Emma Ruth Rundle in conversation with black metal outfit Mizmor // Metal Hammer

(via Metal Hammer)

Emma Ruth Rundle and A.L.N. – the man behind black metal act Mizmor – took a hike to discuss life, religion and art, while picking apart Mizmor's new album one lyric at a time

Darkwave, darksynth, deathgospel... whatever tag has been and could be placed upon the shoulders of sober songstress Emma Ruth Rundle one thing is for certain, us metalheads just can't get enough of her – and she can't get enough of metal either. 

So being a self-proclaimed metalhead herself, she recently took a hike with friend, ALN – the brain behind Portland-based one-man black metal outfit, Mizmor –  to discuss his new album, Cairn, religion, and more, and gave Metal Hammer exclusive access to their incredible conversation. 

Stream Mizmor's fantastic new album Cairn (out via Gilead Media on Sept 6) in full on page three, and enjoy being privy to a deeply personal conversation between two incredible modern artists. 

Part 1 - A.L.N. on Cairn, religion, and life 

E.R.R.: What is Cairn about? 

A.L.N.: Cairn is about the absurdity of life, simply put. It took me a while to articulate my thoughts and get this idea unified and out of me because I don’t really seek to write music for the sake of writing music; I wait until there’s an aching in me and something brewing, rattling around that needs release. 

And so that kinda started to happen but it took me awhile to figure out what I wanted to say because I’ve spent the past seven years talking about how I’ve lost my faith and I don’t really care to talk about that specifically anymore, like that’s kinda old news, so I definitely felt that I had something new to say; not entirely new like I’d gained faith or anything, something that is related to losing faith, but is more than that. So I was really struggling to figure out how to say what I wanted to say. 

The last thing I released was called This Unabating Wakefulness and that is about insomnia; and everything I write usually has a personal, individual significance and also a larger lens, like mankind, sort of application. 

So it was about insomnia but it was also about anxiety and it was also about just waking life - being alive and feeling like it’s lasting forever and like it’s so hard to be around. So there was already this idea that I was working on that is, ‘what is this being around? 

What is this being alive that I’m choosing to do when there’s no ultimate purpose to it, as I’ve decided.’ So with Cairn I sought to solidify that. I read this book called “Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus and it took the words out of my mouth. I read it in a day or two. 

I was practically in shock; he was saying everything that I felt. And that book is about absurdity. The idea is that the life we live is already an absurd premise: that mankind continually seeks meaning, that is the human condition, in a world that is inherently devoid of ultimate meaning, and that creates this cognitive dissonance that is completely absurd. Either one of those things on their own is not absurd but a world where both of those are the guiding laws in which all other things take place is completely absurd.

.. full article here