Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

Have any of you played in other bands? Algol sang in an industrial-metal band in the late 90’s and early 2000’s called Neurocide Messiah.  Tzphardeah currently plays bass in a Doom Metal Project called Knight. Nehushtan also currently plays guitar in the band Thou while Phlegethon played in a drone metal/noise project called Planck Length.

How is it that you started playing music?

Algol: I played some as a teenager and then got serious in college.  A lot of my friends have been musicians and so it’s natural to want to work creatively together. At a certain point I really believed that music was an excellent medium to influence culture and so I dedicated myself to this project.

Nehushtan: I've been playing guitar since I was 13, basically because of nirvana and tool. Grunge era. Been evolving ever since.

Tzphardeah: Music is a strong current in my family, particularly my Mother’s side. I was learning piano by age 8, and I purchased my first guitar at 11. Michael Johnson of Tomball, Texas is the only instructor I can claim outside of family. I started guitar lessons when I was 12 and Michael specifically taught rhythm and the use of my ear; theory, chord structure, and full mode scales were for training.  However, keeping time and relying on my ear were the main lessons I learned. Daily practice is the only way to play the music in your head.

Phlegethon: Began teaching myself to play in college and began to collaborate with other musicians in my 20s.  First got serious with Mehenet due largely to intrigue with combining elements of occult practice with the music.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you?

Algol (34) is on vocals. Tzphardeah (27) is on drums. Nehushtan (32) is on guitar. Phlegethon (32) is on bass.

Have you had other previous members? We have had two previous guitarists. The first was Jake Cameron (no stage/magical name). He wrote guitar on the songs Moloch and the Silver Spoon, Erish’kagal in Irkalla, and parts of Caput Mortuum. The other guitarist was Lee Williams a.k.a. Nekyia. He wrote guitar on The Orphans of Bakunin and Pisarev, Aceldama, and Carmilla.

Did you make music even when you were young?

Algol: yup. I tried making some grunge-rock shit when I was 15. It was horrible.

Nehushtan: I've been in numerous bands since I started playing, some good some bad. Always felt like music was my calling.

Tzphardeah: My first recording was for a science project in 8^th grade, being a rendition of Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” entitled “Purple Magma” with the late, great and unknown Shane Woodson; recorded to cassette on a Talkboy. My first band was a punk and ska experiment in 8^th grade, which turned into Suburban Side Effects; I quit after nailing an audition for another Punk/Ska band, CBK, but they disbanded in short time. I joined Monochromatic in the middle of High school, which was a mix of noise and indie rock; I wrote lead guitar over the curiously generated mix of sentiment and cacophony.

Phlegethon: Didn’t start playing until college so didn’t make music until then.

Where are you from?

Algol: Born in Madrid, Spain. I was an American Military (Air Force) brat so I moved around every 3-4 years. I mostly lived in Texas, New Mexico, and have been in New Orleans for the last 11 years.

Nehushtan: Baton Rouge, Louisiana born and raised. Probably till I die.

Tzphardeah: I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at age three I moved to Houston, Texas; I left Houston at nineteen with no idea where I would end up and found home in New Orleans within a week.

Phlegethon: Originally from Nashville, Tennessee.  Have lived my whole adult life in New Orleans.

What year did the band form? It sort of formed in 2008 as a death-rock project, but the spirits had other ideas about what we should be doing and quickly adjusted our course.
What's your style of genre? We are fine with other people defining our sub-genre but we fall under the general Black Metal label.

How often and where do you rehearse? We generally play all day every Tuesday in our studio and have a separate day for writing.

How have you developed since you started with the music?

Algol: I think we are all better in sync with one another, and everyone continues to hone their skills while growing as musicians. Getting more live experience has also been wonderful.

Nehushtan:  playing music with new people is always a learning experience. It's great to play and interact with other people who are just as addicted to music as myself.

Tzphardeah: I was asked to try keys and synthesizer when I joined, but sat in on drums until the previous drummer decided I was more capable. I had to teach myself blast beats, double pedal, extensive fills, African rhythms, and discipline on the kit. While experimenting with yoga, meditation, astral projection, invocation and evocation, I was able tap into the egregor emitted by the project. Due to both irresponsible spiritual practices and excessive intoxication, I succumbed to ghost sickness often, and began practicing drums while linked to the musical egregor. After Jake quit, I learned the guitar riffs for the few songs written, though I was not certain if I was even capable of playing this style on guitar. I consistently raise my skill levels in composition, rhythm, instrumentation, and collaboration while this project is active; patience is the skill most tested when creating art with others, so humility is both necessary and a constant development.

Phlegethon:  I have gained much more technical skill than when I started as well as an intuitive understanding of certain nuances that is always expanding.

Do you have other interests of work outside the band?

