1476 piece (or not), witnessing the world's collapse, waiting for it to end at last.
Thanks Jon.
…
Vlad Tepes material is available mostly aftermarket, but can be found at a variety of distributors. I recommend checking The Metal Detektor or Discogs. VarvLoar1476 CDs are available exclusively from Those Opposed Records.
Reclaiming Wlad Drakksteim’s Lost Kingdom (Interview)
In 2006 I was living in Brooklyn and I asked someone at a record store if they had anything by Prurient, who I'd heard about but had never actually heard. The guy said he didn't but 'the Prurient guy owns a record store, on 3rd St in Manhattan. at the back of Jammyland, down the hole'. So I went to this reggae store called Jammyland and sure enough in the back of the store there was a small hole in the floor with noise blasting out, and I descended a ladder and was in a small black room face to face with an intense young man behind the counter named Dominick. We got to talking and he was serious, peculiar, and very funny, and Hospital became my favorite place in New York for a couple of years. Dom was putting out a ton of great music of his own and of others, and I got a crash course in both noise and black metal. Specifically I got pretty into Branikald, Bone Awl, Ildjarn, Skuggeheim, and Beherit, all of whom I still enjoy.
In 2007 I was playing guitar in Thurston Moore's band, and while touring the west coast we stopped at Zion's Gate, a big metal and reggae shop. Thurston and the bassist, Matt Heyner, were both big on black metal at the time and both pulled out a cd by Vlad Tepes called March To The Black Holocaust and said to me 'you need to get this, it's essential and not easy to find'. So I brought it home and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the whole vibe, it felt very noisy and punk, but moreover the songs were amazing, just epic.
One of the things I loved about the arc of the Vlad Tepes catalog was: the more sophisticated the playing became, the worse the recording quality was. Like this increasingly stunning band was just being buried alive; or like they were in too much of a hurry to get down what they were doing to bother with decent audio. I loved how the last song on their very last album ended with this sound in the background, getting louder and louder, which you eventually realize is the sound of a knife being sharpened, until it takes over the mix and - the song ends. And that's the end of the band! Such high drama. They were really not fucking around.
I got into black metal at a time when social media was really starting to rise, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be 'reach as many people as possible', and I loved that black metal seemed so secretive, so hidden. You really had to make an effort to access it. Something about that felt good to me. I didn't really know anything else about the culture; if I thought hard about it I felt like an interloper, but I didn't care, I just liked the records and tapes and cds. I was happy to enjoy it in isolation, like artifacts from another planet.
In 2008 I got the idea to make an album of acoustic guitar music that might expand some parameters of acoustic guitar. Side two is an 18 minute track of acoustic guitar going through a wall of amps and doing feedback overtones in C; side one was all 'straight' acoustic guitar, including a cover of 'Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple' by Vlad Tepes. It seemed their masterpiece, and I thought that transcribing all 12 minutes of it for acoustic would be challenging, fun, kind of funny, kind of badass, a little bit 'fuck you'. Hopefully not silly. It's an incredible piece of music and I wanted to do right by it. Even though I figured Vlad Tepes (were they even still alive?) would definitely never hear it. I released the album 'Canaris' as a cd, the first release on my new label, Capitan. The people who normally bought my music liked it, I think, while mostly not commenting one way or another on a Vlad Tepes cover.
Around 2013 I got an email from Wlad Drakkstein. His manner of writing was distinct and unusual, almost poetic, but what he said was: he had heard the cover, and liked it, and wanted to include it in a cd reissue that would include a couple of VT covers. Needless to say I was stunned, and flattered, but moreover had the feeling like it wasn't real, like I was communicating with a myth or a ghost. We wrote each other more. He asked if I had any other Vlad Tepes covers (!) - I told him I'd always wanted to cover 'Ravens Hike'. He kind of chuckled and said that it was based on an old Breton song. I ended up recording a not-very-good version in a studio in Australia while on tour. He included both in the compilation.
In 2015 he emailed and said he was going to take the train from Brest five hours to Paris to see me play. Could we meet for dinner, I asked? We met that night and I was breathless. He walked in and no, he was not in corpse paint, etc - he was a neatly dressed, composed French man. Dinner was surreal, very intense. I felt like we really bonded. It felt like a remarkable meeting.
