Morose Musique Machine Mania
Hans Grusel, Wilt, Locrian, Bruce Lamont, Irene Mo
I'm not a very celebratory person, but I can't deny enjoying the culture of Halloween. I know that this holiday is not embraced (or exploited) in many places as much as in America, but for me it is a culmination of the macabre and the absurd, in such an outright way that existence feels much more artful around this time. Having grown up watching ghostly themed cartoons and violent horror movies, I've also come to appreciate the history behind Halloween, where people dressed up as demons in order to prevent them from intruding, and decorated their homes with various Memento Mori out of respect for the dead. By the same token, it's also a time where the Addams Family or the Munsters become a little bit closer to reality. It can be a time where people become more serious and introspective or more fun-loving and playful. Going to a party on Halloween night can be like a litmus test for some of us; the conservative, simple folk dressing up extravagantly, the macho guy going in drag, or the morbid, stand-offish person that ends up looking like big bird. Being that this is one of my first articles for Musique Machine, I thought I would make it an ambitious one, and ask some of my favorite artists what their take is. Each of the 6 artists were asked 6 Halloween related questions. In order to kick it up a notch, a 6 minute soundtrack from each of them is also provided, but only until Halloween. Many thanks go to everyone who was involved. Enjoy!
Having been referred to as “…the Vincent Price of the unknown East German avant-garde.” and a cross between ” … a frowning wood-man squatting polka grunt-gorrilla wrestling organs or Muzak with Morton Subotnick’s ‘Silver Apples of the Moon’ on the mantle behind a cuckoo clock store in the woods”, I had to ask Hans Grüsel the questions for this article. Along with his Kränkenkabinet, he has provided live alternate soundtracks to 1928's Fall of the House of Usher, 1933's Lot in Sodom, and 1949's Alice In Wonderland, not to mention many top quality recordings where cartoonish wind-up electronics dance across the screen and cascading pianos tumble to the floor. This week, he shares a remix of a soundtrack that he did a few Halloweens ago for "The Mask AKA The Eyes of Satan". In a live setting for this accompaniment, Brutallo projected 3-D scenes from the movie along with other Halloween mask material, and they gave out 3-D glasses to audience members.
What is Halloween like for you? Is it spiritual? Are there candles involved? Is it just a fun time of year?I like to sit in the dark and listen to my childhood collection of Disney haunted mansion LPs, which are still a great inspiration; kind of my holiday tradition.
When was the last time you went trick or treating? Do you still dress up in costumes?
Last trick’or’treat 1985I dress up in costumes many days of the year, so I leave it to others on that date.
Is there anything in particular about the history of the Halloween season, aside from the fact that it is a pagan holiday now celebrated by numbers of Christians, that sticks out in your mind?Creepy Chick Tracts about the evils of Halloween. I love ‘em.
What is (beyond Monster Mash) your favorite horror/novelty Halloween song?
Gaylord Carters organ version of Buddy Baker’s Grim Grinning Ghosts.
Have you ever seen a ghost? If so, what was it like?
I grew up in a very creepy house, not that the house was necessarily creepy but the land it was on seemed not quite right. We had an exorcism there (my aunt) and a man died while the house was being built. At 10 years old or so, my brother and I were sleeping; we both woke to see a very sad luminescent native man crouching at the foot of our bed. He looked up and then disappeared. There was no fright, I felt sad for him. My brother and I looked at each other and exchanged casual sentiments “that was kind of weird” rolled over and went back to sleep. We still talk about it saying, “that was kind of weird”. Just one of many “that was kind of weird” type experiences.
Have you ever written any material on All Hallows Eve? If so, please feel free to share details.I work almost every day so yes, over the past 19 years I’ve most likely written or recorded something on Halloween. Not necessarily holiday music but the air of that night always adds a tinge of the season.
