::: on this page you will find all the interviews that have been done with a death cinematic and simple box construction. to go to a specific interview on this page just click the name in the index. thank you for reading.
DIY CONSPIRACY ::: BLACK METAL AND BREWS ::: HEATHEN HARVEST PART 2 ::: HEATHEN HARVEST ::: SCENE POINT BLANK ::: LURKERS PATH ::: UNBOOKABLE #5 ::: SONIC FRONTIERS ::: DOOM METAL ALLIANCE ::: HAMMER SMASHED SOUND ::: AMBIENT & NOISE EXPERIENCE MAGAZINE
::: INTERVIEW WITH DIY CONSPIRACY [SEPTEMBER, 2014] :::
::: INTERVIEW WITH BLACK METAL AND BREWS [DECEMBER, 2012] :::
::: INTERVIEW WITH HEATHEN HARVEST PART 2 [APRIL, 2012] :::
::: INTERVIEW WITH HEATHEN HARVEST [FEBRUARY, 2012] :::
I’ve been following A Death Cinematic (ADC) for quite some years. His music can be roughly described as one man guitar drone, sometimes quieter sometimes noisier, but generally in that aesthetics. However, ADC is not just a musical project but also an artist publishing avant-garde poetry, sculpture, paintings and what’s especially important – does everything on his own! From the very concept and creation of the art pieces themselves to the packaging, distribution, promotion through his art-house / workshop / label Simple Box Construction. Basically everything. What we have here is an extensive interview, spanning over 3700 words, but fear not for it’s a great story of a dedicated artist and a skilled craftsman, who’s spent the last 7 years of his life, pouring his heart in an impressive amount of unique and high quality art pieces, thus has done it the DIY way!
DIY CONSPIRACY: For the past few years A Death Cinematic has been an important and very prolific part of the drone scene, what lies behind this project – the person, the urge, the reasons?
A DEATH CINEMATIC: I’ve been doing this project for almost 7 years and I’ve been trying to keep it anonymous as much as possible. Which is to say that the person behind the project is of little importance. The urge and the reasons for doing this are more important. I feel a necessity to do this and often it is beyond my control. It has come to the point where if I can’t get time to work on this project it affects me in a very negative way. So I devote as much of my ‘free’ time to this as possible, I can’t help but to do so. I don’t really see any other way around it. And of course, as any artist who is serious about making work, I hope I have something new to say or something old to say in a new way.
DIYC: An inseparable part of ADC is Simple Box Construction, your very own workshop/studio which is manufacturing your releases tell us more about that?
ADC: Simple Box Construction came to me way back in 1999 as I started to work on a very small and limited edition of hand bound books of images. It was a name I could print and manufacture that, and other, books under. At that time I only got around to putting out that one edition and once I finished the books simple box went dormant for a while, and at that time, maybe forever.
When I started to record music as A Death Cinematic in 2007 and thought about how to release it, doing it under the Simple Box Construction label seemed like the logical choice. I brought it back from the dead and assigned all the visual and design aspects that I did and will do for A Death Cinematic to this entity.
So now simple box is this unofficial label that I put out all my work for A Death Cinematic, as far as music and sound is concerned, and all visual stuff which includes editions of cds, books, prints, artwork, t shirts, design work for other bands or labels, etc.
The two entities are inseparable for me, they are parts that encompass the pursuit of a larger creative vision. I would say that they necessitate each other.
DIYC: Have you ever collaborated with a label or you’ve decided to take everything in your own hands from the very start of the project?
ADC: With these projects I try to be as DIY as possible. But I have worked with other bands and labels to put out joint releases and splits. It varies on how much simple box might be involved with those types of releases. In the past I’ve worked with labels that I would do all the packaging and they would pay to put out the release. Or I would do the splits and the bands would pay for promotional things. We would always divide it up somehow.
I’ve also put out split releases that were on other labels and Simple Box Construction would only contribute some artwork or design elements. At this point I don’t think I would sign over A Death Cinematic completely to another label where they would do all the work. I wouldn’t be comfortable with that arrangement. I would have to be involved in the visual aspect of it. The A Death Cinematic sounds and noises require a specific context whether it is visual and/ or verbal.
DIYC: Can you outline how you assemble a release, from its very creative and artistic conception, to its composition and recording and then the very physical assembling?
ADC: I can try. Each release has its own set of challenges and problems that need to be solved.
I record music all the time so I have a surplus of recordings and I organize them loosely, very loosely, into themes to be divided into releases. As I record or review the recordings I usually, at the same time, am thinking of how I can and might thematically and emotionally present the recordings.
I usually start with making some drawings and notes on the design. Little sketches of how things might look or fold, materials, dimensions, images, etc.
The next step might be to assemble some of the materials to ensure that they will go together. In a lot of my ideas I try to use materials that normally do not go together. So I do this preliminary assemblage to test out adhesives or how certain papers might print.
While doing this I start to refine how things will be printed and put together and I make decisions based on how big I want to make the edition. I try to come up with an efficient way to do, say 100 or a 150 copies.
Next, I make the first mock up. I try and do this in the same way that I will do the whole edition. At this stage I proof read, make registration adjustments, sizing adjustments, and material alterations and basically fix any other mistakes. Every so often the first mock up doesn’t work so I have to make a second or a third. While doing this I make notes and sketches.
Once everything looks the way it should and I have my notes on how to assemble the edition. I try to raise money for the materials. This includes doing pre orders or a t shirt sale and saving money from my day job. Whatever the materials might be I collect them in and try to organize them in how they will be put together. I make whatever jigs I might need to help with registration and assembly. Sometimes these take a while to do in and of themselves. And sometimes the jig ends up not working the way I would like or need it to and I have to redesign it.
While doing this I might do all the printing I can and/ or all the cutting, scoring, folding. Whatever I can to help move the edition along and try to get it out in a timely way. I must say that I always or almost always underestimate how long things take and then I have to delay my releases.
As soon as I finish the first few copies I start to ship out whatever pre orders have been waiting the longest. Once those are out I start to make all the copies but usually somewhere in the middle of this I have another idea for a release, or i’m asked to work on a split, or something so I start to put the edition on the back burner and work on it in batches as time allows or as orders come in and the cycle begins again.
As I finish up an edition I start to collect all the proofs, jigs, sketches, notes, and mock ups and put them in an archive box. So I have a very thorough record of how things went together and what it took to make the edition.
DIYC: Which was the hardest record you’ve had to come up with, musically and / or physically?
ADC: This is hard to answer. They all have their challenges. With each new edition I try to challenge myself and do something I haven’t done before. Eventually I might repeat a package design but for now I haven’t had to do that.
THE NEW WORLD, when I was doing it was very challenging and time consuming because of all the books that I printed and bound. but when I was working on CORROSIONS OF TRAVELLED DAYDREAMS making the boxes, and scorching the dowels, and constructing the photo packs proved to be time consuming and difficult as well. Even when I did the THE NIGHT OF OUR SORROW HAS FALLEN… EP that took a lot longer and had its difficulties too. Initially I thought it would be a quick edition of only 25 but binding all the books with various materials as pages and making the photo negative art pieces to go in each one took longer than I thought it would.
DIYC: Do you manufacture all copies or assemble them as batches after orders reach a certain amount?
ADC: Typically I do them in batches once I fulfill my pre-orders. I have done some that I would finish all the copies before I would send them out. But because of the time factor it is not always practical to do that. I use my ‘free’ time between releases to finish up editions and record new sounds.
DIYC: Where is your fanbase mostly located? And isn’t it hard and expensive to ship releases with that kind of packaging, especially with the constant increase of shipping costs in the US?
ADC: My fan base is mostly in Europe and the US. Although I have some fans in South America, Australia and even Japan. It is hard to ship this stuff internationally because of the shipping costs. I try to make it as inexpensive as I can often breaking even or at a slight loss.
Germany has a few of my most avid fans who have shown unconditional support. There are a few fans in the states with the same kind fervor. Come to think of it, most of my fan base is very dedicated, which is great.
DIYC: And which takes up more time, as following you online it looks as if more efforts you put in the physical representation of the work and the rest is just somehow appearing, which surely is an illusion we’d like to wipe off? I mean that all we see is how you assemble the physical part of the releases and how you record the music itself can’t really be captured and music and coming up with is a hidden process I’d like to enlighten a bit.
ADC: It is hard to say which takes more time. I record often and as much as I can. That process is quick but then there is editing, mixing, mastering that takes a lot more time to get the tracks into their proper forms. The physical is easier to document as a work in progress. I can snap a picture and write a caption and get it up on the web with my phone as i’m working. Sounds are not that easy to share and to show as a work in progress. Sound happens in time and if the mood is conducive and everything is flowing it would be very disruptive and damaging to stop and upload a tid bid of a drone or some other noise effect.
I try to play everyday and often I try to record daily too. Sometimes though I just practice and try to flesh out ideas of sounds and don’t record these sessions. I take notes on settings and effects used and think about how these sounds get at the emotional and thematic idea i’m trying to express and sometimes how that might fit into some of the visual aspects I’ve been thinking about and working on. I improvise and experiment as I record. None of the music is ‘written’ per se. It is all very dependent on intuition.
DIYC: ADC is a project with a very physical and very… analogue feeling, however across the internet you’re publishing a lot of digital/mobile photography, is it only because of convenience and the fact you simply have no time to get into analogue photography as well?
ADC: I don’t really think of it as a more digital or analog project. All the music is recorded digitally and as far as the photography is concerned, it is more an issue of cost than anything else. Digital photography is cheaper and a lot more convenient to do. As long as the imagery conveys what I need it to convey I have no preference for digital or analog. It really is about doing what I can with what I have. At this point for me to have a dark room would be a huge expense which is not realistic.
Traditional photography has its characteristics that are unique to the medium. Although digital photography has come close and is inching ever closer. I have a collection of film cameras that I would like to use again so maybe someday I will have the means of setting up a dark room and doing more analog types of photography.
DIYC: What about poetry, your latest project is a poetry book, but put in a very limited edition, will this be only literature or will be accompanied by music as well?
ADC: I write poetry all the time as I do recordings or work on making the editions. The words are all part of the context for the themes of each release.
The latest project is called Deadmen and it is a very small edition of small format hand printed books of images and two poems. This will not have any music along with it but I would say that it is a very necessary piece of the whole A Death Cinematic/Simple Box Construction project. There will be more non music editions coming out in the future. In fact there were a few I started several years ago but I have put them on hold because some of the musical editions took so long.
I will be revisiting those very soon. To me they are just as important to get the message across. They help to complete the picture and fill in the gaps for the larger themes that I have been trying to express.
DIYC: Have you been asked to assemble packaging for somebody else’s music/art and would you do it?
ADC: Indeed I have been asked but usually the cost and my time restraints prohibit it from going much further then the estimate I give. I have no rules against doing it. It just doesn’t seem practical as I work on my own stuff.
Most of my daily hours are spent working for someone else. The simple box stuff I do after-hours on my own. This doesn’t allow me to commit to working solely on someone else’s project.
DIYC: I perceive your work as that of the old craftsmen who’d spent hours in their neat and staffed workshops, have you ever considering sharing your skills and knowledge with other people so you expand your activities or just teach somebody something you love?
ADC: Although I try to keep my studio clean and neat, I’m afraid it isn’t as clean as I would like it to be. My workshop is staffed only by me. I have not really thought about teaching anyone any of this. Not because i’m against it or because I don’t want to share but because it has never come up. I have not thought of what I do as something someone would want to learn or had an interest in it on that level. Most of this stuff I make up as I go along. There is a lot of time I do thinking, experimenting, and failing. A lot of the the process happens internally so for someone to hangout to learn might find themselves bored waiting for me to actually do something worthwhile of learning.
DIYC: I’ve been following your work updates for years and I’ve always wondered how many hours a day do you sleep, and do you sleep at all?
ADC: Unfortunately I do sleep although it is not very much. I try not to sleep but my body and mind won’t allow that. It is very seldom that I voluntarily go to bed. Usually I just wake up realizing that somehow I went to sleep. It is really beyond my control at this point. Now sleep comes to me at very inopportune times. The most I sleep is about five hours in a night. This is not always a continuous five hours either. I do have insomnia most of the time which does allow me to make things as long as my motivation holds up.
DIYC: If we are to put A Death Cinematic in numbers what would that look like? Years, releases, hours a day in the workshop, followers, shows?
ADC: Seven years, 12 musical releases (not counting singles or compilations) and 5 non-musical ones (not counting singular artworks, only editions), hours of day in the workshop – not enough and one live show.
DIYC: Tell me more about A Death Cinematic live performances? How is that different from the work in the studio / workshop, how do the people respond and how you feel about it?
ADC: Well, I have only done one live performance thus far. Although I do have some lined up for later this year. I have been doing more practicing for a live setting and I can say that there is quite a bit of a difference in how I record for an album and how I play live.
The biggest difference is the ability to multitrack while recording an album. When I do that I can lay down preliminary tracks and then go back and build on them as the ideas grow. Often when I work on a track and come across a new melody or some new setting on effects that might not fit into the current track, I will start a new track and put it aside. This allows me to work on a number of pieces simultaneously and spend more time building the sounds.
In the live setting without multi tracking I either have to have the whole track laid out or work in the dark. It is a more immediate approach and I rely on layering in real time which can sometimes get out of control and I can lose the sound or the theme I was going after. Or I make a mistake or a poor choice and hit the wrong effect which could completely ruin the mood and movement of the track.
Also the tracks played live tend to be longer as I try to make a single musical set without stopping and starting. As I play it takes more time to flesh out the idea and musical landscape. I also don’t play any of the recorded tracks from the albums live because I don’t know how to. They all have been improvised and captured at various moments and emotional states. They were not meant to be recreated.
Each approach has its merits and both rely heavily on intuition and improvisation but in different ways and approaches. I plan on working on a very large release of live recordings from the studio which I did as some practice sessions for live shows. The initial ideas for this have already started to materialize.
DIYC: We already made a bunch of lone-wolf references, but have you collaborated with other musicians and artists (both studio and live) and do you feel tempted to do this more in the future, or your own ideas are currently sufficient for the development of A Death Cinematic?
ADC: As of now I have not truly collaborated on any music with other artists. I do look forward to it and I have been asked by some musicians that I respect a great deal but because of time and other things I have not been able to commit to these projects. I hope to do something soon where it is a musical collaboration other than the traditional split release.
Veins like trenches… and the new world were collaborations with other artists. Veins… was a collaboration with Nathan from the now defunct Winepress Records where he did a visual piece for the track and we put it our as a limited DVD-r. And the new world was a collaboration with Matt Finney who wrote and read the poem on that track.
A Death Cinematic at its core will always be a solo project and I will keep going on it until I do run out of ideas but working with others is something I am very interested in.
DIYC: Speaking of the future, what can we expect from A Death Cinematic which is already planned, or already in the works?
ADC: There is always a ton of stuff planned for simple box and A Death Cinematic. I fear that I might not get to all of it.
Once the deadmen book comes out I will be working on the next full length album. All the music is recorded but it needs to be mixed and mastered. I have already started on making the covers.
I have finished a couple of tracks for a compilation and some for a split that will be out later this year.
I am also looking forward to doing more live performances and getting back to some of the visual editions that have been on the back burner for the last few years.
There is also some other big projects that I have brewing but am not quite ready to give out any information since they are still in their infancy. But as soon as things start to get closer to getting worked out I will divulge more details. These include some film work, more just visual editions and the live recording studio sessions.
I will also try to keep and maintain the Simple Box Construction site. I always wait too long between updates and then it turns out to be this huge project to get it updated and current.
DIYC: What else is there in your life that you have to find the time for?
ADC: Family for sure. Reading, although I read everyday there is still a ton of stuff I want to read. That is a never ending list. Listening to more music, again I do it every day but there is a ton of stuff that I want to check out. Having a job is a big time suck that keeps me from getting things done but it does provide the necessary income to live.
DIYC: If you had to abandon music / art what will you change it for and what can be a reason to do this?
ADC: I really would change it for nothing. To give it up, something catastrophic in my life would have to happen. I just don’t really picture my life without the creative output. Although I would like to travel and see more of the world but I wouldn’t do it instead of making art.
DIYC: The last is on you, feel free to share whatever you want, and whatever we may have missed.
ADC: Well then, I would like to use this space to thank all the fans and my family for being there for me and their support which has enabled me to do the things that I do. I am forever grateful.
interview by: angle s
DIY CONSPIRACY: For the past few years A Death Cinematic has been an important and very prolific part of the drone scene, what lies behind this project – the person, the urge, the reasons?
A DEATH CINEMATIC: I’ve been doing this project for almost 7 years and I’ve been trying to keep it anonymous as much as possible. Which is to say that the person behind the project is of little importance. The urge and the reasons for doing this are more important. I feel a necessity to do this and often it is beyond my control. It has come to the point where if I can’t get time to work on this project it affects me in a very negative way. So I devote as much of my ‘free’ time to this as possible, I can’t help but to do so. I don’t really see any other way around it. And of course, as any artist who is serious about making work, I hope I have something new to say or something old to say in a new way.
DIYC: An inseparable part of ADC is Simple Box Construction, your very own workshop/studio which is manufacturing your releases tell us more about that?
ADC: Simple Box Construction came to me way back in 1999 as I started to work on a very small and limited edition of hand bound books of images. It was a name I could print and manufacture that, and other, books under. At that time I only got around to putting out that one edition and once I finished the books simple box went dormant for a while, and at that time, maybe forever.
When I started to record music as A Death Cinematic in 2007 and thought about how to release it, doing it under the Simple Box Construction label seemed like the logical choice. I brought it back from the dead and assigned all the visual and design aspects that I did and will do for A Death Cinematic to this entity.
So now simple box is this unofficial label that I put out all my work for A Death Cinematic, as far as music and sound is concerned, and all visual stuff which includes editions of cds, books, prints, artwork, t shirts, design work for other bands or labels, etc.
The two entities are inseparable for me, they are parts that encompass the pursuit of a larger creative vision. I would say that they necessitate each other.
DIYC: Have you ever collaborated with a label or you’ve decided to take everything in your own hands from the very start of the project?
ADC: With these projects I try to be as DIY as possible. But I have worked with other bands and labels to put out joint releases and splits. It varies on how much simple box might be involved with those types of releases. In the past I’ve worked with labels that I would do all the packaging and they would pay to put out the release. Or I would do the splits and the bands would pay for promotional things. We would always divide it up somehow.
