photo by Afra Gethöfer Grütz
(Comrade Aleks has brought us an unusually good interview with the thoughtful founder and guitarist of the unusual German black metal band Nebelkrähe, whose first album in 10 years will be released on October 27th by Crawling Chaos.)
NCS readers have already had an in-depth look at Nebelkrähe’s new album ephemer. This German band returns with their third album after a ten-year hiatus, and their sophisticated blackened metal.
There was much said about them in the previous video premiere post and there will be a lot said in this current interview. We spent enough time with Nebelkrähe’s guitarist Morg, and I hope that this interview will not only answer your questions about the band but also will stimulate you to search for more.
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Hi Morg! Thanks for your time, I bet that you’re busy now with promotion. How are you doing there?
Hello! Thanks for asking – all is well here so far. The excitement is rising now that the release of the album is getting closer. And luckily the interest in the album increases with it, so yes, I have the one or other interview to answer. All in all it could be worse!
So, the band returns with the new full-length album ephemer after ten years of pretty low (visible) activity. What did you do after the release of Lebensweisen in 2013? How did the band spend this period?
Yes, that was anything but planned. Already Lebensweisen had been delayed a lot after the recordings, so that we had already written the first songs for the successor when it finally came out in 2013 … and then everything fizzled out for the time being.
Our guitarist lost the desire for the band, but let us feel it only very passively. Until it came to the break in 2018, this slowed down the progress with the new material very much. In addition, our bassist at the time, Kar, had moved to another city, our singer had a lot of work-related stress, and our drummer was busy with his other bands.
It took us another year until we were ready to take off with a new guitarist – and barely had we finished writing the songs and recording the drums, when the pandemic came and thwarted all plans. To make matters worse, we realized that Kar couldn’t devote enough time to the band – so we brought in an old friend for the recordings, who of course had to learn the bass lines first.
Also the recordings of all the guest contributions were a real challenge during the pandemic with all the restrictions. And when everything was ready, we found out that the studio we wanted to go to for mix and mastering had closed down during the pandemic. So we had to change our plans here as well, and we decided to wait another year for the slot at Victor Bullok’s Woodshed Studios … after that everything went comparatively fast – we found a small but very dedicated label in Crawling Chaos, and here we are.
Adult life may be boring sometimes! However, are you able to still have some fun composing and performing your music?
To be honest, sometimes I would wish for a more “boring” life – I rather have the feeling that one has boredom – or let’s call it leisure – far too rarely in adulthood. Someone always wants something, or you have never-ending to-do lists. I, at least, am a very busy person – with the side effect that I unfortunately often lack said leisure, which I need to compose.
The songs may sound “fluid”, but until that result is achieved, songwriting is a draining struggle for me, sometimes spending days tweaking a few notes of a melody or so. This, I must admit, is often fun only in retrospect – at that moment it’s exhausting and annoying. Anyway, when a song is finished, there’s nothing better than breathing life into it in the rehearsal room, or even better, on stage.
What drove you to start the band in 2007 at all?
Well, I think the same motivations that most young people have when they start a band: Boredom – there we go again … you just had more leisure as a teenager! – Enthusiasm for metal and other bands, interest in playing an instrument not only alone and then, later, the desire to live out their own creativity.
I believe that our readers already read the video premiere announcement and know the background of ephemer.What inspired you to choose the ephemeral nature of human memories as the core idea of the album?
In fact, it wasn’t an idea in the sense of a sudden inspiration at a certain moment, but rather a process. We wrote lyrics and after a few texts were written, we asked ourselves what was driving us, what was uniting these lyrics. In addition, we got a very formative influence from the outside with the cover image – the photo inspired me to the lyrics of the title track and influenced the bubble look of the band images. In this respect, you could say: it was a process in which everything fell into place perfectly.
Ultimately, however, this also shows: ephemerality in all its forms is omnipresent, and viewed from the right angle, everything can be incorporated into this concept – whether that’s borders of countries or bursting dreams, life concepts or ideologies. Everything is in flux, as Heraclitus already knew.
Are all songs in ephemer united with the same concept? Or do you have some tracks lyrically based on other topics?