We met again at a show in Rennes in 2018, and at the Invisible Festival in 2019, where he and I had a little jam session with Thurston Moore. Last time we met was in 2022 in Rennes. He wanted me to go in the studio with him at midnight, after a Come show, but I was too tired and had to leave early the next day.
He's become a friend. I hope we can maybe make music together at some point, but if not that's ok too. In this sense, he's like a number of musicians I've befriended over the years. I admire his work, and respect both his legacy and the privacy that's obviously important to him and I think part of that legacy. I think it's great that he's working on new music as VarvLoar1476, and would love to hear a whole album, but again it's fine if that doesn't happen. I play in a band called Codeine, who made music from 1989-1994, at which point the main songwriter, Stephen Immerwahr, stopped making new music. As a fan of Steve's songs, I wish he would make more, but I'm also okay with it being a small slice of time and body of work. I guess I feel the same way about Vlad Tepes.
–Chris Brokaw
…
The Black Legions. Les Légions Noires. The mythical LLN: a sub-underground circle of bands, solo projects, and collaborations based out of the Brest area in France throughout the early-and-mid '90s (though it has roots that date back as far as the late '80s). Incomprehensible band names, a unified and heavily Xeroxed aesthetic, a con-lang called Gloatre, and countless larger than life stories ranging from demos recorded in a French castle to an ambient song based around a recording of a microphone being inserted into a (living) rat, the LLN was a whisper on the Internet for years, relegated to nerds and forum-goers (like yours truly) alike. Bootlegged tapes which were supposedly and originally limited to single-and-double digits, made for friends and compatriots only (along with properly released material on the obscure Embassy Productions) made their way onto the Internet and were met with curiosity and obsession alike. Though the LLN proper dissolved almost thirty years ago, the library of works this small handful of artists made, ranging from the rawest of black metal to the most terrifying of ambient and atmospheric recordings, remained a central source of intrigue to many.
It was Chaos (a proper noun) which drove the LLN. Chaos, Satan, and the Evil that both resulted from and fueled the aforementioned. Though the LLN is synonymous with its de facto leader Vordb (also known as Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, Thörgammaton Blackvomit, Vórdb Báthor Ecsed, Avaëtre, and, most recently, Vordb Na R.iidr), it was Vlad Tepes–named, of course, for the famed masochistic, murderous despot–who made the LLN's most breathtaking and memorable recordings. With progressions so beautiful and sinister that former Codeine drummer and Come frontman Chris Brokaw went so far as to record an entire twelve-minute epic ("Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple") as a solo acoustic guitar piece, Vlad Tepes was a bit of an anomaly in the largely anti-musical LLN (save a few equally as beautiful projects. Where did you go, Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh?). When compared with Belkètre's more atonal moments and Brenoritvrezorkre's partially improvised chaos, the black metal found in Vlad Tepes' discography was melodic and, for all intents and purposes, beautiful, but the intent was certainly not there.
In interviews, Vlad Tepes was more interested in evil and the romanticizing of it, but, most importantly, they were interested in maintaining an air of mystery, both avoiding direct answers and keeping their own identities shrouded in confusion and uncertainty. Even now, the human names for Wlad and Vorlok Drakksteim (at the time assumed to be brothers, but have since been revealed to have been "artistic brothers" rather than actually related) are rumored but never confirmed. During a time of conflict and pugnaciousness in the black metal underground by artists and budding journalists/zine writers alike, it was in Kill Yourself Zine that what would now be called a "doxxing attempt" was made against the Drakksteim duo, featuring full names and mailing addresses alike (this was also done to Vordb!). In return, the infamous rumor has it that Vlad Tepes both threatened to kill Full Moon Productions proprietor/Kill Yourself Zine editor Jon and also mailed him a box filled with dead rats. Evil. There are so many more Vlad Tepes stories that either are or are not true, and the A Catharsis for Human Illness discography box set lays them all bare in a comprehensive zine (if you can find a copy), but rehashing the past is not why we are here today.
