With
the new Culted record due, The Sludgelord and Earsplit have teamed up
with Kevin from the band to present their own track by track
description of the record. For anyone who doesn't know the band.
Culted are:
Band
Members
Daniel
Jansson - words, voice, ambience
Matthew
Friesen - guitar, bass, percussion, noise
Michael
Klassen - guitar, bass, percussion, noise
Kevin
Stevenson - drums, percussion
with
Erik
Larsen-additional sound, modular synths
Bio
Although
they've been together for about two years, the four members of Culted
have never actually been in the same room. Michael Klassen
(guitar/bass/percussion/noise), Matthew Friesen
(guitar/bass/percussion/noise) and Kevin Stevenson (drums) all grew
up in a small town in the middle of the Canadian prairies, while
Daniel Jansson (vocals/ambience) makes his home in Gothenburg,
Sweden.
After
hearing Jansson’s Deadwood project, Klassen contacted him through
his MySpace page to see if he’d be interested in collaborating on
his and Friesen’s other band, Of Human Bondage. While emailing back
and forth, the guys discovered they had mutual interests in groups
like Khanate, Sunn O))) and Electric Wizard and Jansson suggested
they put together a whole new project of slow, blackened metal.
Because
Friesen and Klassen work out of a home studio in Winnipeg, Manitoba,
they were able to write and record the guitar/bass/drum files and
send them to Jansson. “I remember when I heard the first riffs I
thought, fucking awesome! I really wanted to get back into metal
again after only doing Industrial music for about two years, and the
initial guitar tracks just blew me away. I really heard a will to
experiment and create some really dark oppressive tunes,” Jansson
said. Inspired by what he heard, he wrote and recorded the vocals at
his studio and sent them back to his Canadian collaborators. “When
Daniel sent us the vocals I was floored, the tracks we’d recorded
were now songs. What remained was to flesh them out and do justice to
his performance,” Klassen said. And over the next several months,
the guys continued tweaking their sound, and the files flew back and
forth as more percussion, guitars, keyboards and noise were added.
Although
the four members of the band still have never spoken to each other in
real time, they got to know each other through the music, making
Culted a truly collaborative effort across international lines.
Oblique
to All Paths Commentary Track-By-Track
Brooding
Hex:
Daniel
has a habit of listening to a song in its nascent stages and
finding the name that defines the song. “Tyrant
Cold” off of “Below the Thunders” is a prime example. The man
is gifted. I understood this song better once I realized it was a
“brooding hex.” It’s funny, the first two minutes of this song
are the only parts I ever tried recording additional takes on the
drums, and after half a dozen takes it never panned out how I hoped,
and so it was cut. I repeat, funny. We definitely like the
instrumentation to be raw. Improvisation and authentic experience has
always been paramount for this band. And alienation. But we can’t
take credit for that.
Daniel,
Mike, Eric, and Matt did some amazing work getting this song to feel
so big. There is quite a sense of space that makes the more
minimalist instrumental parts seem to echo. There is a sludgy riff
around 5-6 minutes in that I like, the bass underneath sounds so
prickly and edgy. There is a sense of a marshalling about this song
as well, a mustering of warriors still steeped in the old ways.
The glory black metal guitar that serves as climax for this song
caught me off guard the first time I heard it, must be the major
chords. For some reason, sometimes the faster Mike plays guitar, the
slower I drum…if our calculations are correct, by the end of the
song you should be cursed.
Illuminati:
Most
people who think to peek behind the curtains of society get enamoured
with hatred of religion, of the priests and so forth. Fair enough. I
kind of think it’s the temple builders who are really at the heart
of all this. Look at their symbols, no god goes unmarked or unnamed.
A family of products. No matter what god you sacrifice to, your
offering is placed upon a genuine, guild-designed and stamped altar.
Religion: talk about a self-propagating market. This is brand
loyalty. Got some people you’d like to oppress? Have we got the
temple for you.
Matt’s
tasty riff manages to be accessible and esoteric at the same time.
Emotionally speaking, the song adheres to ancient culting protocols.
Initial spectacle - confusing and mesmerising, followed by a languid
contentment, then morbid curiosity, horror, the relief and ecstasy of
conformity, and finally internalization of doctrine. Please send us
your money.
Intoxicant
Immuration:
Daniel
really upped his already massive game on this album. His vocals
continue to blow me away. Love the spoken stuff. “I’m the crow on
your shoulder feeding you the blood of serpent” scared the shit out
of me first time I heard it. Didn’t even have the record on yet.
Interesting
how some things are labelled poison. Who put this skull and
crossbones here anyway? Sometimes poison is labelled as knowledge.
Sometimes knowledge is labelled as poison. You might have to drink it
to know the difference, but usually you can just watch somebody else
drink it. You can tell - even if they can’t. Aural intoxication.
Some people drink anything handed to them.
The
guys really took us to new places in this song, I think maybe we did
things on this album that we didn’t feel comfortable doing on the
last album. Me anyway. I know my definition of doom has broadened, as
well as my appreciation for atmosphere, ambience, and all things
industrial.
March
of the Wolves:
This
is classic Mike riffage. Starving, flea-bitten dogs finally getting
their bones. Crunchy.
Distortion
of the Nature of Man:
I
think this was all Daniel. Original Sin/Message. Thematically I think
this applies to all of the songs on this album. I don’t know if
we’ve ever produced anything so unified. Daniel’s imagery is
meaty.
Transmittal:
This
is probably my favourite on the album. What is message and what is
not? Many people go through life obeying or rejecting messages, and
nothing more. Like there could be nothing gleaned from a message
other than commands, instructions. Some people don’t ever look at
all the stuff that got put into them before they knew that
people could put stuff into them. We purchase
messages like things. We collect them, hoarding obedience. Obedience
is the fuel of all wars and all destructive acts perpetrated
collectively. Nothing massive could be built without it. Social
structures are always usurped once they have proven their power and
utility. Like the EPA, labour unions, or Folk Fest. The key to human
survival on Earth lies in disobedience. Disobedience often only
damages the machineries of obedience. Of course, left too long, the
machineries are people. They’re made from people.
This
song for me evokes the ringing of bells. Ringing in their lofty
towers. Bells are the ancestors of commercial jingles, and video
screens are but the scions of flaming hearths. I know you stare
stupefied. I know you hear the summons. The boundaries of time and
space are for us demarcated by bells. And whistles, don’t forget
whistles. I don’t really hear any whistles in this song, although
feedback is kind of like a guitar whistling, I guess. Also, I have to
take some responsibility for the Swedish death metal part near the
end of this song. I’m not sorry, but I am sorry
for not being sorry.
Jeremiad:
This
sums up the album well. The labels of the masters being absorbed and
rejected at the same time, depending on what is perceived as message.
I think Daniel really captures the psychological and emotional
exhaustion of swimming through contradictory mores, clashing dictums,
and above all false dichotomies. I think there is something
uncomfortably laborious about this tune. I recall it being my
favourite song to practice. By myself. These tempos are challenging -
Ent Rock.
Thanks
to Kev from Culted and Earsplit PR for putting this great article
together. You can buy – Oblique To All Paths – on CD/Vinyl
from Relapse
Records and DD/Vinyl from BandCamp now.
Check Culted from links below:
Check Culted from links below:
