MOSS OF MOONLIGHT interview

I interviewed MOSS OF MOONLIGHT. Enjoy the reading! :)

01. Hi Jenn! Hi Cavan! You two are the only members inside MOSS OF MOONLIGHT band. Who's the main composer ?

Jenn:  Cavan composes just about everything (so you can blame him for all the 12+ minute songs…), except for the female vocals--I write those (and often the male, as well), and the drums and percussion,  of course.

02. What bands influenced yours ?

Cavan: The Moon and the Night Spirit, Agalloch, and Myrkgrav.

Jenn:  Fejd, Katatonia, and Dead Can Dance.  Also, for me personally, Pain of Salvation's drummer,  Léo Margarit (which might seem a bit odd, considering the difference in genres.  Oh well...).

03. Both of you play many instruments and do vocals... Do you start to compose lyrics, or music? what is the first instrument used composing songs ?

Cavan:  I begin by building the music around an idea or story, painting narrative with melody.  This lets me focus more on delineating thoughts and images abstracted by the mind.  Once the music has been more established, Jenn weaves in the lyrics, thus fortifying the tale being told. 

04. Talking about instruments, can we have a complete-list of instruments used by the bandmembers ?

Cavan:  Guitar, bass/bowed bass, vocals (clean vocals, growls and throat singing), mouth harp, trumpet, wooden flutes (including Stellar flute), penny whistle, programming, blowing horn.

Jenn: Drum set, bell kit, djembe, dumbek, wind gong, finger cymbals, spring drum, antlers, bodhran, tablas, vocal chords, sleigh bells, tambourine, rattle, cow bell.

…we tried to include as many as we could remember, but we probably forgot a few.  One thing we wanted to note is that, though we use quite a few instruments on Winterwheel, it's not nearly as many as on SEED.  Believe it or not, this wasn't because of laziness--it was actually more of an esthetic choice.  Winterwheel is a cold, dark album, so using a slightly more conservative instrumentation seemed appropriate.

05. Soon will be released "Winterwheel" EP, how happened the recordings ?

Jenn:  Just after the winter solstice, we travelled a couple hundred miles from home, to Spokane, Washington.  We recorded both drums and growls at a studio there called Amplified Wax, with an excellent engineer by the name of Jimmy Hill.  Jimmy, by the way, is also quite good at tuning the drums--so if you notice that the drum sound on this album is much improved, well.  It's no mistake.

Everything else (auxiliary percussion, clean vocals, guitar, etc) was recorded at the Winterhut Studio.

06. Can we have the tracklist & artwork of the coming EP ?

Cavan: Of course.  The track list is as follows:

1. GǢT

2. ĒOLE

3. CATTE

4. HRÆFNE

And the artwork…(just a note: we haven't released the album cover anywhere else yet.  Feel special!  ;  )

07. Are you the designer behind that artwork, Jenn ? 

Jenn: The cover art was a joint effort--Cavan took the photo, while I did all the design.  For album art in general, I've always done the layout and design, etc.  In SEED, Cavan took all the photos, but Winterwheel's booklet features work by us both. 

08. Who produced "Winterwheel" EP ?

Jenn: We did, along with Jimmy Hill from Amplified Wax.

09. Musically speaking, what are the differences between your debut album "Seed", and the forthcoming EP ?

Cavan: SEED  was created with the majestic, deep, damp forests of Cascadia in mind--a viscera that the music, of course,  reflected.  Although associated primarily with our own region, it can also play companion to anyone who wants to ford deeper into the earth.

Winterwheel, on the other hand, is rooted and broad in its own way.  We extricated it from the typical ways of folk metal--the usual hoity toity woodwind riffs and such.  Instead, this is an album of long, epic swells, swollen with meditative chants and percussion, cold chunky guitars with a tale to tell.   Also, Jenn sings more on this album than the last, which is certainly worth looking forward to. 