Vlad Tepes went the way of many demo-only black metal projects in the '90s: they got tired and subsequently broke up, apparently in or around 1997 (complete with never-before-heard demos which date that far, at least according to Vordb's now-defunct Kaleidarkness site). Then, nothing. The years came and went, the rumors and legends becoming more ridiculous over time. I mean, a microphone in a rat? A castle? Who is to say whether or not these are real, and the artists behind the legends are none too willing to reveal the truths or lies behind them. The LLN is an anachronism in that sense: its creators maintain their credo and remain in the past, never willing to let Modernity take what they crafted.
It was a great surprise to see someone who was supposedly half of Vlad Tepes in an Instagram post over a decade and a half after my obsession with the LLN first began, let alone a photo with Sonic Youth co-songwriter and black metal obsessive Thurston Moore. There was even a photo of Wlad jamming as part of a guitar trio with Moore and the aforementioned Chris Brokaw. Though this happened a couple years after a band-sanctioned reissue series on French label Drakkar Productions (and later on Black Gangrene Productions), an LLN-related label dating back to the Circle's heyday, a clear photo of someone who was essentially a ghost for two decades at that point was… it was unexpected.
Suddenly, everything was available again. No more bootleg LPs I happened upon at Metal Haven and eBay, and it was all at the hands of a reactivated Wlad Drakksteim (Vorlok has yet to be heard from, and it is unlikely that we will ever have the privilege). Now semi-newly active with a new project he calls VarvLoar1476, Wlad returns to reclaim the throne he never got to sit in back in the '90s. In a very rare new interview, Wlad discusses life beyond Vlad Tepes and what it was like to return to a kingdom he abandoned.
…
What made you want to come out of underground music retirement? What was it like "resurrecting" the Wlad Drakksteim identity?
Hi Jon, first of all thank you for this interview. I generally don't respond to the many interview offers I receive because I don't think I have anything interesting to tell about my distant past. All the questions I usually get asked are about the Vlad Tepes/LLN (Les Légions Noires) era and all the fakes going around... Guys, this was all 30 years ago! It's time to let go. There is no (legitimate) information that is not already available today to those who are eager to know.
Well, what made me want to come out of underground music retirement? I think it was around 2012/2013. That was the time when I really (belatedly, even though I already knew something like that was happening in those years, but not to that extent) discovered all the Internet buzz that grew in the 2000s, all the bootleg madness, the prices madness, the lack of respect. All of this made me decide that it was time to properly collect all of Vlad Tepes' works and publish them as they could (should?) have been published to the faithful in due time, even though it really wasn't the idea 15 years earlier. Times are changing and we have to adapt.
This was around the same time that Drakkar released the 2013 Vlad Tepes reissues. With the exception of War Funeral March and the March To The Black Holocaust split which resulted from the Embassy Productions deal, the other releases came from shitty cassette copies. I assume that these reissues were endorsed by Vorlok Drakksteim but it was not clear to me (to be precise, I have not had any contact with him since 1997, and to anticipate the questions that I am always asked, there's no reason, everyone has their own path in life... That's all.). These editions came out while I was working in parallel on my own reissues. So I contacted Drakkar and we agreed to release the “good” reissues a little later.
So I remixed all my 4-track masters and everything was released the following years by Drakkar & Black Gangrene. Another reason was that I found Vordb again after 15 years of losing contact when he launched his first site Kaleidarkness. All of the above initiated a new time of emulation for me.
The identity of “Wlad Drakksteim” never disappeared for me. It was always hiding in a corner of my mind despite everything that was happening in my life, we could talk about my own psychology but that would touch on very personal points which must remain only mine.
...
...
Did you ever actually stop making underground style music since Vlad Tepes' ending?
Yes, after the circle ended in 1997, I stopped any active creation of music and art in general because I no longer needed it. All of this was interrupted, but still hidden in the back of my mind, as I explained above. I had a few unused riffs that survived the end of Vlad Tepes and bounced around in my mind for years, some that I eventually played in my later project VarvLoar1476.
I created the latter when I was working on my old Vlad Tepes masters. Coming back to these old pieces reignited the little flame that was hiding in my mind, so I started composing again from 2013 until today and so on... Drop by drop, like a poison slowly paralyzes its prey .
What continues to interest you about black metal?
