Bug Out Over Necro Deathmort's Minimal Synth Jams and Electro-Doom Weirdness on 'The Capsule'

My mama always said life is like the Necro Deathmort oeuvre—or at least she would have, had she been more interested in electro-doom weirdness than boxed confectionary. From phat-riffing industrial metal to beat-centric techno bangers, you never know what you’re going to get with these guys . The London-based duo of A. J. Cookson and Matt Rozeik formed in 2007, more by accident than design, when the three-piece psychedelic doom band they’d been playing in proved to be “going nowhere slowly”.

Not realizing their next project was going to produce anything of substance either, they christened it with a tongue-in-cheek very metal moniker and thought no more of it. Since then, Necro Deathmort have put out a sprawling array of albums, cassettes and EPs, and have made a name for themselves in the underground as highly respected, genre-straddling sonic explorers (even if that name is a pretty silly one that basically means “Death death death”). Their latest album, The Capsule, is out June 3, and marks their first for Rocket Recordings, home to heavy and heady releases by the likes of Gnod, Goat, Teeth Of The Sea, Hey Colossus, and Shit And Shine. Another evolutionary curveball, The Capsule begins with a bubbly passage of feedback-drenched robotic Krautrock and includes a nastier segment of sinister buzzing noises and tormented howling that brings to mind grim scenes from Event Horizon, Alien or (my own personal favorite) The Cube. Even so, the record’s overriding emphasis is on calmer and more abstract dronescapes, buoyed by the pair’s conscious decision to avoid using big, obvious beats or “anything that’s easily identifiable”.

Noisey caught up with Matt to get the lowdown on The Capsule (which is now available for preorder) and rummage briefly through his MP3 collection.

Noisey: First things first, where have the riffs gone? Why so few riffs on The Capsule?

Matt Rozeik

: Most of the songs seemed to develop from jamming on synths. The lack of riffs wasn’t really something we discussed. “Pecklyn” was actually performed on a guitar, but controlling a couple of synths. To be fair, we usually only have a couple of riffs per album. We’re not exactly Black Sabbath.

The beats are at a minimum too, at least compared to some of your previous “bangerz”. Is this the beginning of Necro Deathmort’s ambient phase?

I’d say “minimal” rather than “ambient”. We’ve stripped the music down to its elemental sound and we’ve tried to use fewer layers and less obvious forms to construct the songs. I think it’s given the album a more cryptic and alien vibe, which is exactly what we wanted to do.

In certain places, The Capsule sounds like the soundtrack to an eerie science-fiction horror film.

Most of the best synth music ever made comes from sci-fi and horror films. I adore sci-fi from the 60s to the 80,s so it’s an undeniable influence, though there were not any specific films that influenced this record. There’s a certain vibe from that era of sci-fi that just resonates with me. The films are so visually bold and rich in atmosphere. It’s definitely the heyday of sci-fi films. That was ruined by the early 90s. I mean, which film has dated more:

Alien

or

Universal Soldier

?

If Necro Deathmort had composed the soundtrack to High-Rise instead of that bloke from Pop Will Eat Itself, would it have made Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of the J. G. Ballard novel a little more gripping?

We’d love to do more soundtrack work. It’s one of the things we seem to get told the most: that our music sounds like a soundtrack. I haven’t actually seen

High-Rise

yet, so I can’t say if Clint Mansell smashed it or not. He seems to be getting a lot of work though. We need his agent…

This is Necro Deathmort’s first album for Rocket Recordings. How did that relationship come about?

We sent them a McDonald’s Happy Meal box stuffed with greasy £5 notes and they signed us straight away.

Is every Necro Deathmort album a joy to write and record? Or do you get into regular heated arguments over synth tones and suchlike and then one of you will throw your coffee cup at the wall and storm out of the studio with an almighty slam of the door?

I know it’s not going to make for a very exciting read, but A. J. and I generally agree on everything in the studio,

especially

synth tones. If that answer is “a bit Coldplay”, then you can pretend that we have regular fisticuffs over minor stylistic differences and that I once stole his VHS recorder to pay for crack.

I get the impression that you both listen to all kinds of different music. Could you press ‘shuffle’ on your MP3 player, list the first three tracks that it randomly plays, and give us a sentence or two about why you like that artist?

Glenn Branca - “Symphony No.6: First Movement” [1989]: I found this in a Cambridge charity shop for 99p a few years ago. Don’t get the impression that I listen to arty high-brow music all day long, this just came on first.

Autopsy - “Slaughterday” [from 1991’s

Mental Funeral

]: Autopsy are the ultimate death metal band in the universe.

Babe Ruth - “The Mexican” [from 1972’s

First Base

]: This album is so shit hot that I have to wear oven mitts to take it out of the sleeve. The guitar playing is next-level ridiculous and Janita Haan is a badass babe with the lungs of Satan.

Have you ever read the blog written by Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie in response to someone who’d bought an album after a show and then complained when it sounded nothing like the set they’d witnessed? Given your own stylistic shifting, do you ever receive similar complaints?

I think the internet has given artists a different accountability for their work, especially with Twitter and this culture of engaging with people all the time. We’ve had a few “customer complaints” in the past, mostly when we released a techno or outtakes record, though they were not worded anywhere near as politely as the one above. One guy on Twitter told us our

Volume.1

tape “was not worth a piece of shit”. I’ve had people tell me at shows that they straight-up don’t like our more electronic stuff but that sort of honesty is pretty benign really. It’s certainly never spurred me to write an open letter.

Do you care about alienating certain fans by changing your sound from one record to the next?

Of course we care. They’re ultimately the people who buy our music but what can we do? Ask them how they’d like the next record to sound and pretend we don’t think our new record is our best work? This problem is faced by pretty much every band except AC/DC.

Have you any idea what the next Necro Deathmort album will sound like?

It will be full of riffs and beats. Then you can ask us where the ambience went.

Catch Necro Deathmort live this summer:
2 June / Portland Arms / Cambridge (w/ Shit and Shine)
20 August / Corsica Studios / London (Rocket all dayer w/ Teeth of the Sea)
22 October / Star and Garter / Manchester (w/ Scattered Purgatory)

J.R Moores promises to spend next weekend revisiting the entire Autopsy discography instead of watching 'Universal Soldier' like he usually does. He’s on Twitter.