BLAKE JUDD (NACHTMYSTIUM) GIVES AN INTERVIEW

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Sep 182016
 

blake-judd

 

Last night when I was just about to go to sleep I checked the NCS e-mail, and the most recent message sitting there was from an Argentinian magazine named Jedbangers telling me about a 3-hour interview of Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd they had conducted by phone in June, with a link to an excerpt of the interview they’ve recently uploaded to YouTube. Figuring that I would regret the decision, I chose to put off sleep long enough to start listening to it.

Having read so many despicable stories about the guy (including some from his former friends that weren’t intended for public consumption), I wondered why I would be bothering with it — but anyway, I started the YouTube clip, expecting to hear some self-serving bullshit. But before the interview started, these words appeared on the screen: Continue reading »

BLAKE JUDD SAYS NACHTMYSTIUM IS NOT DEAD; NEW ALBUM TO BE RELEASED IN 2013

 Metal News  7 Responses »
Apr 162013
 

Yesterday I reported that Chicago’s Nachtmystium had called it quits, deciding to go on hiatus for the foreseeable future after parting ways with its longtime lead guitarist Andrew Markuszewski and recording engineer/synth player Sanford Parker. My post was picked up by a lot of other on-line metal outlets. It appears I was wrong. This morning, Blabbermouth reported that Blake Judd had posted the following statement on his personal Facebook page:

“Apparently, some metal news sites have reported today that NACHTMYSTIUM has either ‘broken up’ or is on ‘indefinite hiatus’. Neither of these things are true. The band has gone through some personnel changes in the last few months and I’ve made the decision to cancel all of our summer tour / festival plans while the band regroups. Instead of touring, we will be writing and recording our next full-length album in the coming months, to be released on Century Media worldwide sometime in late 2013. Also, we have pulled our Facebook page offline to revise and update it (giving it a full overhaul with new photos from the past and the present, scans of interviews from magazines throughout the band’s 13 years of existence, etc.) … For the last time and for the record, NACHTMYSTIUM has NOT disbanded and is only on a hiatus in regards to playing shows.“

I make it a point not to report rumors on this site; we’re not into gossip or band drama. I based what I wrote yesterday on a statement Blake Judd had made to Stereogum in March (saying that Nachtmystium was “on somewhat of a hiatus for the time being”), on an “official statement” from the band that appeared on the Facebook page of the Belgian metal festival Metal Méan (stating that “The remaining three bandmembers of NACHTMYSTIUM as of today are going to bring the band to a state of hiatus”), on the fact that Nachtmystium had pulled out of a number of European festivals and other concert appearances scheduled for this summer, and on the fact that Nachtmystium’s Facebook page had disappeared without explanation. Continue reading »

NACHTYSTIUM IS KAPUT. . . BUT HATE MEDITATION IS STILL COMING

 Metal News  8 Responses »
Apr 152013
 

[UPDATE:  In reaction to this post and similar reports elsewhere, Blake Judd has stated that Nachtmystium is NOT kaput and is in fact re-grouping to record a new album for release in 2013. Details here.]

Over the weekend, the news made the rounds on the interwebz (e.g., here) that Chicago’s Nachtmystium is no more (although, as you’ll see in a minute, this news actually broke in March). The following “official statement” was re-published by various sources:

“We are sorry to inform you that NACHTMYSTIUM have decided to cancel all their live activities in the foreseeable future. The band has parted ways with their long time lead guitarist, Andrew Markuszewski, and their recording engineer/synth player, Sanford Parker. The remaining three bandmembers of NACHTMYSTIUM as of today are going to bring the band to a state of hiatus.”

Although I didn’t see it at the time, the handwriting appeared on the wall via a March 7 article on Stereogum, in which writer Michael Nelson reported the following message he received from Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd: “Hate Meditation is my main focus currently as Nachtmystium is on somewhat of a hiatus for the time being.”

I guess it’s now more than “somewhat of a hiatus”. Among other things, Nachtmystium’s official Facebook page has disappeared. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SORCERY, SKROG, AND HATE MEDITATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 022013
 

Yesterday I posted two catch-up features in an effort to spread the word about new music and news I came across over the long holiday weekend. But two really wasn’t enough. So, here’s a third.

SORCERY

The revival of old school death metal marches on.  In this instance, the purveyors are not newcomers mimicking the style, but people who were doing this when the old school was young.

Sorcery are a Swedish band who originally came together in the late 80s. By 1991 they had recorded an assortment of demos and one full-length album (Bloodchilling Tales), and then dissolved. Their revival began in 2009 with the recording of a new demo (followed by a second in 2012), and now they’re on the verge of releasing a new album — Arrival At Six — on the Xtreem Music label (release date: Jan 15). Of course, it was recorded at Sunlight Studios, by Tomas Skogsberg. And as you can see, it features completely killer cover art by Daniel Devilish.

