photo by Tim Hubbard
(Today we present an excellent interview by our Comrade Aleks of Mike Browning from the terrific Nocturnus AD, whose latest mind-bender of an album is out now on Profound Lore.)
Nocturnus AD is the brainchild of Mike Browning, who started his career in the early ’80s in Morbid Angel as drummer and vocalist, and continued it in bands like Nocturnus and Acheron, among others. Nocturnus AD serves not just as continuation of Mike’s past works, but strictly follows the ideas he put into Nocturnus’ albums back in the very early ’90s. Together with Belial Koblak (guitars), Demian Heftel (guitars), Josh Holdren (keyboards), and Kyle Sokol (bass) he explores the occult side of technical sci-fi death metal.
Nocturnus AD‘s new full-length Unicursal was released on May 17th by Profound Lore Records, and we were lucky to catch Mike and learn more about his new album.
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Hi Mike! Thanks for your time, it’s much appreciated. And accept my congratulations on the release of Nocturnus AD’s new album Unicursal. What are you doing now? Do you have some promo events planned?
Right now we just finished another video for the new album for the song “Hod, The Stellar Light”. It is a full CGI, not AI, video of Dr. Magus. It comes out on May 16th and the album comes out on May 17th.
Do you justify the usage of AI in metal or any other form of art? How do you see it from your point as an occult researcher?
I would say that it completely depends on how it is used. If it takes away someones job and steals from other people’s work, then of course it’s not a good thing, but if it is used in a correct way then I think it’s no different than any other tool or app.
We used it on one of our videos as a filter, just like Photoshop on a photo or After Effects on a video, to add to it. We paid someone to film us playing our song and then paid someone else to add the AI on top of our footage like a filter to add effects to us. So the way we used AI was to enhance our video; it didn’t steal anyone’s artwork from the internet and it gave two people a job instead of just paying one person to film us and edit it.
So it can be used just like Photoshop, which no one complains about when people manipulate their photos with Photoshop. As far as AI and the occult, I really don’t see a connection for it yet.
Each album starts with an artwork, and the new artwork was created by Uwe Jarling. It has a strong connection with both Paradox (2019) and The Key (1990) paintings, even though these two were made by different artists. How did you collaborate with Uwe in order to get such a result?
Uwe is an amazing artist and he is the one who made the 3D model of Dr. Magus for me, so I wanted to use him for the album cover this time. I had the whole idea for the cover in my head and worked with him to have everything I wanted on it.
Can you introduce Dr. Magus to our readers, as some of them probably don’t know this character?
Dr. Magus is the character on all three covers and he is an evil scientist who was ravaged by a war plague and made a biosuit to keep himself alive. He built a time machine and went back in time and destroyed Jesus in the manger and took over the Earth back in 0 BC on The Key, and on Paradox he discovers a portal inside the Sphinx and it transports him to another dimension where these alien beings give him special powers. And now on Unicursal he is sent by them to conquer the spheres of a giant Tree of Life in outer space.
How do these sci-fi images and your interest to the occult coexist in Nocturnus AD?
I have used a lot of ideas and experiences that I have been through and learned about and put into my lyrics. This whole Tree of Life story that Dr. Magus is going through on this album and the next comes from studying the Hermetic Qabalah, and watching so many sci-fi movies and reading so many sci-fi and occult books has given me an endless amount of ideas to write about.
photo by Tim Hubbard
As Paradox served as a kind of continuation of themes from The Key, how do you see Unicursal in the context of succession? Are some of the new songs integral parts of the whole concept?
Unicursal definitely continues the story of The Key from where Paradox leaves off. The last four songs continue The Key story just like the last 4 songs in Paradox continue the original The Key story. Also “Mesolithic” is the third song in the “Neolithic”, “Paleolithic”, “Mesolithic” story and is the third song in all three albums.
As you’ve said, you continue the series of “pre-historical” songs with the track “Mesolithic”. Can you talk more about this song?
It is the third era in history where mankind starts to build communities and hunting and fishing in groups. Also known as the Middle Stone Age era. Tools and weapons became more advanced and farming began as well.
How much of The Key is actually left in Unicursal? How natural is it for you to keep on producing death metal after all these years?
As I had just explained in the last question, about half of the album is continued from The Key album. I will keep creating music as long as I feel like doing it; as long as I enjoy it, I will keep doing it.
Mike, back then in the days of Morbid Angel Lovecraftian influences seeped into metal music deeper and deeper, and now you have songs like “CephaloGod,” and there is “Aeon of the Ancient Ones” in Paradox. Why do you still continue with the images created by H. P.? How do they fit the general Nocturnus AD concept?
HP Lovecraft is all about sci-fi and horror mixed together and his writings are probably more popular than ever, and two of my favorite things are sci-fi and horror, so it’s something that I really like writing about.
What was your first encounter with Lovecraftian mythology? How do you see its efficiency?
Probably in high school when I discovered The Necronomicon. I am not sure about mythology being efficient, but I found it very interesting and it opened up a whole new world of ideas for me to explore.
