(The Argentinian funeral doom band Fungoid Stream has four albums to their name dating back to 2004, but not much news in the last 4+ years, so Comrade Aleks decided to reach out and see what’s happening. The following conversation with vocalist Simon O. was the result.)
We interview bands when something important happens in their careers: a release of a new album, a reunion, or a big tour. But sometimes just nothing happens! No reports from the studio, nothing about reissues of the back-catalogue or anniversary shows. And that too is a good reason to try to get in contact, to see if they’re still alive there in their underground.
Lovecraftian funeral doom duo Fungoid Stream are based in Buenos Aires. Joseph C. (all instruments) and Simon O. (vocals) released four albums since the band’s origin in 2003: Celaenus Fragments (2004), Oceanus (2010), Prehuman Shapes (2014), and The Winds Among the Stars (2019).
As you see, it’s too early to worry, because the pause after the most up-to-date release isn’t critical yet. But I worry anyway, that’s why we organized this interview with Simon O., Fungoid Stream’s vocalist, and it’s a right time for you to check the band if you haven’t met it before.
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Hi Simon! How are you? What’s going on in Fungoid Stream’s lair?
Well, the last years have been tough, but here we are. I must say that not much is happening with Fungoid Stream.
There’s no news from your side since the release of The Winds Among the Stars album in 2019. How did you spend this period?
You know, we usually release an album every four or five years. However, after the pandemic, Joseph has been inactive for personal reasons. Basically, he is Fungoid Stream. So Fungoid Stream has been inactive as well.
It seems that Fungoid Stream only went further from their funeral doom roots with the third album Prehuman Shapes and then with The Winds Among the Stars, as Joseph used more samples and electronic effects this time. Guitar parts are simple, and they could be synthesized, as drums are programmed. What can you say about the next album? Have you started working on it already? Do you expect to make any changes in the sound?
In my case, I’ve been thinking of moving FS towards a denser style of funeral doom; in fact, the guitars in The Winds Among the Stars were real ones, not sampled. I’m eager to start making another album but, as I mentioned before regarding Joseph, my deepest fear is that FS will never recover from these last years. Perhaps this very interview could break that lethargy.
I don’t mean that guitars were programmed indeed, however I believe that you know which methods to use in order to achieve your goals. By the way, what is your aim as vocalist when you write the lyrics for Fungoid Stream? Is it about telling the story or to channel the right mood or atmosphere?
Oh, I understand. You’ll see, in the first albums of Fungoid Stream, some guitars were sampled. Joseph considered that as the adequate method for achieving the sound he was searching for, exactly as you said.
Regarding lyrics, 99 percent of them are fragments of Lovecraft’s poetry. Eventually, the goal is to set the right atmosphere.
Did you ever think to record a concept album with Fungoid Stream? I think that Bretus and Swampcult had Lovecraftian concept albums, Space God Ritual, maybe Frailty, I need to check…
I personally think that the Lovecraftian topic is a concept itself but, attaching to the strict definition of a concept album, we never considered making it.
You have another project – Qhwertt, and its previous album Sympathetic Horror was released in 2017. What about this project? How soon may we expect the new album?
I’ve started wondering if Sympathetic Horror could be Qhwertt‘s finale. I’ll admit that I’ve recently tried to come back to Qhwertt, but with no success. Instead, I’ve diverted the composition, somewhat involuntarily, to a kind of guitar-based dark ambient, a different project that I finally called Extinct Star Cluster (extinctstarcluster.bandcamp.com).
Why did you choose to switch on Extinct Star Cluster? Couldn’t you rework the same ideas for Qhwertt some way?
That’s a great question. A sincere answer would be that I didn’t choose to switch to Extinct Star Cluster, it just happened. But I guess your suggestion about reworking the ideas for Qhwertt could work in some way. I’ve got an awkward feeling when I listen Qhwertt (trying to get some inspiration), it’s like the music has been composed by someone else. I should overcome that feeling if I want to come back to Qhwertt.