The EP is a momentary step away from the Cascadia concept, and more grounded in our Pagan past.  It is a 45 minute trance into the otherworlds.  The album, albeit very intense musically, is mostly concerned with the circular ritual we wanted it to mirror and contain (reflected both in the title--'Winterwheel' as well as its smaller and larger narratives).

We wanted to give our music as an offering to the gods (or--simply--the cosmos, depending on your perspective) and really expand upon the typical and traditional rituals of fellow Pagans, allowing our customs to grow with the modern times.  As a linguist, it allowed me to challenge the pre-existing Christian literature on Old English and use the language for the Pagan way--as it was initially constructed.  I see Winterwheel  as a ritualistic offering; anyone willing to listen is a participant in this honoring of the gods, of the earth.

10. What are the songs about ? 

Jenn:

1. GǢT

Though this song is a cry to Thunor (also known as Thor), it's just as much an internal battle cry: learning from the knee-deep and age-old roads we've been walking for so long, learning to sense them with raw new skin--and, at last, fighting to break beyond them and create new cycles.

2. ĒOLE

Hretha is a little-known Anglo Saxon goddess, and for this reason we've taken some liberties in creating a mythic cycle of her own.  In all likelihood, our depiction is utterly wrong.  But this album is not just about adhering to ancient ways--it's about creating new ones (and one common interpretation of Hretha is that she's associated with rebirth).  Humans are not what they once were, for better and worse.  So, this song tells of humanity's power to give life--even to goddesses; it's the story of an elk and her feral, wandering goddess-companion whose life-force thrives in human blood.

3. CATTE

A song for Freya.  It is, simply, about balance.  Striving to see with our feet, sleep with potential, and converse with the past.

4. HRÆFNE

For Woden.  This one's a more earthen sort of song.  On one level, it's  about descending from the mountains--from there, you can make all the metaphorical extrapolations you like, one of which is learning to make something knew from something ancient.

11. Where could we buy "Winterwheel" EP ?

Cavan:  Winterwheel will be available on http://mossofmoonlight.com and Bandcamp, as well as a couple f our local music shops.  Physical copies of the album will be limited, so it won’t be on Amazon or anything like that.  But digital copies should be available on pretty much any of the major digital download sites like iTunes and Spotify. 

12. Will you do some gigs in your area, with some other live musicians ?

Jenn:  Alas, not at the moment. But in the future, most definitely.

13. MOSS OF MOONLIGHT founded Cascadian Alliance but what is it exactly ? What do you do there ?

Jenn: What do we do there?  Drink lots of tea.  No, really.

…in all seriousness (though tea-drinking IS quite serious business), Cascadian Alliance is the record label we created for Moss of Moonlight, as well as our other projects (Cerridwen, Gundabad, etc).  In the future, we'd like to sign other musicians (or other creative types), but at the moment, we're focusing on music-making only .  But our ultimate aim is to support the artists of our home, this feral, beautiful land we call Cascadia.

14. Were the sales for "Seed", good ?  Were there a lot of shipments to Europe ?

Cavan:  Sales for Seed have been great. It’s tapered off a bit lately on account that it’s been a year since the release date. Seed did pretty well in Europe, especially Italy. We expect Winterwheel to do just as well, if not better. 

15. What are the next plans for the band ?

Jenn:  Right after we finish an album, Cavan likes to announce that he's taking a long break from music writing--and then a couple days later, he'll come to me with a new song.  So, at the moment, I can say for sure that there will be a follow up to Winterwheel, and that you won't have to wait too terribly long for it.

In other, nearer things, sometime this summer, we'll be filming a video for the album.  We also plan to hold a couple of contests to promote Winterwheel, so if you aren't following us on facebook ( www.facebook.com/MossofMoonlight ‎) be sure to do so!  We post regularly, and love to interact with fans.

Thank you for your time! : )

Thank YOU for taking your time to ask us these excellent questions, and for all you do for folk metal!