I’ve also put out split releases that were on other labels and Simple Box Construction would only contribute some artwork or design elements. At this point I don’t think I would sign over A Death Cinematic completely to another label where they would do all the work. I wouldn’t be comfortable with that arrangement. I would have to be involved in the visual aspect of it. The A Death Cinematic sounds and noises require a specific context whether it is visual and/ or verbal.
DIYC: Can you outline how you assemble a release, from its very creative and artistic conception, to its composition and recording and then the very physical assembling?
ADC: I can try. Each release has its own set of challenges and problems that need to be solved.
I record music all the time so I have a surplus of recordings and I organize them loosely, very loosely, into themes to be divided into releases. As I record or review the recordings I usually, at the same time, am thinking of how I can and might thematically and emotionally present the recordings.
I usually start with making some drawings and notes on the design. Little sketches of how things might look or fold, materials, dimensions, images, etc.
The next step might be to assemble some of the materials to ensure that they will go together. In a lot of my ideas I try to use materials that normally do not go together. So I do this preliminary assemblage to test out adhesives or how certain papers might print.
While doing this I start to refine how things will be printed and put together and I make decisions based on how big I want to make the edition. I try to come up with an efficient way to do, say 100 or a 150 copies.
Next, I make the first mock up. I try and do this in the same way that I will do the whole edition. At this stage I proof read, make registration adjustments, sizing adjustments, and material alterations and basically fix any other mistakes. Every so often the first mock up doesn’t work so I have to make a second or a third. While doing this I make notes and sketches.
Once everything looks the way it should and I have my notes on how to assemble the edition. I try to raise money for the materials. This includes doing pre orders or a t shirt sale and saving money from my day job. Whatever the materials might be I collect them in and try to organize them in how they will be put together. I make whatever jigs I might need to help with registration and assembly. Sometimes these take a while to do in and of themselves. And sometimes the jig ends up not working the way I would like or need it to and I have to redesign it.
While doing this I might do all the printing I can and/ or all the cutting, scoring, folding. Whatever I can to help move the edition along and try to get it out in a timely way. I must say that I always or almost always underestimate how long things take and then I have to delay my releases.
As soon as I finish the first few copies I start to ship out whatever pre orders have been waiting the longest. Once those are out I start to make all the copies but usually somewhere in the middle of this I have another idea for a release, or i’m asked to work on a split, or something so I start to put the edition on the back burner and work on it in batches as time allows or as orders come in and the cycle begins again.
As I finish up an edition I start to collect all the proofs, jigs, sketches, notes, and mock ups and put them in an archive box. So I have a very thorough record of how things went together and what it took to make the edition.
DIYC: Which was the hardest record you’ve had to come up with, musically and / or physically?
ADC: This is hard to answer. They all have their challenges. With each new edition I try to challenge myself and do something I haven’t done before. Eventually I might repeat a package design but for now I haven’t had to do that.
THE NEW WORLD, when I was doing it was very challenging and time consuming because of all the books that I printed and bound. but when I was working on CORROSIONS OF TRAVELLED DAYDREAMS making the boxes, and scorching the dowels, and constructing the photo packs proved to be time consuming and difficult as well. Even when I did the THE NIGHT OF OUR SORROW HAS FALLEN… EP that took a lot longer and had its difficulties too. Initially I thought it would be a quick edition of only 25 but binding all the books with various materials as pages and making the photo negative art pieces to go in each one took longer than I thought it would.
DIYC: Do you manufacture all copies or assemble them as batches after orders reach a certain amount?
ADC: Typically I do them in batches once I fulfill my pre-orders. I have done some that I would finish all the copies before I would send them out. But because of the time factor it is not always practical to do that. I use my ‘free’ time between releases to finish up editions and record new sounds.
DIYC: Where is your fanbase mostly located? And isn’t it hard and expensive to ship releases with that kind of packaging, especially with the constant increase of shipping costs in the US?
ADC: My fan base is mostly in Europe and the US. Although I have some fans in South America, Australia and even Japan. It is hard to ship this stuff internationally because of the shipping costs. I try to make it as inexpensive as I can often breaking even or at a slight loss.
Germany has a few of my most avid fans who have shown unconditional support. There are a few fans in the states with the same kind fervor. Come to think of it, most of my fan base is very dedicated, which is great.
DIYC: And which takes up more time, as following you online it looks as if more efforts you put in the physical representation of the work and the rest is just somehow appearing, which surely is an illusion we’d like to wipe off? I mean that all we see is how you assemble the physical part of the releases and how you record the music itself can’t really be captured and music and coming up with is a hidden process I’d like to enlighten a bit.
ADC: It is hard to say which takes more time. I record often and as much as I can. That process is quick but then there is editing, mixing, mastering that takes a lot more time to get the tracks into their proper forms. The physical is easier to document as a work in progress. I can snap a picture and write a caption and get it up on the web with my phone as i’m working. Sounds are not that easy to share and to show as a work in progress. Sound happens in time and if the mood is conducive and everything is flowing it would be very disruptive and damaging to stop and upload a tid bid of a drone or some other noise effect.
I try to play everyday and often I try to record daily too. Sometimes though I just practice and try to flesh out ideas of sounds and don’t record these sessions. I take notes on settings and effects used and think about how these sounds get at the emotional and thematic idea i’m trying to express and sometimes how that might fit into some of the visual aspects I’ve been thinking about and working on. I improvise and experiment as I record. None of the music is ‘written’ per se. It is all very dependent on intuition.
DIYC: ADC is a project with a very physical and very… analogue feeling, however across the internet you’re publishing a lot of digital/mobile photography, is it only because of convenience and the fact you simply have no time to get into analogue photography as well?
ADC: I don’t really think of it as a more digital or analog project. All the music is recorded digitally and as far as the photography is concerned, it is more an issue of cost than anything else. Digital photography is cheaper and a lot more convenient to do. As long as the imagery conveys what I need it to convey I have no preference for digital or analog. It really is about doing what I can with what I have. At this point for me to have a dark room would be a huge expense which is not realistic.
Traditional photography has its characteristics that are unique to the medium. Although digital photography has come close and is inching ever closer. I have a collection of film cameras that I would like to use again so maybe someday I will have the means of setting up a dark room and doing more analog types of photography.
DIYC: What about poetry, your latest project is a poetry book, but put in a very limited edition, will this be only literature or will be accompanied by music as well?
ADC: I write poetry all the time as I do recordings or work on making the editions. The words are all part of the context for the themes of each release.
The latest project is called Deadmen and it is a very small edition of small format hand printed books of images and two poems. This will not have any music along with it but I would say that it is a very necessary piece of the whole A Death Cinematic/Simple Box Construction project. There will be more non music editions coming out in the future. In fact there were a few I started several years ago but I have put them on hold because some of the musical editions took so long.
I will be revisiting those very soon. To me they are just as important to get the message across. They help to complete the picture and fill in the gaps for the larger themes that I have been trying to express.
DIYC: Have you been asked to assemble packaging for somebody else’s music/art and would you do it?
ADC: Indeed I have been asked but usually the cost and my time restraints prohibit it from going much further then the estimate I give. I have no rules against doing it. It just doesn’t seem practical as I work on my own stuff.
Most of my daily hours are spent working for someone else. The simple box stuff I do after-hours on my own. This doesn’t allow me to commit to working solely on someone else’s project.
DIYC: I perceive your work as that of the old craftsmen who’d spent hours in their neat and staffed workshops, have you ever considering sharing your skills and knowledge with other people so you expand your activities or just teach somebody something you love?
ADC: Although I try to keep my studio clean and neat, I’m afraid it isn’t as clean as I would like it to be. My workshop is staffed only by me. I have not really thought about teaching anyone any of this. Not because i’m against it or because I don’t want to share but because it has never come up. I have not thought of what I do as something someone would want to learn or had an interest in it on that level. Most of this stuff I make up as I go along. There is a lot of time I do thinking, experimenting, and failing. A lot of the the process happens internally so for someone to hangout to learn might find themselves bored waiting for me to actually do something worthwhile of learning.
DIYC: I’ve been following your work updates for years and I’ve always wondered how many hours a day do you sleep, and do you sleep at all?
ADC: Unfortunately I do sleep although it is not very much. I try not to sleep but my body and mind won’t allow that. It is very seldom that I voluntarily go to bed. Usually I just wake up realizing that somehow I went to sleep. It is really beyond my control at this point. Now sleep comes to me at very inopportune times. The most I sleep is about five hours in a night. This is not always a continuous five hours either. I do have insomnia most of the time which does allow me to make things as long as my motivation holds up.
DIYC: If we are to put A Death Cinematic in numbers what would that look like? Years, releases, hours a day in the workshop, followers, shows?
ADC: Seven years, 12 musical releases (not counting singles or compilations) and 5 non-musical ones (not counting singular artworks, only editions), hours of day in the workshop – not enough and one live show.
DIYC: Tell me more about A Death Cinematic live performances? How is that different from the work in the studio / workshop, how do the people respond and how you feel about it?
ADC: Well, I have only done one live performance thus far. Although I do have some lined up for later this year. I have been doing more practicing for a live setting and I can say that there is quite a bit of a difference in how I record for an album and how I play live.
The biggest difference is the ability to multitrack while recording an album. When I do that I can lay down preliminary tracks and then go back and build on them as the ideas grow. Often when I work on a track and come across a new melody or some new setting on effects that might not fit into the current track, I will start a new track and put it aside. This allows me to work on a number of pieces simultaneously and spend more time building the sounds.
In the live setting without multi tracking I either have to have the whole track laid out or work in the dark. It is a more immediate approach and I rely on layering in real time which can sometimes get out of control and I can lose the sound or the theme I was going after. Or I make a mistake or a poor choice and hit the wrong effect which could completely ruin the mood and movement of the track.
Also the tracks played live tend to be longer as I try to make a single musical set without stopping and starting. As I play it takes more time to flesh out the idea and musical landscape. I also don’t play any of the recorded tracks from the albums live because I don’t know how to. They all have been improvised and captured at various moments and emotional states. They were not meant to be recreated.
Each approach has its merits and both rely heavily on intuition and improvisation but in different ways and approaches. I plan on working on a very large release of live recordings from the studio which I did as some practice sessions for live shows. The initial ideas for this have already started to materialize.
DIYC: We already made a bunch of lone-wolf references, but have you collaborated with other musicians and artists (both studio and live) and do you feel tempted to do this more in the future, or your own ideas are currently sufficient for the development of A Death Cinematic?
ADC: As of now I have not truly collaborated on any music with other artists. I do look forward to it and I have been asked by some musicians that I respect a great deal but because of time and other things I have not been able to commit to these projects. I hope to do something soon where it is a musical collaboration other than the traditional split release.
Veins like trenches… and the new world were collaborations with other artists. Veins… was a collaboration with Nathan from the now defunct Winepress Records where he did a visual piece for the track and we put it our as a limited DVD-r. And the new world was a collaboration with Matt Finney who wrote and read the poem on that track.
A Death Cinematic at its core will always be a solo project and I will keep going on it until I do run out of ideas but working with others is something I am very interested in.
DIYC: Speaking of the future, what can we expect from A Death Cinematic which is already planned, or already in the works?
ADC: There is always a ton of stuff planned for simple box and A Death Cinematic. I fear that I might not get to all of it.
Once the deadmen book comes out I will be working on the next full length album. All the music is recorded but it needs to be mixed and mastered. I have already started on making the covers.
I have finished a couple of tracks for a compilation and some for a split that will be out later this year.
I am also looking forward to doing more live performances and getting back to some of the visual editions that have been on the back burner for the last few years.
There is also some other big projects that I have brewing but am not quite ready to give out any information since they are still in their infancy. But as soon as things start to get closer to getting worked out I will divulge more details. These include some film work, more just visual editions and the live recording studio sessions.
I will also try to keep and maintain the Simple Box Construction site. I always wait too long between updates and then it turns out to be this huge project to get it updated and current.
DIYC: What else is there in your life that you have to find the time for?
ADC: Family for sure. Reading, although I read everyday there is still a ton of stuff I want to read. That is a never ending list. Listening to more music, again I do it every day but there is a ton of stuff that I want to check out. Having a job is a big time suck that keeps me from getting things done but it does provide the necessary income to live.
DIYC: If you had to abandon music / art what will you change it for and what can be a reason to do this?
ADC: I really would change it for nothing. To give it up, something catastrophic in my life would have to happen. I just don’t really picture my life without the creative output. Although I would like to travel and see more of the world but I wouldn’t do it instead of making art.
DIYC: The last is on you, feel free to share whatever you want, and whatever we may have missed.
ADC: Well then, I would like to use this space to thank all the fans and my family for being there for me and their support which has enabled me to do the things that I do. I am forever grateful.
interview by: angle s
Black Metal And Brews:
a death cinematic has always created very visual music, beginning with the evocative song titles on the very first release, and now including the extensive photography collection included with The New World. How did the hybridization of the two come to mind for you?
A Death Cinematic: I guess there was never a question of separation. The two were always entwined for me, so it really became a question of bringing them together in a meaningful and aesthetic way as the projects grew. The visual aspect has always been very important to me and simple box and a death cinematic is an ongoing work in progress. I now consider any artwork, whether it is writing, photography, music, or drawing to be a part and a continuation of this.
BMAB: Is there a unifying theme to your albums as a death cinematic? Is there a message you’re hoping to convey with a death cinematic’s artistic output?
ADC: I think there is a unifying theme. To me it is a journey and each release is the next logical step along that journey. It all goes together. I am not as concerned with conveying a specific message with a death cinematic as I am in building a context for a listener to construct their own message. The work I do has specific meanings for me but I am not concerned that a listener or viewer know what those are for me. I want it to mean something to them on their own personal terms. If I was to say that this album is specifically about x, y, and z and nothing else, it constricts and pigeon holes the work, limiting the experience for the listener. At this time I want to make fertile ground for a willing participant to grow their own meaning.
BMAB: How has your personal growth as a person and musician changed a death cinematic’s direction? Has it changed the direction?
ADC: I am not so sure the direction is changed but I think my personal growth has furthered and moved a death cinematic farther. I work on becoming a better musician/ noise maker and artist and with that this project grows and gets better. At times it feels like there is no movement at all or that it is glacial at best. Those times are the worst, I imagine, for any artist. The times of misperceived stagnation. As I grow and progress with these projects, I get better at editing the work. I also get more efficient with my decisions as how to get to a theme and what materials to use.
BMAB: You collaborated with Matt Finney on your most recent release. How did that come about?
ADC: That was his idea and offering and it was a long time in the making. He suggested we do something back in 2010. He sent me a track of him reading the new world and I recorded the music and sound to it. It was meant to be a download only single but as I was working on that track the concept for the whole album crystallized for me. It just came in a flash and was so complete that I even had the basic concept for the packaging. I then asked him if I could make this album around our track. He was into it and very gracious and patient. It took me a long while to realize the release in its final 150 hand made copies.
BMAB: What inspired you to establish simple box construction rather than signing off your releases to some other label who can do all the physical production of the album for you? What drives you to craft and oversee every aspect of a death cinematic’s artistic image?
ADC: I have been a visual artist or interested in being one for as long as I can remember. simple box originally was going to be a small press for handbound books and limited edition print runs. When I started to get into making music, I looked into finding labels but as I was developing the concepts for the releases, it became clear to me that I should be doing this on my own. So simple box construction was revived and started to be this label of sorts.
The drive to do everything for a death cinematic is that even though I want the audience to build their own meanings and experiences, I want them to do it in a specified context. That context [is something] I have to construct and be as meticulous as possible about building. It could also be the early signs of madness and OCD, to try to control every aspect and build every copy as if it was a singular piece of art. At times it sure feels that way. I enjoy making the work and it becomes a vehicle to express myself in various mediums at once. Plus, doing it this way I have to answer only to myself and the failure or success of any release is my responsibility.
However, there have been and will continue to be a death cinematic releases on other labels. A lot of the labels that I have worked with allowed me to design and fabricate the packaging for the the releases. On some of the splits, the other artist designed them and the label had them made. It all comes down to what everyone is comfortable with. I found that most of the time everyone is pretty accommodating and respectful of each other's concerns. The new full-length on cassette is being released on tycho magnetic anomalies. They're a great little cassette label who asked me to do a tape release for them. They were very accommodating to my aesthetic concerns and gave me control over the design and fabrication of the whole edition. This was great because I had specific ideas for the album and could work on cassette packaging which I have not done before. So it feels like this album is made on terms that are very agreeable to me. As I talk to other labels who are interested in my work I always ask them to allow me the control of over the design and fabrication of the edition. Even though I have some projects slated on other labels this year, for the most part I still plan on the majority of the albums to be self-released.
interview by: ben
A Death Cinematic: I guess there was never a question of separation. The two were always entwined for me, so it really became a question of bringing them together in a meaningful and aesthetic way as the projects grew. The visual aspect has always been very important to me and simple box and a death cinematic is an ongoing work in progress. I now consider any artwork, whether it is writing, photography, music, or drawing to be a part and a continuation of this.
BMAB: Is there a unifying theme to your albums as a death cinematic? Is there a message you’re hoping to convey with a death cinematic’s artistic output?
ADC: I think there is a unifying theme. To me it is a journey and each release is the next logical step along that journey. It all goes together. I am not as concerned with conveying a specific message with a death cinematic as I am in building a context for a listener to construct their own message. The work I do has specific meanings for me but I am not concerned that a listener or viewer know what those are for me. I want it to mean something to them on their own personal terms. If I was to say that this album is specifically about x, y, and z and nothing else, it constricts and pigeon holes the work, limiting the experience for the listener. At this time I want to make fertile ground for a willing participant to grow their own meaning.
BMAB: How has your personal growth as a person and musician changed a death cinematic’s direction? Has it changed the direction?
ADC: I am not so sure the direction is changed but I think my personal growth has furthered and moved a death cinematic farther. I work on becoming a better musician/ noise maker and artist and with that this project grows and gets better. At times it feels like there is no movement at all or that it is glacial at best. Those times are the worst, I imagine, for any artist. The times of misperceived stagnation. As I grow and progress with these projects, I get better at editing the work. I also get more efficient with my decisions as how to get to a theme and what materials to use.
BMAB: You collaborated with Matt Finney on your most recent release. How did that come about?
ADC: That was his idea and offering and it was a long time in the making. He suggested we do something back in 2010. He sent me a track of him reading the new world and I recorded the music and sound to it. It was meant to be a download only single but as I was working on that track the concept for the whole album crystallized for me. It just came in a flash and was so complete that I even had the basic concept for the packaging. I then asked him if I could make this album around our track. He was into it and very gracious and patient. It took me a long while to realize the release in its final 150 hand made copies.