I'm not really interested in Black Metal any more than the other styles I grew up with. I'm still on my old classics and I don't make much effort to move away from them. The only Black Metal that can interest me today is that made by people with whom I am in contact and who know how to explain their approach, their sincerity, the goal of their music and of course, the music must touch me. On top of that, the world is too big and cannot be fully explored. I let it come and I take what can impress me, Black Metal or not.
But if your question is why do I play this kind of music? That's what I do. I don't tell myself that I play Black Metal. It's not important anymore and I'm not here to tell people what to do. Humanity is a self-made and self-destructive species, so be it.
You have a new project that has a few demos up on Bandcamp and a new split release announced on Those Opposed Records. What can you tell me about VarvLoar1476?
It's not that new, I created the name around 2013/14, when I was working on Vlad Tepess reissues. “Varv Loar” simply means “Morte Lune” (Dead Moon) in the Breton language, it fits perfectly as a spiritual continuation of what I have done on my previous projects. As explained above, creativity came back to me so I started recording some stuff without a real plan, using old unused riffs, creating new ones, hence my low production rate. As for Vlad Tepes, I don't do that for others, neither fame nor glory. This project doesn't have any ambition other than my own expression, an interface for my relation to my surroundings and my feelings about it, for my own sake. Anyway, I am making it freely available to the few interested. I've been asked a lot about physical releases, maybe one day if enough material is recorded some sort of compilation of it all might come out if I don't die first... Who lives will see. I still have a lot of rough material to record but I'm just following what I think needs to be done. The last track I made,
"Noyant Les Masses," was requested by Ur Èmdr Œrvn from Avsolutized [and Arkha Sva, among many other projects] to appear on the split-CD N.O.I.R. III which was released recently with Those Opposed records. So, Ur being an old friend, I prioritized this for him.
Overall, this project is the reminiscence of that “Wlad Drakksteim” part in my mind that will never go away. Composing, recording for it is like going into a trance, like a journey through time where nothing else matters. I always come back purified from these sessions, these are transcendent rituals to my condition of being organic trapped in a physical sum of atoms and electrical reactions... Or what we can call the soul, which is beyond all this matter.
…
…
VarvLoar1476 released a re-recorded version of Vlad Tepes song "Frozen Dead's Kingdom." What made you want to revisit this song in particular?
Around 2015/2016 I was in contact with Rebecca who ran her online Metal clothing store called Hellcouture (she still does in fact). At the time, she was making one-shot clothes for Vlad Tepes. At one point she had the idea of putting out a compilation of the bands she was doing merch with and she asked me for a Vlad Tepes track.
Instead of giving her another old thing, I decided to make a new version of "Frozen Dead's Kingdom". In the end, the compilation was never released but that's another story. Still, the song was finished.
I chose this track because it's the first one I composed entirely for Vlad Tepes, without older riffs. Additionally, I felt like the original Vlad Tepes releases didn't deliver the full potential of the riffs due to the "exceptional technical recording conditions" we had at the time in 1994. I was satisfied with that point with the new recording, it represented very well the sounds I wanted it to render in 2016.
How do you view the work you created in your youth? What do you strive to create now?
My youth was a complicated period, a permanent struggle against myself and the world around me, feelings of hatred, sadness, loss, an alignment of the plates of Reason which provoked the meeting of the members of the Circle, then Brothers, in our same dissonant feelings, provoking an emulation leading to a spiral of destruction of the limits imposed by, you name it, humanity, society, religion, the state, the family... This is how my work was created to express what I was experiencing, avoiding my self-destruction. This spiral ended like a star collapsing in on itself to a black hole when all my confused feelings collapsed into oblivion. A monster slain, a catharsis.
It took me many years and a lot of stepping back to deal with it all again to finally master it and everything it meant to me. But as twisted as it may sound, it was a solid foundation for the person I am today and what I have been striving to create for over three decades now. It's a well-balanced mix of all the feelings that burned in me at the time but adding my experience to it and making it stronger. But my only desire is to follow what the cosmos has in store for me. So no one knows, but whoever survives will have to endure it…
Though I know he is a rabid black metal fan, I was surprised to see your photo taken with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. How did you two meet? Were you happy to see this photo of you published?
