photo credit: Kuba Leszko
(No Solace released Hauntologist‘s long-gestating debut album in early January of this year, and it has made a memorable impression on a lot of listeners, including Comrade Aleks, who follows up the album with this interview of The Fall.)
How many times was Hauntologist mentioned here? And yet it’s not enough. The debut album of this Polish experimental black metal duo entitled Hollow saw the light of day in January, and you can’t ignore it. Not only because it’s a project of two of Mgła’s members – The Fall (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards) and Darkside (drums). This nihilistic and dissonant yet experimental black metal projects precisely our urban misery; it lacks a traditional blackened aesthetic but it’s functional, striking, and highly atmospheric.
Hauntologist is the best example of modern days black metal with an artistic approach and an in-depth, personal message. It was good to learn a bit more about Hollow from The Fall himself first-hand.
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Hi The Fall! How are you doing? What’s going in Hauntologist’s lair?
Hi. I’m fine, however there is absolutely nothing going on in our lair. I would call it a “cooldown” stage. We had a very intense time recording and releasing the album, so now we are both taking a break from Hauntologist for some time.
How was the project’s concept formed? What was your vision when you started Hauntologist?
It was a long and complicated process. It started in 2013, I think, when Darkside and I started jamming together on some of my ideas in the basement of Forum Hotel in Kraków. During the period of ten years both the lineup and the band’s name were changed many times. At some point it was only me, however in 2021 we came back to the initial idea of playing music together. Both logo and cover come from around 2013 and were unchanged.
Also how long did you bear this concept? It’s said that you thought to start it long ago, hut you didn’t have time for that. How did you manage to keep these ideas without revealing them in one of your other bands?
They just didn’t fit in any other band. Hauntologist has a very different vibe and atmosphere, it would not do inside any other box. I think the idea itself started in 2009 or something? Not even sure.
You’ve performed live with Mgła since 2012. Was Darkside an obvious candidate as a drummer? Did you call him to join on full terms, or just to fill the drums?
Yes, I joined Mgła in 2011, because before the first show we did long months of intense rehearsing. Regardless, I met Darkside way earlier, I think it was 2003 or something. We knew each other but we weren’t in contact for years until we met at a gig in 2010. I’m not sure how it happened, but rather naturally. I guess we just wanted to make music together and respected each other as musicians. It wasn’t “I’m looking for a drummer” type of situation. It was more a “let’s play together” kind of thing.
Do you see Hauntologist as a band or rather as a project? How do you see it from the technical side? And do you aim to perform your material live at some point?
Not sure about the live shows, maybe in the future, but it wouldn’t be easy to conduct. I don’t know the difference between a band and a project but for some reason, even though we don’t play live shows, the “band” word makes more sense to me. It puts more emphasis on just guys playing music together rather than some a priori idea of forming something very specific and strict.
And how did Neithan join the recording of Hollow? You also perform keyboards on the album, so didn’t you have the necessary (mind-)sets to complete this part of the work? And was it Neithan who performed this sax’ phrase in “Car Kruków”? Didn’t you feel a seduction to step into dark jazz territories with Hauntologist?
At some point the band was called Ahwar, and it consisted of only Neithan and I. We even recorded an album together, but it was never released and ideas were reused for Hauntologist. We kept some parts by Neithan, and therefore he is in there. The sax is a mix of cut samples and synth. Neithan recorded many weird instruments that sometimes I have no name for, to be honest.
With Hauntologist you wanted to explore territories of black metal further than usual. Are you satisfied with what you discovered?
Exploration was not our goal. Making music was. It is not any progressive metal whose aim is to explore boundaries of the genre. For us genre is only a color of paint you use to depict something. We are, however, satisfied with the music we recorded.
Did you already know, in starting to compose Hollow, which aspects of black metal you would keep untouched and which ones you preferred to avoid? Are you tired of standard black metal rules?
No such rules were set up for Hauntologist. We didn’t know what we were going to use until we used it. We would have used grindcore if it would have fit the story and vibe. If you take a look at early black metal albums, it looks like black metal has way less rules than we think today. Black metal was always about going bit deeper, playing darker and weirder.
There’s a pure post-rock track, “Gardermoen,” besides more or less experimental tracks. What’s your relationship with the post-rock scene? Do you see it as a fitting instrument to blend it with black metal, as a lot of bands do nowadays?
I’m not a fan of mixing post-rock with black metal nor am I a huge fan of modern black metal anyways. Also, I don’t like the post-rock scene; it is not for me. However I’m a huge fan of a few very specific bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Labradford, so this definitely influenced how I sound a lot. Also, many people define this song as post-rock. Is it really? I would never say that; to me it sounds like Eastern European post-punk mixed with some gloomy Swedish black metal.
The album’s lyrics could be deciphered as a stream of consciousness, and some images are quite clear or easy to interpret, but what did you put in the recitation of cities’ (and books’?) names in “Gardermoen”? Jericho, Nostromo, Umeå, Moscow, Warsaw – Oslo?
I don’t want to explain that, but if you have any theory, I would love to hear it.
photo credit: Kuba Leszko
What’s the story behind the “Car Kruków” track? Is it based on a real dream, or is it just a grim fantasy?
It actually was a dream. More than 10 years ago a friend of mine wanted to tell me her dream. It was too long to be written down, so she recorded an audio message on a phone and sent it to me. I loved the atmosphere of this dream, so I asked if I could add music to her recording and then release it. She agreed.
The tune you play in this track is quite simple, but melodies like this evoke those feelings of bleakness, hollowness, or isolation perfectly. So isn’t it a most functional method to express these things than to spit it all out at full capacity in “real” black metal mode?
I think both methods lead to the same goal and both are fully functional. And, to be honest, I like both these ways. You can describe similar feelings and situations with both minimal and extreme music.
You used the photo of a city’s standard development as the artwork. Why did you choose to keep it that minimalistic? Yes, it transfers the bleakness very precisely, but it’s not that good for merch if you plan any. By the way, do you?
It was an intuitive decision I made somewhere around 2013 or 2014, but we decided to keep it because of how it went along with the atmosphere. There are things that matter more than merchandise options. Yes, we have some, and we will have some more in the future, but it is not the most crucial thing about the music, is it?
Is Hollow an autobiographical album? How much of your self is in its lyrics?
I would say that most of the lyrics refer to my own experiences from the years 2007-2023. One of my close friends called me after releasing the album. He told me, he just finished listening, read the lyrics, and asked me if I was ok. I told him that a lot of stuff mentioned referred to situations I’m over with or were written in some darker episodes of my life years ago. It could be called autobiographical, but it is also very cryptic.
The Fall, you’re involved in five more bands and projects nowadays. Do you have any announcements regarding them?
No announcements at the moment. I can only say I’m constantly busy with something new.
What are your plans for Hauntologist for the rest of 2024? Do you feel yourself ready to keep it alive further, or did you express everything you wanted to express through it?
Really hard to say. Decisions like this need time. Right now I need a cooldown.
https://www.facebook.com/hauntologist
https://hauntologist.bandcamp.com/