Influenza

[Darkcrawl]

Just a wee topic concerning the main influences on The Axis. You guys have made it clear previously that bands like Void of Silence, Megaptera, Maeror Tri, Emperor (early Axis), Kammarheit, etc have been influential to a degree. I was also wondering whether bands like Esoteric (some of the slower doomier parts of 'Deleted Scenes...' kind of make me think of them), Lustmord or Moljebka Pvlse (the occasional droney guitar reminds more of Pulsefear and Troum but still makes me think of The Axis at times- especially the building dread of the Dvnkl album) influence or are enjoyed by the band?
Hopefully, this isn't a repeat of an existing topic.
Thanks in advance!

[Mike]

I will answer this in detail after I've finished moving house, but for now, out of Esoteric's albums it's "The Pernicious Enigma" specifically. I got that in '99 and it sent me on a psychedelic voyage. The two after that didn't really give me the same buzz, but I haven't heard the new one yet.

[Darkcrawl]

I too like The Pernicious Enigma. The new one is very good indeed! My personal favourite is 'Metamorphogenesis', though.
Good luck moving house!

[Tyranor]

Damn, they were the last band on Brutal Assault festival but unfortunately my tiredness surpassed curiosity so I missed them. One just can't see all and every band in the world. I hope there will be another opportunity.

[Dalihrob]

Well Esoteric were really cool on Brutal assault.
First half sounded like some kind of hypnotic noise and second finally reminded that suffocating mud they perform on album.

[Mike]

I think the dark ambient influences are fairly self evident. Maeror Tri's "Emotional Engramm" was my introduction to this field, and remains in my top 5 records of all time. General Cold Meat stuff, Gruntsplatter, Nordvargr, lots. More recently I've been going straight to the source and listening heavily to Throbbing Gristle and Coil and learning a lot of lessons from that. Swans, too. Also, through my masters, I've learned a lot about electroacoustic composition and composers like Stockhausen, plus serialism, microtonality etc, which have also informed my practices, if subtly. Angelo Badalamenti and Ulver for the "nice" bits.

Our Godflesh influence has ramped up considerably on "Urfe"; the song "Go Spread Your Wings" especially. Esoteric I've already answered, and that remains a strong influence on our doomier stuff, as with Void of Silence. Emperor does remain a reference point for the faster stuff, "Anthems" was my introduction to black metal so it's always going to be in there somewhere. I wouldn't say we're influenced by Blut Aus Nord or Deathspell Omega, they're more contemporaries really, but we do take notice of what they're doing and respond within our own music, without fracturing our own character. For example, even in Minethorn back at the turn of the millenium we'd been stringbending and balancing tonal dissonances between the two guitars, but listening to "The Work Which Transforms God" reminded us how effective it could be, and inspired us to use more of each on "Deleted Scenes".

However, if we're really going to get into the roots of my writing style, I'm going to have to dredge up some relatively unexpected references. Firstly, two of my favourite bands in my early teens were Bernard Butler era-Suede and John Frusciante circa "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", and I was very taken with the way their riffs tended to be in continuous flux, full of little variations and improvisations. Ultimately in fact, I suppose that's Hendrix.
Though there's little of it immediately audible in the albums, I'm also a massive fan of Bowie and Nick Cave. I wrote a little piece on Bowie's "1. Outside" album for Terrorizer a few months back; that one in particular has left its mark on Axis, particularly Mike Garson's piano style, the cinematic scope and the integration of a fragmented narrative concept. Nick Cave just rules, period.

Secondly, my approach to scales. Over the years I've accumulated a repertoire of particular chords and patterns that I use as my signature Axis style. I'd like to think that it was instantly recognisable, even when compared to BAN or DSO, but who knows. However, the origin of these scales can be traced to a couple of composers, one in particular. Arthur Honegger's darker material, such as "Symphony no.1" and "Litergique" got to me quite a lot when I first heard them. However, more of an influence would be Mark Anthony Turnage. First and foremost, listen to "Your Rockaby", note the use of lead saxophone in conjunction with other instruments then think of my guitar style - hopefully you'll notice things. Also try "Three Screaming Popes", his attempt at transposing Francis Bacon's work into music. Brilliant stuff.

I think that's all the important stuff.

[Darkcrawl]

Thanks for taking time to answer, that's much more info. than I expected with, as you said, some unexpected names cropping up. I'll try to have a listen to some of the ones I'm not familiar with.

[Tyranor]

That was impressive post above. I already checked Arthur Honneger. As I'm quite into classic/contemporary academic music I found his symphonic works to be truly magnificent. I wonder why I didn't discover him earlier. Mark Anthony Turnage is harder to come by. Given to that I enjoy Francis Bacon's works to great extent so to hear Three Screaming Popes is a sort of mandatory thing.
Also about contemporary techniques. I would hardly imagine TOAP's composition based on serialism for instance but so far I am just familiar with Pierre Boulez a bit so I don't feel educated very much on topic of serialism. For current Axis direction microtonality (perhaps fretless guitars required for metal parts here) and even twelve-tone system would work fine in my opinion.
Thanks Myklon.

[The Moderator]

Well, not based on serialism by any means, just informed by it. Aware of it, really. The thing with Boulez is his technique of "irrigating" music with meaning that we've exploited. You might have to dig up some academic papers if you want to read up on it, but it's definitely been helpful. It comes up most with discussions of "Le Marteau Sans Maitre" (I really can't remember the spelling but it's something like that).
There's moments on "Urfe" where the backing music to the narrative is a convoluted, heavily processed subtext that's been warped to the point where it just sounds like ambient texture rather than voice, but I like to think that the inherent, deeply buried meaning still creates a subtle impact.

[adversarius]

How about Lustmord influences, are there any of those?

[adversarius]

Just checked out the "Emotional Engramm" album by Maeror Tri, and I was hooked at the first listen. Have they made anything in the same vein?

[Tyranor]

I guess you could check Pulsefear. "A doting ambient mother of The Axis of Perdition" or so they say. An entity that "drones" pretty much in a similar way. Just go to the hall of The District Community. There you'll find out more things about it.

[adversarius]

I actually listen to Pulsefear already, I love Perichoresis. I would love to find more horror-themed drone/noise/ambient in the same style.

[Darkcrawl]

Mar 3, 2009 17:13:37 GMT adversarius said:

I actually listen to Pulsefear already, I love Perichoresis. I would love to find more horror-themed drone/noise/ambient in the same style.

There are many artists but the closest would be Maeror Tri/Troum, Kammarheit and a wealth of others.
My personnal favourites in addition to these are Moljebka Pvlse, Sephiroth, Raison d'être, Lustmord, Northaunt, RAAN and recently Cities Last Broadcast. I'm sure there are others but I'm having a bit of a block at the moment.

[Tyranor]

Hm...Try Megaptera and Negru Voda, Deadwood, Sistrenatus, Exsanguinate, Melek-Tha, already mentioned Gruntsplatter, New Risen Throne, Omei could be few additional examples .