Photo Credit: Gobhinder Jhitta
Shane Embury of Napalm Death fame has released a new album as his dark ambient alias Dark Sky Burial. We chatted with Embury on the story of Solve Et Coagula, and things got deep pretty quickly.
Let’s start by going over the story of your new album, Solve Et Coagula.
I’ve mostly been doing albums in the series of four, for some reason. I didn’t quite know why I was attracted to the number four. I have a good friend of mine who’s also a Jungian psychologist, talks about the works of Carl Jung, the spiritual journey and the joining of the light and the dark within us, which some people can relate to. Others, I guess, find it far fetched. During the past few years, though, I found that very related to my life. Being a creative or a musician, you have a persona, an image, which probably isn’t really you, you know? So I’ve been battling with that kind of thing. So this last album is a culmination of the concepts including growth, trying to find out who I really am, and also to accept the bad with the good and all that kind of thing. So the title, I think, pretty much refers to resolving this kind of inner turmoil.
I’ve always been a fan of experimental music, so it seemed to go hand in hand for me on a personal journey. It all really started right before COVID. As soon as isolation kicked in, I started doing this kind of music, so here we are. This is the final one in the Maze Quadrilogy, if you want to call it that. And then from here on, I’ll probably move onto different directions, too.
The spiritual themes on the album extend to the realm of dreams and nightmares, according to your press release. And I actually wonder, do you dream often and what do you dream about?
I think I’ve always dreamt, but particularly the last couple of years, quite vivid dreams. Of course, everyone has their own opinion on dreams. I spoke to that old friend of mine. We come from the old metal background, but he chose a different path to become… I never know the right word, a psychotherapist, I guess. I don’t know. But he helps people through the works of Carl Jung, and I never knew too much about him until I started talking to my friend. I tell him my dreams and he tells his own interpretations of them. He lately talks about moving forward into a different, uncharted territory. That’s been some of my inner issues, really, because, of course, with Napalm Death, I am this one person, and I’ve been that person with Napalm since I was 19. But I don’t really think that’s who I am. Of course, I got married, I had kids, and the whole thing is quite a confrontation.
A lot of familiar faces turn up in my dreams as well as strange metaphors. Sometimes they don’t make so much sense to me. I had a dream last week: My son is five, but he will be six this year. I said, “It’s his 6th birthday.” I told my friend that, and I was crying. And he said,”Well, six is the sign of water. And this means growth, because your wife is a fire sign.” I was like, what the f.ck?” (laughs)
To me, I find it really intriguing and inspirational, because I’m trying to make sense of all that. I’m not the only person. I think we all have these processes, you know. As we get older, life will probably kick you in the ass. I guess that’s what I’ve been kind of doing lately. With me, it’s been like, “What the f.ck? Where am I going? What am I doing?” Sometimes you have to go to dark places, which I most certainly have over the past few years, to try and get through this, to work towards the wholeness, I guess. That’s where the number four comes from. I said to my friend, “Why am I doing things in series of fours?” “Four represents wholeness and inner peace.” And I’m like, “Right.” (laughs)
Some people will probably look at me and think, “Well, what the hell is he talking about?” But I don’t know, it all seems to be making sense to me as I move forward. I think many people have a memory of what their childhood was and wasn’t. I find now that I had a pretty happy childhood, but also there is always an undercurrent of strangeness and things that make you who you are.
I express my emotions through music, I suppose. I find that therapeutic. And sometimes that’s my way of dealing with what’s going on, to make sense.
That’s the beauty of working solo, right? You fully get to have a chance to self reflect.
Yeah. It’s a very bizarre thing because I’ve always loved, as many of you do, the experimental music. Because I was so busy with Napalm Death, I kind of pushed it aside for so many years. But when I was touring with the band Brujeria, which I play with occasionally, I started to rediscover my love for electronic music. And all these ideas just kept on pouring out. Only on iPad at first, just a little Garageband thing. Expanded on them with other synthesizers.
But yeah, I’ve had this chat with a few of my friends lately. When you do your own thing, you answer to yourself. Sometimes being in a band is great, but also, not all of your opinions are accepted by everybody. So when it’s your own thing, you can kind of journey off, really. Certainly when I started making the music, for me, it was very helpful, because a lot of it’s very drone-esque stuff. So I just kind of sit there and drift off. Things build, and you come back to it a little bit later. And sometimes when I go through the earlier records, I have no memory of making that music. “When the hell did I do this f.cking track? It’s actually pretty good.” (both laugh) That’s great, strange, and for me, very free.
