Track Premiere and Interview: Get Wholly Eviscerated by Black Metal Project Moray

It's been a while since I've published anything but my weekly musical ramblings, but when the cause is righteous then so is…. I actually don't know where I was going with that. It is my great pleasure to be able to present the new single from the long-awaited new album from Utah-based black metal project Moray. Spearheaded by the beautiful mind of Christian Degn, Moray presents modern-sounding but ancient-feeling, slightly melodic USBM that fits beautifully with bands like Woe, Panopticon, and Stormkeep. For the initiated, you probably known Mr. Degn from his unbelievable artwork for bands such as Baazlvaat, Pagan Moon (one of the most underrated black metal acts out there today), Yellow Eyes, Mother of Sighs, and many others.

So, with the new Moray album The Natural World coming August 4 I thought it would be a good idea to present their new single "The Sun" as well as a nice The War Inside My Head, music-appreciation interview with Christian. Enjoy the track here, and the interview below.

As always, check out my various interview projects and other cool shit. And if you'd like to keep abreast of the latest, most pressing developments follow us wherever I may roam (FALSE!) (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and now also a tape-per-day series on TIK TOK!), and listen to my, I guess, active (?) podcast (YouTube, Spotify, Apple), and to check out our amazing compilation albums. You can support our unholy work here (Patreon), if you feel like it. Early access to our bigger projects, weekly exclusive recommendations and playlists, and that wonderful feeling that you're encouraging a life-consuming habit. On to Christian.

What was the first album you bought with your own money, and where did you buy it?

After seeing a movie at the nearby dollar theater, while waiting for a ride home, we made our way to the department store next door, where I bought a copy of System of a Down’s Hypnotize with some money I had saved from mowing lawns. At this point I was pretty excited about these songs, I remember listening to the thirty second preview of each track on the iTunes store for a month and couldn’t wait to have the full versions. I later got in trouble for shoplifting a video game from this same store. I wish I could say it was for shoplifting Steal this Album instead, it would have made for a more poetic story!  

What 2-3 albums did you hear the most growing up?

I remember hearing Simon and Garfunkel’s "Sound of Silence" a lot, and still revisit it often. My dad played the Concert in Central Park dvd while we folded laundry and that always stuck with me. I always have really enjoyed their instrumentation and Paul Simon’s lyrics. My parents played a lot of folk music like David Wilcox and Cheryl Wheeler and would host touring folk artists who would stay with us for a couple days to play house shows. I don’t remember most of them but the music was usually awesome, and totally wasted on my impatient kid brain!

I also stole my parent’s copy of Peter Gabriel’s Shaking the Tree greatest hits cd. I listened to it on repeat for a couple years and eventually got myself copies of So and Security. I think that copy of So still lives in my car. At first I accidentally bought the German language version of Security which confused me for a while.

My cousin showed me Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea when I was pretty young, I kind of hated it but I loved the fuzzed out drums and horns and always came back to it. It’s still a favorite album for me in spite of its reputation as a meme these days.

Lastly, I had a good friend growing up whose mom loved Metallica and played them a lot. I remember really liking when she’d play Ride the Lightning or Master of Puppets. It felt cool hearing stuff that was so different from what was played at my house, even though I wasn’t the biggest fan.

What albums taught you the most about the technical aspect of making music?

Slayer’s Christ Illusion was one of the heaviest things I had heard when I got a copy. A friend from the church I attended burned me a copy after school one day. It genuinely scared me the first time I put it on, but I loved how blistering it all felt, front to back. The production felt accessible to me since it was really in line with the more nu-metal and radio stuff I was hearing at the time, so it helped ease me into their earlier records, which inevitably had me digging into other heavier music. I’d say this was a big gateway for me that made me want to make music.

Around that time I was introduced to the Black Dahlia Murder’s record Miasma, which was legendary to me. The title track was one of the first songs I learned how to play on the bass. I also was really into with the bass on Protest the Hero’s record Fortress, and spent a year learning every song on the album and playing through it every day. Jumping from bass to guitar using those songs ended up being a good way to throw myself in the deep end, since I was already intimately familiar with the parts and it was just a matter of getting my hands to do what they needed to in order to play them.

Finally, Death’s Symbolic, and Ulver’s Nattens Madrigal both served as big inspiration for my earlier riff writing as I moved beyond learning other people’s material. They both went a long way to serve as examples to keep me from overworking my ideas, which I think I may always struggle with in all my art.