My introduction to WILT also came largely as my formal live introduction to much dark electronic music, in the literal sense, around 2003. I wasn't initiated a whole lot beyond that of Coil. This performance incorporated vibrant yet bleak video projection, while they squeezed out a haunting and visceral, slow-paced phantasmagoria of electronics with creaking, squeaking, thumping, clanking, and rusted old pieces of what looked like machine parts from before the industrial revolution. Wilt has a mastery of not only foreboding atmospheres, but also the technique of creating a destination, even if it is a path traveled by a rotting corpse. Their albums are mind-altering by the time they are over, and their live performances are sometimes climactic in a way that transcends the chase scene of a horror movie to a spiraling orb that one can spend their entire lives inside of. James Keeler of WILT was gracious enough to compose a track for this article on top of answering the questions I presented with vivid detail.
What is Halloween like for you? Is it spiritual? Are there candles involved? Is it just a fun time of year?
Halloween is a very spiritual time whether its consciously recognized, or ritualized, or passively felt in the subconscious. All throughout time humanity has engaged in a deep fascination with the “unseen” and through such a constant build up of mental energy we have manifested weaknesses in our universe or plane of existence where at certain times of the year, when psychic energy is amassed, quantum walls are weak and portals can open. Halloween, or Samhain to the Wiccan religion, is continuing to weaken the cosmic walls and more and more psychic activity is occurring on such “religious” nights.
I prefer to spend most Halloweens alone. Allowing myself time to meditate or connect with this passing energy. Often it does involve candles or partnering with another to create a balance of male and female energy, but no more present. Although this Halloween I will be making a special recording in a very sacred place to me along with long time friend and Wilt collaborator, Dan Hall.
When was the last time you went trick or treating? Do you still dress up in costumes?
I haven’t gone trick or treating since I was a child. If by costume you mean flesh and fabric, then yes. It’s not that I have an objection to costumes or costume parties its just that I’m a bit more anti-social and less likely to wear something out and about as opposed to the isolationist splendor of my home.
Is there anything in particular about the history of the Halloween season, aside from the fact that it is a pagan holiday now celebrated by numbers of Christians, that sticks out in your mind?
I think every year something historical happens on Halloween whether we are aware of it or not. I guess I would challenge everyone to stop and really feel their surroundings on Halloween and see what they can truly experience. Put in any Wilt CD, it helps!
What is (beyond Monster Mash) your favorite horror/novelty Halloween song?
Well, it’s not Monster Mash. I’ m a big fan of the Misfits so I would say, “Halloween” is a classic. Other than that I have a preference to very dark drifting music for Halloween. As for Halloween appropriate movies/soundtracks I’m a big fan John Carpenter, Italian horror/zombie and David Lynch films.
Have you ever seen a ghost? If so, what was it like?
Yes, I have seen a ghost, experienced psychic & EVP phenomena and even seen a UFO all true, though none of them on Halloween. Let me explain…
The ghost. Approximately two weeks after my grandmothers passing on my birthday, she visited me in a dream. I walked into her house and everyone in the family was around including people I didn’t know. I then saw her standing in the middle of the room and with a gasp of disbelief I said, “Grandma, how can you be here, your dead”, everyone in the room burst into laughter. I asked her how was Grandpa as he had passed away years earlier and she said grandpa and I never got along very well, my perceived implication was that they were not sharing the same afterlife experience. I then woke up and standing in front of/over me was her cloaked in shroud….I reached out for her and called her name and she then vanished into thin air. What was it like…pretty freaky?
Psychic Phenomena. I’ve had several dreams in my life where I’ve relived certain intense experiences all throughout history (pre-historic, ancient Greece, WW2). I’ve also had precognitive dreams. About two years ago I had a dream where I knew there was going to be a plane crash and in my dream I was doubting myself like some sort of conversation with myself in the dream and I said, “ok, where will it happen” and a map appeared and focused on the Pacific Northwest. The next day I heard on CNN that a plane had run off of the runway in Seattle. I’ve also had a waking dream for lack of a better term. I was lying on the couch one night and suddenly felt the floor violently shake, then it stopped within seconds; I turned to Marlo and asked her if she felt it. She said she felt nothing and there wasn’t an earthquake. Hours later, I watched the local news at 10 and nothing. The very next day Southern Illinois was hit by a mid-sized quake.