You made a really creepy video for the “CephaloGod” song. Do you believe in the supernatural power of heavy music? Do you believe that it manifests itself in unseen ways, changing reality in a way similar to the one you demonstrate in this video?
Everything in the Universe is a vibration and vibrates at a certain frequency, so I believe there are lots of things out there that exist, but we can’t experience it because it’s either at a higher or lower vibrational state than what we can perceive with our brain. If we can raise or lower our vibrational state, we can experience more of these things. Music is also made up of vibrations, so that is why music can affect different people in different ways.
photo by Tim Hubbard
Did you read Alan Moore’s graphic interpretation of Lovecraft’s stories – Providence and The Courtyard? Do you believe that some of his ideas could be really brought to life by pumping them with energy from music and so on?
Besides The Watchmen, V for Vandetta, and From Hell, I haven’t really checked out too many of his other graphic novels. I should check out more of his work though, because it is really good stuff.
You were interested in practicing occultism; how would you summarize your experience? What kind of universal laws work in extreme music?
I have been into the occult since before I was even playing music. For me the occult has given me a huge base to expound from in writing my music and lyrics. Universal laws are present in extreme music, especially when it comes to vibrational rates, like I explained in the last question. The feelings that are evoked from extreme music can definitely change the way you think and see things.
If we ask a common metalhead about death metal’s qualities, he or she would probably note that death metal is a violent, aggressive, and fast extreme metal genre. How does it benefit the themes you raise in your lyrics?
I think just the name death metal alone does give it several of those qualities.
I put in different types of themes than most people in death metal do because I like to expand the possibilities and boundaries of music, because music should not ever have limits put to it in the first place. To me breaking boundaries is what living life is all about.
What’s the song “Organism 46B” about? Looks like a fitting name for an inhabitant of “Hangar 18”.
It’s actually about a story I read on the internet about a Russian exploration dive team in the Antarctic that discovers a creature underwater that had never been seen before, that had telepathic abilities and killed some of their team. They ended up capturing it and taking it back to Russia where it disappeared and was never seen again. The story ended up not being real even though it was portrayed as a real story at first.
Did the appearance of the new bass player, Kyle Sokol, influence a chemistry in the band? Was Unicursal a common effort of the band or did you compose most of the material?
Kyle joined the band after we recorded Unicursal, but the album was a common effort as far as the music. We put together all of the music in our rehearsal room with all of us throwing in different parts in each song. I do look forward to writing the next album and having Kyle contributing to it because he is an awesome bass player and it will make our next album even more diverse.
Did you encounter any challenges in recording these songs, or did everything go smoothly and effortlessly?
This album was recorded over several months only on weekends. There were lots of problems, mainly because of scheduling, Jarrett Pritchard who engineered and produced the album also runs live sound for lots of big bands, like all of Tom Warrior‘s bands, 1349, and several others, so he had some small tours and shows booked over the 5 months we were recording, and there were all the holidays in November, December, and January, and our old bass player had several problems going on, so there were a lot of setbacks. But in the end we got it done, and spending that long gave us the opportunity to listen to what we recorded, whereas if you record the album in a week or two, then it’s done and you don’t have the opportunity to change or add or fix anything.
How did you work on the Unicursal material? Do you calculate some of your steps composing the songs or do you just follow your intuition?
The whole album as far as the music was a collaboration between myself, Demian, Belial, and Josh. Everything started from someone throwing in just one riff or idea, nobody wrote a whole song and brought it in. I usually suggest how to arrange the parts, but we all throw in our own ideas and we all work together on it.
Mike, you actively perform guest vocals and even some instruments in the albums of other bands. How do you see this part of your creativity? Does it help to keep the sense of a bond inside the scene or something?
Really it’s just that people contact me a lot and ask if I would do vocals or keyboards or theremin or whatever it may be on their songs. So I always check it out and if it’s something that I feel I can add something cool to, I will do it.
You recorded Unicursal with Jarrett Pritchard — how tightly did you communicate with him during the recording sessions? Do you listen to advice from aside working on your music?
Jarrett has been a friend of mine since the 1990s, so we worked together a lot on both records. That is why he is also the producer and not just the engineer on Unicursal. He always has great ideas for how to make things better and I know that he knows the type of sound and mix that we need to make the band sound like it needs to be. He is almost like the 6th member of the band.
What are your plans regarding Nocturnus AD for the rest of 2024?
Now that the 2nd album is done and coming out in 2 days, we will start writing new songs for the 3rd album and booking some live shows, since we haven’t played out in a while!
Do you have a general concept for the third album or will you start with music and just follow the direction of its flow?
There will be some of both actually. The Dr. Magus story will continue with 4 more songs on the second half of the album just like the first two and The Key, and I will also continue the Neolithic, Paleolithic and Mesolithic eras with a new one, or shall I say an older one, and there will be some more new songs and ideas thrown in as well.
Thanks for your time and patience, Mike! It’s much appreciated. Did we skip something important?
Thank You for the support and the great interview and I hope to see some of you when we do start playing shows again!
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