 What is the last album that absolutely shocked you?

The first thing that comes to mind for me is the Sunrise Patriot Motion record Black Fellflower Stream. I think I was really surprised by this record since I wasn’t sure what to expect. Before it’s release I’d heard Will and Sam of Yellow Eyes mention that they had synth-based a side project in the works and had no idea what that might sound like. When it finally dropped it was different from anything I’d imagined and I was immediately hooked. It hits so many notes of genres I love, but totally evades any label. I always love what Yellow Eyes does to keep their sound fresh, and by extension keeping black metal from stagnating. This felt like a really natural step further into corners that already existed within their sound, while it effortlessly blends influences I’d never think would work so well together.

Another record that comes to mind is Microphones in 2020 by The Microphones. This came out on my 27th birthday and has more or less been in regular rotation for me since. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the single long song format but it works perfectly here. I love all the different movements and the changing instrumentation that is woven throughout, while touching upon certain recurring motifs. I think Phil Elverum’s art is really beautiful and always gives me something exciting when I revisit any of it. This album mirrored a lot of the stuff I loved from the Microphones’ 2003 album Mount Eerie, which admittedly was one that I initially had a hard time getting into, but somehow kept returning to until it slowly became a favorite record. Something about Microphones in 2020 felt more centered in itself in a way though. A wonderful example of fearless retrospection in artwork.

I was also really surprised by Infinite Granite by Deafheaven. I’d been a fan of this band since high school and had just finished drawing with George for a couple projects, so I went into this album with some bias. I had no idea how big of a left turn in their discography this would end up being. I had a feeling we’d get a softer approach from them, but the clean vocals really caught me off guard on first listen. I love that this record feels like people making the art they want to make. There is an undeniable fingerprint of their history in the writing, but there’s also a freedom behind it that I found really refreshing. It also had me start to think about the concept of a band as a unit of music-creation in a way I hadn’t really engaged with so tangibly. It kind of laid bare some of the problems that exist in audience expectation contrasting artistic exploration. (Looking at my own work through this lens made me feel grateful to have maintained an open-minded audience in those who pay attention to my drawings and music!) Overall I love this record and it really colored summer 2021 in a positive way for me.

What album relaxes you or centers you the most?

I don’t know if I could pick a single album, but the first one that comes to mind is Solo Piano by Phillip Glass. I had an art teacher who showed our class Koyaanisqatsi and the whole time it played I couldn’t stop thinking about how commanding and driving the music felt. From there I found a copy of Solo Piano at the library and burnt it to my iPod and still come back to it for a listen at least once a year, and have done so for the last fifteen years. Oren Ambarchi’s Grapes from the Estate is another record that I find myself returning to, as well as Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath, 1972 for a similar sense of slowing myself down. I think the former I tend to listen to in the summer months, and the latter in the colder winter months.

What are the albums you’ve listened to the most recently?

Here’s a quick list of some of my recently listened albums: Paul Dresher, Liquid and Stellar Music; Spencer Zahn – Pale Horizon; Szun Waves – Earth Patterns; Midwife & Vyva Melinkolya – orbweaving; Cynic – Refocus; Odz Manouk, Bosoragazan and Tzurr;  Passéisme – Eminence; Krallice – Porous Resonance Abyss, Ustalost – Before the Glinting Spell Unvests; Circle of Ouroborus  – Viimeinen Juoksu; and Agriculture, The Circle Chant.

What album is grossly underrated?

The first thing that comes to mind are the two records by Dweller on the Threshold, their self titled record and II. Both albums are really fantastic and kind of scattered around all these different sounds and ideas but till maintain a cohesive vision. I don’t really see them getting as much play as I wish they would! Woe’s Withdrawal is a usbm record that I got a lot of inspiration from and that I don’t see get as much love these days. I also really loved Daniel Thompson’s record “Whatever” and rarely see people talking about it. I have fond memories of driving around in the snow in my jeep wrangler and listening to a tape of this quite a bit.

What album would you recommend from your local scene? Another one I’m going to answer as a list because there are so many great albums that my friends have been involved in: Temples – Remnant; Ben Swisher – A Windchime; Yaotl Mictlan – Sagrada Tierra Del Jaguar; Parallax – Mediums and Messages; NAPS by Jesse Q-T and Friends; Little Moon – Unphased; Bly Wallentine – God of Death; and Choir Boy – Gathering Swans. So many, I’m certain I am forgetting some!