SOURCE – Little to nothing is known about Abhorrence except that Vulgar Necrolatry is your demo released in 1990, following a self-titled EP in 1991. Could you tell more about the band, please?
Jukka Kolehmainen (Vocals) – We got together in 1989, originally from two bands, namely Disaster (Jukka, Kalle, Jussi) and Violent Solution (Tomi) due to wanting to play more brutal music instead of heavy/speed metal. We got Kimmo to play drums for us, who was big on tape trading, which is also why our demo got around the world so fast and wide.
As soon as we had 4 songs together, we booked a studio and the rest is more or less known history.
SOURCE – Your new EP Megalohydrothalassophobic is going to be released next month as well. What can you tell me about the new release? Who was part of the production team?
Jukka Kolehmainen (Vocals) – It is a thematic EP, which combines the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft to the ideas of environmental philosophy and theory of Timothy Morton in a deeply disturbing manner. It paints an ugly picture of what humanity has managed in just few hundred years, which looks to be leading us to global devastation.
The production team was just the band along with Jan Rechberger, who recorded, engineered and mixed the EP. It was mastered by Jaime Gomez Arellano.
SOURCE – Could we get a track-by-track breakdown?
Jukka Kolehmainen (Vocals) – I’m not the best one to do this, since Jussi wrote the lyrics in full, but I’ll give you my thoughts.
First the intro, it’s a sort of an warning and a greeting, for the listener is in the anthropocene, the new dark age of humanity. Intros are also something very traditional for us, this one is eerie and how we wanted to open this release.
Second track and first actual song, is Anthem for the Anthropocene, which sings high praise to the Great Old Ones and sets the altar for us to appreciate the death of a planet and extinction of a species. The underwhelming anthem is simply screaming “Iä Iä” while watching the end arrive. Next song is The Four Billion Year Dream, which sees the rise of the dreaming dead, the eternal sleeper’s emergence from it’s slumber, a song with a bit slower paced bits.
Hyperobject Beneath the Waves is describing the abstract fear of things one can’t properly comprehend, be it ruined climate, endless space or mythic Elder Gods sleeping beneath the surface. It ends with a chant hastening the drowning of mankind. This is the last song to be finished out of the four and probably the one with most old Abhorrence vibe in it, but also lots of things we’ve never done before.
Finally the song The End Has Already Happened states the obvious. We’re done for, choosing not to see it doesn’t make it go away. Realising there is an eternity, we’re just not part of it. That there is no beyond.
SOURCE – Obviously, Abhorrence is a death metal band, but I also hear elements of melodic death metal and sludge in your music as well. What bands, things or experiences influence Abhorrence?
Jukka Kolehmainen (Vocals) – I think the bands that originally influenced us are the only ones we can name, but even those are not that relevant to the music we create now. Our influences are more subtle and more varied. Influences directly from other bands as such isn’t a thing for us, I feel like we’re taking smaller bits from all over the place and weaving those upon our own ideas, like moods or soundscapes or techniques.
I might actually be the only one in the band who actually likes sludge, so that is interesting to hear. I feel like the “melodic DM” part you talk of is probably the layered riffs we have, the occasional harmonies and experimenting with the intonation which has always been one of our signatures. So maybe it’s the other way around, you hear our influence in the melodic DM stuff. I really have no say in this, you hear what you hear.
SOURCE – What did you learn from the success of your Vulgar Necrolatry demo that you put to action for the release of Megalohydrothalassophobic?
Jukka Kolehmainen (Vocals) – The wide reach of it didn’t really dawn on us until 10-15 years later, so I really don’t have an answer for you. As far as the actual releasing goes, it’s all Svart Records and their avenues of public relations, our part is just trying to keep up and keep posting anything that comes out of it to our available social (and otherwise) media.
It seems to me a lot of people seem to think we have a calculative approach to music and it’s release, when in fact we just enjoy making it and getting it available to everyone is not something we know to how to do.
SOURCE – In relation to metal culture, which has its own problems, there is a lot of talk in metal these days around whether we should separate the art from the artist. Where do you stand on the issue?
Jukka Kolehmainen (Vocals) – I’m uncertain as to what you are referring to exactly, but any and all political issues are not topical in regards to us as a group.
SOURCE – Nowadays, music is always available without paying especially for one album. Thanks to Spotify, Apple Music etc. How do you feel about that? Does it change the music’s value?
It changes how people perceive music, while I do use streaming services quite a lot, it’s not how I prefer to listen.
I personally am an vinyl guy, my shelves have been gathering records since early-80’s and a lot of it is in vinyl format. Listening to music via a physical format is different. It brings forth a ritual, which changes the action of just listening to music to something else, something you need to focus on. I dislike music as a medium of “just something to remove the silence with”, which is how a lot of people seem to use it.
On the other hand I love, truly love, Spotify’s algorithm for suggesting new music. After I figured out how it actually works, it’s been a source of great new music on a weekly basis. Anyone using Spotify for new music, I suggest getting to know it, well worth the time.
The abundance of music in bulk also creates a situation where extreme consumerism and it’s mechanisms work too well. The ones who have the most money to throw towards visibility among the mass, has the biggest chance of making it to the top. And most people don’t like looking for good music, they just listen to what is popular right now and herein is the vicious circle that is modern popular music. Shit begets shit ad nauseam.
SOURCE – Finally, do you think you’ve settled on your sound now or do you foresee further stylistic evolutions for the band in the future?
Jukka Kolehmainen (Vocals) – I couldn’t say, we’re not that calculative. It’s more like fine tuning all the time to see if something else sounds better. As individuals we bring forth ideas, which
either get used or are discarded. If they get used, they’re filtered through the other four people in the band and thusly reach their final form.
We will probably do as we’ve done previously, that is sit at our rehearsal room, fling out ideas, comment on them and at the end of it might have a structure of a song to build on. Stylish or not, this is how our finely detuned mechanisms work.
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