I’ve already touched on this in part: ephemer is not a concept album in which the songs tell a coherent story or are otherwise directly connected: Rather, it’s a certain atmosphere that unites them all, even though they take place in very different settings:
“Tumult auf Claim Abendland” takes place in the setting of the gold rush, “Über Menschen unter Tage” describes the work in the mine, and “Nielandsmann” is about a soldier who has lost his bearings between the fronts – in the end, however, that’s always just the first level on which we tell a story that should actually be understood more as a metaphor.
“Nielandsmann”, for example, was created in the context of the refugee crisis, when many refugees from the war in Syria came to Europe and also to Germany – and all of a sudden the borders between different European countries were closed. That was a new, frightening experience – in the years before, everything had always become more liberal, borders had become less and less important, and suddenly they were very present. That made me think: A border exists only if enough people proclaim it and also implement it – it is a purely hypothetical, and thus ephemeral construct that exists only in people’s minds and on paper.
Your music is rooted in black metal soil, and such leitmotiv is a bit atypical to the genre’s very nature. Which aspects of black metal helped you to emphasize your message?
First of all, I have to say that I don’t fully agree with you on the first statement: I think the “vanitas” idea is very present in black metal – although more related to the big picture, to life and death. Still, if you interpret the term strictly, black metal is more of a description than a real genre for our music: our influences reach far beyond that, and all-too “true” black metallers might be bothered by the non-genre elements or the atypical lyrics.
Nevertheless, the black metal aesthetics of course offer a lot of helpful things – from the corpsepaint, which of course very clearly aims at transience, as well as the darkness of the music, as well as the possibility to create atmosphere via mood changes – for example from hard riffing to melancholic clean guitars.
A very central point is also the vocals: Black Metal allows here, contrary to the assessment of all those who do not deal with the genre more closely, probably more forms of expression than any other genre – hatred and despair, hope and disappointment, deviousness and knowledge … all these states you will find not only in our lyrics, but also in their vocal implementation by umbrA.
Morg – photo by Afra Gethöfer Grütz
And that’s the point of art as it is! It’s about interpretation, because you speak about the “vanitas” idea and I saw it rather as “humanism”. Does your attitude prevent you from playing with “regular” Satanic or pagan bands or something?
Yes, that’s right, of course you can extend or interpret it to humanism. In fact, I have to say, I personally don’t feel thematically addressed by such bands. Of course, I still listen to many traditional bands – but that doesn’t arouse any emotions in me: I listen to a band like Dark Funeral solely for the music, but certainly not for the deeper meaning of the lyrics.
I wouldn’t mind playing with such bands, but in 99% of the cases these themes are either just a topos, a metaphor – or an image. If someone in the year 2023 wants to tell me that he believes in a devil with horns or in Odin, I find that equally strange. I prefer to keep it a little less “intrusive” – life itself is already dark enough if you go through it with open eyes.
Your approach and the very delivery are highly artistic, almost theatric. What are your influences regarding this side of Nebelkrähe? Which bands motivated you to widen the range of methods and instruments you used in recording the album? For example, your corpse-paint reminds a bit of The Vision Bleak, and Markus Stock also helped you with recording of one of your songs.
If you see it that way, I’m really happy – because NEBELKRÄHE is really about a coherent overall work, which should underline the atmosphere of the music on all levels. So it’s actually less about coming across as evil as possible in the sense of Black Metal – classic Immortal corpsepaint would never have been an option for us – but about a coherent, gloomy overall picture. In this respect, even in our early days, we clearly oriented ourselves to bands that seemed to have the same approach – and in terms of visuals, these were Dark Fortress in particular, but certainly also The Vision Bleak.
Likewise – probably for a similar reason – it was never important to us that our music fulfilled “genre standards” … that then opens up completely new possibilities for you as a musician. While on our debut entfremdet we had only dared to use somewhat more intricate song structures or harmonies, on Lebensweisen we already dared to use unusual instrumentation or completely abandon metal for individual parts.
Knowing that our last album was maybe a bit overambitious, we have now reduced this to a healthy level. What remains is that we don’t shy away from using an extravagant instrument if the song demands it from our point of view. This is where Markus Stock comes into play: We actually wanted to record this accompanying melody with a vibraphone, but despite all our efforts we couldn’t find anyone who could have played it for us – and a sound from a sound library was out of the question. Then I remembered that Markus, with whom I’d been in loose contact for many years, plays the hammered dulcimer, so we tried that out – and it worked perfectly!
