Exclusive Interview: Nonsun talk “Blood & Spirit”!

A truly fascinating, enthralling and captivating piece of work, the sophomore album “Blood & Spirit” from Ukrainian quartet Nonsun beggars belief with a grace and dark beauty that creates a cinematic soundscape of Post-Metal that also has doses of Drone, Sludge and Doom. We had the pleasure of a conversation with multi instrumentalist Goatooth and bass player Alex about the record, their World and a whole lot more and this is what they had to say…

Your 2018 debut album “Black Snow Desert“ was intended as a single composition in six movements, whereas “Blood & Spirit” is a collection of five more distinctly individual pieces, each with its own story. What brought about the change in mentality and approach?

Goatooth: Yes, “Black Snow Desert“ was like a single stream of consciousness, or a landscape observation, a ‘journey’ as we ourselves described it, and on “Blood & Spirit” we have five very distinct songs, separate journeys, or stories, each one is complete in its own self-sufficiency. It’s like having five compact “Black Snow Deserts” compressed in one album, lol. But there’s a vibe, a theme, that goes throughout the record and unites or combines them all as one whole. So I don’t mean it’s a sort of ‘compilation’ – it’s an album, in the first place. At least how we feel it.

The change wasn’t intentional. It just happened, for a few reasons.

First, during the writing process of “Black Snow Desert“ Nonsun was a duo: I played guitar, Alpha played drums. I brought some guitar ideas to our rehearsals, we were jamming and developing them into songs. But, you know, jamming can be an enjoyable and uncontrollable (in a good sense) process, so from a 3-4 min ideas we managed to do 30-40 min pieces of music:)

After “Black Snow Desert” was released, Alpha could no longer remain a permanent member of Nonsun. But he agreed to record drums for our next album, as a session musician, or a guest, whatever.

Then Alex joined me as a bass player. I’d been a member (as a vocalist) of his doom-death metal band Apostate since 2009. 

And the writing process of “Blood & Spirit” was a totally different thing. It was happening in my home studio, not in a rehearsal room. Alex contributed not only bass parts for the songs but also his musical ideas – I mean the ‘starting points’ (in our case – guitar riffs and melodies). So his contribution is one of the reasons why the record ended up being more ‘doomy’ and ‘metal-sounding’.

Alpha also came up with his drum parts in my home studio – we were creating them in midi editors. And only then we went to our rehearsal space to learn them and eventually record.

Another factor that led to a different sound: throughout the period the material for “Blood & Spirit” was written, I was going through the worst crisis in my personal life, so it’s another reason why the new album turned out to be more emotional, heavier, angrier, more straight-to-the-point, not so dreamy, contemplative, or ‘dehumanized’ as “Black Snow Desert” was. 

Can’t say writing “Blood & Spirit” was more difficult or less inspirational – but it surely was less fun. Developing the ideas and arranging them alone at home certainly can’t be compared to a natural ‘live lineup experience’ in a rehearsal room. And it takes more time as well.

The concept behind the album is one of struggle and endurance with questions over whether that perseverance is worth the pain and that really comes across. What was the inspiration behind the theme?

Alex: The inspiration for this theme probably lies in our daily life, life in general. There is pain that we are constantly struggling with, with some bouts of depression, troubles and losses. In general, we are surrounded by darkness, in which thin bright rays of hope sometimes slip, and you try to fight for these rays as much as possible, but in the realities of life the darkness prevails, and it piles up on you like a stone and presses on you. And here you begin to ask yourself, are you doing the right thing, maybe you need to give up and let this darkness engulf you, or is the hope stronger? Everyone should ask this question himself and answer it himself…

Goatooth: Yes. As I’ve already mentioned, my personal painful experiences have predominantly shaped the theme of the album. I felt like I had no answers to my questions, and they were neither to be found in all I’d ever read or heard. I felt like I needed some irrational solution because my sober-thinking mind and willpower failed me. But I’m not a religious person, so I felt I was just throwing my soul yearnings straight into the void. 

The album was recorded between 2017 and 2020, which is a long gestational period, but the quality of the record speaks volumes about the time being well spent. What was behind the decision to release the album in 2022? You’d started to write and record the new album before your 2018 debut release so does that mean that there new material already in the works?

Goatooth: Thank you for your words. Well, I’ve partially explained it in the first question. It wasn’t a ‘decision’. The main reason for such a long working period is that we didn’t have a stable lineup. We couldn’t do it properly: regular rehearsals, learning songs, going to the studio and recording. Throughout all this period we did almost everything diy: recording everything ourselves (in our rehearsal space and in my home studio), meanwhile constantly trying to gather a full live lineup (so hard to find musicians here for such music as ours), organizing tours and other gigs (we don’t have a booking agency), etc etc.