BMAB: What inspired you to establish simple box construction rather than signing off your releases to some other label who can do all the physical production of the album for you? What drives you to craft and oversee every aspect of a death cinematic’s artistic image?
ADC: I have been a visual artist or interested in being one for as long as I can remember. simple box originally was going to be a small press for handbound books and limited edition print runs. When I started to get into making music, I looked into finding labels but as I was developing the concepts for the releases, it became clear to me that I should be doing this on my own. So simple box construction was revived and started to be this label of sorts.
The drive to do everything for a death cinematic is that even though I want the audience to build their own meanings and experiences, I want them to do it in a specified context. That context [is something] I have to construct and be as meticulous as possible about building. It could also be the early signs of madness and OCD, to try to control every aspect and build every copy as if it was a singular piece of art. At times it sure feels that way. I enjoy making the work and it becomes a vehicle to express myself in various mediums at once. Plus, doing it this way I have to answer only to myself and the failure or success of any release is my responsibility.
However, there have been and will continue to be a death cinematic releases on other labels. A lot of the labels that I have worked with allowed me to design and fabricate the packaging for the the releases. On some of the splits, the other artist designed them and the label had them made. It all comes down to what everyone is comfortable with. I found that most of the time everyone is pretty accommodating and respectful of each other's concerns. The new full-length on cassette is being released on tycho magnetic anomalies. They're a great little cassette label who asked me to do a tape release for them. They were very accommodating to my aesthetic concerns and gave me control over the design and fabrication of the whole edition. This was great because I had specific ideas for the album and could work on cassette packaging which I have not done before. So it feels like this album is made on terms that are very agreeable to me. As I talk to other labels who are interested in my work I always ask them to allow me the control of over the design and fabrication of the edition. Even though I have some projects slated on other labels this year, for the most part I still plan on the majority of the albums to be self-released.
interview by: ben
Heathen Harvest: So tell us about your decision to release the Prelude to the New World book and The New World CD as separate releases but packaged together.
A Death Cinematic: It wasn’t so much a decision to release the book and the CD in this way as it was a natural progression and evolution of the project to do it that way. At this point I’m not even certain which came first. As I was working on the sounds and the themes for the CD I was also shooting, collecting and compiling images that fit those themes. I started to work on both simultaneously. The collection of images grew to a larger number and sort of demanded to be its own thing as opposed to just a handful of images to go with the CD. Still the images and the music were inseparable to me so they had to be included together. Plus each one illustrates a different facet of the main theme in different ways.
A large format and professionally printed version of the book actually came out before the album did. I got a good deal on having some books printed so I released them with an exclusive suite of drawings in order to raise some funds to purchase materials for the album.
HH: What exactly was the prelude supposed to narrate?
ACD: The prelude narrates a very short time right before the change over to the new world. Even in things that progress for a long time toward a change of some sort, there is always a moment, a pin point in time where the change occurs. An event horizon. A slow melting of a glacier until it can’t bear it’s own weight and collapses. Or soil slowly eroding from a 3000 year old tree’s root system until it finally falls. Events that are a long time in the making but can only be witnessed for a few hours, minutes, or even seconds once hey occur.
That is kind of what the the photos in the book try to capture. Those few moments of the changing event and the hopes, memories, and nostalgia that might be associated with the movement toward that change. So the book is the prelude to that change. The change happens in the span of the book and the CD together. At the end of the book there is the realization that whatever hopes there might have been for us are gone, killed by our own doing. That is what the statement and the symbol of the horse on the back cover of the book is supposed to symbolize.
HH: It seemed that with the photographs in the book, you were moving from man’s achievements and tools of destroying the world and keeping his own world together as well as human progress to the reclamation of Earth by wildlife. What do you think was going on there for you on a subconscious level?
ADC: I think that is a pretty accurate observation of what was going on on a subconscious level when i was organizing the photos and sequencing them. These things were always there thematically from when I started to play and record the music, maybe even when I was shooting the images, reading and hearing Matt’s poem until they gelled at the end. Things started to fit and the themes became more cohesive as I finished the album and the book. So there is this movement through the images toward a world with very little human presence. Things on this earth will continue to happen with or without us.
But there are also realizations that come way after the work is complete and sometimes it takes someone else’s pointing them out. That is a reward of keeping the meanings loose.
HH: The image at the bottom of each page actually turned the book into a flip-book of sorts. What exactly was this character with the red cross?
ADC: I wanted the image and symbolism of the horse to emerge throughout the book. Kind of like a slow realization of what is happening. The red cross I have used before as a symbol and to me it is the need, want and potential for healing. It also stands in as an Apposite archetype for hope and even mercy.
I used this symbol before for similar reasons but I also like that if you turn the cross 45 degrees in either direction and it’s meaning becomes almost opposite.
HH: Tell us about your work with Matt Finney. How did this come about?
ADC: Matt Finney has the patience of a saint. The idea to work together was his. He asked if I wanted to do a track with him and work together. I said yes and he sent over a track of him reading his poem. It was supposed to only have been a single. Once I started to record and put the track together I got all these ideas that came to me very quickly and clearly and I knew at that instance that this couldn’t just be a single. At that point I asked Matt if I could just build this album around the track. He had no idea it was going to take me so long to get it out there. If he knew he might not have agreed.
HH: Was this the first vocal presence in any A Death Cinematic track?
ADC: This indeed was the first intentional vocal experience on an A Death Cinematic track. There is a track on Epochs… that has a voice of a woman my amp picked up from a radio station. I just happened to be recording at that time with some reverb so her voice is well echoed and she was talking about men, women and children “cooking” in ovens. It was a very bizarre occurrence.
HH: How much did Detroit and the surrounding suburbs influence you on “The New World”? Much of the book showcases degradation and pollution.
ADC: Detroit has a strong influence on every release and it does have a big one on The New World as well. Almost all those images were shot in or around the Detroit area. Detroit can show you how bad things can get and it has been doing it that for a very long time but I have to mention that there a lot of hard-working people here trying to turn that around too.
HH: I had mentioned the tempo of the album as a whole being uncomfortably slow, inevitably adding to the feelings of desperation and hopelessness. Can you explain the reasoning behind this?
ADC: The tempo of the album is deliberate because I wanted that feeling of discomfort. A pace akin to slow gasping or plodding. Kind of like the slow and heavy climbing of steps to the gallows. No one sprints towards it. I have to imagine that when faced with such a situation, even subconsciously your steps must slow down, your legs don’t want to move. That is the overall pace I wanted for the album.
HH: Finally, can you tell us a bit about the construction of this release? How you did it, how much time the full process ended up taking, etc.
ADC: This has been a monumental undertaking for me. I do this on my own. I do all the printing and fabricating. I know 150 copies is really a small number when you compare it to general record releases but it is huge when you make every single copy by hand.
Once I figure out a mock up I try to set up a little production line and build little jigs to make things a more efficient. There is a lot that goes into the process that people don’t see in the final result. I have to work in batches and phases. I break down the process into stages and work on those in batches. This also helps to alleviate some of the monotony of working on these larger editions. I have copies of the album in smaller numbers at different stages of completion all over my studio and I am still making covers. Although every time I start a project or a new album I tell myself I won’t release it until all the copies are complete I find myself compromising. If I waited until all The New World copies were done it might be delayed by another year or two. So I have to release well before all the copies are finished and work on them as I go.
It is hard for me to tell how long it takes to make each copy because I don’t do them one at a time. If I had to guess, with all the stages for the book and the cover I would say well over an hour and a half. Maybe closer to two per each copy.
interview by: sage
A Death Cinematic: It wasn’t so much a decision to release the book and the CD in this way as it was a natural progression and evolution of the project to do it that way. At this point I’m not even certain which came first. As I was working on the sounds and the themes for the CD I was also shooting, collecting and compiling images that fit those themes. I started to work on both simultaneously. The collection of images grew to a larger number and sort of demanded to be its own thing as opposed to just a handful of images to go with the CD. Still the images and the music were inseparable to me so they had to be included together. Plus each one illustrates a different facet of the main theme in different ways.
A large format and professionally printed version of the book actually came out before the album did. I got a good deal on having some books printed so I released them with an exclusive suite of drawings in order to raise some funds to purchase materials for the album.
HH: What exactly was the prelude supposed to narrate?
ACD: The prelude narrates a very short time right before the change over to the new world. Even in things that progress for a long time toward a change of some sort, there is always a moment, a pin point in time where the change occurs. An event horizon. A slow melting of a glacier until it can’t bear it’s own weight and collapses. Or soil slowly eroding from a 3000 year old tree’s root system until it finally falls. Events that are a long time in the making but can only be witnessed for a few hours, minutes, or even seconds once hey occur.
That is kind of what the the photos in the book try to capture. Those few moments of the changing event and the hopes, memories, and nostalgia that might be associated with the movement toward that change. So the book is the prelude to that change. The change happens in the span of the book and the CD together. At the end of the book there is the realization that whatever hopes there might have been for us are gone, killed by our own doing. That is what the statement and the symbol of the horse on the back cover of the book is supposed to symbolize.
HH: It seemed that with the photographs in the book, you were moving from man’s achievements and tools of destroying the world and keeping his own world together as well as human progress to the reclamation of Earth by wildlife. What do you think was going on there for you on a subconscious level?
ADC: I think that is a pretty accurate observation of what was going on on a subconscious level when i was organizing the photos and sequencing them. These things were always there thematically from when I started to play and record the music, maybe even when I was shooting the images, reading and hearing Matt’s poem until they gelled at the end. Things started to fit and the themes became more cohesive as I finished the album and the book. So there is this movement through the images toward a world with very little human presence. Things on this earth will continue to happen with or without us.
But there are also realizations that come way after the work is complete and sometimes it takes someone else’s pointing them out. That is a reward of keeping the meanings loose.
HH: The image at the bottom of each page actually turned the book into a flip-book of sorts. What exactly was this character with the red cross?
ADC: I wanted the image and symbolism of the horse to emerge throughout the book. Kind of like a slow realization of what is happening. The red cross I have used before as a symbol and to me it is the need, want and potential for healing. It also stands in as an Apposite archetype for hope and even mercy.
I used this symbol before for similar reasons but I also like that if you turn the cross 45 degrees in either direction and it’s meaning becomes almost opposite.
HH: Tell us about your work with Matt Finney. How did this come about?
ADC: Matt Finney has the patience of a saint. The idea to work together was his. He asked if I wanted to do a track with him and work together. I said yes and he sent over a track of him reading his poem. It was supposed to only have been a single. Once I started to record and put the track together I got all these ideas that came to me very quickly and clearly and I knew at that instance that this couldn’t just be a single. At that point I asked Matt if I could just build this album around the track. He had no idea it was going to take me so long to get it out there. If he knew he might not have agreed.
HH: Was this the first vocal presence in any A Death Cinematic track?
ADC: This indeed was the first intentional vocal experience on an A Death Cinematic track. There is a track on Epochs… that has a voice of a woman my amp picked up from a radio station. I just happened to be recording at that time with some reverb so her voice is well echoed and she was talking about men, women and children “cooking” in ovens. It was a very bizarre occurrence.
HH: How much did Detroit and the surrounding suburbs influence you on “The New World”? Much of the book showcases degradation and pollution.
ADC: Detroit has a strong influence on every release and it does have a big one on The New World as well. Almost all those images were shot in or around the Detroit area. Detroit can show you how bad things can get and it has been doing it that for a very long time but I have to mention that there a lot of hard-working people here trying to turn that around too.
HH: I had mentioned the tempo of the album as a whole being uncomfortably slow, inevitably adding to the feelings of desperation and hopelessness. Can you explain the reasoning behind this?
ADC: The tempo of the album is deliberate because I wanted that feeling of discomfort. A pace akin to slow gasping or plodding. Kind of like the slow and heavy climbing of steps to the gallows. No one sprints towards it. I have to imagine that when faced with such a situation, even subconsciously your steps must slow down, your legs don’t want to move. That is the overall pace I wanted for the album.
HH: Finally, can you tell us a bit about the construction of this release? How you did it, how much time the full process ended up taking, etc.
ADC: This has been a monumental undertaking for me. I do this on my own. I do all the printing and fabricating. I know 150 copies is really a small number when you compare it to general record releases but it is huge when you make every single copy by hand.
Once I figure out a mock up I try to set up a little production line and build little jigs to make things a more efficient. There is a lot that goes into the process that people don’t see in the final result. I have to work in batches and phases. I break down the process into stages and work on those in batches. This also helps to alleviate some of the monotony of working on these larger editions. I have copies of the album in smaller numbers at different stages of completion all over my studio and I am still making covers. Although every time I start a project or a new album I tell myself I won’t release it until all the copies are complete I find myself compromising. If I waited until all The New World copies were done it might be delayed by another year or two. So I have to release well before all the copies are finished and work on them as I go.
It is hard for me to tell how long it takes to make each copy because I don’t do them one at a time. If I had to guess, with all the stages for the book and the cover I would say well over an hour and a half. Maybe closer to two per each copy.
interview by: sage
A Death Cinematic is a shadowy American artist whom has been experimenting for a number of years now in the realm of instrumental and improvisational droning guitar ambient/noise. His nature is one of anonymity, refusing to give out a name or a face in the time that he has been operating under the A Death Cinematic moniker. This self-imposed artistic isolation has led him to release many of his works on his own label, Simple Box Construction, but a few split releases can currently be found with other labels, including Small Doses’ release with Ekca Liena, and the Great Falls split that is available on Dead Accents.
Strangely though, it isn’t A Death Cinematic’s music that makes him special, although it does have its own unique sound. It is his dedication to the DIY style of releasing music, and the effort and craftsmanship that he puts into those releases. Where some happily do a simple screen print or fold some paper and declare their release “DIY”, A Death Cinematic spends what must take hours upon hours of painstaking planning and labor to put together heavy, functioning wood-cut, finished, and printed albums, often with unique ways of housing the CD and utilizing space for design. This is work that takes months to finish up, something that should up the expectation level for any project declaring their music to be the same.
Strangely though, it isn’t A Death Cinematic’s music that makes him special, although it does have its own unique sound. It is his dedication to the DIY style of releasing music, and the effort and craftsmanship that he puts into those releases. Where some happily do a simple screen print or fold some paper and declare their release “DIY”, A Death Cinematic spends what must take hours upon hours of painstaking planning and labor to put together heavy, functioning wood-cut, finished, and printed albums, often with unique ways of housing the CD and utilizing space for design. This is work that takes months to finish up, something that should up the expectation level for any project declaring their music to be the same.
Pt. I: The Music
Heathen Harvest: Hello and thank you for accepting this interview! Could you begin by telling us where you came up with the name A Death Cinematic?
A Death Cinematic: Hello. It is my pleasure and thank you for having me.
The name, A Death Cinematic, is a line from a poem I have written and lost a while ago. The poem was about the potential and scale of humanity’s demise.
HH: Have you attempted to relocate the poem that the name is based off of? Fans of your music would obviously be interested in this.
ADC: I looked everywhere. i even tried to rewrite it but that is never the same. Rewriting that or any other poem, for that matter, never recaptures the immediacy and urgency of the language. The mood and feeling of the writing is changed forever.
It still might show up, there are stacks of papers, drawings, sketches, other writings, etc. all over my studio. It could very well be that it is somewhere in an old notebook.
HH: Do you ever think you’ll make available much of your artwork / writings in published form or as an archive website online? It seems that this is an important side of your art that few people get to see.
ADC: Yes, I have a blogspot that has a lot of my poems on it. There are some older ones and I keep adding new ones. Although I have not added any new ones for over a month because I got busy trying to get the album released but I’ll be adding some news ones soon. The name of that blog is SLUMBERING IN THE FIRES. As far as the visual art, I plan on having some kind of site to archive some of the art. The only thing I have right now is a facebook photo album. But it is very limited, I would like to have something a little nicer.
HH: Due to the nature behind the name, would you say you consider yourself a misanthropist? Or is it more of a visionary expression rather than a personal one?
ADC: I do not consider myself a misanthrope. I have a facebook page. I do not believe a true misanthrope would use social media networks. I also rely on an audience to complete the cycle of creation. So it is more of a visionary expression.
I would say that it is more of a personal observation and bewilderment about humanity. We do a lot of things that don’t make sense to me. I do a lot of things that don’t make sense to me. I see our (mine included) contradictory behavior pushing us into an apocalypse. I just try to express it as best as I can.
HH: When you say you “rely on an audience to complete the cycle of creation”, what exactly are you speaking of?
ADC: What I mean by that is that making this stuff in the basement might be fulfilling to me but is really not completed until there is someone there to perceive it and, in a way, judge it or interact with it on some level. I think it was Roland Barthes that talked about a writer needing a reader to finish the work. I believe he talked about it as the death of the author because as the reader in the act of reading essentially removes the author and replaces him/ her. (It had been a while since I’ve read those books and essays so my memory is a bit fuzzy.) The basic concept is that a created work needs to be absorbed or viewed by someone to fulfill it and give it meaning. That is also a reason why I try to keep my themes kind of open ended or at least with enough room for the listener to complete it. I try to guide the listener but not spell out every idea or emotion they might encounter. It is a fragile balance, on the one hand you run the risk of being heavy handed and trite and on the other, the risk of incomprehensible or nonsensical vagueness.
HH: What are your thoughts on projects that use the term to describe themselves or their music and still remain part of the social networking world?
ADC: My thoughts or impressions on those projects are that I understand it to be a schtick. It is geared to appeal to a specific sub culture but the fact that it appeals to another human being or is intended to somehow relate to another human being is by its very essence not misanthropic. Especially when such a project uses a social media network to promote itself. I think those projects would better be described as antisocial or anti-societal. (Even these terms are not completely accurate but they are a bit closer.) Where there is an inability or unwillingness to participate in society but it is done so begrudgingly. To me a misanthrope would have such a disdain and hatred for the human species that he or she would not want to be involved in any type of human activity i.e. music making, ritualistic behavior, and or networking through the internet. I try to base these impressions on using the terms in their most essential and accurate form.
HH: Why have you chosen to remain a completely anonymous figure, other than simply having no interest to involve your personal life with your music?