I recently met a couple of interesting musicians, one a great drummer who lives close to me. I said, “I’m thinking, well, maybe I can do this stuff live and make that different from the albums.” It’s a constantly moving thing, just as we don’t stay the same, really, as people constantly moving and evolving and questioning ourselves on where we are in life. Which is the great question, really. No one really knows. It seems to be tied in with everything I am in my life. My relationships with my friends and my family, new relationships, and friends I thought were friends.
I think it’s part of a great spiritual growth. Hopefully, I’ll go insane. (both laugh) It’s just perfect for me, making this music.
I’m personally in love with the world of synthesizers myself. And I wonder, what tools did you use in this album in particular, in terms of that whole synth world?
One of my many problems is I could never seem to sit on one thing. A lot of the sounds on here are sound libraries within plugins. I did quite a few albums like that. For the past twelve months I’m playing with an Arturia PolyBrute synthesizer I purchased, which I barely understand, really. (laughs) But I’m sort of moving in towards that. I want to integrate that into a recording. Our guitarist John (Cooke) says I should make things a lot complicated. And I’m like, “Yeah, probably.” (laughs) I use a lot of the Arturia synths within the laptop. The hardware synthesizer is really good, because you can get more hands on that process.
I’m not an expert at all. I have friends who are into their modular synths. I have no idea on how to do any of that. It’s quite a discovery, really. I used the Massive plugİn a few times. I lost track of some of the other plugins. There’s always that digital versus analog battle, and I sort of like both, but certainly, Arturia is my sort of go-to favorite thing.
I’m always collecting sounds and I forget what I have. I go back and refresh my memory. Where I think Dark Sky Burial can go is to even stranger realms. I recently picked up a MIDI guitar, so I want to start playing some of these sounds with the guitar, which might be a little bit easier for me. And then bring in my drummer friend, who’s more of a jazz drummer, really. He golfs in different areas.
But yeah, numerous things I’ve used over the past couple of albums. I like some of the Omnisphere Spectrasonics stuff. Some of their extensions are quite good. I don’t think that I’m reinventing the wheel. I’m just doing what I’m happy doing. (laughs)
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel anyways. And I would argue that not being an expert in the world of synthesizers could actually help you in delving to that spiritual realm.
I like to think I’m hopefully coming out of the dark mist, as it were. But certainly during COVID, I was in real dark place. Not just because I lost my mom and my dad. That was a big thing, but also my relationship with my wife was strange a little bit. We also have kids, and everything was coming in. I was like, “God, it was easier when I was on tour.” I came back and I had these two lives. And at times, I didn’t really like myself, to be honest. But the music was very helpful. I would just get a sound and drift into it.
I really love the experimental band Coil.
Great band.
I love Coil forever. They had this way of creating mood, movement, and emotion. That was my main inspiration, I think, to start Dark Sky Burial.
One of my friends, Russ Russell, who produced Napalm Death a couple of times, would say to me, “Shane, what surprises me is that when I isolate each sound you have, none of them should really work together, but they do.” And I was like, “Oh!” and he was like, “You are f.cking brave.” I don’t know, I’m not an expert, I’m still mixing away, I just get the sounds and I just kind of build the levels and I’m like, “Okay, well, I need something that’s kind of drifting in the back there that you can hardly hear, but you can.” That’s my thing, little things drifting in and out. You go away, you come back to it and it changes the next time. Every time you listen to something, it changes, I think. The beauty of this is that you can keep on if you want to, just by making little additions. But obviously, you have to let it go eventually. But it really is about nuances. I find myself sometimes just drifting. As soon as I hear a track, I sort of go into a trance and then I come out of it, like, “I must go to the gym. I’ve got to try and get myself fit.” And sometimes I go, “Well, I’d rather go and play my synthesizer for now. That’s going to make me feel better than jumping on the exercise bike.” I’ve always loved the experimental stuff, but it seems to become more important to me, really, that drifting journey.
When I interviewed Jamie Stewart from Xiu Xiu, he said to me, “When I was a kid, no jack would ever listen to the cure or no white kids would listen to hip hop. Now everybody listens to everything.” Having a decades-long history in the extreme metal scene, you initially lived through a more conservative era in music. How do you feel towards today, where music fandoms are much more unbiased and welcoming to other genres?