I’m having a little remark: the debut full-length release was in 2016 – in 2018 was a vinyl and CD reissue (a rework, more precisely). The songs for “Blood & Spirit” were written in their raw form in 2017 or even earlier. The final touches in arrangements (keyboards and voices) were added during the mixing process in 2020-2021. 

Can’t say the new material is already in the works, considering the difficult ‘uninspiring’ situation, but we have more than enough ideas for the next record. It’s just we can’t immerse ourselves in the working process to crystallize those ideas and see clearly what direction we would flow for the next album. 

If you had the opportunity to work with a guest on a new song, who would you like to work with and why? Have you ever considered following the path that fellow Instrumental Post-Metal outfit Autism have taken and release a single with vocals as a one off?

Alex: It would probably be very interesting for us to work with Mike from Yob, he is a very creative musician, and we are very impressed by his style of playing and the guitar drawings he uses. (Btw, Nonsun were opening the show for Yob in 2014 in Wroclaw, Poland – and that was our first live performance ever). But in general, there are a lot of musicians that we would be interesting to work with, and maybe we will do so on the new album, who knows .

As for whether we would like to record a single with vocals, in the traditional sense. On our first two EPs there are actually the ‘traditional’ vocal parts. As for whether we will do it in the future, anything is possible, why not, if there are such ideas, and maybe even with a guest vocalist, we’ll see…

Goatooth: For me, vocals, especially in the foreground, and lyrics, create that ‘down-to-earth’ effect. They are distracting and limiting my perception of music. Yeah, poetry and music are sometimes really connected and close, but music offers a very special experience. I regard it as the deepest of all arts. 

But I don’t mind having a vocalist as a guest on a song if that song would need the use of vocals in a traditional manner. I recall some instrumental bands did this: Pelican, if I’m not mistaken, had a singer on one of their songs, Earth did the whole album with different guest vocalists (“Primitive and Deadly”). And thanks – I’ll check Autism. So yeah, why not, we’re open to such a possibility.

But actually, I wouldn’t mind having a permanent keyboard or synth player and a vocalist to perform those tribal spiritualistic chanting vocals, so that I would no longer be responsible for all this, lol.

In our review we’ve mentioned the cinematic quality of “Blood & Spirit“. If you had the opportunity to write the score for a bleak art house film or post-apocalyptic horror film is that something that would interest you, to help bring someone else’s story to life?

Alex: We already had a similar experience, some tunes from “Black Snow Desert” were used for the historical drama film “Alive”, shot by Ukrainian director Taras Khymych: https://www.facebook.com/zhyvamovie  

Although we did not write it intentionally for this film, the composer for the movie Lubomyr Solomchenko himself expressed a desire to use our music. As for whether we would like to write a soundtrack for a film, it’s hard to say, we don’t know how to write custom music, we need to be in a certain state of mind, so I can’t answer that question with confidence.

Goatooth: I agree with Alex that we don’t know if we could write music for something specific, by request.

As for the post-apocalyptic horror film – just look at what’s happening right now in reality in Ukraine. Not a single movie can convey those horrors committed by the occupiers. Just look at post-apocalyptic Mariupol. There are other cities that look just like that, ruined and destroyed by those ‘liberators’ as they do wherever they come. Or those horrors in Bucha. And there are less known or shown to the world cities and regions where the same things happened or are happening. Apocalypse here and now.

You know, our whole album sounds like a soundtrack to this war, though it wasn’t intentional. We’re not prophets.

But you rightly pointed out the cinematic quality of our music, thanks. We definitely would love to collaborate with some video designer who would be able to visualize our music as it should or someone who would properly use our tunes for a film or video or whatever. Hope it happens someday.

What’s next for Nonsun?

Alex: When our country wins, we hope to go to concerts and bring our work to the people from the stage. Well, it’s probably what many Ukrainian bands want.

Goatooth: Yeah, first of all – end of the war. We would be happy to find a booking agency, play gigs, tours, festivals, promoting the album. Also would be great to get in a mood for making the next record.

Please consider supporting Ukraine in these dire times:

https://standforukraine.com/

https://linktr.ee/HowToHelpUkraine2022

“Blood & Spirit” by Nonsun is out now via Dunk!Records and available over at bandcamp.