E
n
d
e
a
v
o
r
s
PHOTO BY BY LAUREN LAMP
BELL WITCH INTERVIEW WITH BASSIST AND VOCALIST DYLAN DESMOND BY MARIKA ZORZI
“
T
he challenge was basically starting a new band with a sound unique to itself while also having a healthy amount of both Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin elements to it,� says bassist and vocalist Dylan Desmond of Bell Witch.
Authentic collaborations between two sets of artists are rare, but for their new album, Stygian Bough Volume I, the members of doom duo Bell Witch—Desmond and Jesse Shreibman (drums and vocals)—didn’t just team up with dark folk musician Erik Moggridge of Aerial Ruin, they fully integrated the two outfits.
lished a foundation that continued onto the other records. He has sung on each one since. However, ‘Rows’ was the second song Bell Witch wrote in the early days and had a different feel. Erik’s presence stretched that feeling even further, in my interpretation. We wanted this collaboration album to be as if a separate band started in the direction that ‘Rows’ established.� Even if Bell Witch’s songs have always focused on the space between life and death, while Erik Moggridge’s work with Aerial Ruin is more focused on a spiritual, sub-personal expression of sorts, they managed to find a meeting point between their musical approaches.
“With this new record we wanted to revert to the style of the Bell Witch song, ‘Rows (of Endless Waves),’ which was the second track on our first record, Longing,� Desmond continues. “Erik Moggridge did guest “I think both concepts meet somevocals on this song, and it estab- where in territory between death
and dying,� Desmond admits. “Aerial Ruin focuses on ‘ego death’ whereas Bell Witch focuses on a sort of space between the two that could be conceptually parallel to ego death in some respects. Erik often sings about a ‘veil’ which is used to represent mortal perception. I think in many ways that perception is no different than the middle ground between life and death that Bell Witch has always focused on.�
gest an inescapable servitude and the closeness of a violent death. As with any mythology, this can be seen as a representation of elements within the human sub-consciousness as whole. I find it quite interesting that people have ultimately changed very little in our history. There is a great irony illuminated about our nature in this that our greatest aspirations can be our own undoing. This in itself could be the foundation for a metaphor of human life.
Lyrically, the themes explored by Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin are independently from different angles, “I think the story displays several but they come mainly from similar universal elements of all human spaces, in this case mythology. psyches that will certainly be aggravated in certain circumstances, “‘The Golden Bough’ is named after for various reasons,â€? Desmond says. a tree in ancient Italian mytholo- “Our current events are no different. gy where a slave is anointed as a Whatever situation we find ourpriest-king only by slaying the pre- selves in will always have a glimmer vious priest-king after stealing a of it, if not an utter reflection. That branch from the Golden Bough,â€? being said, I think that a wise people Desmond explains. “On one hand, would aim to identify this element in this system allows anyone to rise our nature and work to create sysalmost instantly from a slave to a tems where such destructive and king. This could be seen as a posi- belligerent tendencies can be bettive and inspiration notion. However, ter understood and processed to inherent in that same notion is the encourage a less violent and more knowledge that they too will soon egalitarian world. I do believe this suffer that same fate by the hands is worth working for, and importof another slave. ant steps towards knowing who and what we are. Yet implicit in this myth “This poses many questions that sug- is that history repeats.â€? đ&#x;’Ł đ&#x;’Ł đ&#x;’Ł
NEW NOISE 69
