An Interview with Aleksandar Nenad of Nocturne magazine (#7, June 2008)


Hello Master! How are you?

MW: Hullo! As well as can be expected. Growing a tentacle mullet.

New Aarni mindfuck is out! Tell me something about releasing it and what are the reactions and other shits?

MW: It wasn’t my fault! Epidemie Records released it. As usual, some people find Tohcoth "too experimental", freaked-out or "unlike Bathos", but most have praised it - if I understood their disjointed, babbling utterances correctly.

Why you change the label retards?

MW: It wasn’t voluntary, because the previous "retards" kind of kicked Aarni and a lot of other bands out practically in mid-contract. But so not, it turned out good after all for the new "retards" aka Epidemie Records offered what I consider a better deal.

You told me that you are working on new Aarni shitness, like on new Umbra Nihil, too. Tell me something about that...

MW: I work on my charming guitar solos for the forthcoming Umbra Nihil album, which I think is clearly the band’s best effort yet in many many wonderful and special ways.
New Aarni: working on the Lovecraftian third album as well as unrelated, more dadaistic individual songs. Those will be put online for the hell of it and also will hopefully find their way onto a CD release at some point. Because obviously the sound quality of mp3s sucks ass - especially with the size limits of most online music sites.

I guess the new stuff is more metal and far less influenced by 70’s prog rock than Tohcoth. In other words a kind of partial return to the style of previous Aarni shit. The Lovecraftian album will also be a serious homage to the man himself and his great stories & imagination, so I will try to leave off the fooling around and playfulness. All the lyrics will be from Lovecraft, mostly from his underestimated poems. Traditional poetry naturally can be pretty easily made into song lyrics and HPL is no exception. Need I even say that the album’s atmosphere will accordingly be quite dark, with the Dreamlands songs lightening the mood temporarily.

Damned! I was laughing out loud when I heard song The Battle Hymn of The Eristocracy for the first time and as more as I have listen it, it was more listenable and I enjoy in that. Tell me something about this song and why keyboard sounds like they are from some children cartoon?

MW: Er, the keyboard has a classic moog lead sound...the gliding whistling sound used by the likes of Pink Floyd, Camel and Hawkwind in their heyday. I tweaked the sound somewhat to be sillier and closer to a tinny Casio home organ or such. The song is simply the anthem from Principia Discordia, which I expect every listener of Aarni to be fully familiar with. Hence the slightly altered US Civil War tune and lyrics from the cult book in question.
Doesn’t sound familiar? Then hide your ignorance and quickly and secretly fuck off to read the Principia! Your life will be changed along with your sex fnord.

Let's be nice and introduce us, retards, about new album. So, please describe song by song.

MW: -Coniuratio Sadoquae: the inspiration for the music came to me during a "morning after" and I recorded the stuff in one day. I had wanted to make a song related to the Cthulhu mythos entity Tsathoggua since about 1998 ev and now finally did it. The Latin lyrics are by Lovecraft from the fictional book ‘De Vermis Mysteriis’ with some additions by myself.

-The Hieroglyph: perhaps the most coherent and ‘mainstream metal’ song on the album, based on an old riff idea. I thought the Qabalistic lyrics (from some obscure text on the subject, I forget which) would fit with the medieaval-style melodies.

-Riding Down..: despite the title, musically not very Cthulhoid in my opinion, but rather a homage to Camel at least for the first part. Melodic harmonies abound and blah blah...

-Arouse Coiled Splendour: Another more or less coherent track with some harmonies constructed according to the principles of Pythagorean/Masonic/Hermetic 'sacred geometry'. The lyrics deal with the ‘Qabalistic fairytale’ of Tetragrammaton formula according to the Hermetic/Alchemical/Jungian etc. version. The title is also a Crowley reference.

-Logos: ambient levitation with sung Crowley lyrics, cleaned original 1920's recording samples and reversed Christian chanting. Music otherwise wholly done with synths. Again also the title is intended as a Crowley reference.