EVP. Providence, RI. Noise and Industrial Festival at AS220. Dan and I (WILT) were all set up on stage, in the corner, so everyone could see the psychedelic visuals we had brought uninterrupted by our bodies and equipment. We began playing and the only sound coming out of my gear was a looping hiss and I had several instruments, samplers, pedals, etc. But nothing was working. Dan’s guitar was operating ok through his amp but then he leaned over and asked me what was going on and I had no idea, he then asked if I had an extra 9v for his ebow. Afterwards he told me that he had two brand new batteries for the gig and when he put them in for the performance neither one worked. We chalked everything up to a glitch in the mixer and just bad batteries. But that wasn’t the case. When I got back to Chicago for my gig with Prurient/FFH/Air Conditioning all my gear worked without an issue. The next day I listened to the Providence recording and all you can hear is a looping hiss and a muted voice, a girl whispering something, still can’t make it out. I was a bit confused. At first I thought it was bleed from a microphone but we didn’t record with any mics, everything was direct to the mixer and the recording made out from our mixer and into Dan’s minidisk. A brand new minidisk. I’m going to send the recording to a specialist in the field to try and figure out what it is or how it happened.
UFO. High school. Rural Illinois. Agricultural isolationist landscapes for miles. I grew up in a rural environment outside of Champaign, IL. Amidst corn and bean fields and barren landscapes in the winter. The row of houses in the country was called, “Parkville”. Population: 25. One night my best friend and I were walking the streets admiring the night sky. John pointed to a red star in the sky and asked me what I thought it was. “Must be Mars”, I said, as it was very bright red and engaging. We were staring at it and the surrounding sky when all of a sudden it started slowly moving to the left. It stopped and then slowly moved to the right, almost to what appeared to be its exact original location. I said, “Oh, it must be an airplane” and just as I said that, the “star” shot up lightning fast from its location and disappeared into the sky. I’d say that’s pretty “unexplained”.
Have you ever written any material on All Hallows Eve? If so, please feel free to share details.
I have, but not in any religious or spiritual way. I’m hoping to change that this Halloween. Dan and I will be revisiting our recording process that we used on the Blak Erth recordings for Trash Ritual. Basically very raw and primitive improvised performances where texture and emotion are the leading concept. We’ll be using an old reel-to-reel, a mixer, amps, synths, vocals, metal objects and guitars for the performance. I hoping to define this as, “Gothic Architecture” a potential release for Cathartic Process.…oh yeah, and there will be candles!
Bruce Lamont is more prolific than I can explain in a paragraph. Utilizing looped vocals, saxophone, guitar, and audio culled from a variety of sources, his solo material yields a vast array of dauntingly engaging results. He's studied under the Chicago Jazz kingpin, Ken Vandermark, and is a longstanding member of the enigmatic, forward-thinking metal band Yakuza among many other well respected and dynamic projects. Lamont has also performed effected ritualistic chants with Right-Eye Rita and Mark Solotroff as a trio, the latter being half of a DJ duo with Bruce called "Death Musick Ritual". As a DJ by himself, I've heard him play samples from horror movies mixed with dark, freaked out jazz, sweltering, hellish doom, and Black Sabbath. This week, Bruce shares an excerpt (that I was allowed to restore/master) from a radio performance recorded on October 16, 2008.
What is Halloween like for you? Is it spiritual? Are there candles involved? Is it just a fun time of year?
I like halloween for a lot of reasons. I relate to the height of harvest season. I also appreciate the symbolism..skeletons, witches, etc.
When was the last time you went trick or treating? Do you still dress up in costumes?
havent gone trick or treating in a long time. still dress up. when i worked the empty bottle a few years back i dressed up as Euronymous from Mayhem.
Is there anything in particular about the history of Halloween season,
aside from the fact that it's a pagan holiday now celebrated by large numbers of Christians, that sticks out in your mind?
some roman catholics have used halloween as a day to recognize their saints. i find that to be interesting.
What is (beyond Monster Mash) your favorite horror/novelty halloween song? If kitsch isn't your style, what is your favorite horror soundtrack?
actually i play alot of misfits and samhain songs on halloween.