I have a friend in Brest, namely Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, who discovered during the 2000s in New Noise magazine that Thurston Moore was a big fan of the "Légions Noires, a BM collective based in Brest in the nineties." At this time, Arnaud had never heard of these Légions Noires even though he lived in Brest for two decades. He unsuccessfully tried to find clues about them for many years until he met one of my acquaintances at their respective daughters' school fair. Around the conversation, they came to talk about Black Metal and Arnaud's obsession for LLN, always running in the background of his mind for years. Mind which exploded when my acquaintance told him he knew me! Arnaud finally found something hot, a contact, mine (never underestimate what can happen in school fairs...). It was in 2015. So I met a stressful man at first but meeting after meeting, we talked and exchanged a lot about music and many other topics until today (We even recorded a strange project together this year as a four-men chaotic orchestra. To come some day, sooner or later...).
At one time, Arnaud being the organizer of “Le Festival Invisible'', a music/art festival about outsider artists taking place every year in Brest since 2005, asked me if he could organize a meeting between me and Thurston Moore and kill two birds with one stone hit, by having Thurston play at the festival. This is what happened in November 2018.
Of course, I don't like being exposed publicly because it goes against my approach, anyway you can't control everything. But who knows? Is that really me in these pictures… Ha ha!
…
…
I understand you recorded music as a trio with Thurston Moore and Codeine/Come's Chris Brokaw. Will this ever see the light of day? How did this project come to be in the first place?
No, we just jammed together as old "garage teenagers" during the above-mentioned meeting, nothing was recorded except for a few private video excerpts of the session and some pictures, but not worth being released. Nothing to see, move along.
How did you get back in contact with Vordb? What is it like creating music together now as opposed to the LLN days?
I found by chance his early Kaleidarkness website so we could get in contact again after 15 years. Then we exchanged a lot but didn't create much together. The few we recorded were finishing a Vzaéurvbtre piece begun in 1995 and a Vèrmibdrèb one from 1996. But I guess that we acted the same as 20 years earlier, except that the hardware wasn't anymore a Fostex 4-tracks or some tape recorder. Not much more to say about it…
What are your thoughts on current black metal? Do you pay attention at all?
Not really except for very few exceptions. There is certainly some worthy stuff around, but I don't search for it because my feeling is that the "underground" (if this word still means something) is drowned under tons of garbage. Everyone today seems to have a "Black Metal" project, uninteresting, just kill yourself and save me bandwidth, it's being years since the train passed, you missed it. Invent something else, something new before the internet/social network era sterilizes every creativity, rebel against your time!
On the other hand, the easily available stuff is mostly popular, commercial plastic-sounding and boring cash-grabbing nonsense. I already have plenty of old meaningful stuff to listen to everyday 'till my death and beyond (and some more recent too, but a lot less...) so I don't need more. I'm conscious that I sound like an old fart, but I'm grateful for being from my generation and not from what came after... Poor kids.
I was once told you were to join the now-defunct band Zépülkr [Editor's Note: Zépülkr is now known as Sépulcre] on drums. Was this true? Did you ever end up recording anything with this band?
I never played drums for Zépülkr because I'm an untrained drummer, but I did vocals, guitars and lyrics for the late album Héritrage Posthume, then Khräss stopped the project. He told me years ago that one of the goals of this project was to pay homage to his influences (naming Vlad Tepes and Peste Noire among others) and to get a collaboration as a cherry on the cake. Finally, he got Famine helping on his first album Nécrofrancie and myself on his second and posthumous album.
Vordb has told me he hasn't been in contact with Lord Aäkon Këëtrëh for some time–similarly, are you in contact with Vorlok at all?
Not at all since 1997. And not searching for it. He lives his life, I live mine and that's perfect this way. We did what we had to do together and we parted ways with no hard feelings.
...
...
The A Catharsis for Human Illness box set came with a pretty extensive zine which tells the full Vlad Tepes story (which is why I'm not asking you about that band). That being said, what was revisiting the Vlad Tepes days like for that project?
This box is well named. Vlad Tepes was a catharsis and, as I exposed earlier in this interview, it doesn't represent the happiest part of my life. So coming back to it was like some exorcism. I also had the goal to settle all this, for me but also for the devotees by delivering thems the best aspect of what it was as Art and music, a testimony for each and every one of them. I know today against all odds, through many messages I got since, that this music left a strong impression on many people. So this is my mark of respect to them. That being said, the Vlad Tepes matter is clearly settled for me now.
