Late 80s and early 90s in freezing Norway. From the roots of Black Metal and Dark Ambient was born a new sound that was going to give life to the darkest creatures of fantastic and mythological literature, wizardry and the Gothic and medieval world, the Dungeon Synth or dungeon synthesizer was born.
And behind this birth the stage name of its undisputed creator, MORTIIS, the man behind the mask of the dark goblin, who was a founding member of the legendary Emperor and who, after leaving the band, began his own solo journey towards a new direction.
It is an honor for Metal Music Clan to interview MORTIIS and present their recent great work "Spirit Of Rebellion", a job where he returns to the old sound of his early stages or "eras" after a prolific musical career where he has been covering various styles within the electronic sound, industrial rock, darkwave and ambient gothic style.
Without nothing else to add we leave you with the words of the great MORTIIS..
Please introduce us to your new album and tell us what we can find in it.
- It started as a reinterpretation of my 1994 album "Ånden som Gjorde Opprør" but quickly became it's own album, as i started adding all kinds of new melodies, rhythms, percussion choires and just a lot of new music in general, as well as changing the arrangements a lot. i realised after a while that i was in fact creating a new record.
2. How about the work done by Omnipresence / Dead Seed records? Are you satisfied with the final result?
- Yeah I think Dead Seed did a good job. the album looks great. That's where Dead Seed are good, getting a nice packaging job done.
3. Which is the reason that Mortiis has resumed the sound of its origins with Spirit Of Rebellion "?
- It was just the right time. While we were still making the industrial metal type music, I was thinking a lot about bringing the mask image back, and once we decided
to put the band on a break, i thought it would be a really good time to start doing something solo again, and obviously it was just natural for me to go back to my roots
at that point. everything seemed to happen for a reason, so that was really good.
4.In 2019 Mortiis made a great tour of northern Europe and has recently toured the USA.
How was the experience? Any good, bad or anecdote memories to share from your latest live shows?
- Well I went all over the world really, and toured the US in 2019 and earlier this year too. I mean I think the incident in Ecuador where we thought we were being kidnapped
by the promoter stands out, or in Bolivia when the promoter had gotten drunk on Whisky during the show, and was also supposed to drive us back to the airport right after the
tour to make the plane to the next show, and drove the car too hard so it broke down in the middle of the La Paz slum, was memorable, haha! we made the plane, but only becauuse we were able to flag down a taxi that drove by, which was very lucky.
5. What were the inspirations of yesterday and today more important to forge the story of Mortiis and compose great themes such as Dark Horizons or Visions of a Ancient Future?
-Back in the old days i was really inspired by DEAD CAN DANCE, TANGERINE DREAM, KLAUS SCHULZE, just atmospheric music in general. But I knew nothing of playing, or music production, so i was never able to properly copy from these artists anyway...the music became very honest, and personal, because of that.
6. Why a title like Spirit of Rebellion for this album?
- It is a homage to the album it was originally supposed to be an interpretation of, "Ånden som Gjorde Opprør", which means "the spirit that rebelled" - I thought it felt right to chose a title that was close to that.
7. Tell us a little about your book "Secret of my Kingdom" and what we can find in it.
- It is a collection of writings, texts, lyrics, from betweem 1992 and 1999, and collectively they tell a sort of story, an maps out, the parallell universe, that Mortiis based
all the Era 1 albums on, conceptually... it has a lot of illustrations in it as well, and i can add that all the reissues in the recent years, are all based on that world as well.
Artwork wise.
8.Mortiis is the undisputed creator of Dungeon Synth. Do you follow closely the new projects and creations that are being developed in this musical environment?
- To be honest i do not. i don't have the time. I try to check some stuff out now and then, and I've done shows with several of them, like Old Tower and Northfalke. those are really good. Most of them don't seem to do any live shows. I tried to contact a lot of them for the recent US tour but for the most part they couldn't or wouldn't play live.
9.Mortiis was born from the dark atmosphere of Black Metal with Emperor to the fantastic world of Dark Ambient, much more personal and marked by different stages or Eras.What ideas have you wanted to capture and show throughout your career with your musical art and characteristic?
- Not sure I understand this question, but i always wanted to be honest and transparent, especially suring the industrial rock era, i was very raw and transparent in the sense
of my lyrical content and who inspired me and so on. as for the "Dungeon Synth" periods, I'd say Mortiis was a lot more original, and i never had an "agenda" other than
just creating atmospheric music, and in the last couple of years I have worked pretty hard on turning it into a cool live show that can translate well atmospherically.
10.Any online site to get Mortiis material? What can we find in the online store?
- All kinds of stuff. you can check it out here: www.mortiiswebstore.com, and here on bandcamp: https://downloadmusic.mortiis.com/music - it has a lot of the same stuff, plus
downloads, and also a "fan club" where you can subsdcribe and get exclusive stuff, first in line for preorders of limited edition releases, etc.
11. Tell us:
-A movie you recommend:
- The Godfather
-A disc that has marked your life:
- NIN The Fragile
-A book that has influenced your work:
- Probably Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell. Nightworld by F Paul Wilson is also great.
-A place that inspired you:
- Death Valley
12. Future plans?
- I'm currenrly working on lots of music, one project with Stephan Groth from Apoptygma Berzerk is one of them...of course there is the announced European tour with Mayhem in the fall.
13.Something to add for the editors and readers of Metal Music Clan?
- Thanks for the interest. Sorry i was so late with answering. Hope to see you in Spain once this Corona madness ends. stay safe.
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