New for 2024, with a lineup assembled of members and session players associated with the acts of the more artistic side of the original Norwegian BM scene ( Dodheimsgard, If Nothing Is ), we have here VOID and new album JADJOW. Contrasting with their 2020 album The Hollow Man, JADJOW is a little more coherent – still blending the intricacy, ferocity and intelligence that you would expect with this progressive act, but with a natural production that ties it all together nicely, and with what we would consider very tasteful and sophisticated use of accented passing notes – particularly in the track previewed here, Self Isolation. Guitarist Matt Jarman ( he in the left hand speaker ) takes time out from battling ( AKA shredding broken chords in every possible directional permutation on the fretboard ) against six-stringed partner-in-crime Camille Giraudeau ( of Dreams of the Drowned) – in the right hand speaker – to answer our questions, albeit with musings and yet more existential questions. Seriously Matt – we’re easily confused here, you know? But, anyway, regarding the birthing of JADJOW, what’s it like to write and record an album, remotely, between four or more very busy artists, does it help to be ‘wired’ a certain way to enjoy it, and in which musical canon should we place it? We go to London ( and Ireland and Norway ) to find out.
It’s been three years since the release of VOID’s Hollow Man. What is different this time around?
Hi Scott. It is nice to talk again. I went back to re-read our last conversation to prep for this, but I couldn’t stand to read my waffle, so hopefully I’ll do better this time… I did pick up your reference to an Abigor album “Fractal Possession” early on in the chat, so I’ve decided to listen to that while I answer your questions. Hopefully it’ll be an interesting experiment. I haven’t heard it before. What else is different? Everything and nothing. It’s a completely different line up of musicians. A whole new set of characters, all contributing their talent and unique ideas. But it always has been. It, Void, has always been a melting pot of free expression for its members and I’m so relieved that it has survived, in whatever form that might be.
Modernity gives us greater access to imaginary communities, both for good and bad. For artists it can be a space that can change, grow, and ( positively ) distort reality to the needs of the people accessing it. I think you can be pleased with the creature – or rather, the Iniquitous Owl that you have created in this virtual space between you. How do you all feel about working this way, and the opportunities it provides?
Imagination is hard to breed when staring into the blue light of a screen. It’s much more of a receptacle for receiving ideas rather than creating them. Modernity, I assume you are talking about the internet here, doesn’t necessarily help us with our social skills, indeed it presents new challenges. I think the greatest access I have to imaginary communities, other than music, is playing games like d&d and blood bowl, and those communities predate the internet and survive largely unchanged in spite of it. However if you want to make a Uncompromising Fringe metal album with some amazing musicians during a global pandemic, yeah, modernity is pretty useful. It couldn’t have been done without the communication technology at our disposal.
I agree that communication through the internet “distorts reality”. I hate talking to people in chat rooms. There’s so much room for misinterpretation. Folk are always getting their noses out of joint. But in the moment of birthing Jadjow, that distortion of reality has probably helped the baby develop. She grew extra limbs, she was able to lose her form and take on new identities. Of course it would be a dream come true to meet up with this line up of musicians in person and make an album. Would it come out like Jadjow? Probably not. Anyway, it ain’t happening anytime soon. And that’s ok because we plan to come back soon with yet another line up haha. We want to take it live. And there’s nothing more old fashioned than that.
The production is fantastic – how did you mix and master it?
The issue we had with the recording stemmed from the above application of modernity. We all recorded our parts in different studios, at different times, in different countries. So the challenge was to glue these disparate elements together cohesively in one space. Several, including myself, had tried, with limited results. There was talk of re-amping, triggering and all that modern toss, but thankfully Raph Henry was able to put all that nonsense to bed. He swept in with enthusiastic glee shimmering in his eyes, at a time when we were frankly starting to fall out about it. He gathered all the elements up into his beard and forced them all back together again through a will born of passion for the music. He didn’t transform anything into anything else, it was, as I understand it, a process of balancing the elements that already existed through his analog gear, a less is more approach that prioritised clarity over heaviness. The heaviness of Jadjow comes from it’s musical intensity and the complexity of its melodic layers. It didn’t require a “wall of sound”. Benoit Roux and Raph Henry are long time collaborators, so it is par the course that one would ice the other’s cake.
Do you see Void as part of a circle of artists progressing ( for want of a better term ) avant-garde black metal?
