Vemod's Atmospheric Metal Stands the Test of Time (New Track Debut + Interview)

It's been a long time, Vemod.  With over ten years following their debut, Venter på stormene, and multiple announcements and false starts, The Deepening is finally ready to be unleashed. This Norwegian atmospheric metal trio, who prefers to be referred to as such instead of black metal, took their time creating their sophomore album; Vemod is the result of ideal circumstances, feeling, and mood rather than anything forced. On "Inn i lysande natt," which is streaming below, guitarist Jan Even Åsli trades melodies with himself in a heavily multi-tracked recording. Heavily accentuating Åsli's guitar work, which really defines Vemod's ethereal sound, this (mostly, note Åsli's occasional choral vocals) instrumental track exemplifies the atmospheric acrobatics Vemod champions with their unique sound.

Listen to "Inn i lysande natt" and read an interview with Jan Even Åsli below.

…

…

Vemod has been around much longer than I think fans realize, with material dating back to the early and mid-2000s. How do you view the earlier Vemod days now that you're poised to release your second album? 

Vemod was always there for me. It has been a constant in my life for what feels like forever. Even as a child, playing outside, with the great singing forests just behind our back door, there was a tension, a feeling, a mystery, that somehow felt deeply connected with the music we make today. We keep expanding our horizons, we keep exploring the vastness of this art, but we always return home. The line remains unbroken. 

The earlier eras of Vemod were different, yet the same. The first few years there were some fumbling around to find our own creative feet to stand on, our own home in music. Certainly there were ideas that did not work out as well as others, but fortunately we seem to have managed to keep those away from our recordings. I am very happy with every single release we have done, and I love them all for what they are. This essence we are always searching for, we had it within reach all along, and we did manage to capture it occasionally even from the beginning. I think the difference today is confidence and knowing. We know who we are, we know what we want, and it is mostly a matter of finding the right way to do it. There are still creative choices to make, there always will be, but we feel more confident making them today. There is more light in the darkness. The night sky is brightly starlit.

Vemod releases are generally defined by sporadic recordings and lengthy periods of gestation. Why do you feel Vemod releases demand so much time from you as its creator?

I do not necessarily feel that, but that is how it has played out over the years, and especially for this record. The reasons are manifold and mostly boring, but there is, of course, an element of perfectionism. Our perfectionism is not about the technicality of performance or recording, but feeling and atmosphere. As I said, we know what we want, and sometimes it takes a lot to get there. There were a lot of times during the recording that something did not feel quite right, and when thinking in terms of feel and mood, the reasons are not always logical or obvious. We had the exact same thing going on for Venter på stormene as well, but that project did not have as big of a scope, so we managed to rein it in a somewhat shorter time. (Of course, nobody was waiting for that record, so it was a bit different in that sense.) Our approach to these problems has been, for good or for ill, to take a step back and "sleep on it" for a while. Usually, when we eventually get back at it again, solutions or new paths will reveal themselves, but of course, time goes by quickly with this method. 

I hope that we, as we move forward and gain more recording experience, will be able to keep within stricter schedules in the future. There are many dreams and ideas I wish to capture on tape and make real, so to speak. That said, ultimately, the feeling of a recording is what matters the most in the end, and as we reach for the essence of any given project, we will take the time we feel it needs to get there.

In another interview for Decibel Magazine, we discussed how Vemod isn't necessarily black metal in a strict sense and has more in common with "atmospheric metal." Could you go more into this? 

There is no doubt about the fact that Vemod makes black metal inspired music, black metal adjacent music. The classic early to mid nineties black metal records, from Norway in particular, remains the very fundament of what we are doing. That era, that sound (of, say, the legendary Grieghallen productions or the many great demo tapes of the day), and that feeling was absolutely formative for all of us in the band, and what first brought about the initial spark and the intense urge to create music myself. It is what we always return to, even if we journey far and wide exploring the vastness of the musical world. 

It took quite a few years before I was able to see and express what we are actually trying to do, and to be fair, I am still not entirely certain, but I think that in its essence, it has to do with that very special aforementioned feeling. There was a sense of mystery to many of those recordings, an almost intangible atmosphere that moved beyond the bands themselves somehow, and, I feel, point to something even deeper. There is a nerve, an incredible nerve - it borders on magic. That is what I am interested in, and I later figured it was that more than black metal itself. And this is in essence why I do not consider Vemod black metal, even if we employ many of the musical hallmarks of the genre and lean heavily (and respectfully) on its legacy. 

This atmosphere, this flavor, this spirit (I wish I could find the right words, but for the time being I will just have to repeat myself endlessly with these vague pointers) is of course to be found elsewhere as well, I eventually found out. It is there in other forms of music, like traditional folk music, a variety of electronic, ambient and synthesizer based music, so-called "nordic" jazz with certain Jan Garbarek albums being the most obvious examples, and lots more surely. It is there in certain literature and poetry, even if you have to read between the lines quite a bit. You can search for it in the visual arts, in painting, in photography. And, most importantly, it is there in the landscape, in nature itself. It is simply a matter of staying calm and quiet for long enough to feel it. "Let silence sing" has been a sort of mantra in Vemod, and it is more relevant and true now than perhaps ever before.

And let me say this: These thoughts are very much something that reflects Vemod's creative project in general, and not The Deepening specifically. With this album we expanded our horizons quite a bit, and at the time of writing it feels like an album where it was just as important to explore new ground as to mine for this feeling described above. I think it has its feet placed in two worlds in that sense, and I think we found more ways to express ourselves with this recording. 

People use many tags to describe Vemod, from the aforementioned "atmospheric metal" to "ethereal medieval metal" and so on. How do you feel about these very specific genre attributions?