ADC: When it comes to this work I feel that my identity is not important. It contributes very little to the meaning or the message of the work I am trying to do. In fact it might unnecessarily color the work. If it became known that I was the front man of a really popular late ’80 hard rock group, it would change how my work would be perceived. People would view and listen to the work with pre-disposed filters. My anonymity is an attempt at removing as many of those filters as possible.
i also like the fact that this stuff i do could just come from nowhere or anywhere or done by anyone. Maybe in that sense it helps the work to be more universal.
HH: Since you lack a name or photograph for your fans to mentally catalog, can you tell us a little about yourself personally? What is important to you as a person outside of art and music? Basically, in a nutshell, what makes you…you?
ADC: That is tough to answer since art and music is a huge part of who I am. I like self reliance. I like solitude but i also love my family and the very few friends I have. My wife always tells me that i must have been raised by wolves because I often lack social grace.
I also like anything DIY. I try to do as many things myself as I can. Whether it is changing the oil in my car to building furniture. I like things made of wood and sometimes metal. I like books and the printed page.
I detest e-readers and the download culture. I also detest anyone with a sense of entitlement or self importance.
HH: You’ve made it pretty well known that you’re a fan of Cormac McCarthy’s writings, but what other authors have influenced you and why?
ADC: I read a lot. Every chance I get and I read a variety of books. From philosophy to aesthetic and linguistic theory, to physics and eastern thought. The list is quite long and different things influence me for different reasons. However, fiction is by far what I read the most of. Some of the main or biggest influences as far as fiction and poetry is concerned are Bukowski, Borges, Garcia Marquez, Larry Brown, Carver, Childish, Celine, Melville and many many others. Some others that come to mind at this moment are Kant, Arnheim, Nietzsche, Foucault.
As to why or how these and other writers have influenced me is an answer that time and space does not permit me to get into at the moment. Not to mention that the answer is a fluid and a shape shifting one.
HH: Likewise, as a very visual-based musician, what artists from visual mediums have influenced A Death Cinematic or just you personally?
ADC: From the visual mediums, such as sculpture and painting etc., there are a few that were and are a huge influence. These might be a little dated because I have not been keeping up on the current and major developments in the Art World. In this way the visual art influences are different than my musical influences since music is something I keep up on.
Anyway, some of the bigger visual arts influences would be Kiefer, Boltanski, Robert Frank, Beuys, Duchamp, Rembrandt, Durer and many more.
HH: How different is your taste in music, art and literature now than it was, say, ten years ago? Who helped shape you as an artist growing up?
ADC: I’m sure my tastes have changed but I don’t see that they did. They have evolved but I don’t feel like I have left anything behind or exchanged one set of aesthetic sensibilities for another. To me it seems seamless. I know I was very much into surrealism when I was a teenager and am not into it so much anymore. I was also into a lot of metal and hardcore through my mid to late teens. Not so much now. I still listen to that stuff every so often but I’m not seeking out new artists like i used to.
As I was growing up I guess father did most of the shaping of my artistic development. Then it was my need to tear down all that shaping and strike out on my own.
HH: Nick Cave (with Warren Ellis) is a name that comes up again and again in your previous interviews. Why did this soundtrack (to “The Proposition”) affect you so strongly?
ADC: That is hard to say. I’m not so sure that it wasn’t the film that did most of the affecting. I mean I am a big fan of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and their soundtrack work. Nick Cave has always been an influence across a myriad of mediums. I think he is one hell of a writer and the fact that he wrote the screen play for The Proposition is really what got me into that film. But what John Hillcoat did with it and then the soundtrack, it all just really gelled. The whole package just became an instant classic.
HH: Some people might call your music ‘Lynchian’ because of the overwhelmingly surreal elements surrounding it. Is David Lynch a moderate part of your cinematic exposure?
ADC: David Lynch is more than a moderate part of my cinematic exposure. He is a pretty significant influence not just cinematically speaking but also creatively. I really enjoy how he approaches the act of creating not just the films but also all the other forms of art. He is pretty well rounded as an artist and he is not afraid to do things himself. It is too bad that he has not released any films lately.
HH: Have any relatively new artists blown you away lately?
ADC: Certainly, there has been quite a few and most of them musical. These are not in any order of preferance. Locrian, Horseback, Mamiffer, Sutekh Hexen, Barn Owl, Great Falls, Kinit Her, and of course a number of others.
HH: You’ve described your writing process as being largely improvised. Has your process remain unchanged throughout your various recordings, or have you evolved it to a different version of its former self?
ADC: I would hope that I and my process have evolved. One of the most terrifying things for me as an artist is becoming stagnant. The basic tenants of my process are unchanged but I believe I have become better at the act of improvisation. With a bigger skill set and more experience, I am getting better at how I record and for what reasons. The earlier recordings have a lot in them. I was trying out a lot of different sounds and other techniques that were very new to me and I wanted to include as much as I could in each track.
Now, I feel I am better at reserving what I put down, where, and when. I try to let the sounds within the track have more breathing room. Some of that comes down to mixing and mastering. I am a little better now at cutting out things or leaving them out. Each day I am learning more about the guitar as an instrument and about mixing mastering and engineering. In all these things I am self taught and there are pitfalls in that. I sometimes find that my new discovery is nothing more than a reinvention of the wheel that somebody has already discarded.
HH: You had mentioned in a previous interview that you’d be focusing on building a new studio / work space. Did you succeed in this, and if so, what have you updated?
ADC: Yes, the work space is completed and almost completely unpacked and organized. This is not a recording studio in any true sense of the word. It is just my gear and an 8 track recorder and a lot of cabinets and work surfaces for doing and storing the visual stuff and materials. As far as recording gear, I have not updated anything really. I would like to do some more sound proofing so I can play around with mic placement and that kind of stuff.
We’ll see, right now my budget is very limited.
HH: Your track titles are typically more expansive than traditional track titles. Do you do this to help develop a story line for the listener due to the lack of vocals / lyrics?
ADC: Yes and no. I do it so the listener has some sort of a guide as to where we will be traveling and where these might have come from but not because there is a lack of vocals. The absence of vocals or lyrics helps to bring out the desolation. Although the way Matt reads his poem on THE NEW WORLD really adds a sense of desolation to that track. So I don’t know. I guess it depends on the context and in the future, who knows, there might be a lot more vocals and maybe even singing. I try not to rule anything out.
HH: Your book editions that accompany some releases are incredibly limited — are there any plans to make these available in the digital realm or at least make second editions / larger quantities for future releases?
ADC: As of yet there are no plans for second editions or digital versions of those books. I am not opposed to the idea i just have not had much time to think about it or to make any plans.
HH: The split with Great Falls took a while to come out — what caused the delay with this release? Did it bother you to have simplistic packaging for this release as it was put out on the other artist’s label?
ADC: The delays for that split are not known to me and I’m not concerned with why. Sometimes things take a long time and the reasons are unavoidable. I am pleased that it is finally out and just think of it as it was in the nature of this release to come out now. The “simplistic” packaging does not bother me. I am grateful that Dead Accents or any other label wants to work with me. They have budgets that allows them to do or not do certain things. It is beyond my control. Having something come out on a different label between the simple box releases helps in the sense that people are not waiting 2 or 3 years between my releases. The stuff i do with the simple box construction releases takes a long time. Sometimes years from start to finish.
HH: On the other end of the spectrum, Joe Beres over at Small Doses continued your tradition of unique packaging with the Ekca Liena split. How did you come to work with Small Doses as well as Ekca Liena for this release?
ADC: The idea for the split came from Dan the man behind Ekca Liena. We have been talking about a split for a long while at that time. He is a highly motivated individual and once we got the music in order he was all over this release. I approached some labels and Small Doses responded. Joe was very accommodating as far as what we could do with the cover. I was busy working on the YOUR FATE… ep so Dan did all the layout and design for the cover, he did an excellent job. I contributed a photo and the guillotine drawing and he put it all together and Joe approved and put up the money.
HH: There was some talk of a split / collaboration with the Belgian project Sequences late last year. What became of this?
ADC: As far as I know that project is still on. I am working to finish up THE NEW WORLD release and I’m sure we’ll be talking and planning for it soon. But before I start giving definitive answers I’ll have to check with Niels to make sure.
HH: Your Fate Twisting, Epic in its Crushing Moments was indeed epic in its own rights, with perhaps the most painstaking DIY effort that I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing to date after 5 years of writing for Heathen Harvest. How lond did it take you to design and perfect the construction for the EP?
ADC: Thank you. The design and planning aspect of any project doesn’t really take me very long. I make changes as I go and start to fabricate the mock up cover. As I realize the theme for the release, the visual aspects start to fall into place as I plan out the cover and gather or make the visual resources. This EP came together relatively quickly. What always takes the longest is the fabrication of all the copies for the edition. It is hard to give a definite time because a lot of things are in a state of flux and happen simultaneously when I’m recording or mastering tracks.
HH: Are you worried about the ability to follow up something that involved with the new full-length, The New World?
ADC: No, my worries lie elsewhere. I mean I always question my abilities but as far as planning something more involved that is not the problem, so far. I worry more about whether I will have enough time or resources to make a larger edition. Whether people care about it enough or is it even worthwhile to make such elaborate releases. And also, whether my ideas are aesthetically good enough to justify such monumental effort.
HH: Can you give us some insight into this new release? What can listeners expect with The New World?
ADC: This release was long time in the making. The music has been ready for quite some time. I do feel like I have broken some new ground with the sounds. It is sometimes hard to tell because since, I have recorded a lot of new tracks. And as far as the packaging is concerned, a lot of planing went into this release. Everything took a long time to print, organize and now to fabricate.
HH: Are there any plans to finally branch out and play live, perhaps in celebration of the release of this album?
ADC: I have been tentatively planing to play live ever since the beginning of A Death Cinematic. i just can’t seem to get my shit together when it comes to this. Something always gets in the way and i am a bit of a recluse and getting out there to find venues is not an easy thing for me to do.
HH: Finally, what are your current plans for the project after The New World? Will you be implementing any new gear in the near future?
ADC: There are plenty of plans for projects after The New World. I have enough material recorded for another two albums. One of which might be released as a cassette on a different label. The other is already in the advanced planing stages. I have a theme for the album and plans for the covers. All the tracks have been selected. Aside from that there is talks with numerous artists for various splits and/ or collaborations. I also have several non musical project editions to finish up and finally get out there.
Pt. II: The Label
HH: Why have you chosen the name “Simple Box Construction” for your label when your releases are obviously far from simply constructed?
ADC: Simple box construction is a name in reference to the old pine box, the cheap and simple coffin used to bury poor people. I first used the name 12 or 13 years ago when I did an edition of hand-bound books, I used it as the name under which I published the edition. Even then I new that none of the things released under simple box construction will really be simply constructed but I really enjoyed and still enjoy the irony between the name of the label and what it puts out.
HH: So far you’ve only released music from your personal project A Death Cinematic, of course with some splits and collaborations with other artists. Are there any plans to release music from other musicians in the future?
ADC: There are no plans to do any releases strictly for other artists. I would love to be able to do that but I just don’t have the time or the money to do it the way I would want to. Realizing how long it takes to fabricate some of these editions I just don’t see it happening.
HH: What makes up your decision whether to seek another label to put out an A Death Cinematic-related release or to release it yourself under Simple Box Construction?
ADC: When it comes to just a death cinematic releases I don’t seek out other labels. Not anymore. If a label came to me with an offer I would definitely consider it but that doesn’t happen so I don’t worry about it. When I do splits with other artists they will usually have an idea to put it out on a different label or it might be a timing issue where they won’t want to wait for simple box construction to put it out.
HH: Have you ever considered branching out as a free-lance artist to help design packaging for DIY labels or artists?
ADC: Yes, I thought about it and even had some inquires to fabricate covers for other bands or labels but my ideas become very cost prohibitive. For me to make covers becomes real expensive because i would have to charge something for my time to do this. When i release things for myself i don’t make anything for my time. I have yet to turn a profit from my releases. I supplement the cost with my other full time job.
HH: Are there any larger plans in general for the short term future of the label, or will it continue on as it always has?
ADC: Right now it will continue on this path but I am always open to new opportunities. So who know what might happen several months from now.
HH: Please feel free to use this last bit of space to say whatever you feel you need to. Thank you again for answering our questions!
ADC: No problem. I would like to thank you and Heathen Harvest for this interview. I would also thank all the people who have supported and continue to support me and my projects. I couldn’t do this without them. Thank you for reading and shelling out your hard earned cash. DIY or die.
interview by: sage
Heathen Harvest: Hello and thank you for accepting this interview! Could you begin by telling us where you came up with the name A Death Cinematic?
A Death Cinematic: Hello. It is my pleasure and thank you for having me.
The name, A Death Cinematic, is a line from a poem I have written and lost a while ago. The poem was about the potential and scale of humanity’s demise.
HH: Have you attempted to relocate the poem that the name is based off of? Fans of your music would obviously be interested in this.
ADC: I looked everywhere. i even tried to rewrite it but that is never the same. Rewriting that or any other poem, for that matter, never recaptures the immediacy and urgency of the language. The mood and feeling of the writing is changed forever.
It still might show up, there are stacks of papers, drawings, sketches, other writings, etc. all over my studio. It could very well be that it is somewhere in an old notebook.
HH: Do you ever think you’ll make available much of your artwork / writings in published form or as an archive website online? It seems that this is an important side of your art that few people get to see.
ADC: Yes, I have a blogspot that has a lot of my poems on it. There are some older ones and I keep adding new ones. Although I have not added any new ones for over a month because I got busy trying to get the album released but I’ll be adding some news ones soon. The name of that blog is SLUMBERING IN THE FIRES. As far as the visual art, I plan on having some kind of site to archive some of the art. The only thing I have right now is a facebook photo album. But it is very limited, I would like to have something a little nicer.
HH: Due to the nature behind the name, would you say you consider yourself a misanthropist? Or is it more of a visionary expression rather than a personal one?
ADC: I do not consider myself a misanthrope. I have a facebook page. I do not believe a true misanthrope would use social media networks. I also rely on an audience to complete the cycle of creation. So it is more of a visionary expression.
I would say that it is more of a personal observation and bewilderment about humanity. We do a lot of things that don’t make sense to me. I do a lot of things that don’t make sense to me. I see our (mine included) contradictory behavior pushing us into an apocalypse. I just try to express it as best as I can.
HH: When you say you “rely on an audience to complete the cycle of creation”, what exactly are you speaking of?
ADC: What I mean by that is that making this stuff in the basement might be fulfilling to me but is really not completed until there is someone there to perceive it and, in a way, judge it or interact with it on some level. I think it was Roland Barthes that talked about a writer needing a reader to finish the work. I believe he talked about it as the death of the author because as the reader in the act of reading essentially removes the author and replaces him/ her. (It had been a while since I’ve read those books and essays so my memory is a bit fuzzy.) The basic concept is that a created work needs to be absorbed or viewed by someone to fulfill it and give it meaning. That is also a reason why I try to keep my themes kind of open ended or at least with enough room for the listener to complete it. I try to guide the listener but not spell out every idea or emotion they might encounter. It is a fragile balance, on the one hand you run the risk of being heavy handed and trite and on the other, the risk of incomprehensible or nonsensical vagueness.
HH: What are your thoughts on projects that use the term to describe themselves or their music and still remain part of the social networking world?
ADC: My thoughts or impressions on those projects are that I understand it to be a schtick. It is geared to appeal to a specific sub culture but the fact that it appeals to another human being or is intended to somehow relate to another human being is by its very essence not misanthropic. Especially when such a project uses a social media network to promote itself. I think those projects would better be described as antisocial or anti-societal. (Even these terms are not completely accurate but they are a bit closer.) Where there is an inability or unwillingness to participate in society but it is done so begrudgingly. To me a misanthrope would have such a disdain and hatred for the human species that he or she would not want to be involved in any type of human activity i.e. music making, ritualistic behavior, and or networking through the internet. I try to base these impressions on using the terms in their most essential and accurate form.
HH: Why have you chosen to remain a completely anonymous figure, other than simply having no interest to involve your personal life with your music?
ADC: When it comes to this work I feel that my identity is not important. It contributes very little to the meaning or the message of the work I am trying to do. In fact it might unnecessarily color the work. If it became known that I was the front man of a really popular late ’80 hard rock group, it would change how my work would be perceived. People would view and listen to the work with pre-disposed filters. My anonymity is an attempt at removing as many of those filters as possible.
i also like the fact that this stuff i do could just come from nowhere or anywhere or done by anyone. Maybe in that sense it helps the work to be more universal.
HH: Since you lack a name or photograph for your fans to mentally catalog, can you tell us a little about yourself personally? What is important to you as a person outside of art and music? Basically, in a nutshell, what makes you…you?
ADC: That is tough to answer since art and music is a huge part of who I am. I like self reliance. I like solitude but i also love my family and the very few friends I have. My wife always tells me that i must have been raised by wolves because I often lack social grace.
I also like anything DIY. I try to do as many things myself as I can. Whether it is changing the oil in my car to building furniture. I like things made of wood and sometimes metal. I like books and the printed page.
I detest e-readers and the download culture. I also detest anyone with a sense of entitlement or self importance.
HH: You’ve made it pretty well known that you’re a fan of Cormac McCarthy’s writings, but what other authors have influenced you and why?
ADC: I read a lot. Every chance I get and I read a variety of books. From philosophy to aesthetic and linguistic theory, to physics and eastern thought. The list is quite long and different things influence me for different reasons. However, fiction is by far what I read the most of. Some of the main or biggest influences as far as fiction and poetry is concerned are Bukowski, Borges, Garcia Marquez, Larry Brown, Carver, Childish, Celine, Melville and many many others. Some others that come to mind at this moment are Kant, Arnheim, Nietzsche, Foucault.
As to why or how these and other writers have influenced me is an answer that time and space does not permit me to get into at the moment. Not to mention that the answer is a fluid and a shape shifting one.
HH: Likewise, as a very visual-based musician, what artists from visual mediums have influenced A Death Cinematic or just you personally?
ADC: From the visual mediums, such as sculpture and painting etc., there are a few that were and are a huge influence. These might be a little dated because I have not been keeping up on the current and major developments in the Art World. In this way the visual art influences are different than my musical influences since music is something I keep up on.
Anyway, some of the bigger visual arts influences would be Kiefer, Boltanski, Robert Frank, Beuys, Duchamp, Rembrandt, Durer and many more.
HH: How different is your taste in music, art and literature now than it was, say, ten years ago? Who helped shape you as an artist growing up?