I can’t name specific bands that motivated us in this way – but in general, almost all of us like the more avant-garde, daring bands of the genre rather than those that always just repeat what others have done before and usually better. In that respect, of course, you have Dödheimsgard or Bethlehem, Code or Arcturus, Ulver or Vulture Industries – although I don’t love everything those bands have done, nor do I find them comparable to us, I like them all for just doing their thing. A band should always try to sound distinctive from my point of view … everything else is worthless to me.
photo by Afra Gethöfer Grütz
You shot the expressive video for the “Nielandsmann” song, and it’s said that the lyrics were written in 2015, but its message is timeless. We learn that real horror is when it happens right before us, and who gave a damn about civil wars in Africa or the Middle East as it’s far away from our own homes? “Always learn from history to be sure you make the same mistakes again”, as Johan Edlund sang. So, is the song and video your way to speak out your own anxiety or is it an effort to approach others and make people think?
Well, what the text is actually about, I have already roughly outlined before – ultimately, the war here is only the setting, the text itself can be read as a clear statement against nationalism and patriotism: If we humans were as progressive as we always feel, we would have had to stop waging wars over border lines at some point in history – at the latest when it was no longer a matter of bare survival, because on the other side lies the only watering hole in the whole valley or something.
But the reality of the last few years shows that we could not be further away from this: Russia is invading its neighboring country, where previously Ukrainians and Russians lived together as families, without any need. Hamas is bringing terror to Israel, China wants to take over Hong Kong, North Korea is still – or more than ever – sealed off from the world by borders in 2023, and we don’t even need to start with all the minor squabbles that feed on nationalism around the world. For a while, a decade ago or so, one had the feeling that the world was growing together – I think this epoch of humanity is over.
In that respect, to come back to your specific question: Both. Anyone who is concerned with world events must actually be getting scared at the moment – and of course it would be high time that people started thinking about this. But I’m not so presumptuous as to believe that a black metal music video could have any effect in this respect. At the moment, it seems that nothing and no one can stop this downward spiral of hate and violence, selfishness and stupidity.
There’s an opinion: when this crisis will pass, the world will complete another circle and another wave of “hippy” or some similar movement will start as common people (but not military corporations) will be fed-up with violence. Honestly, it sounds too optimistic. But the fact is, as you mentioned, the world changes too fast and it moves towards a shit hole, so… Does the band grant you a relief or escapism from all of this or do you see it as a channel for your creative force, something that can affect the world?
First of all, this thesis: In theory, I think it is a quite logical assumption – if it were not for the issue of climate change, which unfortunately blows up every socio-cultural model: We are currently creating facts with regard to the habitability of our planet, which we may not even be fully aware of yet. But as little as many want to admit it: This is irreversible – and it is not the earth that will have problems with this, but we, the human race. Sooner rather than later. If this were not so, if it were only a matter of politics and human activity, this cycle would be plausible. But now it doesn’t work anymore. We are heading for the abyss.
Relief … definitely: Whether it’s listening to music or making music – there’s no better escape route from the small and big worries of life than music, at least for me. But I wouldn’t want to make it bigger than that – again: I’m not so presumptuous as to believe that a black metal band could have any effect in this respect.
Kanonenfieber’s chief Noise performed the guest vocals for this song, and I remember that his approach to WW I themes is similar to yours. But don’t you think that the visual side of this dedicated approach may distract listeners from its subject matter? Or does it work the opposite way?
This question I cannot answer you ultimately – yet. In fact, an acquaintance to whom I showed the song together with the video, answered me very honestly that the subject in this execution rather frightens him, because you cannot depict war realistically, so that every attempt becomes a farce and must seem ridiculous. And yes, he is right about that, it is a fine line.
Personally, I’m also very ambivalent about the implementation of the theme in Kanonenfieber, especially because it’s not just a video, but a stage concept, and stage shows are first and foremost entertainment … and have to be. What the band does live is enormously strong – but you can still find it irreverent. In this context, it is very important to me to make clear that we are not a war metal band, and would never put ourselves on a stage in uniforms – just as we would never try to depict war in our lyrics.
“Nielandsmann” is no exception to this – the main story here happens in the head of the protagonist, while the weapons are silent. Nevertheless, in order to depict this, we naturally had to visualize the war a bit, in addition to the passages in which our protagonist wanders through the forest with post-traumatic stress disorder. Here, too, we made sure when selecting the scenes that the psychological aspect was in the foreground, not the physical violence.