Will you keep on following the same concept using Clark Ashton Smit’s texts for your lyrics?
If Qhwertt keeps on working (I’d like to think so), I’m certain about it. However, sometimes it’s hard to find a poem from Smith that works as lyrics.
I know that there were proposals of reissuing Fungoid Stream’s back catalogue. What are the prospects of this endeavor? Do you like the idea at all?
We lost our original label (Furias Records) to the chaos of the local economy. Fortunately, GS Productions gave us the chance to release The Winds Among the Stars in a beautiful CD digipack format (as it previously happened with Qhwertt’s Sympathetic Horror). However, I must say that, up to now, we didn’t receive any proposal for reissuing previous releases. That would be awesome.
You said that releasing a funeral doom album is an expensive thing in Argentina. Do you usually record in a real studio?
Well, releasing a funeral doom album in Argentina has migrated from expensive to impossible. As I mentioned before, our all-time label had to close down some years ago. Every now and then I find an Argentinian release of any kind of doom genre, but I really can’t imagine how they managed to do it.
All of our albums have been recorded in a home studio. Even if a professional studio were free, I’d rather record in a home studio than a real one.
I believe that Fungoid Stream is a name with a kind of reputation in the underground, so didn’t you approach foreign labels yourselves?
Thanks for your words. We were so comfortable with our label Furias Records for so many years that, after losing it, we fell in a kind of stasis, a losing of initiative. In that way, GS Productions gave us a great help, and we are grateful to the label for that.
Once you said that you and Joseph are fascinated by the cosmic horror of Lovecraft. Now we live in a far shittier place than before. Didn’t the horrors of the real world steal this fascination? I believe that the new album would come out sooner if you had energy for this.
Regarding the first part of the question, you’re certainly right about what has become of the world we live in, but I think these very horrors were prophesized by Lovecraft himself in some way. Foul creatures lurk everywhere. Anyway, I personally think (and probably Joseph, as well) that those Lovecraftian cosmic horrors are a way to sublimate and tolerate the real ones.
About the second part: those are hopeful words, thanks for that. I can’t say if we will be able to celebrate but I strongly hope that, in any case, FS will at least release a whole new album as a farewell.
What do you think about revised views on Lovecraftian mythology like, for example, in Allan Moore’s comics Providence or the (great) video adaptation of Colour out of Space featuring Nicholas Cage?
I’m not familiar with Allan Moore’s work, I should check it. Regarding the movie, several times I was about to watch Colour out of Space featuring Nicholas Cage, but I didn’t dare to do it. I was afraid about finding an awesome story ruined. After your recommendation, now I’m more confident to watch it.
How would you sum up these twenty years with Fungoid Stream? Were there ups and downs or was it a rather smooth period regarding the project?
There were wonderful years. There were hard times as well, such as the loss of our label, managed by our longtime friend Eduardo, and the pandemic.
However, thanks to Joseph, Fungoid Stream triggered the creation of Qhwertt, my first solo project, and both of record’s dark ambient projects, Dormantgod and Raumsog. And my own guitar dark ambient project too, Extinct Star Cluster. After all, we both released 17 albums in total, 8 of them in CD format with beautiful artwork (the rest of them, digital format in Bandcamp).
Simon, did you think to celebrate this date somehow?
I guess there is only one way to celebrate it: with a new album. I won’t give up my hope about that.
Okay, thanks for the interview, Simon! Send my best regards to Joseph and I hope to hear good news from your side sooner than later.
Thanks to you, Aleks, and thanks for your good wishes. It was a great interview, it really made us think about the future of our projects. The questions were thoughtful and wise, we enjoyed answering them. Bye and thanks again!
https://gsproduction.bandcamp.com/album/sympathetic-horror
https://fungoidstream.bandcamp.com/album/the-winds-among-the-stars