Algol: In the material world I am very interested in neuroscience, physics, psychological and information warfare. In spiritual matters I have been focusing on the initiatory path as found in Aleister Crowley’s A.’.A.’., O.T.O., and magical traditions such as the Grimoire Traditions, The Greek Magical Papyri, Greek and Roman Necromantic Practices, and Quimbanda.  I also spend a good deal of time engaging in random destructive mayhem to ease my ennui; I am joking of course…

Nehushtan: my main interest other than music is to learn about the various philosophies and practices of mysticism and magic. And drinking.

Tzphardeah: A myriad, to be honest, but more particularly initiation in various magick traditions, psychology, sociology, language, counterculture, engineering, biochemistry, performance art, and philosophy.

Phlegethon: Outside of music, my primary area of interest is spirituality.  This interest manifests itself in both practical and theoretical investigations of many branches of occultism, esotericism, and mysticism.

Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? It is an idea worth discussing.

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? We are currently looking for a label and a distributor.

What made you decide to make this music? We initially started as an open ended Thelemic and magically focused musical project. However, the narrative soon became far more pointed and direct after a series of real spiritual confrontations and communications. Particularly, the bands work with Graeco-Egyptian Necromantic practices and with the Goetic Spirit Paimon. This is an extremely long story that we will spare you. Simply, the result was that the project became a lot more intense, involving, and spiritually demanding. We became personally challenged in very direct ways. It became obvious that what was a meandering and somewhat frivolous project would now have direction and had its own story to tell and a wider mission to promote.

What are your songs about? The answer is complicated and in fact Algol wrote a series of papers dedicated to the philosophy behind each song. The album itself is a concept work which is loosely based on ideas found Albert Camus’, The Rebel and his book Resistance, Rebellion, and Death. The short answer is that each song has a material or political meaning and then also a spiritual meaning. Sometimes they are reflections of one another, other times they are in direct conflict. The overall album is an illustration of a series of philosophical/spiritual/political “problems” or failures which have cropped up through the course of history. A good portion of these historical narratives are found in Camus’, The Rebel. In this way we deal with class warfare and struggle, atheism, nihilism, and the general response to these emerging ideas over the last 3 centuries. We examine various responses to this existential crisis, the psychological underpinnings of these crises (partly informed by the book, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness by Erich Fromm) and use these ideas as the material manifestation of certain qlippothic, demonic, or even Archonic spiritual powers. Each song contains an evocation of a specific set of spirits who we felt both informed the spiritual sense of the song and influenced the way we read into the historical events. Thus Moloch and the Silver Spoon, which deals with ideas on class warfare, the Haitian Revolution, The French Revolution, the CPK, and criminal undercurrents in New Orleans that are a response to poverty and racism, has as its central spirit, Bael Adramelek, sometimes conflated with Moloch. This is the spirit unto whom babies were supposedly sacrificed for the material wellbeing of the community.  Overall the album is modeled after the Nigredo phase of alchemy and illustrates the putrefactive stage in spiritual awakening. In the case of psychology this is accompanied by pain, sorrow, and sometimes madness. In history, we find all the horrors of tyranny and war. When the failures of the spirit and the mistakes of philosophy are not worked out initially inside the individual, they will be doomed to appear on the wider theater of politics and society.  We have chosen 7 or so spirits to represent these material processes’ spiritual underbelly. We have called on Lilitu, Lucifer, Algol (Gorgon), Exu Morcego, Belphegor, Apollyon (Abbadon), and a litany of Titanic forces within the songs themselves.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? All of us have input on the composing and there is usually a general concept that is discussed by the band and we all have an idea of how the music needs to move. After discussing the general motion all of us discuss the ideas and progression; however Algol researches and writes most of the lyrics. Jake Cameron and Nekyia (Lee Williams) were responsible for most of the Guitar with the occasional input from the rest of the band. Tzphardeah composes the drums, and collaborates with the writing and arranging of the other instruments. Phlegethon has written most of the bass. However, the musical composing is a constant discussion between members and often refers back to the “story arc” of the song as well as the spiritual forces being evoked.

Do you start with the music or the lyrics? They work in tandem. For our album, Di Inferii, we had a concept and a progression planned but often the exact words chosen to express the idea didn’t come till after sections of the music had already been written. Other times they happened simultaneously and under ritual inspiration. The song Caput Mortuum is a good example of that process.  In this case we had an idea we wanted to represent based on the overall album idea and on our literary, political and/or occult inspiration.   We then began certain ritual procedures to put us under the right influences and then entered our temple with instruments. From there the sounds began to flow in what might be called ‘concept sections.’ Often there were working lyrics that would be refined as the idea began to manifest more clearly. Other sections of the song came when, as with a divination or oracle, when the words quite forcibly suggested themselves. Caput Mortuum itself involved necromantic possession techniques. Other elements of the song writing were quite planned and based on historical references, as in the case of Aceldama, where sections of the lyrics are directly taken from the old Soviet song Polyushko-Polye. In that section the chord progression is also a reference to Polyushko-Polye.  This was all decided upon beforehand.

