15 Oct 2023 - Thorsten

Some of our interviews are audio only for a good reason and today’s is such an occasion. 夢遊病者 (or “Sleepwalker”) are one of these enigmatic bands that see their members as mere vessels for songs and structures that are already there but only need to be turned into sound. The musicians behind it thus become somewhat obsolete and therefore irrelevant. Nevertheless we are happy to talk with one of them - and this not in a written form as we did roughly two years ago but as a podcast interview!

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08 Oct 2023 - Thorsten

Very often we hear those silly jokes about the bass player who has an idea for a song and is then thrown out by his bandmates. But in a band like The Hirsch Effekt that surely is not the case as all three band members have their hand in the songwriting process and that makes for this awesome concoction that one hears on their records. Just recently they released their latest one called Urian. Reason enough to sit down for a talk!

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01 Oct 2023 - Thorsten

SubRosa is dead. Whether we like it or not. Yet their legacy continues as two really good projects have risen from their ashes - one is The Otolith, which we featured heavily on VoS last year and now we have The Keening, which is the new project by Rebecca Vernon. Her new record is coming up next week Friday and therefore we sat down with her and chatted about the new record called Little Bird, about Stevie Nicks and about much more. Enjoy!

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24 Sep 2023 - Thorsten

Grails have just released a new record and it is more than awesome, as you can already see by our review. The band has always been hard to grasp, but one thing never seems to change and that’s the high quality of their output. We spoke with Emil Amos, one of the two band leaders, about Anches en Maat (check out our review here) and much more especially about the love for movie sounds. Enjoy!

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17 Sep 2023 - Thorsten

Denovali Records has always been a label for lovers of sound - and that has never restricted itself to one genre alone. That’s why one could find Drone Metal alongside experimental music alongside an act like Hidden Orchestra, which is going to release a new album next Friday, September 22. And as our head honcho is a huge fan he was very happy to sit down with HO’s mastermind Joe Acheson for a long, detailed interview.

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10 Sep 2023 - Thorsten

Black Metal itself is a highly paradox genre right? It’s always been connected to both - furor and melancholy. Musically, Atmospheric Black Metal represents that probably best, and one upcoming Atmospheric Black Metal band from the Northeastern USA (aka New England) that does that brilliantly is Eave. As we were proud to host a video premiere for them some weeks back, we are even happier that we got a chance to talk to Brian and hear some of his thoughts.

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03 Sep 2023 - Thorsten

Transit. Transition. Transformation. All words that share more than just the starting syllable. All also indicate a progression from one “spot” to another. Rylan Gleave has gone through such a progression which we already spoke about in our review of his debut album In Chemical Transit which took us by surprise because it plays on and with audio from three very different periods of time in Rylan’s life. Furthermore it is a literally mesmerizing record as it combines Avantgarde soundscapes with real Classical vocal lines and songs. More than enough reasons to sit down and talk to Rylan.

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26 Aug 2023 - Thorsten

Having common friends are sometimes a really great thing when they introduce you to great artists who do not get enough attention which is about to change right now. The common friend who introduced me to Loather is Ralph from Ultha who also invited the guys from Vienna to his Unholy Passion fest in 2022. Now the guys have a new record out via Vendetta Records called Eis and I must say it is a really good Atmospheric Black Metal record with loads of spherical moments and still a lot of wonderfully dark bits. Reason enough to sit down with two of the guys for an interview.

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19 Aug 2023 - Thorsten

Khanate and their new record were one of the biggest surprises in 2023, simply dropping their fifth full-length without any official hints, promotion or anything on May 19. Everyone’s feed was dominated by the news and everyone automatically went ahead to listen to it. The record has now had time to settle in and people were able to dive into To Be Cruel and as we are sure that there are still things that need clarification and explanation! Hence we were happy to get together with drummer Tim Wyskida to talk about the record and loads of things related to it!

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16 Aug 2023 - Simon

We are very pleased that leading UK post metal band Hundred Year Old Man sat down to speak to us with regards to life, the universe and everything in between.

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13 Aug 2023 - Thorsten

Mizmor has released his fourth full-length called Prosaic and has taken a new approach trying to not let a new record become an obsession, not trying to go for a full-fledged overarching theme. Nevertheless, this record is simply great, magnificent, superb, whichever positive adjective you wanna give it. In order to find out more about the process, the record and its place within his oeuvre, we talked with ALN. We’re very happy to give you this interview and we hope it makes your listening even more interesting and enjoyable (YES!)!

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06 Aug 2023 - Thorsten

Stephen Brodsky should be a household name in our realms because he’s been in famous bands for close to 30 years - Cave-In, Converge (YES! for a very short time), Droneflower, Old Man Gloom and Mutoid Man to drop a few. His voice and his guitar playing has flavored many of our most beloved records. The last band, Mutoid Man, has released a new record called Mutants a few weeks ago. You can check out our review here, but for us here at VoS that’s not enough, so we talked to Stephen about the new songs, the influences on Mutoid Man and much more.

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30 Jul 2023 - Thorsten

Inevitably Dark might be seen as a return to Black Metal made by Xasthur for some old school fans. However, one might be asking the questions whether Xasthur ever really was “only” Black Metal or if the project has not really been about much more than only BM? When talking to Scott one gets the impression that this record is - for the time being - a momentarily return only because he has already been off to completely different shores.