ADC: I’m sure my tastes have changed but I don’t see that they did. They have evolved but I don’t feel like I have left anything behind or exchanged one set of aesthetic sensibilities for another. To me it seems seamless. I know I was very much into surrealism when I was a teenager and am not into it so much anymore. I was also into a lot of metal and hardcore through my mid to late teens. Not so much now. I still listen to that stuff every so often but I’m not seeking out new artists like i used to.
As I was growing up I guess father did most of the shaping of my artistic development. Then it was my need to tear down all that shaping and strike out on my own.
HH: Nick Cave (with Warren Ellis) is a name that comes up again and again in your previous interviews. Why did this soundtrack (to “The Proposition”) affect you so strongly?
ADC: That is hard to say. I’m not so sure that it wasn’t the film that did most of the affecting. I mean I am a big fan of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and their soundtrack work. Nick Cave has always been an influence across a myriad of mediums. I think he is one hell of a writer and the fact that he wrote the screen play for The Proposition is really what got me into that film. But what John Hillcoat did with it and then the soundtrack, it all just really gelled. The whole package just became an instant classic.
HH: Some people might call your music ‘Lynchian’ because of the overwhelmingly surreal elements surrounding it. Is David Lynch a moderate part of your cinematic exposure?
ADC: David Lynch is more than a moderate part of my cinematic exposure. He is a pretty significant influence not just cinematically speaking but also creatively. I really enjoy how he approaches the act of creating not just the films but also all the other forms of art. He is pretty well rounded as an artist and he is not afraid to do things himself. It is too bad that he has not released any films lately.
HH: Have any relatively new artists blown you away lately?
ADC: Certainly, there has been quite a few and most of them musical. These are not in any order of preferance. Locrian, Horseback, Mamiffer, Sutekh Hexen, Barn Owl, Great Falls, Kinit Her, and of course a number of others.
HH: You’ve described your writing process as being largely improvised. Has your process remain unchanged throughout your various recordings, or have you evolved it to a different version of its former self?
ADC: I would hope that I and my process have evolved. One of the most terrifying things for me as an artist is becoming stagnant. The basic tenants of my process are unchanged but I believe I have become better at the act of improvisation. With a bigger skill set and more experience, I am getting better at how I record and for what reasons. The earlier recordings have a lot in them. I was trying out a lot of different sounds and other techniques that were very new to me and I wanted to include as much as I could in each track.
Now, I feel I am better at reserving what I put down, where, and when. I try to let the sounds within the track have more breathing room. Some of that comes down to mixing and mastering. I am a little better now at cutting out things or leaving them out. Each day I am learning more about the guitar as an instrument and about mixing mastering and engineering. In all these things I am self taught and there are pitfalls in that. I sometimes find that my new discovery is nothing more than a reinvention of the wheel that somebody has already discarded.
HH: You had mentioned in a previous interview that you’d be focusing on building a new studio / work space. Did you succeed in this, and if so, what have you updated?
ADC: Yes, the work space is completed and almost completely unpacked and organized. This is not a recording studio in any true sense of the word. It is just my gear and an 8 track recorder and a lot of cabinets and work surfaces for doing and storing the visual stuff and materials. As far as recording gear, I have not updated anything really. I would like to do some more sound proofing so I can play around with mic placement and that kind of stuff.
We’ll see, right now my budget is very limited.
HH: Your track titles are typically more expansive than traditional track titles. Do you do this to help develop a story line for the listener due to the lack of vocals / lyrics?
ADC: Yes and no. I do it so the listener has some sort of a guide as to where we will be traveling and where these might have come from but not because there is a lack of vocals. The absence of vocals or lyrics helps to bring out the desolation. Although the way Matt reads his poem on THE NEW WORLD really adds a sense of desolation to that track. So I don’t know. I guess it depends on the context and in the future, who knows, there might be a lot more vocals and maybe even singing. I try not to rule anything out.
HH: Your book editions that accompany some releases are incredibly limited — are there any plans to make these available in the digital realm or at least make second editions / larger quantities for future releases?
ADC: As of yet there are no plans for second editions or digital versions of those books. I am not opposed to the idea i just have not had much time to think about it or to make any plans.
HH: The split with Great Falls took a while to come out — what caused the delay with this release? Did it bother you to have simplistic packaging for this release as it was put out on the other artist’s label?
ADC: The delays for that split are not known to me and I’m not concerned with why. Sometimes things take a long time and the reasons are unavoidable. I am pleased that it is finally out and just think of it as it was in the nature of this release to come out now. The “simplistic” packaging does not bother me. I am grateful that Dead Accents or any other label wants to work with me. They have budgets that allows them to do or not do certain things. It is beyond my control. Having something come out on a different label between the simple box releases helps in the sense that people are not waiting 2 or 3 years between my releases. The stuff i do with the simple box construction releases takes a long time. Sometimes years from start to finish.
HH: On the other end of the spectrum, Joe Beres over at Small Doses continued your tradition of unique packaging with the Ekca Liena split. How did you come to work with Small Doses as well as Ekca Liena for this release?
ADC: The idea for the split came from Dan the man behind Ekca Liena. We have been talking about a split for a long while at that time. He is a highly motivated individual and once we got the music in order he was all over this release. I approached some labels and Small Doses responded. Joe was very accommodating as far as what we could do with the cover. I was busy working on the YOUR FATE… ep so Dan did all the layout and design for the cover, he did an excellent job. I contributed a photo and the guillotine drawing and he put it all together and Joe approved and put up the money.
HH: There was some talk of a split / collaboration with the Belgian project Sequences late last year. What became of this?
ADC: As far as I know that project is still on. I am working to finish up THE NEW WORLD release and I’m sure we’ll be talking and planning for it soon. But before I start giving definitive answers I’ll have to check with Niels to make sure.
HH: Your Fate Twisting, Epic in its Crushing Moments was indeed epic in its own rights, with perhaps the most painstaking DIY effort that I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing to date after 5 years of writing for Heathen Harvest. How lond did it take you to design and perfect the construction for the EP?
ADC: Thank you. The design and planning aspect of any project doesn’t really take me very long. I make changes as I go and start to fabricate the mock up cover. As I realize the theme for the release, the visual aspects start to fall into place as I plan out the cover and gather or make the visual resources. This EP came together relatively quickly. What always takes the longest is the fabrication of all the copies for the edition. It is hard to give a definite time because a lot of things are in a state of flux and happen simultaneously when I’m recording or mastering tracks.
HH: Are you worried about the ability to follow up something that involved with the new full-length, The New World?
ADC: No, my worries lie elsewhere. I mean I always question my abilities but as far as planning something more involved that is not the problem, so far. I worry more about whether I will have enough time or resources to make a larger edition. Whether people care about it enough or is it even worthwhile to make such elaborate releases. And also, whether my ideas are aesthetically good enough to justify such monumental effort.
HH: Can you give us some insight into this new release? What can listeners expect with The New World?
ADC: This release was long time in the making. The music has been ready for quite some time. I do feel like I have broken some new ground with the sounds. It is sometimes hard to tell because since, I have recorded a lot of new tracks. And as far as the packaging is concerned, a lot of planing went into this release. Everything took a long time to print, organize and now to fabricate.
HH: Are there any plans to finally branch out and play live, perhaps in celebration of the release of this album?
ADC: I have been tentatively planing to play live ever since the beginning of A Death Cinematic. i just can’t seem to get my shit together when it comes to this. Something always gets in the way and i am a bit of a recluse and getting out there to find venues is not an easy thing for me to do.
HH: Finally, what are your current plans for the project after The New World? Will you be implementing any new gear in the near future?
ADC: There are plenty of plans for projects after The New World. I have enough material recorded for another two albums. One of which might be released as a cassette on a different label. The other is already in the advanced planing stages. I have a theme for the album and plans for the covers. All the tracks have been selected. Aside from that there is talks with numerous artists for various splits and/ or collaborations. I also have several non musical project editions to finish up and finally get out there.
Pt. II: The Label
HH: Why have you chosen the name “Simple Box Construction” for your label when your releases are obviously far from simply constructed?
ADC: Simple box construction is a name in reference to the old pine box, the cheap and simple coffin used to bury poor people. I first used the name 12 or 13 years ago when I did an edition of hand-bound books, I used it as the name under which I published the edition. Even then I new that none of the things released under simple box construction will really be simply constructed but I really enjoyed and still enjoy the irony between the name of the label and what it puts out.
HH: So far you’ve only released music from your personal project A Death Cinematic, of course with some splits and collaborations with other artists. Are there any plans to release music from other musicians in the future?
ADC: There are no plans to do any releases strictly for other artists. I would love to be able to do that but I just don’t have the time or the money to do it the way I would want to. Realizing how long it takes to fabricate some of these editions I just don’t see it happening.
HH: What makes up your decision whether to seek another label to put out an A Death Cinematic-related release or to release it yourself under Simple Box Construction?
ADC: When it comes to just a death cinematic releases I don’t seek out other labels. Not anymore. If a label came to me with an offer I would definitely consider it but that doesn’t happen so I don’t worry about it. When I do splits with other artists they will usually have an idea to put it out on a different label or it might be a timing issue where they won’t want to wait for simple box construction to put it out.
HH: Have you ever considered branching out as a free-lance artist to help design packaging for DIY labels or artists?
ADC: Yes, I thought about it and even had some inquires to fabricate covers for other bands or labels but my ideas become very cost prohibitive. For me to make covers becomes real expensive because i would have to charge something for my time to do this. When i release things for myself i don’t make anything for my time. I have yet to turn a profit from my releases. I supplement the cost with my other full time job.
HH: Are there any larger plans in general for the short term future of the label, or will it continue on as it always has?
ADC: Right now it will continue on this path but I am always open to new opportunities. So who know what might happen several months from now.
HH: Please feel free to use this last bit of space to say whatever you feel you need to. Thank you again for answering our questions!
ADC: No problem. I would like to thank you and Heathen Harvest for this interview. I would also thank all the people who have supported and continue to support me and my projects. I couldn’t do this without them. Thank you for reading and shelling out your hard earned cash. DIY or die.
interview by: sage
Following the incredible double CD album A Parable On The Aporia Of Vengeance And The Beauty Of Impenetrable Sadness, quite a few nagging questions ate at me as I listened to the album and its follow up release (the split with Sons of Alpha Centaurii) that asking the artist directly seemed to be the only solution. A Death Cinematic was fairly easy to track down and the following “conversation” not only sated my questions but introduced me to an exceedingly humble and creative person that only made me want to hear more work from the project. Hopefully, you take as much from this as I did.
Scene Point Blank: When and why did you start A Death Cinematic?
A Death Cinematic: I started a death cinematic in September of 2007. As to why.... well, I was getting more interested in exploring noise and sound/ music as a form of artistic expression. I just had this overwhelming urge to record these crude lo fi 'songs'. It just kind of grew from there.
Scene Point Blank: When writing your records, how much is improvised and how much is the result of traditional songwriting? Is this a constant from record to record?
A Death Cinematic: I am tempted to say that all of it is improvised since I really am not sure how to write songs, traditionally or otherwise. Usually I’ll explore what I can do on the guitar with effects, often with the recorder running. Then try to get everything in one or two takes. Sometimes when I find something I like and it is new to me and stretches my capabilities I do some re-recording and maybe some rehearsing but the initial idea is much improvised. I try to capture it as raw as I can so that the emotional atmosphere is kept intact and unadulterated.
Scene Point Blank: What informs or inspires your music writing?
A Death Cinematic: There is a myriad of things that informs my music. Mostly it is other music, paintings, photographs, and books. The latter are usually novels but lately I’ve been reading a lot about quantum physics and other theories. Albeit these are more of an indirect influence. A lot of the time I get information and inspiration for music, from how the light shines through my house and moves through out the day, form the flow of certain words that I get fixated on. This type of inspiration is a bit more personal and therefore harder to explain because it relies heavily on my own personal context and history. It all goes in there in different proportions and mixtures for any given piece of music.
Scene Point Blank: Being from parts of the US where it is cold and bleak during the winter, does that have any impact on your music? Because some of your songs, like “The Heart Races With Black Worms And My Blood Is On Fire” and “A Short Story On The Theme Of A Broken Dream”, have become part of my personal soundtrack to cold winter days with tons of snow on the ground and gray rainy days.
A Death Cinematic: Definitely, it has a great deal of impact on my music especially if I am playing and recording during that time. The fact that some of my tracks became part of your personal soundtrack is a compliment of the highest order.
Scene Point Blank: You recently provided a track to a compilation where artists provided their sonic interpretation of sorts for a specific painting. How long did it take for your ideas to start taking shape? Could you walk us through the process?
A Death Cinematic: In all actuality it did not take long at all for this particular track. I am always recording and working on stuff so I usually have a bit of a surplus of material. When Niels asked if I were interested in doing a track for his compilation I already had some rudimentary recordings done that I thought could work really well. As I started to think about the themes of the painting and the compilation the music started to click and everything, including the poem that goes with the track came about pretty quickly. The mixing and mastering took a little while, but I think the track came out really well. The compilation has a shorter version of the track on it and that was due to time and disc space restraints. The whole version can be heard on Myspace and Bandcamp.
Scene Point Blank: If you were told you could provide the soundtrack or an interpretation to any book that you chose what would you want to do and why?
A Death Cinematic: This is a very difficult question to answer because there are a lot of books that I think are really great and that I would love to put music too. In a way I already do that since what I read does inspire and inform what I record. The obvious answer would be anything by Cormac McCarthy. Where I am at right now I find a strong connection to his work. Others would include Herbert Selby Jr., John Fante, Celine, Borges. But if I had to choose the only one I would have to say Moby Dick. It is one of the most epic and rich books I have ever read. There is great symbolism throughout the book and it is just an outstanding metaphor for human obsession and madness as well as the creative process. When a friend gave me the book he told me this is like making art. At that time I didn't understand how a book about whales and whaling could be like making art but it is. The obsessive hunt is very much like art making. The book is about an inevitable apocalypse for the characters that is brought upon them by their own doing. Really… just an awesome book.
Scene Point Blank: Have you ever thought about writing a book to accompany A Parable On The Aporia Of Vengeance And The Beauty Of Impenetrable Sadness? Maybe a short or silent film, given your moniker?
A Death Cinematic: Yes, in fact the titles of the tracks make up a short prose poem. In the future there might be some type of written book that accompanies an album or two but nothing solid yet. A film would be appropriate too, since a lot of the music and sounds are inspired by visuals. I would love to have a budget and the time to put the images in motion and on film.
Scene Point Blank: How important is the packaging / artwork to the vision of your work?
A Death Cinematic: Since my background is in visual art, the packaging is very important. When it comes to my work the music and the packaging are integral parts of the artistic expression. They are two different components of a broader theme or subject. I find them both to be very necessary and I don't really consider my packaging merely as a way to hold a CD. It is an attempt to give the listener a more holistic experience when they listen to the music/ noise. When listening to others' music I always consider what context the CD comes in. it is also part of the reason I stay away from downloads and I make all my promo copies the same as the actual edition copies. For the next release the promos are coming out of the edition. That is something we did for the sons of Alpha Centauri split.
Scene Point Blank: When writing the record do ideas of packaging concepts and artwork pop in your head? Or does the packaging evolve after you have completed the recording stage? What are you trying to accomplish or "say" with your work?
A Death Cinematic: I suppose what I am trying to accomplish with my work is to express something that has an enormous interest for me. Something that I am vastly interested or fascinated by and something that has an emotional impact on me. Right now it happens to be some kind of an apocalypse but that might and probably will change eventually. Each track is a nuanced exploration of a specific emotional theme for me. Then these nuances are put under the umbrella theme of an album. The themes themselves kind of evolve as I make the sounds, noises and artwork. I am attempting to use the end of days themes as a metaphor for my own personal little daily apocalypses and vise versa. It is a bit difficult to explain.
Scene Point Blank: How much does the recording environment play a role in the sound of your records?
A Death Cinematic: I believe the recording environment plays a very big role in the sound of my records. Recording in an attic or basement late at night mostly through headphones so as not to wake the kids has an impact on how I monitor the sound and therefore how the master will sound. Using simple recording technology of not the highest fidelity also influences what the sound is going to be. Having an almost nonexistent budget which limits what type of equipment I can use... the environment is a huge factor and I try to utilize it the best I can to make the most appropriate recordings and tracks.
Scene Point Blank: Do you record your material on your own?
A Death Cinematic: Yes, I master and mix my own stuff too. I am in the midst of a learning curve.
Scene Point Blank: Your most recent release is a split with Sons of Alpha Centaurii and a future release is a split with Great Falls. How do you decide which fellow artists to work with?
A Death Cinematic: I have been very fortunate that artists that I respect and admire have approached me to do splits with them. On occasion I will ask if someone would like to consider doing a split with me. more often then not though, it is someone else's idea and at the moment I have a lot of requests and a lot of commitments to do splits and collaborations in the coming months and maybe even years.
Scene Point Blank: Is the upcoming A Death Cinematic album, The New World, a complete collaboration with Matt Finney?
A Death Cinematic: No, it is not a complete collaboration with Matt but we are talking about doing a whole album together in the future. This new album grew out of a single that matt and I collaborated on. He sent over the vocal track of him reading his story, "The New World," and I just started to build sound and music around his words. The track just fell into place for me. I had all the parts recorded in one afternoon. At that time I also had 15 other tracks that I recorded and titled and as I was looking over what I had done the whole concept for the full length just hit me. The first tracks, with their themes and titles became a prelude to the new world. The concept for the book of photos and the packaging also came to me in an instant. I knew at the time that there was something there that i just could not let pass by. I emailed matt and asked him if it was okay to forego the single idea and go with a full length a death cinematic album instead. He was/ is very supportive and understanding of the idea even though it is taking me forever to get it out. I just know that ideas don't always materialize and gel so easily and when they do I know I have to take advantage of it. Matt's work is the impetus for this new album and for that I am forever grateful to him. I hope to do him justice and I am looking forward to working with him on more stuff soon.
Scene Point Blank: What is the release you have done of which you feel the most satisfied or proud?
A Death Cinematic: Well, I’m proud of all of them but for different reasons. I guess the one that I feel is the most accomplished for me is A PARABLE... it took a lot of work and planning. Even though I had to make some changes, I think given the circumstances it came out pretty good.
Scene Point Blank: When writing the record do ideas of packaging concepts and artwork pop in your head? Or does the packaging evolve after you have completed the recording stage?