Yeah, the boundaries are now blurred. People are a lot more unbiased, which I think is actually quite a good thing. In the old vinyl days, I would read NME and I’d go, “My Bloody Valentine, that sounds like an interesting band!” I come from a small village, and some of my friends were just happy with Metallica and Slayer. But for me that was never enough. When I was five or six, I liked some of the rock bands, some of the punk bands, some of the disco, anything. I was always attracted to sounds anyway. I used to record TV shows’ theme tunes, which is all orchestral. My friends got a little bit crazy for that, but still. It’s a good thing that people are open to other things.
Sometimes, listening to new artist, I go, “That’s an interesting combination of sounds going on there!” That’s a good thing. I like the fact that sometimes when you think you’ve heard it all, you haven’t. (laughs) Something comes in, and you go, “That’s fucking crazy!” That’s quite inspiring for me. Yo gotta roll with the time sometimes as well. You can be very nostalgic about stuff, but as human beings, we’re generally moving forward all the time in some way. So if music’s evolving and genres are crossing over, that’s a good thing.
I fully agree. And here’s an observation: I know you’re a fan of horror films, and as I’m listening to Dark Sky Burial, I cannot help but think that your music would make a hell of a soundtrack for a horror film. If you had the chance to work with two directors, one living and one dead, which two would you choose, do you think?
Well, living would be David Cronenberg.
That’s a good pick.
His last few movies are amazing. And dead would probably be Lucio Fulci.
I somehow guessed that you would say Fulci.
I think there was something compelling in that Italian atmosphere for me. That’s an easy and natural choice in some ways. Certainly, the first Dark Sky Burial album was inspired by Fulci’s The Beyond. And I love David Cronenberg too.
You say in the press release that this album ends a very experimental chapter for Dark Sky Burial, and that “Another horizon is just around the door, if we all dare to enter.” Are you actively shaping new music and ideas right now?
Pretty much. It’s very obsessive with me. (laughs) I have two albums recorded already, which I’ve recorded for about a year and longer. Some of it goes in quite a melodic journey, but also with tinges of darkness. There’s also a lot of singing on some of the new stuff. Those are panned out in the corner, but there’s still some stepping stones to take before we get there, you know? Also a few live shows, perhaps. If I do some live stuff, that can be a different thing compared to the records, too. So it’s constantly moving. I found just now, actually, before this, a version of an early track, and then I sped it up just in tempo, and I was like, “Hmm, now it sounds kind of different. That’s interesting. I could probably sing over top of this.”
It’s definitely a really fulfilling journey. One of the albums was totally Dark Sky Burial. Then I started putting vocals on top of it and I thought, “Is it still Dark Sky Burial? I’m not so sure.” I kind of placed it there. Some of the stuff that is on this album, there’s other stuff that I didn’t use, which was part of another recording with a friend of mine, and we brought it together, but now there’s vocals on that, so now in my head, I’m going, “Okay, that’s a logical step anyway.” It’s like a weird yellow brick road,
So yeah, this album ends one particular phase. And I’ve got multiple ideas for other directions. It’s all very based electronically, but I would like to bring guitars back in to create some sort of dissonance. And some real drums alongside electronic drums. It started out one way, but it’s kind of growing out, which I like. I drive my wife crazy, pretty much. (both laugh) She’s like, “What the hell are you thinking about now?” She listens, though.
So you’re basically off to different parts of your subconscious.
I think so, yeah. Certainly since Dark Sky Burial began, where I’ve been going as a person and trying to work out myself go hand in hand with where I’m moving forward musically. It’s challenging at times, because some days, you don’t have that enthusiasm that you’d like, but then of course, you have to have patience in anything. Anything worth doing for yourself, you have to have patience to get to where you want to go.
That’s why I think some of the artwork represents mazes, labyrinths. Sometimes you feel you’re making progress, and all of a sudden you hit a brick wall. You gotta try and work your way around it, you know? So yeah, it’s a deep concept, I guess.
That’s all my questions Shane, thank you for joining in. If you have anything to add, please do.
Well, thank you for taking the time, to say hello and speak, and thank you for the interest. It’s very encouraging for me when people kind of connect with the music. It’s still only starting, I guess. So, hopefully, either with Dark Sky Burial or Napalm Death, we get to come over to your country again soon at some point.
You can check out Dark Sky Burial’s Bandcamp page here.