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23 Jul 2023 - Thorsten

No Wilderness Deep Enough was surely a different record for Steve von Till - as he also points out in this interview. Wait - interview with Von Till? Yes! We were very fortunate to talk to the man himself, a mere 14 hours before he left for Europe where he will be touring for several weeks starting on Thursday, July 27, in Krakow.

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23 Jul 2023 - Thorsten

There are bands who you can’t be angry with even though they might overthrow any plans you might have made - Bell Witch is one of them and when thinking back on Roadburn Friday and the massively packed main stage at the 013 - it is clear that many people simply love these guys for what they do as that is massive and miraculous, powerful and poetic. Whenever Jesse and Dylan release a new record, the scene is listening and justifiedly so, thus we needed to get an interview with the guys! Enjoy!

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16 Jul 2023 - Thorsten

Boris - a name like thunder. Uniform - lightning strikes. Boris & Uniform together = a quite explosive mixture, right? Listening to their collaboration Bright New Disease is not necessarily lightning in a bottle or a molotov cocktail but rather a high-profile combining of forces which results in a record that never lets you down and exceeds expectations. One can hear the Japanese masters and also the elements by our beloved New Yorkers potioners. Having a chance to get to talk with Uniform about the record and a lot of others things? Yes, no question! Enjoy our interview!

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09 Jul 2023 - Thorsten

Whenever people talk about the early 90s and music, it will not take a long time before the label Sub Pop has to be dropped it seems because it back then was the label to be on as a band and the label to follow as a fan. They had Nirvana and loads of other bands that were changing what was alternative music back then. Sub Pop also had a band from New York under record that was called Codeine which kind of stood out from the rest as their sound was less aggressive, but not laid back. It was less screaming yet not calm whispers. When we heard that the band would be re-releasing some of their stuff we knew we had to get them for an interview! And here we are now…

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02 Jul 2023 - Thorsten

Love’s Holiday is the latest record by Oxbow, one of the seminal bands of the last 40 years. Admittedly, they’re quite a bands’ band in the sense that many musicians seem to tumble over each other praising the San Francisco outfit for their no-compromises approach to music and oftentimes simultaneously genre-defying and genre-defining records, think of King of the Jews or The Thin Black Duke! Having been given the chance to talk with the band about the upcoming album was not to be denied, especially since we got all band members together!

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25 Jun 2023 - Thorsten

Wearer Of Numerous Forms is maybe the longest record in our little scene this year with more than 130 minutes in just three songs. Eremit have shown their songwriting skills and how far the songs can take them. Wait - who is directed who now? The band writing the songs or the songs directing the band? Simple answer - the story.

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23 Jun 2023 - Simon

We were lucky enough to sit down with Drew Vernon from the brilliant Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster and his new project Sloganyear for an insightful chat about the status of both, his dream festival and much much more! Enjoy

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18 Jun 2023 - Thorsten

A few weeks from now, the new record by Jaye Jayle will hit the (digital) shelves and we were quite taken with it, because it fits like a glove to what we like. No, this is not Avantgarde Death Black Gothic Post-Drum’n’Bass, this is music without real borders, but for everyone who loves music for the soul. This is music in the vein of Edwards, Cohen, Johnson. Music that speaks directly to your core and that has the potential of becoming a cult classic - so you join before the hype sets in. Enjoy our interview with Evan Patterson and the many things he tells us about the record, its process and much more.

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11 Jun 2023 - Thorsten

Bar McKinnon is one of those guys who are first off well-versed in so many things music that it seems as if they can talk about anything and everything all at once anywhere and everywhere. However, secondly, he might be the most energetic and enthusiastic guys you might meet out there - one can feel the Zoom connection beaming and gleaming when he starts to give a detailed answer. Why do we talk to him? Well, Umlaut, Teleorkestra and Bungle!

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04 Jun 2023 - Thorsten

A few weeks ago we published an excerpt from Michael Tau’s book Extreme Music which deals with many aspects of music of the extreme kind, which does not necessarily mean that this is a chronology of Grindcore or Brutal Tech Death Slam Metal. Neither is he seeking out the most Avantgardish Throatsinging Mongolian or Himalayan Yak-bone-instrumented Noise-Pop, but he tries to define what is extreme music. We wanted you to send in some questions and we are happy we got several really good ones to ask Michael in this interview! Nerds of the world unite!

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29 May 2023 - Thorsten

Nightmarer is a pretty young band compared to some of the projects and people we have on here regularly, think of Dirk Serries or Mike Watt, but the international band spread out across two continents and roughly 5,000 miles. Nevertheless, Nightmarer have released some pretty good album and their last one, Deformity Adrift (check out our review here) is a sensational lesson in how good dissonant Tech-Death can be. Reason enough for us to sit down and chat with Simon, the mastermind behind the project! Enjoy!

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21 May 2023 - Thorsten

Loud as Giants is a collaboration which has been a long time coming, because they have had a mutual love for the other’s work for decades: Justin K. Broadrick and Dirk Serries. Their debut full-length “Empty Homes” can see seen as a perfect example of what happens, when two well-experienced and highly-skilled musicians work together with a mututal respect for the contributions of the other. Their four songs (combining for more than 46 minutes of music!) are wonderfully melancholic pieces between Ambient, Post-Rock, Industrial and even Shoegaze! Hence we simply had to talk to Dirk and get some more background information, on how they met, how the project developed and what is has got to do with the Pandemic! Enjoy the interview!

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