A Death Cinematic: I am always thinking about the artwork and by default the packaging. At every stage of the process I think of ideas how to best contextualize the sounds and music. I go through a lot of ideas and changes before I decide to start fabricating the packaging. I have to consider how big the edition of the release is going to be because that will determine some of the processes and what I can afford to do. I have scaled down certain editions because i liked the idea for the artwork and the packaging so much and it fit in so well with the concepts of the music and sound that I was not able to compromise on a different or more automated manufacturing process. Or the way I wanted to make the covers was too expensive to do in a larger edition. Of course time is also big factor of what I can make and there is also the issue of demand. Making a thousand copies of a release at this point would be an unwise thing for me to do.
Scene Point Blank: Besides the myriad of projects that you detail at A Simple Box Construction, is there anything else that A Death Cinematic has planned in the near future?
A Death Cinematic: The Simple Box Construction site covers everything pretty well. There will be more splits, collaborations and compilations coming. I am also thinking about short films and other visual endeavors too. But these ideas are in the embryonic stage right now.
Scene Point Blank: Do you have any kind of a plan with where you would like to take the project?
A Death Cinematic: The plan is to keep doing what I am doing now but doing it better and more of it. I have pretty modest ambitions but I am also open to any opportunities that might arise.
Scene Point Blank: Could you see doing the project in a live setting?
A Death Cinematic: I have been thinking about doing live stuff every since the inception, and I thought that by now I would be already doing some live stuff. But things always take longer to do then I anticipate and hardly ever exactly how I plan them. I still hope to do some live stuff in the near future.
Sidenote:
For more information, check out simpleboxconstruction.blogspot.com to see current and upcoming projects from A Death Cinematic as well as how to purchase music and support such a great endeavor.
Solo musicians floundering in the ether, pay attention; a death cinematic represents both a pioneer and paragon example of an artist who has chosen to go it completely alone. Years of experimentation holed up in an attic with only loops, noise and drones for company has culminated in beautiful, abrasive soundscapes that evoke thoughts of Silvester Anfang as much as Stars of the Lid. No names, no faces, no locations: All this is detritus to the overarching message of the project. The prolific creative force behind these cumbersome yet erudite compositions is also the mind behind Simple Box Construction, a vehicle strictly reserved for the output of a death cinematic, producing beautifully austere packaging for each release. So sit down, grab a cup of tea and bury your nose in this true DIY 101
How and when did a death cinematic come into being?
a death cinematic came into being in the fall of 2007. As to how, I was messing around with the guitar, amp and effects; recording onto a loop station. Just trying to get ideas down fast and raw and shortly after that I borrowed a cassette four track from a friend and started experimenting with that.
What influences, musical or otherwise, coalesce in a death cinematic?
Musical influences range from Nick Cave to Slayer to John Coltrane. Old time delta blues, Johnny Cash and underground metal, noise, ambient, drone stuff. Other influences include books from fiction writers like Cormac McCarthy and Larry Brown, poetry from Bukowski to Baudelaire and Czeslaw Milosz. I also enjoy books about quantum physics; aesthetic philosophy and theory; linguistics; and eastern philosophy. I am very interested in films, visual arts and photography. Each category has my specific favourites though the list can be quite long.
I see a death cinematic as a gorgeous merging of free-folk with noise and drone, and as a result the music you create is unbound and meandering. What process do you go through when composing? Does it begin with an idea of the flow of each piece or do they grow naturally through improvisation?
The music is meandering and I suppose that is indicative of the search for sound and melody through improvisation. Sometimes I have ideas for the music and sometimes I just improvise with intuition as the only guide. Nothing is really planned out to the point where I know what the finished track will sound like. I like to keep it a little vague at the outset and let the idea kind of grow and follow its own direction. It is a bit of a balancing act, I try to guide and push it into a specific theme but I want it to get there on its own instead of forcing the sound.
What effects and pedals are utilized to create your sound?
The effects and pedals that I use vary from delay pedals to several different distortion stomp boxes. Specifically, I use an old MXR distortion pedal, a Big Muff Pi, a Boss octave pedal, a loop station and some other odds and ends. I also use a volume and a wah pedal. This all goes through a modeling amp that gives me a lot of different tones and sounds with a huge number of adjustable parameters.
How do you record your work?
I now record my work on a digital 8 track but until recently I was using a borrowed four track. I used to do all my recording in the attic of the place I used to live but now that I have moved I am setting up a studio in the basement. I do everything myself and I try to get it all down in one take per individual track. Obviously I do a lot of multi-tracking in my recordings. I usually start with an initial track or an idea and then I build and layer around that.
The song and album titles are often quite long and striking. Do they bear some relationship to how each release sounds? Like on the full-length, Epochs Shifting Out of Time, the song titles suggest a narrative. Would you agree?
I would totally agree. The relationship between the titles, the narrative they suggest, and the recordings is very much intentional. The albums are very much concept albums. It is a little tricky to have the individual songs stand up on their own as they feel as if part of a larger context... That they are a part of and support a larger idea.
You are also the man behind Simple Box Construction, which is a record label of sorts but also much more. Can you shed some light on the origins of Simple Box Construction and how you create such stunning packaging for your releases?
Simple Box Construction is not so much of a label as it is the visual side of a death cinematic. The idea for Simple Box Construction came to me way back in 1999 when I was working on a small edition of hand-bound books of photographs titled Nowhere, U.S.A. After I finished the edition, the idea became dormant for a long time. When I started recording music and decided that I would be putting out this stuff myself, I thought that it would be perfect to put this out under the Simple Box Construction moniker. As well as doing all the packaging for the music I use Simple Box to put out small editions of visual pieces, such as hand-bound books of photos and boxes with prints and small runs of t-shirts. How I create the packaging is a little difficult to answer. I come up with the idea and I analyze the cost versus the size of the edition and how much I can do on my own, versus the time spent on each package. The packaging is meant to further enforce the context of the idea for the recording. I see them as inseparable. I do all the artwork, photography, and design work as well as the fabrication and manufacturing. It is a time consuming process.
a death cinematic recently contributed a track to the Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer compilation, put together by Sequences mastermind (and LURKER regular) N. How does 'In the Tumbeling Dawn Light, Their Eyes Fall Frozen Through the Mist and Rain' relate to the overall theme of the compilation?
When I was working on that track I was focusing on the mythos of fog and how it has been utilised in the past as a symbol. In the case of the compilation and the painting that it draws its theme from, I was thinking of the mist and fog as a symbol for man's contemplation at the edge of an abyss. The title of the track is a line from a poem I wrote which is a man's last view as he is about to be hanged at dawn. Fog is usually used as a symbol of the unknown or the subconscious and when things emerge from the miasma it represents realisation and understanding.
You also have a collaboration/split with Sequences coming out later this year. What can reveal about this release and how did it come about?
I cannot reveal much about it because it is still in the very early stages. I know that it will be more of a collaboration as opposed to a split release. Both of us will be working on the tracks and it might be put out under an entirely different name. I was lucky enough to have N. ask me if I wanted to do something with him. I really like what he does and I have a lot of respect for his work so I agreed at once when he suggested it. I am very honoured by the opportunity.
a death cinematic is not just limited to the musical realm as the upcoming album, Prelude To The New World & The New World, also features a book of photography. In fact, you have a couple of solely photographic projects planned for release under the same name. How does your photography relate to your music?
That is true, I have some photo-based small editions that I plan to be putting out very soon. The photography relates to the music in the same way I mentioned before. It brings in a different aspect of the larger context of the ideas and themes represented in the recordings. The photos are almost like stills from a film to which my music is the soundtrack.
What does the future hold for a death cinematic?
Hopefully, following along the same lines. More releases and more creative output. I have a lot of tracks that are ready to be mastered so I will be putting out some new work soon. There are plans for some more split releases and some full-length albums and a few collaborations, including the one mentioned above. Right now I am trying to finish up the space in the basement so I can have the studio take off. I have a lot of things I want to get done.
Any final words?
MF: introduce yourself
ADC: I am the guy who does all the a death cinematic and simple box construction stuff. No names. Only a few people know my name out there on the internet and I have sworn them to secrecy. I am not trying to be aloof, I just don’t find it to be all that important and now that it has been so long, revealing my name would just be anticlimactic. Unless of course my name was that of somebody famous or note worthy, which it isn’t. I like the anonymity.
MF: give us a little background on you
ADC: I have always loved music especially stuff that was a bit more challenging or concerned itself with pushing boundaries. But I didn’t start playing guitar or making music/ noise until later in my life. I was always more of a visual artist. I even went as far as getting a degree in the fine arts and did a little bit of teaching too, mostly drawing and printmaking. So my approach to music is really very similar to how I approach the making of visual art: a lot of intuition and experimentation with a little bit of tradition and skill.
MF: how long have you been playing guitar?
ADC: I’ve been messing with the guitar for over ten years now. 99.99% of that time on my own and teaching myself. I took lessons at the very beginning for two months or so. It was just enough to learn the basics and all that was for the acoustic guitar. The electric guitar didn’t start happening until just a few years ago. The recording and making of cohesive musical pieces and albums started in late ‘07.
MF: what’s your set up like for all of those gear heads out there?
ADC: my set up is chaotic, basic and very home grown. I have a decent amp, a lot of effects, an American deluxe telecaster, and now a tascam portable digital recorder. The amp is a line six flextone III with a foot control short board. the effects include a couple of different delay pedals, three or four distortion pedals, an octave pedal, a flanger, a wah, and a loop station. The telecaster I use is one of my favorite things on this planet but I am looking to get another guitar. Hopefully sometime soon. I now record everything into the digital recorder since the cassette four track wasn’t mine. Then I use an imac to do all the finalized post production and internet exporting stuff.
MF: your music is achingly personal. From the album design to the actual playing. What are some of the feelings you’re trying to express through your music?
ADC: well, that is not an easy question to answer. The songs themselves carry different emotional themes. All of them are very personal to me but at the same time I try to give them enough room so that the listener can relate to them on their own personal level. the themes and emotions might not make it an easy listen every time since most of them revolve around loss, melancholia, anger, regret, hopelessness and hopefulness, unrequited feelings, things ending and changing, etc., etc. using the apocalypse or the post apocalypse as a metaphor for personal expression and vise versa, is something that at this time appeals to me greatly and fits quite well into my current artistic endeavors. Although for the next full length I’ll be focusing a bit more on the pre apocalypse. The notions and themes of things getting worse before they get better at a time when they seem to be at their lowest is quite intriguing to me. Just when you think you are at the end of your rope you find that there is still four feet of it left and you are forced to do with less and to endure more.
MF: how did you come up with your name? Any plans on revealing more about yourself or are you gonna leave us shrouded in mystery?
ADC: the name came from a part of a line in a poem that I had written and lost a long time ago. It had to do with our (humanity’s) death or extinction being an event that to us would be something of great magnitude, something cinematic in scope but yet the world going on as it has done for millennia before us. That ultimately we would not be missed no matter how important we thought we were. A blockbuster event forgotten a couple of weeks after its release. I played around with hyphens and commas between the words death and cinematic but I finally settled on a death cinematic. At one point I even thought of the death cinematic but thought the indefinite article was a bit more fitting. As far as revealing more of myself… the answer is ultimately, yes. With every recording and piece of art there is more that is revealed but it is a slow process. Other then that I have no interest in specifically revealing anything or talking about my personal life but I do like discussing the creative process. I am involved with that so I guess it is a double edged sword.
MF: can you tell us what your songwriting process is like?
ADC: I can try. I don’t think of it as song writing per se but I guess that is what it is. Since my musical education is limited I rely a lot on intuition and experimentation. I am mostly interested in putting together sounds that might be fitting to express or allude to the specific themes and emotions. These sounds sometimes require me to understand some musical notation, scales, chord structures and building of melodies. This in turn forces me to teach myself, as best I can, about these things. Mostly I just spend nights working on sounds and recording them. Keeping them as raw as I can but still listenable. I think of these as textures and colors; raw materials for building.
MF: I started reading Cormac McCarthy around the same time I got into your music. His books have been made into movies (No Country for Old Men and The Road) and I thought your music would’ve been the perfect soundtrack to both of those. Are there any movies you wish you could’ve done the soundtrack for?
ADC: that is a nice coincidence since I was reading a lot of his work right before I started recording my stuff. As I was finishing A PARABLE…. I read THE ROAD in one night and I found it to be very fitting and moving piece of art. A lot of his work I find very fitting which is why I gravitate toward it. The movies that I’ve seen made from his books were masterpieces in their own right. Some of the best adaptations I have ever seen. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN was just stunning as a movie, so was THE ROAD, which includes a nick cave and warren Ellis soundtrack. A huge bonus. It is nice to see that others see my work fitting with the works of other artists that I respect a lot. There are a lot of movies I wish I could have done soundtrack work for. Including the two mentioned above. Although NO COUNTRY.. Has no soundtrack and I think that is a plus. Lack of a musical score just adds to the emotionalism and tension of that film. I think it would be great to do something for a David Lynch movie or for something by Guy Maddin. it is hard to say which movies specifically I would love to have done soundtracks for because that means I would have to change the final versions and I’m not too sure that I could improve on all those works that I respect. So I am hopeful for the future. hehehe.
MF: what have you been listening to lately?
ADC: this could be a very long list. the new silver mt zion and the previous one too. A lot of Isis. The new sunn o))). Johnny Cash UNEARTHED box set. The Nick Cave and Warren Ellis soundtracks. Message to Bears. Bird from the Abyss. the first Giant Squid album. Old blues. Tom Waits. the bonnie prince billy/ matt sweeney SUPERWOLF album. Agalloch ASHES AGAINST THE GRAIN. Horseback INVISIBLE MOUNTAIN and THE GOLDEN HORN. to mention only a few. Oh and the new a death cinematic, but only because I am working out the mastering on that one.
MF: what direction are you going in with your new songs?
ADC: the direction of the songs will most likely continue along the same line that it has thus far but more distilled and focused. I am concerned about being more concise and cohesive with the the sounds and songs. I am also focusing on getting better with the post production and mastering. I am trying to understand that part of the work better so I can use it to refine and to aid in the artistic expression.
MF: what’s next for you?
ADC: building a new studio and work space then putting out the new full length and some split releases as well as some visual art small run editions. I have a lot of things started and ready to go. Some things are in the finishing stages, so once everything is set up I plan on hitting the ground running. Hopefully not too long now.
MF: last words or shout outs?
ADC: thank you for your support and interest and for asking me to do the interview. To all the fans that have shown their support and coughed up their hard earned cash I want to say a very special thank you. You make it possible for me to continue with this project. I appreciate it more than I can say.
Apocalyptic. Desolate. Enigmatic. The music of A Death Cinematic is all of this, and so much more. Lying somewhere between the windswept, spaghetti-western drone of recent Earth and the dark, eerie soundscapes of Lustmord, A Death Cinematic is one man’s attempt to create a soundtrack not to the end of days itself, but to it’s lonely, horrifying aftermath. I caught up with the man behind ADC via e-mail to discuss the motivations behind his music and the beautiful, handcrafted artwork that accompanies his recordings. The following interrogation ensued.
Sonic Frontiers: When did you begin recording music as A Death Cinematic and what were the circumstances surrounding the project’s creation?
A Death Cinematic: i started to record music as a death cinematic in the spring and summer of 2007. i was just messing around with the amp and my guitar and recording everything into a boss loop station. the mixing and recording capabilities were very limited but i was trying to capture certain moods as i was improvising with the instrument and the effects. i really was curious to see what i can do with a limited set of parameters. at first it was just an experiment and since, it has grown into something a little larger. i have also extended the parameters a little. for example i no longer use the loop station as the primary recording device but i still do make all the sounds through the guitar, amp, and effects.
SF: Tell me a little about your album, A Parable on the Aporia of Vengeance and the Beauty of Impenetrable Sadness. For all intents and purposes, the album appears to be a meditation on the end of the world. What are some of the overarching themes/concepts running through the album?
ADC: the album is a meditation on the end of the world. more precisely it focuses on the days right after the apocalypse. there are a number of secondary themes that i try to allude to throughout the album. for example, the inherent self contradiction of vengeance and the beauty that is sometimes found in sadness. the album is what i imagine humanity’s reaction to an apocalypse might be. in some spots the themes get a little more surreal and nightmarish, fevered. i tried to imagine those days and who would be blamed for those events and who would exact revenge. at what point would we accept our fate? would we find peace? would we find beauty at the end when most manmade things cease to exist. it is a darkly themed and cathartic album.
SF: The song titles are lengthy and rather poetic sounding. Do you come up with the titles and overall concepts first, or do you let the music inspire them?
ADC: i would say that it is a little bit of both. sometimes i come up with the music and that inspires the titles and sometimes the titles come first. often, the titles are single lines from longer poems. on this album all the titles fit together to loosely tell this story of the post apocalypse. i always carry a note book and write down phrases that pop it my head. the way i put sounds together is very similar to how i put words together. i try to capture or evoke a mood with both. i try to use the titles as a way to set up a deeper context for the music and give the listener some kind of signage as they enter that world.
SF: There is an atmosphere of total desolation that permeates your music. Is this merely a direct result of recording as lone entity, or does it go deeper than that?
ADC: i think and hope that it goes a little deeper then that. recording as a lone entity has something to do with the sound but i try to be a bit more deliberate with the overall mood or emotionalism of the songs. it is strange because how i get at the sounds is more intuitive and improvisational but what i try to get these sounds to express is a bit more specific. i think the atmosphere is something i create based on my moods and interests as well as the influence of the environment on the recording process. i try to take advantage of the environmental influence to express my , as long as it is conducive to the overall concept.
SF: Would you ever consider collaborating with other musicians or do you prefer working in isolation?
ADC: i do like working in isolation a lot, i am very comfortable doing things alone but i am definitely interested in collaborating with other artists. in fact there is a few artists that i will be collaborating with in the near future. i don’t mean just split releases but actual collaborations where we both write and come up with the sounds and songs. this is a very new experience for me and i am looking forward to the challenge. i like to question and rethink my comfort zones. it is pretty exciting and i am quite honored to have been approached by these really talented artists/ musicians. at the moment these things are only in the initial stages as things progress there will be more details to come.
SF: Your myspace states that A Death Cinematic consists of one man, a guitar, an amp, some effects and a computer. Can you divulge any of the specifics of your recording/composing setup?