Thanks to a tip from Utmu, yesterday I listened to the first single from the album, “Warbringer”.  Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BLAKE JUDD (NACHTMYSTIUM)

 Interviews  5 Responses »
Oct 092012
 

(One of the most-read pieces we’ve ever published at NCS was BadWolf’s May 2011 interview of Blake Judd and his bandmates in Nachtmytium. This year brought us a new Nachtmystium album — Silencing Machine — and another BadWolf interview of Blake Judd, which follows.)

This interview happened on july fifth.

Yeah.

This interview sat on my hard drive for a few months, gumming up the works. Blake Judd was my first ‘break’ as a blogger on this very website. Since then he’s become one of my favorite people to work with (when you can keep him in one place for more than ten seconds). Honestly, I found that interview so hard to follow that I nearly deleted this one. But you deserve to hear it. Judd only gives excellent interviews, and his new album, Silencing Machine [reviewed here]  is likewise excellent.

Judd and I shot the shit for close to a half hour, talking about the cancellation of Gathering of Shadows fest, Roadburn, the new record, marriage, and what makes a good song.

 

BadWolf: The heat’s really fucking with me. I don’t know how people stand it.

Blake Judd: I was at South by Southwest earlier this year. Probably the tenth time I’ve been to Austin and I love that city, I’d love to live there. When it gets cold I keep saying to the wife we should move down there. Then you get a day like this? No way I could ever live somewhere this hot. Continue reading »

THINGS I HEARD AND SAW THIS MORNING

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jun 042012
 

I don’t really intend to make a habit of these posts, even though this is the third one like this I’ve done in a week. Or maybe it’s already a habit, like smoking hair through a gasoline bong. I don’t know.

Anyway, I heard a new song from King of Asgard today. The last time I wrote about this Swedish band was all the way back in September 2010, via a MISCELLANY post in which I sampled their last album, Fi’mbulvintr. They now have a new album set for release by Metal Blade on various dates from July 27 to July 31, depending on where you live. The album title is …To North, and above is the extremely cool oil-on-panel cover art by Mattias Frisk.

The new song, which began streaming today, is “The Nine Worlds Burn”, and it’s also extremely cool. Basically, King of Asgard are doing it again — combining deeply charred Viking metal with enchanting, clean female vocals. It’s like Naglfar, but with a surprising and effective folk accent. Check it out:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/47946772″ iframe=”true” /]

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: NACHTMYSTIUM

 Interviews  19 Responses »
May 012011
 

(NCS contributor BadWolf caught up with Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd, Will Lindsay, and Sanford Parker before the band’s live performance at Harpo’s in Detroit on February 25, 2011, and conducted this very interesting and revealing interview, which includes candid comments about doing business with record labels, some news about Nachtmystium’s next album, including a working title that appears to have been conceived during the interview, and some eye-opening comments by Blake Judd about the rape charges now pending against Jef Whitehead (aka Wrest), the frontman of Leviathan and a Nachtmystium collaborator. BadWolf proves again that he knows how to do this interview shit . . .)

BW- So how’s the tour going?

Blake Judd- Tour’s going really well so far. The Cradle of Filth guys have been super cool to us, which was our biggest concern. Not that we had any reason to worry but they’re a big band and we’re not and we’re playing direct support to them.  We thought we would be treated like we’ve been treated before which hasn’t been the case. Kids are coming out. The crowd reaction has been sort of eh; some people seem kind of confused by it.

BW- But that’s your career though, isn’t it?

BJ- There’s truth in that, too. The tour is good though. We’ve had more problems with our internal, like, with our bus company than anyone else as far as the people we deal with on a day-to-day basis.

BW- At first I was really puzzled by the bill and then it started to make sense to me. Cradle of Filth is a band where you can ask ‘is it Black Metal?’ Well, what is Black Metal, anyway? It is Black Metal but it’s reaching out of that sound in a way, which is what you guys do as well, so it ended up making sense to me. Did it make sense to you?

BJ-I don’t give a shit, personally. We come from a world where most members of bands I know would take joy in beating the shit out of someone from Cradle of Filth. That’s the world I come from. I don’t care about that anymore, I’ve been over that for a long time and do my own thing. We haven’t really found our crowd. We don’t have beards or a mountain of Sunn amps, so we don’t appeal as much to the hipsters. The people we work with deal more with bands like Cradle of Filth than bands we might listen to in our free time. It’s strange but we’ve got a good thing going, a good crew of dudes. The crowd certainly doesn’t seem to dislike us. We’re further proving ourselves to be a flexible band, which is important. I don’t know, what do you think? Continue reading »