URARV interview

Hello! URARV has existed since 2003, yet the band's recorded output has remained surprisingly small. Was that always intentional, or does URARV simply require a different amount of time to become something you're willing to release?

This is not quite correct. There may be some confusion surrounding this and it may be because I haven´t been clear about it, so here goes. Urarv as a band was formed somewhere around 2013. BUT the ideas for the band that eventually accumulated into the band started in 2003.

I spent many years meditating on all sorts of ideas and visions. I recorded several demos and tried out different soundscapes until it began taking a crystalized form around the year 2013. This was also the time when I first met up with Sturt: and Trish who then joined in on Bass and drums.

The phrase "idiosyncratic black metal" fits URARV rather well, but black metal has absorbed almost every conceivable form of experimentation by now. What still feels genuinely strange or dangerous to you?

All I see in this sentence is “Idiotic Black Metal” hehhe. I suppose I see it from a different angle, hahha.

I don´t find it strange as such. I do, however, find it interesting when bands from a certain genre take on an exploring pursuit. It can be any genre, not just metal.

I guess the notion “Strange” is a word we commonly use in situations when we are met with something we don´t understand. Whether it be on a conceptual level or a non- conceptual level. When we later on “understand” it or realize its nature, it ceases to be “strange”. And when it comes to music, after 50 years on this planet, it takes quite a lot in order for anything to appear as “strange”, hehe.

The album apparently makes it clear from the first second that you don't care what anyone expects. Is that actually a conscious attitude when writing, or does the music become more interesting precisely when you stop thinking about what it is supposed to be?

I don´t consider that at all. I don´t think any of us pay much attention to whether we care or don 'care about expectations. Maybe we would have been more occupied with such problems if we had relied on this as our main source of income. But “luckily” we don´t earn any particular money on our music so we don´t have to trouble our minds with such. We can freely compose music, rehearse, play gigs and have lots of fun together. Which really is what it´s all about anyway.

There are elements on Nychta Psychis that apparently have little obvious connection to black metal. When one of those ideas enters a song, do you ever have a moment where you think, "This doesn't belong here" - and then keep it precisely because it doesn't?

Believe me when I tell you that we have tried out MANY things that we thought didn´t fit. We don´t keep things if we feel that it is out of place in accordance with the band's music.

Your vocals have always been one of the most distinctive elements of URARV. How much of the vocal performance is actually written in advance, and how much comes from discovering what your voice can do once you're inside the song?

Basically, all the vocals have been recorded on a pre-prod/demo. I usually listen to the songs, then I write lyrics for them and then I roughly begin arranging them in my studio. I then sit back and consider them. The flow, the timing, the way the lyrics fit and so on, and then I begin rewriting any possible lyrical change, and I redo whatever I want different in the recording. Then finally when it´s all down I do the actual recording.

And this is also when many things usually happen by "accidents". Even tho I have the template it still grants me space to improvise or to do things on chance.

You've spent decades around musicians and projects that deliberately pushed against conventional black-metal structures. Has that freedom become easier with experience, or does knowing the language of the genre so well actually make it harder to surprise yourself?

I don´t know if I have a good answer to this question cuz I can´t relate to it.

“Black Metal Structures” is not something I consider at all when I write music.

I think the only reason why Urarv can resemble the idea of Black Metal at times is because Black Metal is where it ultimately derives from. But the musical journey has taken me far beyond the boundaries of Metal music, and so when I compose my songs, I do it with BM as a base and then it naturally moves into all kinds of forms.

I´m not particularly occupied with having to “surprise myself”. If I do so, then it happens “accidentally” and not because I had an intention to do so.

I think being creative and composing music is better done when there is little actual thinking going on. When it can flow from a state of pure awareness instead. That´s when it comes into being something essential that can really hit a nerve.

The press release calls the album "adventurous and sophisticated without sounding pretentious or artificially original". Where do you think that line is? At what point does experimentation stop serving the song and become experimentation for its own sake?

When the ego of the artist enters the songwriting process and the music becomes a means for the composer to inflate her/himself. When there is a fundamental intention to write “weird” music just to attain a specific state of status or whatever.

When the creative process becomes more mind-driven than a result of free flow, I guess you can say.

URARV doesn't seem interested in making black metal sound "weird" for the sake of being weird. Do you think the strangest moments on the album actually make the darker or more traditional parts hit harder?

I don´t know, you tell me😉That´s definitely a question for the listener to answer.

People will inevitably hear traces of early Dødheimsgard in URARV. After all these years, does that comparison still feel relevant to you, or is it something you would rather people eventually stop using as a reference point?

No, that 'fine. And inevitable also, for sure. And there are definitely a lot of old Dødheimsgard stuff going on here, as Urarv in many ways are the continuance of Dødheimsgard anno 1995-1998. That´s when I left the songwriter process in “Dødheimsgard”. So, you can say, Urarv is the music I have written after picking it up where I left it😉Accompanied by two other brilliant fellows I may add. Sturt: has contributed hugely to the musical expression and continues to do so. Snakiz is also involved in the songwriting with his sharp ideas. The track entitled “Dødheimsgard” from the new album is actually mainly composed by him.

The press release says you are "seasoned musicians who have nothing to prove and none to please". Does reaching that point actually make music easier, or does having nothing left to prove create a different kind of pressure - because now the only person you can really disappoint is yourself?

I think the only time when these things could possibly matter would be if we were a million-dollar band. Where we would be reliant on the audience's approval for the sake of a business. But then again, I wouldn't know cuz I´ve never been there. Never been a rock star and I never will be, so it´s insignificant. We do what we want because it gives us many moments of joy and enthusiasm, and friendship. That's all!

We are not here to try to convince you that we are the baddest, most evil or weirdest and craziest motherfuckers in the world. We´re not. We´re just a bunch of music nerds having fun making our kind of music :)

If someone listens to Nychta Psychis and says, "I have absolutely no idea what the fuck I just heard, but I need to hear it again", would you consider that the ideal reaction?

I don´t know what the ideal reaction would be, but that would surely imply that it has a value beyond the band itself, which would be a nice thing to hear, yes sure.

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