ALBUMS
GHOSTS OF THE TIMELESS VOID
Released by:
Lifeforce Records, Germany (Vinyl, CD)
Supreme Chaos Records, Germany (Vinyl)
Yehonala Tapes, Germany (Vinyl, CD)
Release date:
March 2, 2018
Format/Pressing:
12" Vinyl first press:
-
200 black
-
100 gold
-
100 green smoked
-
100 red smoked
12" Vinyl second press:
-
150 black
-
150 white
12" Vinyl third press:
-
200 blue / white marbled
CD:
-
1000
Comments:
Recording info ...
instrumentals recorded between 2016 and 2017 at Fort Rungius in Berlin. vocals recorded in October and November 2017 at Patchworx in Berlin. mixed & mastered by Tom Schmidt at Fort Rungius.
About the recording…
With a lot of more experience in the studio “Ghosts” was far from being a walk in the park but it wasn’t a nightmare like previous releases. I approached it much more laid back than our previous releases. the deal with lifeforce was signed when “Ghosts” was already halfway recorded so also this couldn’t stress me. what actually was new to me, was that I remained as the only singer in the band. Torsten had left the band prior to the album and I was now in the situation where I had to do the album on my own. when I did the first vocal recordings it was kinda strange to hear these songs without Torsten voice but the more I had to listen to it, the more used I got to it.
the songs on ghosts feature a more polished sound, thanks to years of recording with Ancst and also songwriting wise I have the feeling that “Ghosts” moved away from the more grittier songwriting in the past. my love for metalcore also got a hold of me and so these songs have a bigger focus on that subgenre, although we had played around with this on pretty much all of our releases.
For the mixing, I spend weeks on weeks watching tutorials and reading articles to actually understand what I had to do. It turned out pretty well, although I would have loved to turn down the snare after it was released.
About the lyrics…
As Torsten was gone for good I had to write the lyrics on my own. the hard part about it was actually writing lyrics for one singer and not for two. singing the old songs live was pretty exhausting as I now had to do both our parts. So on the songs intended for the live set I left space to breathe and started working with slower flows. my stamina thanked me for this.
content-wise “Ghosts” gets very personal some times and has a much higher focus on stuff like mental health. it’s pretty grim sometimes although I had a really good time writing this.
About the artwork…
For the artwork, I went with one of my favorite illustrators again: Gustave Dore. the problem with his work is that because its all public domain and pretty much ideal for metal bands, a lot of his work has already been used. So I decided to bring in some color and do some collage out of his pictures. they are all close to the original tough as each one of them is already a masterpiece.
SUMMITS OF DESPONDENCY
Released by:
Lifeforce Records, Germany (Vinyl, CD)
Yehonala Tapes, Germany (Vinyl, CD)
Release date:
September 18, 2020
Format/Pressing:
12" Vinyl first press:
-
250 black
-
250 red/black marbled
-
250 clear/gold marbled
-
250 eco/recycled
CD:
-
1000
Comments:
Coming soon ...
MOLOCH
Released by:
Vendetta Records, Germany (Vinyl)
Halo of flies, US (Vinyl)
Yehonala Tapes, Germany (CD)
D’Kolektif, SE Asia (Tape)
Release date:
march 25, 2016
Format/Pressing:
12" Vinyl first press:
-
500 black
-
200 clear (with different cover)
12" Vinyl second press:
-
300 green
CD first press:
-
500 (with the full “in turmoil” LP included)
-
300 (just "moloch")
Tape:
-
50
Comments:
Recording info...
written and recorded between 2013 and 2014 at Tower Of Doom in Berlin. vocals recorded between summer 2014 and 2015 at Tower Of Doom and fort rungius. mixed and mastered at Fort Rungius in late summer of 2015.
About the recording…
The recording of “Moloch” took time. Torsten and I were pretty busy with doing live shows at the time and were not used to the schedule we had put on to our backs. also, we were pretty nervous about recording our first proper album so it took us a while. parts of the album were recorded at my old shared flat and when I moved into a new place recording was on halt for some time. the thing that took us the most time to record was the vocals as the new place was not the best environment to record them. the tower of doom was easy going as we were situated on the 7th floor and no one really bothered when somebody in the flat started recording loud as fuck vocals midday. fort rungius, the new place, was different as the flats were closer to each other and the walls were thinner. I remember when we recorded Torstens vocals that my neighbor, a really old lady came down to us, knocked on the door and asked if everything was ok as she was hearing those terrible screams from our flat. I think I never recorded vocals there again.
I also remember that mixing that record was hell as I’ve tried hard to step up the game and become better at it and that I really was missing a lot of the know-how of mixing songs. I somehow managed and was pretty much satisfied in the end but I spend a lot of nights mixing and remixing the record. same goes for the mastering. it took me ages to get a proper master set up for this. in the end it was a just one tool that did the job.
About the lyrics…
This was the first release where I wrote most of the lyrics. Normally Torsten was doing most of the work when it came to this. “Moloch” still followed our chosen path content-wise. there is a lot of the usual emo stuff and a lot of political and social critical stuff on it. the thing that sets it apart from the older releases is that we started incorporating this urban setting into the lyrics. later releases were pretty much centered around life in the city. so this was the beginning I guess.
About the artwork…
speaking of the urban theme, I guess the artwork of the release had to be like it is. I wanted it to have this urban exploring theme to it and worked with a bunch of photos I had from previous urbex sessions. I cant recall where the stock photo of the statue is from but I guess I scavenged it somewhere on the internet. the limited edition of the vinyl release had a different cover and featured a skull overgrown with plants. pretty standart if you ask me today but it looks cool. we got it screen printed on thick black cardboard.
IN TURMOIL
Released by:
Vendetta Records, Germany (Vinyl)
Wooaaargh, Germany (Vinyl)
Yehonala Tapes, Germany (Vinyl, CD)
Fragile Branch, US (tape)
Cintaitubuta, Indonesia (tape)
Release date:
October 2013 (tapes)
August 13, 2014 (Vinyl)
March 25, 2016 (CD)
Format/Pressing:
12" Vinyl first press:
-
450 black
-
100 white
12" Vinyl second press:
-
300 black
12" Vinyl third press:
-
200 black
-
100 transparent lilac
CD first press:
-
500 (as part of the “Moloch” CD)
-
300 ("in turmoil" only)
Tape:
-
100 (fragile branch)
-
around 50-100 cintaitubuta
Comments:
About the release ...
"In turmoil" compiles songs from our first demo, "the humane condition" EP, the splits w/ Hiveburnder and Smutecni Slavnost, compilation tracks and unreleased material. this was our first vinyl release and acts as a compilation although people tend to believe it is our first album. it originally was released on cassette with fewer songs & different artwork on US label "fragile branch" and we later approached Klose from Vendetta and he wanted to put it out on vinyl. this was also the moment when we decided we needed a band so we could bring our stuff on to stages to help him sell those copies. the first press was split up between our label yehonala tapes, Wooaaargh and Vendetta while the second one was just yehonala and vendetta and the third pressing was yehonala only. "in turmoil" acted as a bonus on the CD version of "Moloch" and after that sold out got its standalone release in 2019.
about the artwork ...
I grabbed pieces of Albert Bierstadt's "A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie" and changed the colors in a weird way and the artwork you see is what came out. it was rather intuitive and didn't take long. I still think it's one of the best artworks we ever had.