ADC: as i have mentioned, i started by recording into a loop station and from there i did a lot of recording into a borrowed cassette four track. all of A PARABLE… was recorded onto that four track. now i have a digital eight track and i have been recording a lot. i do all of it in my attic usually late at night or really early in the morning. it seems that my hearing is a little more acute at those times. the impetus for me starting to record anything varies. sometimes it could be something i have heard or seen. other times it might be something i have read that get me to start to put things down. after i get the initial track i usually start to layer improvised parts over it. sometimes i just sit and search for sounds for a long while before i hit the record button. there are times where nothing comes of it and there have been times when the intuition clicked into a flow and i end up recording 3 or 4 multi tracked songs. once i get the recording done i do mastering and mixing on the computer. although i might start to do some initial mixing right on the 8 track but that is a whole other learning curve.
SF: The moniker A Death Cinematic is highly appropriate, since the music comes off like the soundtrack to a very dark, disturbing movie that only exists in your head. Do you have any aspirations towards scoring/sound design/soundtrack work?
ADC: if the opportunity ever arose to do a soundtrack i would love to do that. you are right, in a way these releases are very much like soundtracks but to do one for a film especially by a director that i admire would be really cool. i plan on doing my own short films that i would like to release as small dvd releases. in fact i did one with winepress records and obscuritan design in september of ‘08. he did the animation/ film part and i did the music part. it was a very limited release and people seem to respond to it quite well. i would love to expand on that. it is all a matter of having enough time though. maybe in 2010.
SF: Furthermore, are you inspired by actual cinema, and if so, what films specifically and why?
ADC: yes, i am very much inspired by cinema. there are quite a few films that i find to be influential. when i was younger i was a little more active in searching out lesser known directors and films. i don’t seem to that as much now, i’m not even sure when i stopped.
the two most recent films that come to mind as instant classics and sources of constant influence are THE PROPOSITION directed by john hillcoat and written by nick cave, who also does he soundtrack with warren ellis. incidentally i am a huge fan of their soundtrack work. the other film is NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN directed by the coen brothers. i also like a lot of their other work too. there is something about these two films that just hits home. there are other directors; kurosawa, lynch, herzog and films; THE PROFESSIONAL, GHOST DOG, CITY OF LOST CHILDREN. i could go on and on.
SF: All your releases are handmade and pressed in limited editions. What made you choose this method for sharing your music with the world? Would you ever consider working with a label? Is your music too intimate in nature for mass production/distribution? How does your art inform the music and vice versa?
ADC: the reason for the handmade releases is that my background is in visual art and the artwork has always been important to me. i see it as an integral part of the music i make, not as something separate or as an after thought. when i make the music and write the titles i also think in images at the same time, so everything kind of goes together. each component compliments every other component. they are limited because i can only make so many covers on my own. another consideration was cost but that proved not to be so true. it is not necessarily cheaper to do things by yourself and by hand. i have yet to break even on some releases let alone make a profit of any kind but that is a secondary concern. i really enjoy making the stuff. i also think it adds intimacy to the listening experience, having something hand made not entirely perfect. i also tend to get wrapped up in the ritualistic nature of the making of things, whether it be art or cover art or t shirts, whatever. it is a little difficult to explain.
i would consider doing stuff with a label but i am not sure as to how to go about it. i have done things with small diy labels which specialize in these types of releases and we worked together. larger labels have not approached me yet so i don’t really concern myself with the larger distribution or more professional manufacturing. at the beginning i tried to get larger label attention but that really went nowhere. now i focus on what i can do with what i have. as far as my music being too intimate for mass production/ distribution, i don’t think so. i think the music might hold up in a slick well printed jewel case cover but there might be something missing there. something subtle and illusive but definitely absent. most people might not even notice it since downloading is so popular now. it seems that most are content with just a music file on an mp3 player. so another reason for making the covers by hand is, for those who decide to part with their hard earned cash to get some of my music can get something special and/ or unique.
SF: With that said, the packaging for A Parable on the Aporia of Vengeance… is beautifully crafted. Would you ever consider taking commissions from other artists/labels to create artwork/packaging?
ADC: thank you. people have asked before but i am tentative to take commissions at this time. the fabrication of the packaging is very time consuming so i have to charge a lot more then some people are wiling to spend for cd covers. when i make my stuff i pay myself nothing so i can do it. if i didn’t have to have a job and could do this stuff full time then i think that commissions could be more of a reality. i have little spare time and it is used up on making the covers for my releases. labels in the past have allowed me to make covers for a death cinematic stuff that they were releasing but those were joint ventures and not really commissions. we split the costs, etc. but i don’t know, if things change for me and i have more time then maybe, we shall see what the future will hold.
SF: Is A Death Cinematic in any way influenced by black metal? Although you are musically pretty far removed from BM, I get that same misanthropic, grimly atmospheric vibe from your music.
ADC: if there is a black metal influence in some of my music i would say it is indirect. my knowledge of that genre is somewhat limited. i am not opposed to black metal or anything like that. as long as i feel the music is genuine i don’t really care what genre it falls into. i listen to some black metal but not nearly enough to feel like i have any in depth knowledge about the black metal scene. the misanthropic, grimly atmosphere i think is coincidental.
SF: It seems as though ambient/drone/etc styles of music are gaining much wider acceptance/popularity in the underground over the past few years thanks to bands like Sunn O))), Growing, etc. Would you agree with this assessment and if so, why do think this is?
ADC: i would definitely agree that drone/ ambient/ doom/ etc is gaining popularity. that might be due to the people connecting to lesser known subjects (in this case music) via the internet. it has become relatively easy to spread the word about underground developments. people can find the most obscure stuff in just one google search. i also think there is a segment of society that is always searching for something new and different to listen to. once they find something the doors get open and others follow until the new and exciting music becomes stale and ordinary, boring even. then the search continues. it tends to be cyclical so heed this warning, hair metal is coming back.
SF: Has A Death Cinematic ever performed live? What would the ultimate ADC live experience entail? Would you ever consider touring?
ADC: as of yet no, a death cinematic has not performed live but i plan on changing that soon. i think about it often. if i had the ideal setting for a live show. i would perform behind a giant screen that has various films projected onto it. you would not really see me perform but you would hear the soundtrack being created live. i don’t think that i would be a good musical performer, a lot of what i do is very uninteresting as far as musical virtuosity is concerned. i would consider touring but i just don’t see that as being very realistic at this time. i have a family and a full time job. but locally, i would like to try it.
SF: I know you have several new releases on the horizon. Could you tell our readers a little about your upcoming/future plans for A Death Cinematic?
ADC: yes, there is some new music and visual releases coming soon. i am working on a split with sons of alpha centauri. we are a little bit delayed in releasing it, but it promises to be a good one. there is also a split coming out on dead accents records with hemingway at this time i don’t know when it is coming out. the music for it has been done a while back so i am eager to hear it again. dead accents put out a lot of fine diy releases and i can’t wait to see what they do with this. it also promises to be a good one. i have some exclusive unreleased tracks coming out on some compilations later this year and early next year. i have been recording a lot lately and i have enough material for the next full length so i am slowly stating to put things in order for that. hopefully by spring or early summer of 2010 i will be in a position to release it. i have some grandiose plans for it and i am very excited about the new music. we shall see. there are also some collaborations and other split releases that are tentatively in the works.
SF: Are there any final words or thoughts you’d like to add?
ADC: not really, i just want to thank you and all the people who are supporters of diy music and the diy aesthetic. thank you for reading.
In a world where one man bands and projects are everywhere,there is only a few that reach the standards that "A Death Cinematic" manage to do.The music is dark,bleak and very much full of atmosphere with a dramatic edge.Hard to sum up in a few words what this band is like,you are better off listening yourself with the lights off and letting it soak into your brain.I did this interview with the man behind the music.
1. I must start off by saying thanks for doing the interview. Can you give the readers a history of your musical background?
thank you. the pleasure is all mine. well, my musical background is quite typical. i grew up listening to slayer, metallica, sepultura and from there i went into punk and straight edge hardcore. along the way i picked up on tom waits, nick cave, johnny cash and slowly started to slip into post rock stuff like godspeed and mogwai, form there i started to drift into ambient and drone, noise stuff. i also listen to a lot of old time blues like mississippi john hurt, skip james, elizabeth cotton, and of course, robert johnson. i even get into some classical stuff. basically i like whatever seems genuine to me. as far as playing music goes. i started playing guitar late and it has been the only instrument that i can "play." there were no other bands or projects that i was in and i hardly had any traditional guitar lessons. i suppose you could say i am self taught.
2. I am sure you have been asked this before but the album (A Parable On the Aporia of Vengeance and the Beauty of Impenetrable Sadness) is a real bleak sounding cd. Is there a concept behind the music,it sounds very dark and apocalyptic?
there is a concept to the album and it is meant to be bleak and dark but it is also meant to be reflective and even peaceful at times. although it is an uneasy peace that comes more from exhaustion or an acceptance of one's fate rather than any type of enlightenment. the concept deals with the days right after the apocalypse. it is a musical vignette of humanity's fevered nightmare as it realizes what has happened and tries to deal with who might be responsible. there is some secondary concepts that pertain to beauty and vengeance and how the former is defined and the pointlessness at such a time of the latter. it is hard to encapsulate everything in the span of a few sentences.
3. At times the music sounds like it would fit in well as a movie soundtrack. Is that something that inspires the music?
oh yeah. very much so. i am interested very much how concepts and ideas are conveyed through time and moving images. i guess you could say that all the music i do is a soundtrack to the images in my head, the little films of altered memories. it is another way of expressing the ideas and emotions through time. as opposed to a painting or a singular photograph which is stagnant. it is really a different way to communicate artistically. it is also why i find packaging to be significant, it allows a glimpse visually into the context of the music and therefore expanding the experience.
4. Do you find being a "one man band" limiting at all?
i don't really think of it in such terms. i really focus on what i can do and the explorations of making sounds with a specific set of elements. i am not opposed to working with other people and i understand that different instruments would expand the sound and musical textures but this project is really about what comes out of the limited basic elements. i have been in contact with other people and there is going to be some collaborative work where other people do the writing and setting up the impetus for the songs. i am looking forward to that but that is still sometime away.
5. How does the writing come together for you,have you got a specific process you go through?
i don't really write the material. i improvise the sounds and i really can't recreate the tracks. they are meant to be transient movements through time. i record them and move on only to revisit them in the post production process and then the final version that ends up on the disc. usually very early in the morning or late at night i sit and play guitar while thinking of some concepts and my hearing is still fresh. i search out the appropriate noises and melodies and then i try to assemble them into a comprehensive and succinct whole. most of what i do is by gut and intuition. i find it to be a very liberating way of working.
6. Is there anyone in the Ambient/Experimental scene that is a major influence?
there are a lot of artists and bands that i am influenced by. to name a few albums i have been listening to an awful lot in the past couple of weeks, the new sunn o))) is an amazing album, as is the new isis. invisible mountain by horseback is one of my favorites of the year. i see it as a flawless record. i also have been listening to a lot of other releases from utech records. a superb label. there is the kro and hourglass drops split as well as the hourglass drops chapter one ep. at the head of the woods is a mostly one man project from the northwest and his album is superb, a psychedelic trip through melancholia. the clouds and shining trees release, cast is super fine. i really have been getting into these two projects, austerity and wheel of knowledge both out of italy. haunting stuff, just beautiful. there are quite a few more and to list everyone would be a daunting task. i feel i should mention that there are two blues songs that i have been listening to almost on a daily basis, sort of like vitamins for the soul. hard time killin' floor blues by skip james and hell hound on my trail by robert johnson. there is just something about these two songs that just gets down into the marrow of my bones. they remind me of a time and place i have never been to but am somehow very familiar with. it is hard to explain but their mark is indelible.
7. What has been the reaction like to the album and do you find ( like i do) that some people just don't understand the Ambient Music concept?
i think overall the reaction has been very good to the album. people seem to pick up on the fact that the packaging and the music are integral parts. these people seem to understand ambient, drone, and noise music. sure, majority of the people don't get it or they don't want to. that is why this type of music is always a sub genre or on the outskirts which might be one of the reasons why i gravitate toward it. frankly it doesn't bother me if people don't understand this stuff, there are a lot of things about music that i don't understand and i really don't want to. the popularity of linkin park or three days grace is one.
8. I would love to see the music played live with a stunning light show and maybe with some short films running throughout the songs. The music has a real visual element to it,is this something you would consider doing?
well, the live thing is something that i have been thinking about for a long time and one of these days i am just going to have to do it. the biggest hurdle is that i play all the parts myself which are layered. this is a bit though to do live. the other problem is that i can't replay the songs which means that it would have to be a live improv type of show which means i have a lot of work to do in order to get my shit together. when i do play live i have this idea of playing short films that i have made as i play, so the music is informed by the images moving throughout time. the music is quite visual and i would love to do something to accentuate that aspect.
9. Tell us about the equipment you use for your recordings?
the equipment is pretty basic. i now have a tascam digital 8 track recorder which has been great. i have been recording a lot, very simple to use. i have a line 6 flextone III modeling amp. i play everything on an american deluxe fender telecaster. various distortion and delay pedals. a loop-station and some broken effects pedals that i manipulate with paper clips and screwdrivers. i use the computer to mix and master. i do everything up in my attic so it is not all that professional but i try to do the best with what i have.
10. What about upcoming recordings,are you always writing new material?
upcoming recordings, there is some that are in the works right now. there is a hemingway split coming out which has been in the works for a long while now. the music has been done for awhile. should be out soon. there is another split with the sons of alpha centauri which should be out in a couple of weeks. i am finishing up the covers for it and those guys are getting the cds made. i think it is going to be a great release. there is a single that should be coming out soon of a 20 min+ track i did but that is kind of on the back burner. there are going to be some brand new and exclusive tracks coming out on some amazing compilations. i am always working on new recordings. in the past few weeks i have recorded some 15 tracks. which has me thinking about the next full length. i try to record every chance i get and recently the creativity has been flowing so i try not to hinder it with procrastination.
11. The packaging for the CD is very unique,how did that idea come together?
i am not quite sure how the idea for the packaging came together. i wanted it to have certain elements based on some of the themes represented by the album. then i tried to figure out a way i could have a larger edition and still keep everything hand made. i had some images in mind but the cover design is kind of intuitive, like the music. i spend a lot of time making mock up and prototype covers. till i have something that works.
12. What are your plans for the rest of the year?
the rest of the year is going to be pretty busy. in addition to getting stuff ready for the above mentioned releases. i plan to keep recording new music. i have some t shirt designs that i want to print and several limited edition visual projects: small boxes of photographic series and small hand bound books. i am also looking at doing a larger edition of a hand stamped book of poetry. however, that might be more of a next year project.
13. What do you want people to feel when they hear your music?
i want them to feel that they have been invited on a journey or into another world and that they allow themselves to visit. i have no specific sets of emotions or even ideas i want them to feel or have, just a genuine response and interaction to the sounds. i don't want to dictate how they should react, that is up to them and is based on their personal contexts. i think a lot of people find it difficult to do when it comes to music but they don't question it when it comes to movies, books, or even tv shows.
14. Thanks again for the interview,any final words or thoughts?
thank you. i appreciate your time and your tireless efforts and support of underground music is invaluable. remember to support diy music. thank you.
There aren't many projects these days that leave me in awe. Let's face it,in the age of the internet, it is truly a most-difficult task to create anything that hasn't been seen before. Which is why finding A Death Cinematic, and his design project, Simple Box Construction, was such an epiphany for me. Everything about the world created by ADC is so fully realized, that you can not help but become a player in his universe, even if only for a little while. From the amazing dronescapes of the music, to the feeling you get holding a product that the artist himself designed by hand in an attic....it is a tangible experience that most artists would kill to have. I must say,that it was a complete honor to speak with A Death Cinematic about the process behind his homespun creations.
HAMMER SMASHED JAZZ:Your latest release,"A Parable On the Aporia of Vengeance and the Beauty of Impenetrable Sadness" is often described as the sound of a coming apocalypse, but to me it sounds very "post-apocalyptic", very desolate and bleak..it makes me think of abandoned, dusty towns years after the bomb dropped. Is there a specific concept behind the record?
A DEATH CINEMATIC:The short answer would be that yes, there is a specific concept behind the record but it is not just that simple. the specific concept is really just specific to me. there are themes that i tried to express that would point the listener, or maybe invite the listener into this other world. but how the listener interprets that and what themes stand out to him or her is really up to them.
i think the timeline of the events on this album is the days right after the apocalypse. the final moments of humanity as we know it and then our struggle to accept the fate of our own fevered nightmares. there is a desolation to the sound but also a harsh abruptness and sometimes a peacefulness. there are several different underlying themes and subtexts that i try to allude to. i tried to imagine those days where everything i know is no longer there. that now i have to react to a completely different reality that i am unprepared to deal with. i also tried to imagine the strange vastness and emptiness when most things manmade would be gone. there would be a beauty there, there would be sorrow too and a sadness... i also tried to imagine the survivors and them exacting vengeance against that which they believe created this new reality. the final theme or concept is that of the aporia. the inherent contradiction in these themes. like the way a horizon looks when it is on fire. from a distance it is quite beautiful and mesmerizing but you know that things are being destroyed and changed violently, never to be the same. the closer one gets to that inferno or the closer that inferno gets to you the less beautiful it becomes.
a lot of the visuals for my imagination came from the city i live in. there are blocks here that are completely desolate and abandoned and it just looks like nothing lives there but something does because there is a light on or tire tracks in the grass. it is abhorrent destruction and ugliness, all the decay and apathy but there is a stillness there like the city is slowly just giving up the ghost. a sorrowful peace. in a way a beauty. it is really quite hard to explain. i guess that is why i make the sounds and take the photographs and do the art. as far as what specifically does humanity in on the album. i leave that up to the listeners. kind of like choose your poison, what terrifies you the most?
HSJ:I've heard that your music is improvised, but a lot of "A Parable" sounds written to me, especially the opening track, which is one of my favorites, as it just sets the tone so well.
