Influenza

[Mike]

I've just reread this and realised that despite mentioning him in every interview, I've neglected to talk about Scott Walker's "The Drift" here. It's an album that could eat you and spit out the bones, if it wasn't so damn cultured.

[TheHierophant]

I was wondering if you guys know death metal band Portal, if not, I advise you strongly to watch the "Glummurphonel" live, it's pure aggressive horror therefore it's impossible for words to describe what horror means... We can't really say that Portal is for Death Metal what The Axis is for hum ... Black Avant-Garde Cinematic Ambient Metal.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=emrBZZtGFgI

[Phormlyss]

I find scott walkers work enjoyable. However I cannot determine whether or not his vocal style truly fits the music, or, if the fact that ive only heard it with his voice accompanying the music makes it fit.

[trauma]

Sept 13, 2008 19:10:32 GMT Mike said:

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.

I'm quite abhorring Gruntsplatter (un)thank you for the mention. Also what did you mean by General Cold Meat stuff, are you perhaps referring to the label Cold Meat Industries?

[Mike]

Yeah, a lot of CMI stuff in there, but if anything over the last five years or so they've been completely overtaken by Cyclic Law. Pretty much everything they've put out has been inspiring stuff. I've also gotten quite obsessed with Tom Waits since mid-2008 or so, he's been informing my work subtly since then.

Also, I've noticed recently Lustmord have been mentioned a lot in relation to Urfe (usually in a "this is like a crap version of Lustmord" kind of way). I've tried various Lustmord releases and I know he's founding father and innovator of dark ambient and all that, but everything I've heard has been somewhat unsatisfying. I had "Heresy" and "Other" on the other day and neither of them did much for me.

[Darkcrawl]

Jan 30, 2011 18:04:25 GMT Mike said:

Yeah, a lot of CMI stuff in there, but if anything over the last five years or so they've been completely overtaken by Cyclic Law. Pretty much everything they've put out has been inspiring stuff. I've also gotten quite obsessed with Tom Waits since mid-2008 or so, he's been informing my work subtly since then.

Also, I've noticed recently Lustmord have been mentioned a lot in relation to Urfe (usually in a "this is like a crap version of Lustmord" kind of way). I've tried various Lustmord releases and I know he's founding father and innovator of dark ambient and all that, but everything I've heard has been somewhat unsatisfying. I had "Heresy" and "Other" on the other day and neither of them did much for me.

Agree about Cyclic Law, their releases have been very consistantly excellent. Regarding Lustmord, the only releases I like are 'Other' and 'The Place where the Black Stars Hang', the track 'Metastatic Resonance' in particular (which is itself almost copied from the TAGC song Burning Water). However, this is more deep-spacey dark ambient, quite hypnotic. Never liked Heresy much, though.

[trauma]

Jan 30, 2011 18:04:25 GMT Mike said:

Yeah, a lot of CMI stuff in there, but if anything over the last five years or so they've been completely overtaken by Cyclic Law. Pretty much everything they've put out has been inspiring stuff..

Care to reccomend a few releases? I'm definitely more interested in the stuff in the industrial/horror ambient/drone vein. Like Nordvagr, Gruntsplatter... stuff such as that.

[Mike]

Your first stop should be Kammarheit and Cities Last Broadcast, both the work of Par Bostrom. When Les recorded his vocal takes for "Urfe" we hadn't written any of the backing music yet, so to help him get into the vibe we played Kammarheit's "The Starwheel" on repeat in the background.

[trauma]

Thanks, I'll gve them a listen, and hopefully enjoy it. I doubt it though...

[Tyranor]

I thought this must be mentioned, since as I'm informed, both "Chained to a Damnation Asylum" and "Born Under Knife Live in Pain" share some relations to "The Hounds of Tindalos".
The "father" of these extra-dimensional creatures is Frank Belknap Long. There is short story by the same name (it was published in 1931), but before it The Space-eaters came to this world...