Oppress.
What made you start Oppress. were you already involved in any other projects prior to its founding?
When I finished my first bout of "studying" I began a one-man project called Horla. Horla was meant to be an atmospheric black metal thingy. The first thing I made, "Primordial Mockery" sounded horrible, as I had no idea about mixing, but it had the best songs I wrote for that project. I made a couple more releases that were a bit shit that were handed out to local scenesters and other friends, then I gave up on the whole thing. Briefly I played live with a friend's band called Wytchfilth, an industrial black metal band. I lived in a shoebox with very little money, worked outside in ragged clothes during the day in ice-cold conditions and wrestled music out of my terrible equipment at night.
Then, for various reasons I won't go into, I moved up North, living in various places like Hull (which is actually OK), and also sunny old Scunthorpe. I was already involved in a death metal band called Soulphernus, as the bass player. The music was all more or less written by a Polish lad named Leon, it was his "baby". We drove around to various midlands/northern venues playing this occult death metal stuff to various people. It sounded great live, but I wasn't so pleased with our recordings. I started writing music for Oppress just before I left the North to go and continue my ego-trip uh, I mean, studying.
Whilst I lived in that part of the country I had this unpleasant sense of being caught in a dream, or like being the famous "brain in a vat". I felt very disconnected from everything around me, and still do, to some extent. I think this comes out in some of the music of Oppress. I write music so that if I'm caught in a dream, at least it's my own dream and not someone else's.
Given that there are multiple members, does anyone in particular take the lead when writing?
Yes, I write everything, at least up to now. Oppress had been another one man project up until about 2022, though not necessarily by choice. I had to look long and hard to find other members, though eventually I encountered "the Wrong Reverend" J:XIX and "Ouroboros Emesis". It has taken since then to get them up to speed, so to speak, as we have all encountered a million setbacks and misfortunes in the meantime (We are cursed, we are hated). During this period I was finishing work on "The Subtle Art". From now on, we'll see. I'm not opposed to other people being involved in the writing process.
As Oppress, are there any Ideological or Spiritual motivations with the music, or some underlying philosophy fundamental to the bands sounds and/or lyricism?
The name Oppress. was inspired by an interview with J. Read of Revenge. He was asked where the band name "Revenge" came from and responded that it was the most evil thing he could think of. It has always seemed to me that people have a bizarre and irrational fear of suffering and death. It is as though these things were evil in-and-of themselves, and that the worst thing a person can do was to inflict either of these things on one another, or on animals, on oneself, or whatever it might be. In other words, to oppress is the worst thing that you can do, or so it is commonly believed. But it seems to me that suffering and death, whether accidental or intentional, are the preconditions of basically everything that is worthwhile in the world, in fact, of any kind of life whatsoever.... So, in J. Read style, I called the band Oppress.
I write music that is off-kilter and weird in order to frustrate, that is something that goes hand in hand with this philosophy, both refusing to let you dwell in illusions of comfort, as well as "oppressing" you with its insistence. If there is a spiritual aspect to the music it is simply a matter of becoming aware, of reconciling oneself with, and perhaps even learning to enjoy suffering, death, the submission of oneself and others to events beyond your control. As I say in the new album, "as from Kether to Malkuth, so from arse to mouth".
Though whilst we're here, I think think Carl Jung's writing is total trash, hence the ironic reference to alchemy in the title of the last album.
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How have you found running a label simultaneously to releasing your own music, was this out of necessity or a passion of yours as well?
I would scarcely call KVNT Kolektiv a label! I have no idea why I did it, really. My activities felt very solitary and I wanted to be involved with music that wasn't mine in some way other than through the usual transactional relationship we are all used to. I had the idea to start with the help of my old friend in Wytchfilth, though in the end they wanted only to have minimal involvement. Thus, I sought out music and individuals who were producing music of a high quality, but which were somewhat ignored, perhaps because of how unorthodox they were. I looked for bands who had a similarly odd, hypnagogic or nightmarish atmosphere to Oppress. It was not enough simply to be odd or "kooky". In doing so, I multiplied the amount of work that would be required to disseminate these things in a way that felt authentic. I also started producing my own, even more experimental music to add to these exertions. I suppose it's another form of self-inflicted oppression, really.
The vocals captivate me with most listens, very varied with a great mix of snarling, growls, cleaner unsettling near spoken moments and some wretched screams, It's quite eclectic and somewhat "theatrical", If carach angren were more to my tastes. Is this all from the same vocalist, and was it a stylistic choice as a band or down to him?