There are many tales and legends surrounding the LLN, and sometimes even fake bands made by trolls or misinterpreted by superfans from LLN-obsessed places like the streetmetal forum (if you ever saw that). What has it been like watching your old antics become something larger than life? Do you pay attention to things like this?
It was partly why I decided to reissue my projects properly. I could have chosen to let it be in the hands of unrespectful or greedy people. But ask yourself, if it was yours, what would you do ? Leave it like that or take it back ? I choose to handle it back and you know the rest.
About the tales and legends, where's the fun without some mystery?.. Some were true, some not…
What in your opinion makes music evil or evil sounding? What records would you consider evil or evil sounding?
Odd question... The tritone chord!
Joking aside, it depends on what one considers being evil. That's a matter of point of view. To quote famous Black Metal examples : Immortal's first album (their best by far) sounds cold and evil to me, but Abbath seems to be the warmest and most friendly guy around. Similar to Darkthrone, some evil sounding incredible stuff, but Fenriz is so lovable and fun, ha ha. Well, in fact, evil is lovable. What's important is what you bring as an artist, what you express, what your goal is. It also depends on the listener's receptiveness. It has to match on both sides and then, sparkles happen!
Talking about Metal and evil, Bathory's The Return...... comes first in my mind. Music spectrum is so wide in the feelings it can provide (and it clearly shouldn't be bordered on evil)... But to answer the question, I could quote such opposite works from Ahpdegma, Diamanda Galas, Slayer, Zero Kama, Deicide, Sister Iodine and go on and on... Some Black Legions projects too, ha ha…
The music you made in your youth has left quite a legacy with many "wannabes" and soundalikes trying to capitalize on the Vlad Tepes sound and aesthetic. What would you say to these people if you were given the chance?
I would tell them to identify their limits, to ask them why they stick on being "wannabes" or copycats. Ask them what their goal really is and explode it all! Transcend it and make it yours, express yourself, don't be a mirror, break it
Or maybe they just can't... Sorry for them. My advice then would be for them to be eco-friendly and kill themselves... And save me bandwidth once and for all!
Here I will leave the floor open to you: is there anything you would like to say that we haven't covered already?
The floor being opened, I'll get directly to my cave and record the next VarvLoar1476 piece (or not), witnessing the world's collapse, waiting for it to end at last.
Thanks Jon.
…
Vlad Tepes material is available mostly aftermarket, but can be found at a variety of distributors. I recommend checking The Metal Detektor or Discogs. VarvLoar1476 CDs are available exclusively from Those Opposed Records.
…
Once again, two Portuguese bands closed off the night. There’s not much to be said about Alcoholocaust – their name is self-explanatory – but the band that preceded them should come with a warning label. During a Systemik Viølence show you will be taunted, spat on, pushed away and forced to listen to endless half-assed ramblings on how everything sucks – the festival, the sound guy, the cops, the crowd and anything else in sight. Their music is just about the only thing that doesn’t suck, but their masked vocalist would be more than happy to kick you in the teeth if you started enjoying yourself too much. Have fun at your own risk.
…
…
Day 3
…
…
If Day 2 had already made me feel too old to sleep in a tent during a festival, the rain between this and the final day definitely didn’t help, leading me to shoot some of the bands almost on autopilot. The festival took its toll on the camera as well – a close encounter with Systemik Viølence‘s vocalist meant I had to shoot the rest of the gigs without a filter, and some overconfidence in battery capacity had led me to shoot the last five bands with a nearly-drained reserve battery – the main one was gone by the end of the first day. The goal here was obvious: make it last until Mayhem. Good thing it did.