Have you ever seen a ghost or any other strange, supernormal incident? If so, what was it like?
no i have not.
Have you ever written any material on All Hallows Eve? If so, please feel free to share details.
hmm. i cant say i ever have intentionally but maybe this year.
Irene Moon tours alongside Hair Police, as well as any number of other acts that can't help the odd pairing. She gives lectures that fuse disjointed sound collages of organ muzak and effected field recordings that document the Death's-head Hawkmoth, or the Brunner's Mantis, perhaps. Born Katja Seltmann, she has a Masters degree, has been published numerous times, and is now working in the field of Entomology while still continuing to refine her role as a musician/performer. In a live atmosphere, whose venues have included old folks' homes and an abandoned cathedral in Amsterdam, this lady bug mensch in long gloves gives pop-quizzes, provides informational handouts, dresses up dead moths in hand-made outfits, shows slides, and projects grainy, infested 8mm films or "micro-puppet shows" that feature characters made from insect and doll parts. This is definitely not Performance Art in the conceptual art school gimmickry that the phrase implies, it's an unfettered manifestation of a creative creature's lifeblood. Irene has a track on a compilation called Halloween Scary Sounds, so I thought I would ask her some questions on the subject. I was graciously given permission to put together a medley of sorts, where said track is included.
*What is Halloween like for you? Is it spiritual? Are there candles involved? Is it just a fun time of year?
*I enjoy more the other 364 days of halloween that are not october 31. Its basically a great reason to throw a really fun party in celebration for the things that live in the dark corners.
*When was the last time you went trick or treating? Do you still dress up in costumes?
*Is there anything in particular about the history of Halloween season, aside from the fact that it's a pagan holiday now celebrated by large numbers of Christians, that sticks out in your mind?
*candy apples => poison apples.
*What is (beyond Monster Mash) your favorite horror/novelty halloween song? If kitsch isn't your style, what is your favorite horror soundtrack?*
Oh there are so many good ones...suspiria. night of the living dead. the birds. cat people. return of the living dead. the thing. horror movie soundtracks are the best soundtracks in general. outside of a few great psycho-dramas (one flew over the cuckoos nest comes to mind)... horror movie soundtracks are the best.
*Have you ever seen a ghost or any other strange, supernormal incident? If so, what was it like?
*Im a hallucinatory hypnologic that has false awakening experiences. Bascially I see creatures when Im asleep but I think and feel awake. Mostly Im quite comfortable with these experiences as Ive seen them since I was a kid. Small furry round beasts with fangs which ususally come in sets of three. They make small gurgle noises. Larger winged beasts with red eyes that lurk in corners. During certain periods of my life some creatures were more vivid, likely imagery from the books I was reading. I remember seeing fairies dancing when I was very small and gnome visions were quite common. In my early 20s it was werewolves. I dont think of these as anything more than halutionations; something the way my brain chemsity is mixed but it would be hard to imagine living without them.
*Have you ever written any material on All Hallows Eve? If so, please feel free to share details. *
No not directly.
Sci-Fi ghost maneuvers and shortwave childhood nightmares pepper Count Loachfillet's recordings. Some of the concoctions drip and steam with Avant-ooze, inter-weaved into slowed down swing band records and 78rpm crackle; others smell of formaldehyde and Sea Breeze. One highlight of his discography is a box set called "Coffin Lungs II", containing 2 cassettes with blown up comic book fluorescent spookdom cover art, a mix cd of incredibly rare "Ghoul Wop" ditties, a couple of reproduced monster mag advertisements from the 60s, and a "Mystery" CDR of whatever he was working on at that time, some of which were wrapped in cobwebs. When he's not making his timeless mid-century "musical cinema" with Theater Organs or slippery tape loops, spinning rare psychedelic records, or doing his Modular Graveyard Podcast, another of the Count's many projects happens to be Diatric Puds & The Blobettes. They wear buggly-eyed goblin masks and zombie make up while they do Franken-fried 60's shooby dooby horror songs, complete with screams of fright, pitch bent vocals, and giddy, wiggly synth bass lines. The Count shares material from both Loachfillet and Diatric Puds in a morose 6 minute clump he calls "Cutting Room Capers".