In the specific case, I therefore find that music, text and moving image work together perfectly and reinforce the message, if you allow yourself to look at the overall work metaphorically. The last thing I want is to use the song to attract people who don’t see that and feel a sincere enthusiasm for war – you’re in the wrong place with us.
I interviewed Noise some time ago, and I rather meant… Well, I try to be politically correct, it’s not one of my virtues, but I know the band with a strong focus on the War aspect and its leader tells common phrases that “war is bad,” and that’s his message, but at the same time, his position towards… some questions, is absolutely radical. And it’s easy to find how people could be manipulated because of their narrow-minded approach, a poor level of education, stereotypes and cliches learnt from movies, etc.
How do you see this situation in your own region? It seemed that Germans raised that “mark of Cain” after WW II too high, trying be more tolerant than anyone, just as Russia, for example, cherished the victory in WW II too eagerly, and now everything is turned upside down.
I think everything has to do with information and how we deal with it. And if I’m honest, I think that on average we know less about the world today than we did 50 years ago. The Internet has been celebrated for making all information available to everyone. And that’s true, of course. But what’s been overlooked is that it really makes all information accessible – not just the facts. In the past, people relied on what experts said – whether that was journalists, scientists or politicians. Today, everyone just believes what they want to believe, because with just a few clicks they can find evidence for anything they want to believe.
The earth is a disk? There you go, here’s the “proof”. Climate change does not exist? You’ll find a whole community supporting you in believing this bullshit. And a president of the United States tells the world against all facts that the election was stolen. The same goes for withholding information … about a war, for example, that an entire country is only allowed to call a “special operation”. In this respect: Yes, it is hardly different in Germany. We have one of the best education systems in the world, but the culture of discussion, reliance on facts, and interest in a welfare state is going down the drain. OK, but I digress … let’s talk about the band again.
How far did you go from Lebensweisen with the new material, both musically and lyrics-wise?
Well, I think ultimately that’s a question that everyone has to answer for themselves. I think that both albums can be very clearly assigned to the same band, both musically and lyrically – if only because the lyrics are written in sophisticated German, something not many bands do, and because I think that we have recognition value in terms of riffing and also melody lines. Also the use of the unusual instruments is in its own way a feature that distinguishes both albums.
Nevertheless, both albums sound naturally – and fortunately! – very different, the sound is completely different, but also the way we used the non-genre elements. I think we have unmistakably continued with ephemer where we had left off with Lebensweisen – but have not stood still either.
Didn’t you think that German lyrics would raise this language barrier preventing more listeners from following Nebelkrähe?
I didn’t think it because I didn’t think about it. It had never been up for debate for us to write lyrics in another language. When it comes to lyricism, I could never express myself as accurately as I would like in a language other than my mother tongue – so it wouldn’t be possible for me to give my lyrics so many layers if I tried to do it in English.
I think that’s also the big problem with a lot of song lyrics: I think a lot of bands could make themselves more understood in their native language, send a clearer message, or just write nicer lyrics – but they think you have to write lyrics in English because that’s common. That’s bullshit. Here in Germany we have an opposite trend at the moment – many black metal bands write in dialects that are not even understood in other parts of Germany – and I think that’s wonderful.
At the end of the day, vocals in black metal are more of a sound element anyway, because you rarely understand the lyrics just by listening. So if you are interested in it, you have to read them anyways, and nowadays there are enough online translators that do a good job: Maybe not every subtlety of the lyrics comes across, but definitely even more than if I had to think in another language while writing the lyrics.
In this respect, I believe that this barrier only exists in people’s heads: Yes, maybe it scares someone off that we sing in German – but in the end it’s irrational. For example, I also listen to a lot of French black metal without speaking a word of French. This has never bothered me, on the contrary: I think it’s a wonderful enrichment of metal when we combine not only different styles of music, but also different languages in it. The world is so much more than thrash metal and English lyrics!
Agreed! Ah… I just caught myself thinking… What kind of merch do you have now? I’m wondering if ephemer’s artwork is a good idea for t-shirts.
The artwork itself is, in my opinion, not an ideal merch motif – at least from my point of view, because I’m not a big fan of photo prints. That’s why we had a renowned illustrator make our own motif for the merch, just for the shirts, tanks and hoodies. It combines our logo and our trademarks – a little retro flair through the gramophone, the album concept through the soap bubbles, and in a lovingly ironic way our affiliation to Black Metal through subtly implied inverted crosses in the soap bubbles. I find this much more exciting than just putting the cover on a shirt. But if that’s too opulent for you, we also have very classic logo shirts, of course. Have a look at Bandcamp, the stuff is also available in great bundles together with the CD or vinyl!
