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| "Perfectly comfortable with the possibility of releasing a misunderstood work if it captures an atmosphere we find compelling" |
Many artists may have tried to occupy said void but to no avail. Empire Auriga is in a league of their own. During their hiatus their artistic vision has not stood in place, but flourished and levitated to heights before unthinkable. Such is the progression and expansiveness of their sonic world witnessed on Ascending the Solar Throne. It'll leave mindful listeners speechless and moved.
If there's any justice in this vain and superficial world, Ascending the Solar Throne will become this year's most talked about release, for it will leave no one untouched. Here is music so menacing, so all-encompassing, focused and beautiful, that giving into its rising is the only option. As cold as it is arresting, as dark as it is winsome, as desolate as it is gorgeous... This is what death sounds like. This is what birth sounds like.
When most music is aimed for instant satisfaction, Ascending the Solar Throne exist on another plane that shuns such superficial notions. True art is never easy. This is timeless music befitting this world's final destruction and the annihilation of life. This is timeless music befitting a new beginning, befitting a difficult rise of a new world.
Upon listening to it, Sigurður Harðarson (Gjöll) offered: "Industrial Black Metal and Dark Ambience, the band delivers melancholy over ugliness. Painful sadness swallows the soul of the listener like a black hole sucking in light from stars, collapsed for aeons. This music is not a cure for springtime depression, more like learning to enjoy winters short days."
LISTEN to Ascending the Solar Throne in its entirety below. Following it you'll find the band in conversation, shedding light on its dark domain.
Many years have passed since Empire Auriga’s last release. Number of people thought the band was done for. What made it so that you decided to write, record and release music again after hiatus of silence?
- We have been working on the new album in bursts for years, and only finalised it this past Spring. All three members have gone through major life changes during this time, and there have been many periods where we did not all live in the same state (this is currently true). There's also the fact that we're extremely particular about the aesthetics we seek to capture with Empire Auriga, however we don't approach this with a careerist mentality. It takes as long as it takes.
What have the members of Empire Auriga been up to artistically and personally since Auriga Dying?
- Boethius has spent a number of years living on a sailboat. Now he’s building wooden boats and that takes up a good deal of both creative and personal energies. Gestalt keeps busy with a project called Miracle Nails [listen], which is concerned with plunderphonics, glitch, breakcore, and dada. Gestalt and 90000065B have also participated on an ambient project called Elsewhere [listen], which is heavily influenced by Coil, Ulver, Biosphere, and similar artists.
One of the first thing to strike me is that Ascending the Solar Throne almost entirely eschews using beats that of a drum and drum machine. That is, beats that clearly punctuate and are in the forefront of the complete sounds, so to speak. It's often there in the background providing almost a layer of sound rather than thudding beats. For me it lends itself perfectly to the celestial / “another dimension” atmosphere your music translates. But why did you largely leave clear snare and drum hits out of this one? How would you articulate other changes in your musical, sonic and aesthetic?
- There are sounds that function as snare hits in a time-keeping sort of capacity on a few tracks, but these are buried enough that they serve more of a textural function. We purposely gave all percussive elements a deadened, muted quality. This was to retain some semblance of movement for the more 'song-like' tracks, while not distracting from the atmospheric elements, which were foregrounded.
We consciously wanted to push the aesthetic of Empire Auriga into stranger territory on this album while retaining the trancelike, minimalist, obscurantist qualities from the first album. We're perfectly comfortable with the possibility of releasing a misunderstood work if it captures an atmosphere we find compelling. Most of our inspirations while working on Ascending the Solar Throne have been artists who stretch form and/or work primarily within avant textural explorations rather than simply genre-mashing for novelty effect, and we hope to take this even further in the future.
My promo copy of Ascending the Solar Throne didn’t come with lyrics, unfortunately. If I remember correctly the concepts, images and philosophy of satan, age, rituals, divinity, the existence of more than one world, death of worlds, destruction and the unknown were addressed on Auriga Dying. What are some of the subjects on your new album? And related to that, did the name Auriga Dying signify the death of the band in its 2006 capacity?
- Sort of answering both questions at once... The lyrical theme remains largely the same. Auriga Dying was simply the end of a chapter in the greater massive fiction that is the universe in which the lyrics exist. Think of a Frank Herbert inspired multiverse in which powers greater than we can imagine live and die in a surreal existence... Both creating and extinguishing life in their path.
- The foundation of all human fears is in each of us. It is different for everyone and I hope the music provides enough insight and chance for introspection that it can be found if you search for it. The specific lyrics speak to fears of tyranny and the loss of free will... Living at the will of a religion instead of your own will, but the lyrics are written merely to allow the listener to create their own pictures in their brain... What I hear and see when I read the lyrics should not --and will not-- be the same as what you here and see. As it should be.
Are we worthy of gold? To me it's almost moral question in terms of these specific lyrics. An option to rise to greater power than ever imagined in the universe. There is a cost for such things, but can we really know the true cost? But again, I hate to decipher specific lyrics... Their meaning is really up to each who hears and sees them.
Also, the Jubilee happens when all who stand forward are crushed and obliterated.
You’ve stuck with Moribund Records all this time. Obviously you are happy with them. What is it that they do right by Empire Auriga? Are you ever tempted in working with other entities more rooted in dark and extreme ambience and industrial music?
- They release our music (a big plus), they promote us better than we would be able to promote ourselves, give us complete control over the sound & visual presentation of our work, and make us a main agent in crafting our presentation via press materials. We have not discussed looking for another label.
Imagining taking in your music in a live setting seems like it would be a moving experience for the listener. And a cathartic, soul crushing one at that. In saying that, how much of Ascending the Solar Throne is exclusively studio work and is Empire Auriga possible in a live setting?
- There is no Empire Auriga outside a studio setting. Most of the elements for this album were recorded in long takes and then heavily processed and manipulated within DSP environments. This was an experimental process where accidents and unexpected results were welcomed and incorporated into the final result, but we couldn't make it happen again. We also feel that this music almost requires a level of distance between us and the listener in order to be truly evocative and effective. Performing live would feel like 'breaking the fourth wall' in a way and remove an important sense of mystery. It is necessary that this music retain a certain feeling of derealization and inscrutability.
- Birkir Fjalar
Ascending the Solar Throne is out on Moribund Records August 19th. Order here.
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