-All Along The Watchtowers: after the Jimi Hendrix beginning, the song musically slows down mostly to a lagging funeral doom dirge with polyrhytmic parts and other such gimmicks. Lyrics in Enochian, the grammar and syntax of which are carefully gleaned from Dr. John Dee’s original texts and pronounciation guidelines, but reworked into new sentences by myself. The English translation for this song can be found as usual on the Aarni website.
Some sound effects/instruments have been included to imitate the sounds heard by Dee and Kelley during the Enochian workings/manifestations. Interestingly enough some of these sounds are also mentioned in modern reports on poltergeist activity and other paranormal phenomena.

-Chapel Perilous: Another track starting as a 70’s prog piece and turning into something else as befits the title. A soundtrack to the chaotic & sometimes unpleasant state of being lost in the Chapel Perilous aka ‘the dark night of the soul’. Hence the unpleasant music :)

-The Sound of One I Opening: fucking about musically with jazzy and more obscure styles...sitar-influenced electric guitar jamming and less bearable stuff. Lyrics a not-entirely-serious running commentary on the dangers of religions aka ignorance with heavy quotes from Crowley, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, Hakim Bey and so forth. A kind of "spot the quote" exercise for the listener. I promise not to release such tiresome music again!

-The Battle Hymn of the Eristocracy: see the answer to question no. 5...simply: a hymn to Eris by a born-again believer. All hail Discordia!

-Barbelith: another attempt to convert the listener into alternative reality-tunnels. Sociopolitical commentary, reality criticism. See 'The Sound...' above, once again "spot the quotes". The title hopefully relevantly refers to the masterpiece comics series ‘The Invisibles’ by the magus guru Grant Morrison.

-Iku-Turso: the most epic song on the album, maybe. Also the one I wrote first if I recall correctly. The lyrics are a poem by Finnish poet celebrity Eino Leino. They deal darkly with the personal problems of an immortal thurisaz or ‘eternal sea-giant’. Again, for the translation see Aarni’s webshite.

Hmm... When I listen careful Iku-Turso, I can hear some Serbian words like: "Cigan-Mala" (gipsy hood), "Sper-ma" (sperm), "Umire mi tajfun" (my tornado is dying), "Kupaj mi kera" (wash my dog).. Explain it! Damned!

MW: What’s to explain? You hear what you need to hear!

Who are the folks on the cover? :)

MW: Some of our sponsors. Almost all of them are widely considered as important people...do you?

Tell me honestly, my Master, was you drunk when you have recorded new songs or just get drunk when we make "shits" by msn?

MW: Sometimes, naturally. But only during some of the vocals recordings...

What are you listening in last time? Some krautrock? Kayo Dot?

MW: Currently Black Sabbath, Kayo Dot, Opeth, Maudlin of the Well, Candlemass, John Dowland, Iron Maiden, Phil Thornton, Miles Davis, Aghora and Warning to name a few. I don’t listen to music that much...maybe once or twice a week I put something on.

How are you taking care of Doomintroll? Where are you working?

MW: Lovingly but unfairly. I work at a coprolith quarry, the job’s pretty shit.

In the lovely booklet for Bathos has been some shitty poll. Tell me does anyone answer correctly and got weekend with the band?

MW: Everyone who answered correctly got the prize. You know who you are!

Will you like most to meet reincarnated Einstein or Lovecraft?

MW: I’d like to meet Einstein resurrected by the reincarnation of Lovecraft.

What’s for so big fascination with Lovecraft?

MW: I always enjoy cases of great genius combined with extreme neuroticism. Makes for nice unbalanced art of superior quality...been reading and rereading his stuff since 1986 ev.

I will not fuck you anymore! Say hello to Doomintroll, Comte de Saint Germain and of course super-sexy Mistress Palm! I must little masturbate on her picture! All the best! Hear you...

MW: Er...thanks, I guess. And the same to you!