ADC:it is true everything is improvised but again it is not that simple. i don't write songs or parts of songs. i don't memorize them. i don't practice them. if you asked me to play them for you i would be unable to do it. one of the things i'm interested in is the intuitive act of creativity. i like the quality that sound has of changing with time as it is being made. my favorite songs are the ones that when i listen to them at the end i say to myself, i wish that track was longer. there is that moment that i really enjoy when the track comes to an end and i don't want it to. the transient quality of a really good track is something that appeals to me greatly. the nice thing is that when it is recorded you can relive the experience at a later time of your choosing.
in a way that is how i approach the playing of my songs, the never to come back home again quality to the sounds passing. it is like being moved into a transient world and allowing yourself to be enveloped by it completely. music does it very well but so do books and movies too. the tracks usually start when i hit record because i like something that i happen to be playing. then i go out searching for other sounds that might go with the initial recording and somehow start to solidify the concepts.
some parts on A PARABLE... might sound more "written" because i was more selective in how i put the tracks together. with more experience i have a better understanding of what i can do with the guitar and effects so there are more specific sounds that i would try to encapsulate but still maintain that raw kind of energy that comes with playing intuitively. i have also been getting better not only on manipulating the guitar and the effect but also how i mix and master the songs. that part of the process is not improvised. in those stages i am trying to take the raw improvised material that i put down on tape and hone them. i push and pull out sound while hiding other ones as i flesh out the concept. however i am always limited to what was initially recorded. usually late at night i do a lot of searching with the guitar and effects. there are very few distractions and the world seems to be almost completely still. sometimes everything lines up and sounds good and the tracks just come together, all i do is capture them. other times it is a task that is a bit more arduous. sometimes there is days between the layers sometimes only minutes. i know that in certain parts the layers don't quite line up or mesh exactly and that is left in on purpose, i'm not interested in polishing everything out. i guess i like some grime and grit but i also appreciate intricacy and skillfulness and being succinct and concise with the sounds.
HSJ:So how long did a Parable take to complete. Your recording process sounds very intricate, maybe compulsive even. Also, it's just you and your guitar, right? So what guitar(s) and gear do you use?
ADC:it is strange. the recording of parable was just several months but they were quite intense. i guess you can say i was in the manic state of creativity. i slept little and recorded a lot. things just flowed out. the mixing and mastering took quite a bit of time because i had to learn a lot about all that stuff and there was a lot of trial and error. since then i have learned a lot more and when i listen to certain parts of some tracks i think to myself, "oh, now i know how i could have popped out this or that part and just give it a bit more subtle emphasis." but i don't think i'll be re-mastering a parable anytime soon. i have moved on and some of the new stuff is better mixed and mastered.
yes, the process is quite intricate and sometimes i have to remind myself to just leave it be, that at this point this is the most or best that it can be. all the sounds come from the guitar, amp and different effects. sometimes i pull in radio signals through my amp so i try to record those too but all the noises and ambient sounds are made on the guitar and amp. if there are sounds that i want, i try to get my guitar to sound like it. i like exploring all the means at my disposal which often means doing a lot with very little. all these things influence the aesthetic of all that i do and to me that is a very important element.
as far as gear, i have a line six modeling amp; a flextone III and i play an american deluxe fender telecaster. i use an octave pedal, a cry baby, a big muff pi, plus some other distortion pedals and different tremolos and stuff like that. a loopstation and several delays. i also have some pedals that were broken and i have taken apart. with those i manipulate the sounds with screwdrivers and paperclips. recently i invested in a digital 8 track recorder, a tascam. all the stuff i recorded thus far was done on a borrowed four track cassette recorder. i like the four track for its simplicity but digitizing the tracks and trying to get them to line up was always a bit of a daunting task. with the new recorder i hope some of that will become easier. i am not a purist as far as analog or digital signal. frankly, my ear can't tell the difference and most of the stuff i do as far as sharing the music is done online and hence digitally.
HSJ:I really love A Parable for the amount of twists and turns it takes. Are you pleased with the result? Does it closely resemble what your original ideas were?
ADC:overall i am pleased with how A PARABLE... came out. i have never done anything like this before. so there were a lot of things that i now see that i missed but those things i can only improve on future recordings. i think it resembles the original concepts quite well, especially if some of the themes mentioned above come through to the listeners. in addition to the audio there was the visual and the challenge of putting out a larger edition and yet keeping all the covers handmade. visually i think the cover turned out well even though there were some redesigns and compromises and unforeseen expenses. it is all part of the wondrous learning of putting out your own stuff. as a whole i think that sonically and visually i got very close to my goals with A PARABLE... i didn't hit all of them because i see where i could make small improvements but this leaves me something to work toward to.
HSJ:I was lucky enough to find your music through WitchHouse Records, and later Winepress Records. What's the relation there with Winepress, and is WitchHouse still going? I really love little DIY labels like that.
ADC:i must say i share your passion for tiny diy labels. what they might lack in technical quality they more then make up in heart and creativity. there is a certain aesthetic to them that is warm and indelibly human. there is also an urgency about small labels and the small editions they put out that i appreciate a lot. the idea of making things because they need to be made or expressed is one that i have been in love with for a long time.
witchhouse and winepress are both great labels. my relation with winepress so far has only been for the dvdr single and nate has asked if i would like to join his online band, blue greed. i am not sure if we'll be releasing stuff together again or not. i am definitely not opposed to it. i guess we'll wait and see. he just became a father not too long ago so i think the label just scaled down a bit. as far as witchhouse, i don't know if it is around or if it is coming back. there was some really great stuff on that label.
HSJ:Speaking of which, Simple Box Construction is your visual side of things (or label)...and the packaging you do is just stunning. Where'd the idea to use veneers as CD packaging come from?
HSJ:Speaking of which, Simple Box Construction is your visual side of things (or label)...and the packaging you do is just stunning. Where'd the idea to use veneers as CD packaging come from?
ADC:simple box construction is not really a label, at least not in the normal sense. i don't think i'll be putting out other artists under simple box construction. there will be splits and stuff like that but mostly it is for my visual art editions and for a death cinematic cover and merch production. i am really pleased that you like the packaging. to me it is a very important aspect of the releases. i feel it helps to set up the context for the concepts and it is another form of expression. with simple box though i am also going to do a lot more editions of hand-bound books of images and boxed collections of photo series... limited t shirts, stuff like that.
the idea for the veneer covers came from my background in wood working and visual arts. almost all the art i make has some kind of wood incorporated into it. i just really love the material. it is warm and easily manipulated but it is also strong. not to mention that there is something inherent in objects that are made from wood that i just love and appreciate. also certain species of wood and trees have such rich histories where the utility of them becomes, in a way, symbolic. there are many connotations that these species bring forth that i try to exploit. (this is also true of other materials too.) so when i started to make sound and music i wanted to incorporate those qualities into what i was doing, veneer just seemed right. it is thin and flexible and easy to use. i plan on utilizing it for a while. hopefully in new and creative ways.
HSJ:I know that the visual side of things is very important to you, and I feel very fortunate to have gotten a copy of your "Veins Like Trenches" DVDR, which was very limited (and really lovely). Will we see more films accompanied by your music?
ADC:yes, for sure. VEINS LIKE TRENCHES... dvdr was something i was quite pleased with and i want to do more of that type of thing. i would love to use film and moving images somehow when i start to play live shows. i have some ideas for short films and how i want to make them. in fact i have an idea for another dvdr single. it is for a shorter track but i am thinking of a longer film. there would be a lot of footage before the music would come in and hopefully that would set the tone for the music track. that won't be for a little while though. right now it is just something that rattles around in my skull. it would be a very small edition maybe even smaller than the VEINS LIKE TRENCHES... dvdr.
after that i would like to do something a bit more involved then just a single. working with other people on films is something that i would also like to do, where it becomes a more collaborative process. there is a guy in england his name is ashely who does a lot of very minimal short films and he calls his film project crayon films. he did a short film for my track, I FEEL YOUR HOMES BURNING DOWN. you can catch it on his myspace or my myspace page. he also has a website called kicktheghost.co.uk. he just went and made this short film and one day emailed me and asked if it was okay that he did it. i told him that it most certainly was and that he can feel free to do it more. very cool of him to do that.
HSJ:So you've hooked up with Demian/ Hemingway and Dead Accents for a release right? Who found who there?
ADC:i feel quite fortunate that i get a chance to work with demian/ dead accents/ hemingway. the more i talk to him the more i see we are on the very same page. i admire what he is doing and i really like the stuff he makes, visual and audio. dead accents is putting out a spilt for a death cinematic and hemingway. broken press is doing the printing on the covers. simple box contributed the photography and demian did the drawings. i have yet to hear their side of the release but i am looking forward to it. my tracks for that split were done around the same time that i did A PARABLE.. they are two tracks that go together really well and they are some of my favorites. i'm eager to hear them again. it should be soon.
i am not sure who found who first. i just remember it was early when i first started a death cinematic and either i or they (hemingway) asked to be friends. we traded some stuff and they asked me to do a split. they were the first to ask, even before witchhouse. i am quite honored. i think this is going to be a great release. i would love to work with them again in the future. dead accents is another outstanding diy label and broken press is an outstanding diy press. some of the best out there.
HSJ:Favorite Sabbath song?
ADC:this is not an easy question to answer. i am very fond of the first six sabbath albums. very fond of. i guess the songs that stick out are snowblind and paranoid. these however are subject to change at will.
HSJ:So, are we getting some more ADC soon?
ADC:yes, quite soon. there will be some visual stuff coming out from simple box construction: a book of images, a box of a small series of photos, and a small collection of art cards that accompany a short poem i wrote. the simple box construction blog/ website will soon be officially announced and launched. very soon there will be the split with hemingway on dead accents. after that there are several other split releases. one with sons of alpha centuri from the uk. simple box is doing the covers for that and i guess it is the second official audio release from simple box construction. a bit after that there will be a 3" single released on a small label called la-bango. an exclusive 20 minute track. it is recorded and just needs to be mixed down and mastered.
i have also been contacted by the crowned heads of europe and the light of shipwreck to do splits and i am very excited about doing both. i hope they are still into it. i should be recording things for those soon. you will also be able to find some exclusive tracks on some outstanding compilations coming later this year. while all this is going on i am also going to be recording some stuff for blue greed. it is nate from winepress, rick from insect explosion and al from scotch tapes/ frequent sea/ MCPIBTYCP. i am very excited about this project as well. i already heard some tracks that nate and rick worked on and they sound great. i think they might be waiting on me at this point so i have to get on top of recording my parts.
finally, sometime in the spring of next year i hope to be at least working on the new full length. but all these things are contingent on other things that i have no control over and can change quite rapidly. in a nut shell that is what i am working on. it is hard not to get overwhelmed.
A Death Cinematic one of the rarest unique Experimental Ambient projects I've heard in a while,it's super cool,takes you on a Journey across the mind & penetrates your soul & it's just a one man project so that deserves more recognition,well my friend tell us a brief history of this project & some details of your personal life?
i really don't like discussing personal details all that much. the brief history is that i started playing guitar kind of late and that limits me to what i can do. i graduated from art school so my background is in visual art which influences how i approach the making of sounds. i started getting interested in recording music/ sounds about a year ago. i'm still learning. i am teaching myself how to play guitar, record, engineer, mix, layout covers, all that. it is not very efficient but very fulfilling. i am also very interested in bands, musicians, writers, whatever who do the stuff themselves. i find the music to be more genuine when it is a bit on the raw side. that is not to say that good musicianship and engineering skills aren't genuine. i just like things that are rough around the edges. things that look or sound like they were indelibly made by human hands.
Are you searching for other musicians to make A Death Cinematic a formal band or not?
no, this is solely a one man thing. i do everything by improvisation and i do enjoy locking myself away to search for that noise. i am not opposed to collaborations though. a formal band is just that, formal and because of my lack of skill and formal musical training i have a hard time fitting into structures and formalities. i don't think of my self as a musician or a song writer. what i do is more of a sound landscape thing. the songs or sound arrangements exist only for the time i make them, then they are gone and what is left is what was recorded. nothing i do can be recreated exactly, all the settings change from layer to layer and then it is gone into the ether.
I think that you should do a couple of Underground shows with artists that plays your kind of music & that Understand this movement & have dedication for all this,tell us more?
since i play all the parts myself it would be difficult to play live. i am thinking about it though. i imagine it would have to be something close to what i do up in my attic, an improv show where i make new songs right there on the spot. although that might be fun for me to do i don't know how cool it would be for someone to watch some dude on stage fumbling around with his equipment. i don't know, sometime in the future perhaps.
Would you love to travel & expose the world to your Experimental music or not,explain?
for the same reasons i mentioned above i'm not sure that would be practical. a death cinematic might not be appropriate for world wide exposure. i would love to travel though.
My dear friend you have a cd out entitled "Epochs Shifting Out Of Time",tell us what do you think personally about it & what have the fans thought about it,Can you describe to us your influences,I'm sure there's too many,but give us some examples so our readers can understand your concept alright?
epochs... really was something that i did not plan on. i had these recordings that i had done onto a loopstation. just messing about with different sounds i could get out of the guitar. i filled up the memory on that thing quickly and i started looking for ways to take those recordings off the loopstation so i would have more room to mess around in. i stumbled onto some programs that allowed me to put the recordings on my computer and edit them. from there i started to kind of clean the recordings up and this collection of "songs" came about. it was really meant as a demo. now i record into a four track i borrow from a friend. the new collection of sounds should be a little better mixed. i have more control over the levels of the different layers and tracks. influences are a bit though to list and explain because there are literally thousands of bands, books, movies. plus i'm influenced by other things like moods and environments, experiences. the things i like is based on a gut reaction. kind of an intuitive way of judging. so as long as i find the music, writing, films, etc. genuine and moving, i'm into it. i have also been fascinated by eastern thought and philosophy, taoism in particular. i like the concepts of impermanence and intuition. a lot of what i'm getting at is beyond the verbal language and the taoist approach, as i understand it, is the closest thing i can find to that. i am also fascinated by tapping into something larger then myself or beyond myself, a flow of energy that continuously runs through the universe. it is there all the time all you have to do is sit quietly and allow it in or allow yourself to enter it. it is the experience, no matter what you do, of having everything fall into place smoothly and time just disappears.
Is it hard coming up with this weird unique stuff you record?
yes, but that is the fun part. it is my chance to sit quietly and pull sounds out of the air. however, i put limits on my self because there is so much available that it almost becomes meaningless and overwhelming. what i mean is that it is kind of easy, because of computer programs to make sounds and music be something that they are not. for example, i can put string sections and drum parts into my stuff without having to know any other musicians. these programs are tools and i'm glad that they are there at my disposal. one day i might even utilize them if it makes sense for me to do so. but for now i make my music with these parameters: only a guitar, an amp, some effects, and me doing improvising. however, i could get bored with that so i try to maintain an open mind for what i might have to do in the future. it takes quite a bit of time to come up with the finished compositions. i start with an idea and some sounds and then search for more sounds that kind of fit with it and i can juxtapose them in interesting ways. it is almost like making a painting or a sculpture, i search for materials and kind of put them together, take them apart. a little glue here a bit of sandpaper there, some paint and maybe a hint of varnish and there it is....and then it isn't. i guess it is kind of alchemical in how i approach the making of art. i make my own recipes in order to find something worth while. the difference between making sound and visual stuff is that sound depends on an external container (cd, vinyl, tape, etc.) in order to preserve it and sculptures and paintings, etc. are their own containers. but now that i have some experience and actually know that i can make cdr recordings at home relatively inexpensively i can use the language of sounds with more of a purpose. where the compositions on epochs... was unplanned, the new ones are a little more deliberate and focused. i am very excited to see what people think of it. i guess you could say i am becoming more articulate with my sound making.
Have you ever thought like talking or singing in some of the tracks,that should sound killer,don't you think my friend?
no, i have not really thought about singing. i don't think of myself as a song writer. i think there are some very good songwriters that i could never compete with. nick cave, will oldham, tom waits among many many others. they're all great lyricists/singers and i just can't compete with that. i don't have enough charisma for that. not to mention that i just plain cannot sing. the song titles are really the only words that i'm willing to put in to my "music". i have some tracks with voices in them and that is only because my amp sometimes will pick up radio signals. to me that is fair game to put into my "music" because it fits into the parameters. the risk is that what the voices are saying might not fit into the themes that i want. so sometimes i just sit there waiting and trying to pull these voices out of thin air and capture them at the moment when they contain some kind of meaning for me.
Are you getting good exposure throughout the internet,for example here on Myspace,on radio stations or on magazines or not,if not they don't know what they are missing,tell us more?
yes, i am, mostly on the internet. when i started the myspace thing i just kind of did it to mess around. but it has been great and has grown much larger then i could have ever imagined. it is kind of ironic that i joined a larger community by locking myself in my house. it reminds me of a smog song, the lyrics go something like, "alone in my room i feel like i'm a part of the community but out in the street i'm just a robot in disguise....." i have "met" a lot of great people who make a lot of awesome stuff. people who are very passionate about making and sharing music. i've discovered music that i would have never known about that is just amazing, i mean really good stuff. quite a bit of them are very generous and we have swapped cds and ideas. a lot of them have been very supportive. i post a bulletin on myspace once in a while that lists all the people i have traded with or some music and bands that i feel strongly about. look for it and them. i have even sold my little cdr, which to me is still something i can't get my head around. i am very grateful for that, the fact that someone is willing to put up some of their hard earned cash just to hear what i have created is very humbling to me. as far as radio, i've submitted my cdr to some online radio stations and they have expressed an interest in playing some of it, i guess we will wait and see.
Are you looking for a label in 2008 to release a full length cd,besides the 13 song cd you have,maybe do some collaborations with other artists in the same vein as yours?
i was and i suppose i still am looking for a label. i have asked and sent the cdr to a lot of labels. some feedback was very positive and i am putting out some split releases and collaborations with dead accents and winepress records respectively. i tried going for the bigger labels but i realized that it wasn't practical or realistic. so now i'm focusing on small labels where i can have more control and hands on experience in making my releases. i like to make things and in fact i'm really looking forward to doing some self releases. i have this little thing i call simple box construction. i 'll be using it for small run cdr self releases and some collections of hand bound books of my own work. but having another label help with costs and distribution would be great.
2007 was a cool year for A Death Cinematic,you created a 13 songs cd,you are working on new music,have won fans world wide,you are getting good exposure everywhere,so what's left for you & your project bro in 2008 & in the near future?
well, as i have stated above i'm looking forward to doing split releases with hemingway on dead accents, a possible dvdr with nate from winepress records, and my next full length. also there are other possible split releases and a sound track with the king of russia. he does hand painted abstract films. but those plans are a bit more tentative. i'm just trying to focus on getting the next set of sounds together and ready for release with all the art work and covers. i want to do something special and different for these releases. epochs... might have run its course. i mean that i don't think it will be anything more then just a cdr i make for people upon request. i want the next stuff to be a little more professional, an actual good sounding and good looking release.
Thank for all my friend,much respect ;).
Emmanuel
Thank for all my friend,much respect ;).
Emmanuel