What is Halloween like for you? Is it spiritual? Are there candles involved? Is it just a fun time of year?
I guess my interest in the paranormal becomes more heightened at this timeof the year by the amount of ghouls and goblins I see wondering the streets,but I'm often turned off by the commercialized aspects such as Halloween Superstores where people go to have their costumes handed to them in a plastic bag. It's also an excuse to make a spooky music compilation I like to call Coffin Lungs. This year, I am doing one with mostly haunted surf music from 45s and LPs.
When was the last time you went trick or treating? Do you still dress up in costumes?
I can't remember the last time I went trick or treating. I still dress up in costumesfor the fun if it and for performance, but I do that many times of the year.
Is there anything in particular about the history of Halloween season, aside from the fact that it's a pagan holiday now celebrated by large numbers of Christians, that sticks out in your mind?
Some consider it to be a festival of the dead. On that night, I tend to think about all the unlucky souls that have left their physical bodies prematurely or otherwise. Divination is something that sticks out as well as superstitions. Christians are very superstitious.
What is (beyond Monster Mash) your favorite horror/novelty halloween song? If kitsch isn't your style, what is your favorite horror soundtrack?
That's a difficult question to answer. I like a lot of songs and wouldn't consider anything my favorite, but if I had to, I'd say The Spider and the Fly by The Wicked or Children's Day At the Morgue by Sheldon Allman would be near the top of the list. There's too many to list when it comes to soundtracks. Don't even get me started!
Have you ever seen a ghost or any other strange, supernormal incident? If so, what was it like?
When I was about seven years old, a pair of apparitions appeared to me inthe middle of the night in my family's dining room. I woke up to the sound ofutensils on ceramic plates. I looked into the direction from which it came and sawan old couple. A woman standing behind a man sitting in a chair at our dinner table. After that, I saw the dial on the FM stereo roving between channels on it's own. The next morning I told my parents and learned of an old man that died next door about 20 years prior.
Have you ever written any material on All Hallows Eve? If so, please feel free to share details.
The only thing I've written on All Hallows' Eve is a list of songs.
The sound of the band Locrian has been described as: "Elemental human dread... ...without the pretense of ancient wisdom", "Disembodied howls rising from the devil’s asshole", and "At the tipping point between wintery post rock and treachery-fueled drone". For me, I saw them early on, in the dirty, unfinished concrete basement of a fledgling club. Down there, the sound seemed as if it were both completely alien and something that was built-in out of necessity. It's been said that when applied to Locrian, the space itself is just as important as the performance therein. They embody that of a band reincarnated after the apocalypse, going only on ancestral memory; trudging along, covered with dust, traveling vaguely unfamiliar territories on an axis that is without even an inkling of hope. An excerpt from the CD "Rhetoric of Surfaces" is featured here.
What is Halloween like for you? Is it spiritual? Are there candles involved? Is it just a fun time of year?
T: Halloween is more of a fun time of year for me. I like the ritual as much as the next person, but mainly it is time for scary movies and visits to the country to get good seasonal foods. However I think all cultures need like a time to focus on death and fear, and Halloween suffices.
André: Halloween is basically just a fun time of the year for me. It’s about parties and candy. I do like the El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations that go on in Chicago. It’s basically like a big party for your dead relatives. You go to the graveyard and make the dead people their favorite meals when they were alive and drink Tequila and party.
When was the last time you went trick or treating? Do you still dress up in costumes?
T: Not since high school. I haven't worn a costume in a long time. I normally give out candy to the neighborhood kids and watch scary movies.
André: I can’t remember the last time I went trick or treating. I don’t really dress up for Halloween. But this year we’re performing as part of Scott Trealeven’s video opening for “7 Last Words” at the Kavi Gupta gallery in Chicago.
Is there anything in particular about the history of Halloween season,aside from the fact that it is a pagan holiday now celebrated by large numbers of Christians, that sticks out in your mind?