Well, I am not sure what to call our music myself, so I leave it up to the listeners to find the words they think are suitable. "Atmospheric metal" is extremely vague, but maybe that is a good thing, after all. I use the word "atmospheric" all the time when discussing music, and most people know exactly what I mean, so it must be good for something. Medieval though? I really do not get that one, haha!  

The Deepening was initially announced back in 2018, but many factors like false starts, retracking, and illness got in the way. Was this frustrating at all? What was it like prolonging this album's recording process and its eventual release?

There were frustrations along the way of course, but now that we are past that, I find myself not thinking much about it. There is little to be done about anything at this point, and now that we are here, it feels like just the right time. There are a handful of people whose opinion I care about, and they all seem to respond very positively to the record, and that, along with the fact we are very satisfied ourselves makes everything worth it. It is time for us to look ahead and delve into new projects, and hopefully apply some lessons learned throughout this one. I would of course love for our next ventures to go at least somewhat smoother, but we shall see. 

You once said "the line where Vemod ends and I begin is uncertain." As Vemod is your very personal project, what is it like sharing it with your longtime bandmate Eskil Blix and new-ish bassist Espen Kalstad?

Vemod is personal to me, but in a universal way, if that is not too much of a paradoxical statement. There is nothing in Vemod that deals with my personal life as such, yet it resides right in the midst of it all. We work on the level of myth and mysticism, of deep, lived engagement with and experience of the world in all its facets. That makes it perfect to share with my best friends in life, and it can be just as personal for them as it is for me. I put myself into this, and they put themselves into this, and how they do that, and to what extent, is completely up to them.

Eskil and I celebrated twenty years of friendship this year, and Espen and I are looking at more than twenty five. There is a special sort of language that develops between individuals over a period that long, both personally and musically. Working together is incredibly easy, even if we are slow and a tad bit too considerate at times. Vemod would not be Vemod as we know it without these individuals, and I am beyond grateful for our fellowship. 

Vemod was, at one point, the flagship band for your Fossbrenna Creations cassette label before you shifted operations to Terratur Possessions and now Prophecy Productions. What was it like ceding manufacturing and distribution control to another entity, especially since Prophecy Productions now owns the rights to The Deepening?

It was never our intention to deal with manufacturing and distribution ourselves, so working with professional labels is completely natural. Fossbrenna Creations was a DIY project, my own homage to (a then lost but now seemingly revived) tape culture, and I only ever had demotapes in mind. Keeping Vemod at that level was never really something I even considered, even if I sometimes miss the simplicity of the tape trading days. 

For as popular as Vemod has gotten, you still maintain a steadfast connection to the underground as part of the Nidrosian scene in Nidaros, Norway (otherwise known as Trondheim in modern Norwegian). How do you reconcile this "overground" presence with your love of and connection to underground music?

There is not that much of a distinction to me, to be honest. Where do you draw the line? We do what we do in much the same way as we always have done. Quality music and art has been my focus, and it still is. Remaining underground for the sake of it makes as little sense to me as reaching for commercial success at any cost does. Maybe this used to be more of a contrast in earlier times? It seems to me artists both big and small deal with many of the same issues, only on slightly different levels. And when it comes to Vemod, we are still a pretty small band in my eyes, but we have a dedicated following which I am very grateful for. We are in a good place.

As time passes, we see you active as a full member in fewer and fewer bands (though you are a live member of Whoredom Rife and also Black Majesty). As your focus narrows specifically to Vemod, how do you find yourself dealing with the outside influences which would have resulted in something like a One Tail, One Head riff?

I still have ideas for other projects occasionally, but right now my biggest wish and main focus in my creative life is to get caught up with more of the Vemod related plans, projects and dreams that keep occupying my mind constantly. It would be really good for me to make more of them real and move on, I think. 

There is a lot of creative space within the framework of Vemod, so it rarely feels limiting. There is usually a way to weave whatever comes forth into the already existing patterns. That said, there might come a day where I will feel the need to do something under another banner again, but for now, everything that does not have the Vemod atmosphere but might still be worth exploring, is carefully placed in the archives. For further maturation or for eternal oblivion - who can tell.

Though it's been an equally lengthy period of time since its first and only release, is your ambient project Astral Winds still active? I really loved the tape you released in 2011.

Thank you so much for saying that. I doubt many people know or remember that recording. It holds a special place for me personally, as it was something I wanted to do for a very long time before eventually realizing it. Gylve Nagell used to say that his Neptune Towers project was like "a bad Klaus Schulze demo". Well, Astral Winds was like a bad Neptune Towers demo! And that was the entirety of my ambition with it.

However, I do from time to time work on largely synth based solo music. Time will tell if I ever finish and release something, but I do wish to do so. It would be under a new name then, and probably have a somewhat broader scope.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

Not really, but I have been thinking lately of how important it is to remember to actively look for beauty in the world. To cultivate curiosity, to be open when necessary, and to tend to it with kindness. So I will end with that. Thank you for this conversation.

…

From Jan Even Åsli:

"Inn i lysande natt" was one of the later pieces to be written for The Deepening, and like much of Vemod's music it came in a sudden rush of inspiration, later to be shaped and molded into its final form through repeated play during our trio work sessions. It presents a different approach towards how to build atmosphere for Vemod, and a stylistic combination of elements not unfamiliar to us within the band, but one that might feel somewhat novel for our listeners. To us, "Inn i lysande natt" speaks of the vast mountain plains and the grand sky above, where mind and matter melts together to one momentous, fully integrated experience of life.

…

The Deepening release January 19th via Prophecy Productions.