Interview mit Xerxes the Dark: Wie klingt der Sound der letzten Dekade?

„Wie kling der Sound der letzten Dekade?“ … haben wir Xerxes the Dark gefragt und widmen uns in dieser Interview-Serie experimentellen Klängen der düsteren Art. Xerxes the Dark ist der Iraner Morego Dimmer (aka Nyctalllz & Morego), ein Pionier der iranischen Dark Ambient-Szene, der seit 2005 die Grenzen elektronischer Musik auslotet. Neben zahlreichen Solo-Alben hat der Soundtüftler mehrere Split-Alben aufgenommen und regelmäßig Tracks für verschiedene Kompilationen veröffentlicht,  darunter Anthology of persian experimental  music  – ein spannendes und extrem vielseitiges Release, das uns sehr begeistert hat (hier zur Review). Final Crisis ist seine brandneue Solo-Veröffentlichung und die bisher dunkelste Erforschung, die mühelos heiße und sonnige Sommertage in ein kühlschwarzes Gewand kleidet. 

Die 9 Tracks auf Final Crisis sind eine faszinierende Reise in beklemmend düstere Atmosphären mit üppigen Texturen, tiefen Drohnengeräuschen, begleitet vom Echo pochender und klirrender  Maschinen, Geräuschen von Bedrängnis, wachsender Bedrohung und dem Klang von Zerstörung – ein eindringliches Hörerlebnis!

In unserem Interview fragten wir Morego nach seinen Top-Alben der letzten Dekade,  seinen Gedanken zur Entwicklung der Elektro- /Dark Ambient-Szene im Iran und welchen Einfluss die Heimatstadt Tehran  auf sein musikalisches Schaffen hat. 

The last ten years could be described musically …
… as a great decade for metal and rock music beside electronic and its sub-genres. I really enjoyed seeing the Dark Ambient scene growing perfectly during the past decade. I think computer & software made a great revolution in the 2010s. All in all, we witnessed a great movement in music. For us in Iran, it was a great decade, we just held some good music festivals in our country, introduced many talented artists to the international experimental electronic music scene and collaborated with great foreign artists. Also I played live for the first time and collaborated with many artists in different ways and released some cool solo albums beside a number of collaboration releases. So it was a fruitful decade.

Surely we have great recordings …
… that were released in the past decade, and it’s really hard to remember and mention all of them, but as Schwarzes Bayern is about metal music I can mention some of my favorite metal / rock albums published in the 2010s: Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Void Of Silence, Cult Of Luna, Judas Priest, Amon Amarth, Esoteric, Ozzy Osbourne, Crippled Black Phoenix, W.A.S.P., Long Distance Calling, God Is an Astronaut, All India Radio and … many more. I really enjoyed these artists and their releases in the past decade, their vibes made some great memorable moments for me.

I love to transmute my thoughts and my feelings into the form of music …
Xerxes The Dark is a conceptual music project, and every album and every song have their own stories. From the little tiny quantum world to the super huge quasars and black holes, metaphysics and physics are the main sources of inspiration for me. I love to transmute my thoughts and my feelings into the form of music. While Xerxes the Dark is talking about certain universal topics in surreal ways, I can make music for other aspects of life as well: noises and distortions from Nyctalllz are yelling about the imperfectness of life itself, mental disorders and disharmony of nature’s anomalies; and I translate my personal feelings and emotions into the MOREGO rhythms & beats. Some of my feelings are very strange and unexplainable, and it’s like they’re coming from another world, past life or dreams, but somehow I found a way to convert these feelings to some musical terms.

Dark Ambient in the 2010s …
During the past decade the Dark Ambient scene & community has grown significantly, a number of quality artists emerged in the Dark Ambient scene, and we saw the emergence of some good record labels which professionally release Dark Ambient and Experimental music. Collaboration between artists are really interesting and we made many great compilation albums in the 2010s. Fans and music lovers are being attracted to the genre day by day, and they want to know more and more about this magical-crippling slow music. Dark Ambient styles and combinations developed as well. I believe 2016-2019 was a positive peak for the DA scene, many great albums released in this period, not only solo albums, but many collaboration and compilation albums. Also music webzines, magazines & blogs paid more attention to the DA scene and this really helped to attract more fans to the DA community. Although we must remember that some commercial and non-artistic trends can have negative impacts on the scene, for example some youngsters are tagging any spooky down-tempo & minor rhythmic electronic music as Dark Ambient, and it’s totally wrong. A real music fan must pay close attention to every detail, tags, hashtags and any other modern social media tools, which are important to spread the correct information throughout the community. If someone wrongly shares some shitty random things as Dark Ambient it doesn’t mean that is ‘True Dark Ambient Music’.

The boundaries that I look to explore with music …
I’m thirsty for progression in my career. I always wanted to experiment with new ways and methods for making sounds and layers. I want to collaborate with more and more artists, and experiment for more and more hours with instruments and synths. I want to make soundtracks for movies, games and animations. Perform live in certain music festivals along with other artists. Unfortunately we have unlimited limitations here which I can’t explain now, but these limitations are slowing down the pace of music production (but they can’t stop it). For example all music platforms are out of reach for musicians here, websites like Bandcamp, Spotify, Soundcloud, Youtube, Deezer, Amazon and many social media services like Facebook and Twitter are unavailable here and the internet speed is very poor. This is really annoying.

Looking back …
Tehran is a depressive city and full of darkness, full of disturbing noises, people are fighting everywhere on the street, and you can hear their nasty howls and insults. Sonic pollution is a real deal for people who live in the city center. Most people are suffering from serious mental disorders, and we have too many cultural conflicts and issues between people … Surely, these disadvantages can have a big impact on me and my music. They can diffuse deep into the unconscious mind. So there is no escape from the city madness …
Things are very hard here, during the past decade I finished university and got my MSc in Materials Engineering, I was fighting with depression throughout the decade and also forced to work and make money to upgrade my studio & gear. But I never forgot the music! Music is a shelter, where you can lose and forget the daily pressures and stresses. In the past decade I experimented in different genres (with my other musical projects) and different styles in dark ambient and ambient music, from space ambient to ritual drone, from industrial dark ambient to experimental electro-acoustic. I made some handmade instruments. I also upgraded my studio which was vital for reaching my desired sounds. Throughout the time, I just tried to develop and elevate my music career with all of the limitations and tasks.

Actually I released a brand new album …
… called „Final Crisis“ and it’s about the Einstein quote “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe”! Yep, it’s about a fatal mistake made by mankind in quantum entanglement experiments that is followed by a diffusion of antimatter from a parallel world … you can find Final Crisis on my Bandcamp or any other music stores, listen and enjoy this 71 minutes dark-industrial apocalyptic journey!

At the moment I wish…
… people would care more about their health during the pandemic.

Xerxes the Dark im Netz:          Bandcamp                     Facebook               Instagram     

(4482)