T: I think the smaller mythos around like razor blades in apples and pins in candy is more fascinating to me, since they're not true. Or actually how even in some cities Christians use Halloween to express their maudlin investment in damnation and are completely ignorant of its pagan origins, like Easter or Christmas, and establish these elaborate "haunted" houses that serve as ways to condemn those who don't adhere to their ideologies and convert their paying customers.
André: I think of this time of year as more of a celebration of death. I mean it’s kind of interesting that this holiday was traditionally part of a fall harvest feast. Whereas Americans now, typically only celebrate harvest’s once a year, at Thanksgiving. I mean if you look at the Day of the Dead, that holiday was traditionally something that took place before Christianity came to the America’s. It was an Aztec celebration and there are still a lot of non-Christian elements to it. For instance, the emphasis on skulls that’s associated with that holiday has been a part of the celebration before Christianity. It’s also interesting how both Halloween and the Day of the Dead have been times of the year when people feel it’s easier to communicate with the dead. It makes me think of how culture changes over time. It makes me think of how technology has given us new ways to communicate with the dead. Like if you’ve ever looked at someone who had (or has) a Facebook account that has died. Many people treat their profiles as ways to communicate with the dead.
What is (beyond Monster Mash) your favorite horror/novelty halloween song? If kitsch isn't your style, what is your favorite horror soundtrack?
T: I want to say like most novelty songs are not my deal but I like Sonic Youth's "Halloween" which is a good jam, actually that entire album "Bad Moon Rising" is fairly essential autumn listening. I would also add Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" soundtrack (bootleg) as essential listening too alongside Fario Frizzi's soundtrack to "Zombie" or "City of the Walking Dead" plus anything Goblin did for Dario Argento. Charles Bernstein's "Nightmare on Elm Street" comes in close too.
André: I don’t really have a favorite Halloween soundtrack though a lot of the music I listen to would work well for this holiday. I bet that John Water’s has, or will, put out some sort of awesome kitsch Halloween album. Oh, how about the Brent Gutzeit album that he did with Michael Esposito, the EVP researcher. That’ll be my top Halloween album.
Have you ever seen a ghost or any other strange, supernormal incident? If so, what was it like?
T: No, I don't really believe in ghosts or spirits, I think they're manifestations of certain repressions in those who experience them.
André: I’m kind of fascinated by ghost stories. Ghosts, whether you think they’re real or not, are the things that we hold responsible for doing things that we have no other way to explain. The people who clean the building that I work in have the best ghost stories because they have to work in my building when there’s no one else around, late or in the middle of the night. So they’ll hear lots of noises and they sometimes say that they hear or feel things that they attribute to ghosts.
Like my one friend who has worked as a building cleaner for over twenty years told me a great story about when he started cleaning my building he was assigned to clean a pretty easy floor to clean. He didn’t really understand why all of these people who had worked in his same job for longer than him gave him the easiest floor to clean. Apparently, he was cleaning this floor and he started seeing strange lights and he felt things go through him. So after this, he asked his co-workers why they gave him this easy floor to clean and apparently they told him that they didn’t want to work on this floor since they believed there were ghosts haunting the floor. He’s Catholic and most of the other people who clean the building are Catholic too so he got all of the cleaning people together and they held a joint prayer session and apparently exorcised the ghosts from this floor.
Another thing I think is interesting about ghosts is the fact that we believe that ghosts are sometimes responsible for certain sounds on recordings or videos. I wonder if there are any haunted Facebook accounts?
But no, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a ghost. I guess I thought that I saw a ghost once when I was a kid, but I lived in a big creepy old house.
Have you ever written any material on All Hallows Eve? If so, please feel free to share details.
T: I think Locrian's second or third show was at a haunted house and we were so loud the lead paint chips fell on all of our equipment. We were shaking it off the ceiling and walls. And we're playing this Halloween doing a live soundtrack to a video art piece by our friend Scott Treleaven. The video is titled "7 Last Words" and is based on the 7 Last Words of Christ photo, but in Scott's piece it features Genesis P-Orridge. I hope we can channel the dark intensity the date evokes.
André: Thanks for speaking with us!