Do you compose in a certain Environment? As is probably not surprising for a black metal band, our composition space is primarily a meticulously constructed ritual room. We spent time fashioning a magical circle, a triangle of manifestation, a central altar, our larvae and Lemures, and a variety of shrines to patron saints and spirits, such as St. Cyprian. Our instruments all sit within this circle. We also have special places around New Orleans where we will take instruments and offerings in the hopes of calling up something powerful and unusual. We have spent long nights among the graves, swamps, and abandoned churches and hospitals of Southern Louisiana. 

Have you done any covers live? Nope.

What language do you sing in? The majority of the album is in English but there are exceptions. Carmilla is entirely in German. Parts of Aceldama are in Russian. The ritual languages of Greek, Hebrew, and Latin find their way into most of the songs. Elements of Lautréamont are going to be in French.

What ages are most of your concert attendants? I would say between the ages of 18 and 35. But there are always outliers, like old metal-heads in their 60’s, or one time at an all-ages show there was a 7 year old.

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We vary the set a lot. We have some songs we never like to open with or end with and a few we really like to close with.

Do you have a regular place you play live often? We have played at a pretty cool local dive called Siberia a few times. They host a lot of the good metal shows that come through town. In fact we got to open for 1349 there. We used to regularly play at The Mudlark Public Theater before it burned in a fire. This is actually where we got our start playing. It is generally a theatrical space but they always wanted us to play the Halloween Cabaret show. Made sense. We have also regularly played at the local O.T.O. temple, Alombrados Oasis. This place is great because, aside from being our fraternity brothers and sisters, we also get to play in a huge ritualized space and they essentially let us set up an extremely elaborate stage. We can also use fire and other things at this venue that other spaces would 86 us for.

What was your first gig like? Our first gig was actually very unconventional. It was a one song (8-10 minutes) rendition of our song Eris’kagal in Irkalla. This happened at The Mudlark Public Theater. A local large scale puppet troupe had written a Samhain performance based on a mixture of Thai and  North American witchcraft stories and wanted us to play behind and in synch with their telling of this tale. Rather than the traditional black metal gear the band donned ritual robes in the manner of Hekate Propylaia. The puppeteers told the story, in visual form, of the murder of 3 handmaidens by vile Christian filth. We appeared from behind as the Witches and Moirai come to deal vengeance. There was some controversy over the show due to the human body parts and bones we had on stage. It was well attended. 

What was your latest gig? Our last gig was at Siberia opening up for 1349 and Necrophagia. We were very excited to play with those bands.

Have you had to cancel a gig? We have had to cancel a gig when the touring bands suffered an injury and could no longer play.

Where have you played live this year? This year we have played at Gasa Gasa, Sisters in Christ, Siberia, and the Alombrados Oasis. These are all local New Orleans venues and we are waiting to tour after we finish our album, Di Inferii.

Where do you plan to gig the coming year? We hope far and wide. The album will be finished this fall and a U.S. tour will follow the release. Europe, Central and South America are the next step.

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? We started selling merchandise last year. We currently have T-shirts, patches, and buttons.

Where can people buy your merchandise? You can pick it up at Mehenet.net or at mehenet.bandcamp.com

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? We try not to police people. Do what you will. But if you simply download the music then you are missing out on a lot of visual art that was methodically designed to enhance the experience of the music and to create a larger atmosphere for the participant. Further, we believe Black Metal is more than just a sound. It has an entire astral existence which is only found in the talismanic creations of the artists, ie.. the albums. Black metal is not a genre of music, it is more akin to artistic movements such as Futurism, the Decadents, or Dada. In this way one can take Black Metal as far as they are willing and move it into various mediums. This is not to minimize the importance of good music but just to say that we, as audience and artist, have the opportunity to be participants instead of just voyeurs or consumers.  That being said, most people we know are excessively limited in funds. If downloading or even pirating is where you’re at, no one will lose sleep over it.

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? The industry can blow us. We are more concerned that people get access to the material with hope that it drives them to wonderful or heinous things, as they will.

What do you think of my work? We think it is great you are interviewing bands and giving them and the listeners the chance to consider all these different perspectives.

How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? Certainly someone will see it and check out the album, no?

Do you have any role models or idols? No. But there are many people who we respect and learn from.

Why do you think that they exist? They were inevitable.
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? I would say a mix. We are always discovering new music and finding past music that we didn’t know about before.

What have been your biggest obstacles? Time and money

How do you get psyched for a gig? For legal reasons, we are not able to answer this question.
Do you have any new material? We have just finished our newest song, Aceldama and are beginning on the final song of the album, Through the Eyes of Lautréamont

What are your web sites?

www.mehenet.net

mehenet.bandcamp.com

How can people reach you? You can email us at [email protected] or via the method of the Amalantrah Working.

What are your plans for the future? We are headed into the studio to record our debut album, Dii Inferi and then hope to tour on it extensively.