What’s your gigs’ schedule for the rest of 2023? Do you aim to support ephemer at full capacity?
I’m currently supporting ephemer definitively at full capacity, although at the moment that only means that I’m spending a lot of time every day on social media, organizing and desk work, answering interviews and otherwise making sure that the album gets the attention that I think it deserves … after all, ten years of my life have gone into these seven songs, so it would be a pity if it didn’t end up reaching as many of the people who might be interested in it as possible.
As far as concerts are concerned, we are absolutely willing to promote the album on stage as well – it’s just that it’s very difficult at the moment, at least here in Germany, because there aren’t many venues and promoters who book underground black metal. We will play a release show in Munich at the end of December – we will have to see what else happens. Anyway, we are open for all requests!
Don’t you feel enough enthusiasm to organize a tour yourself or with some label mates?
Let’s wait and see how the reactions to the album turn out. But you mustn’t forget that we haven’t released anything for 10 years now and haven’t been on stage for 6 years. You have to be realistic: Nobody has been waiting for our return. Especially since people seem to have the money to spend 150€ for bands like Rammstein, but are then too stingy at 15€ for a show with 5 small bands. The underground is a tough business, all prices have gone up … So putting up your own tour is not only a lot of work, but it also means a big financial risk.
Actually, we just can’t handle that right now – the album was too expensive for that … even if that is a circular argument, because of course we would need shows to sell the album. But let’s see what happens – I don’t want to rule it out categorically, if it works out in terms of time and can be managed somehow, it would definitely be worth considering.
It’s early to speak about it, but do you feel yourself motivated enough to record a new album? Or will we wait for ten more years as you accumulate ideas and gather the creative power to unleash it more effectively again?
In fact, it currently feels to me like it’s very early to speak about this – which of course it’s not. It’s just that when you’ve had an album in your head for ten years as something unfinished and growing, it’s difficult to realize that this chapter is now closed. Even though I’ve already had the disc in my hands, I still can’t quite believe it, and it’s going to take some time for that to percolate. After this record grew until the very end – the last vocal contribution literally came in via e-mail the night before the last day we were in the studio for the mix and master! – I also didn’t have the leisure to sit down to new music in all these years: So when ephemer is released, the world really knows all the songs we’ve written so far.
Nevertheless, there is at least a vague concept for a new release – an EP on which we want to set a poem to music. As soon as some peace has returned, we will work on that and see if and how it is feasible.
Apart from that, there will already be a release from us in 2024, but I don’t want to talk about that project yet. So it will definitely not take ten years until you hear something from us again. But to speculate about a new album would really be fortune telling. Finishing ephemer was an extremely exhausting feat – if the current momentum should fizzle out again, I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to do it again. But that is really up in the air, now it is first of all to welcome ephemer and to share the music with as many people as possible.
So thank you for your interest and thank you to everyone who has read this far – listen to the album, and if the music touches you, support us by buying the CD, LP or merch. Because also the financial aspect is unfortunately not to be neglected: There is a lot of money in the album, and also every further release would and will cost a lot of money – we as a small band literally depend on your support! Thank you!
Thank you for the interview Morg! I hope that this interview sheds enough light on Nebelkrähe and ephemer for the sake of peace. And I hope that one day will have a chance to discuss Nebelkrähe’s fourth album.
Thanks for your interest and thanks to everyone who has read this far. Don’t be put off by the lyricism, listen to the album and if it triggers something in you emotionally, give us something back by supporting us by buying the CD, vinyl or merch. I hate having to advertise in this way, I’d rather just be an artist, not a salesman … but that’s not how it works nowadays: As an artist I’m just as happy about everyone who “only” streams the album – but if we don’t get financial support as well, it’s doubtful if we can make another album. And it’s not just us: streaming is convenient for the listener – but it takes money away from art. Corporations and rock stars with many streams cash out – while those who need it most and create art with a lot of heart and soul go empty-handed.
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https://nebelkraehe.bandcamp.com/album/ephemer
https://thecrawlingchaosrecords.bandcamp.com/album/ephemer