Is it really Avant if the Garde never follow? It’s a silly term in that sense, and rather pretentious to apply to your own music. Progressive metal is perhaps more appropriate, although in many ways we continue to progress away from instead of towards any genre. That’s why I like to call Void a Fringe Metal band, even if it does conjure an image of Beatles-like bowl haircuts. In 2002 we believed we were helping to spearhead a new genre of electronic infused black metal, alongside peers like Mayhem, Thorns, DHG and Aborym, but that “genre” turned out to be more of a millennial flash in the pan and what came afterwards felt very much like much a return to traditional forms. A trend which continues to this day. The Depuis Garde are the leaders of the scene now and the black metal festivals of today are inhabited by their legions of clones. “Avant-garde” acts like Ved Buens Ende pop up on bills like Cosmic Void 2023 in London like black sheep in their flock. And that is absolutely fine, because that is clearly what people like and want. But I do wish that there could have been another scene. That the circle of artists implied in your question might have spawned an offshoot from black metal with enough momentum to have torn it free from the constraints of its roots. So no, I do not see us as part of a circle of avant garde artists but I would love it if we could be. I would be overjoyed if some enthusiast of these bands could put on a festival featuring such bands as: Zeal and Ardour, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Forgotten Silence, Camille’s project Dreams of The Drowned, Lars’ band If Nothing Is, and the Yusaf’s projects: DHG, VBE, DVEN. I think the closest we have in the UK is Arctangent festival, where you are as likely to see a metal band like Meshuggah as a progressive band like God Speed You Black Emperor or Toe from Japan. That is where I hope Void will play one day. It’s my spiritual destination. Put in a good word, would you?
I think it’s interesting to note that when Void put out a progressive metal album like Jadjow, the assumption is to judge it in terms relating to black metal and hence comments like “overload of information” and “everything but the kitchen sink” and “chaos of notes” get used, whereas, a progressive ‘Death Metal’ band like Plague Rider puts out an infinitely more complex album like “Intensities” and such an overload of information is more welcomed and expected. We once did a mini tour with Diskord, Cryptic Shift and Plague Rider in the UK. Now there’s a circle of avant-garde musicians that are all ones to watch and I take my hat of too them for all their exceptional efforts.
Musically on JADJOW I think you’ve got the balance of intricately detailed instrumentation placed upon a regular, assured form, just right. Discomfort and tension is present, of course – in both the accidentals that rip and tear at the broken arpeggiations of ‘Self-Isolation’, and also the juxtaposition of intimate prose that demands the listener steps into the place it creates – I thought Interlude would merely be a short instrumental, but no, a very striking piece of prose – an ‘oubliette’, with ‘dainty melodic threnodies’. And so to my question – who is your music for?
Why does the Void engine continue to produce these albums, that struggle down the conveyor belt to inevitably fall off onto the obscurity of the factory floor? Well thankfully, like in some PKDick short story, there exist these factory workers, these others, who dare to question the obvious, who look under the table and seek out the discarded. Who care for the freaks who turned out different, the Elephant Men of Metal. Of course for us, the sideshow freaks themselves, Jadjow was never meant to be a shop of horrors. It was not created to shock or confound its eventual audience. It was a playground for the free expression of its members. That is why the guitar and bass parts duck and weave around each other in the way that they do. Each part was written to compliment and enhance the contributions of the others, not to simply follow them. In this way “Jadjow” is a progression from what was achieved on previous Void releases, where the main guitar riff would be more central and the other parts designed to either flesh it out or decorate it.
So to summarise, it is for you, it is for us and it is for itself.
By the time this interview is out we may have finished an article on neuro-divergence in the creation and reception of extreme and avantgarde music. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Neuro-divergence is quite a buzzword for the now, isn’t it? I used it in reference to myself (in defence of even?) only the other day, but then got annoyed at another local artist who used it in the same way. One can go and get oneself a diagnosis of neurological-divergence and use it as a shield from then on. I can say that I am this or that, or my brain works this way, not that and therefore I don’t cope with these things and I struggle with whatever, and it’s all very modern and well intentioned, but sometimes I’m not sure if these categorisations really help. What if in some dystopian fashion we all got categorised in this way, what type of control might follow? Or on the flip side, what of the non-divergent proletariat, would they be accepted into the elite artistic classes? And those divergent hiding within their ranks, undiagnosed and mis-categorised? I think I’m watching too much science-fi. Let me come back to earth.
Certainly being less able to cope with social situations might mean you are more likely to spend extended period of time on your own, perhaps working on the creation of something obscure, untethered from popular taste, perhaps channelling your limitations into something productive. If neuro-divergence presents challenges then creation and reception of extreme and avantgarde music can be a method of overcoming these challenges. You can’t really walk down the road screaming your head off at strangers, but get on a stage with a metal band and damnit if you can’t do exactly that.
How can people get hold of the album? Any plans to ever tour this? And what for the future?
The album is on all the internetz. “Caught in the heart of the web, a still screaming child, chained to the core of the supreme machine”. Spotify, whatify, iTunes, youtunes…
If you would like to support the band you can purchase it from our band camp, in digital, or on CD which should arrive any day now: https://ukvoid.bandcamp.com/
Or you can buy it from the lovely label, the hard working and ever enthusiastic Brucia Records: https://bruciarecords.bandcamp.com/
You would be supporting us either way, for which we are eternally grateful.
We are in the logistics stage of planning our live show, yes, with the fun stuff about to happen in January. Assuming all goes well, you should hopefully start to see some Void shows in 2024. We are probably aiming for festivals, rather than tours or pub gigs as we are all very spread out geographically. Watch this space.
Thank you ever so much for having us again on Old Man’s Mettle. We hope to see you again soon!
https://bruciarecords.bandcamp.com/album/jadjow
https://www.facebook.com/theunsearchablevoid
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