I did vocals on all recordings up to "The Subtle Art", where I relegated myself to backing grunts. Yes, it was a stylistic choice, I was finding the typical screams a bit boring and took inspiration from Big Boss of Root, Attila of Mayhem, and Aldrahn of DHG amongst others. It allows for more fluid expression as the mood of the music requires. It is meant to be theatrical as you say, it's as though the vocals are changing from role of one character to another, from imperious to lowly, from demonic to godlike, from bestial to ascetic in the space of seconds.
I cannot answer for J:XIX, except that I instructed him to do something similar without just copying me on the new material. He is far more skilled as a metal vocalist than me, so he does all live vocals, too.
Another small but essential element has to be your choice of artwork, were "Regina Mundi" and the "Subtle Art" both by the same artist?
Yes, Hieu Hoang Dao (aka Imperial Cult from the band Elcrost) did both. I chose him for his decadent/art nouveau style. Again, I was looking for an art style which would be frustrating or alienating for a typical black metal listener, but which would still be able to convey the evil in the music. There was a big Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at the time and the idea struck to use this style, which was very stark and high contrast, full of obscene and unsettling imagery, whilst also being very far from the typical war metal aesthetic that was everywhere at the time. Much as I enjoy Revenge, Blasphemy, Beherit and all that, the whole hyper-masculine, gym-bro thing that's still trendy now stinks of repressed homosexuality. I then encountered Hieu through his band Elcrost and immediately wrote to him, and he agreed to make some images. I provide him with a theme and some lyrics and leave him to generate whatever image comes to him. He gets it right every time and is very easy to work with.
The guitar work on the latest album is really chaotic in the best way, feeling far more experimental than the previous album, was this intentional or am I just hearing things that way?
I hadn't given it much thought...I am not a guitar whizz or anything, I just play what feels good under my fingers. I used to try and emulate certain bands and certain sounds, particularly in the heyday of "orthodox black metal", but nowadays I think that is a retarded approach to writing music. I like major chords in first inversion and half diminished chords; I like chromatic melodies and non-functional harmonies; I dislike endless I - vi progressions in the key of E minor. That's all, really.
Given the slightly lapse "scene" here in the southwest, what first got you interested in this genre of music? And do you find yourself involved with any other bands or setting up live shows?
As should be clear by now, I'm not local to this corner of the UK. What, or who, got me interested in this genre and many others was John Peel, back in the 2000s. As an edgy teen I was always on the hunt for the next most extreme thing, and JP would play all kinds of noisy stuff like Melt Banana, Axis of Perdition, early Mastodon, Carcass, as well as quiet moody stuff like Lustmord, etc. (Of course, this was in between all kinds of stuff like gabber, endless Lee "scratch" Perry, all kinds of anti-folk and other self-consciously "weird" music). Having never heard anything more extreme than Slipknot at that point, Yattering's "Panic in a Sea of Blood" blew my little mind. Then he played Behexen "By the Blessing of Satan" and I never looked back. I did not have internet or any idea how to obtain this music, so I would tape it all at the dead of night when I was supposed to be asleep. I would have been around 12 or 13 years old at the time.
No other bands at present.
Will there be more K.V.N.T worthy music to come from Oppress?
Yes. I am already writing it. But "Subtle Art" is only out a few weeks at the time of writing, so give it a minute, yeah?
The Label you’re running has a fairly eclectic lineup already, what would the underlying stylistic ethos or archetypal sound be that you are looking for, or which groups these artists together? If one exists at all?
The ethos is best summarised by the chopped-off dick I used on the KVNT logo. I’m not interested in music that tells the listener how great they are, how superior they are to the others, how far above everything they are, how cool they are because they have big muscles/big record collections/loads of occult books and incense burners. Already too much so called “dark music” is about massaging people’s fragile egos and reassuring them with familiar tropes and formulas. KVNT is about music that will (metaphorically) cut your dick off, not rub it.
You say it was listening to John Peel’s sessions which got you into more extreme genres. Were you already interested in making music prior to then? How long have you been playing an instrument, etc…
Yes, sort of. Before John Peel I liked Radiohead, Gorillaz, nu-metal, Cradle of Filth…even when I was very young I knew about Sex Pistols. I begged my mother to buy a bass guitar when I was about 12, having saved up about half the money myself.
With age ever increasing has your fervour to create music waned or increased over the years? And what continues to inspire you?
Nope, only the time and opportunity has decreased. What continues to inspire me is my own bloody-mindedness. No one asked for it, no one cares, no one listens, it makes life difficult, and I still carry on regardless. Its a middle finger to everyone: the people I love, the people I hate, the people in the middle, and especially to the aficionados of the so-called “underground”.