…
…
Bulto, the first act of this final day, were an abnormal band due to how normal they seemed. Completely out of their element, their rock has that wonderful quality of sounding more festive simply because they sing in Spanish and it worked much better than one would guess, being arguably better than both Stone Dead and Warfect, the two bands that followed. After them, however, were Avulsed, the headliners of the first edition of the festival. Having brought with them fond memories from 1998’s edition, they’ve used these two decades to refine their classic death metal sound without ever deviating from it – a source of pride for the band, as “death metal” adorned their stage banners as well as their vocalist’s forearms. Impressed with the dimension of this year’s crowd but unimpressed by its hangover-induced languidness, he jumped from the stage and opened up a huge pit which transformed into a wall of death on command. If most of the crowd was too young to have any memories of that first SWR, this one will certainly stay with everyone.
…
…
The third day’s overlapping shows represented a much harder decision than the previous ones, as Nader Sadek and Marthyrium aren’t that far apart in terms of musical style. I’d give Marthyrium a slight edge just because more straightforward shows seem to work better in this festival and a considerable Spanish crowd made them feel right at home.
Corpus Christii were equally at home. The most well-known Portuguese black metal band has played Barroselas a number of times in the past and they never fail to deliver a devastating set to a zealous audience. This year was no exception. The band is blunt in their criticism of some “strains” of modern black metal and it has to be said that, traditional or modern, few bands make it work as well as them. Their approach is in stark contrast with Akercocke’s. During their 1997-2012 run Akercocke were one of the festival’s most beloved bands, having played it for three times, two of them as headliners. It was a no-brainer to invite them back after their 2016 reunion and, as expected, they thanked us with a mesmerizing show, including “Disappear”, a song from their upcoming album, and “Enraptured by Evil”, one they hadn’t played live in years. The ending was slightly abrupt, as they looked as though they wanted to keep playing until dawn, but we surely want them to return for a fifth time once the album is finished.
…
…
Mayhem’s history with the festival hasn’t been so smooth. Scheduled to headline the fourth edition in 2001, a sudden cancellation while SWR was already underway turned some idiots into walking clichés as they expressed their fury by desecrating the cemetery. This happened just two years after the vocalist from Agonizing Terror, a band that played the fest’s first edition, murdered his parents in a bloody and premeditated crime, and the pieces were quickly put together by every media outlet – this was music made for, and by, criminals, outcasts and satanists. The fact that the festival happened again in 2002 during the usual month and with the usual support from the town’s governing body is an amazing demonstration of the Veiga brothers’ passion and determination. Mayhem have come to Portugal since then, but this was still a special occasion – De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas was to be played in full. Unsurprisingly, their theatrical performance was the most visually captivating show of the whole festival. As if someone had just snatched him up from the cemetery, Attila’s face was completely unrecognizable and only his peerless vocal range gave him away until he resurged as a satanic priest, burning his hands on the altar’s candles and toying around with a human skull. Seeing him taking his time with every calculated move while Hellhammer blasted away, seldom headbanging or synchronizing his movements with the music, made his presence all the more unsettling. Not even the moshing and stage diving attempts could distract us from what was going on on stage.
…
…
The night wasn’t over, though. Right after Mayhem we had Lich King, who closed their set with “Black Metal Sucks”:
In league with the devil, talking Satan, skulls and hell
Making mommy mad, cause that’s original
If you hate good music, then it can’t hurt to go
Image-conscious assholes, black metal fashion show
The main stage’s closing show had could have gone horribly: the local philharmonic band, under the name Steelharmonics, was to play some heavy metal hits. But not only were most arrangements beautifully crafted, their less-than-exciting start with “Thunderstruck” was followed by a Black Sabbath medley and unexpected tunes such as “Abigail”, “Angel Witch” and “Fighting the World”. “Ace of Spades” served as the excuse to create the biggest moshpit of the set, while “Fear of the Dark” worked so well that it was the chosen tune for the encore.
After Test’s second surprise show, we were finally sent off by Vai-te Foder (in English, “Go Fuck Yourself”). Their vocalists nearly lost their voice during such a packed festival, but the crowd knew them well and one microphone spent a fair amount of time being passed around amongst their fans, who took care of vocal duties. The festival might’ve grown throughout the years, but this last set, stripped of the grandeur of the previous band, felt just like a small underground gig. It’s this combination, this recipe of mashing up great international acts with up and coming ones, this fondness for its roots in the Portuguese scene while still aiming higher, that makes this barely-underground festival so unique.
…
…
Words and photos by Daniel Sampaio.
…
