Black Doom With White Curtains

Alabama's Angelic Process Gracefully Walks the Ambient Metal Tightrope

originally published April 4, 2007

Angelic Process

Oil and water. Orange juice after brushing your teeth. Conscience and the Bush administration. Some things just don't go together, no matter how hard you smack the square peg into the round hole. Most bands realize this and safely stay tucked into their little niches. Understandable. Others attempt fusion, and the few who achieve a modicum of success are rightfully hailed as awesome.

From Miles Davis to the Jesus and Mary Chain to Kevin Federline, there are varying degrees of fusion as well as realization. Apart from silly matches like vegan hardcore and classical piano, perhaps the most delicate balance an artist can strive toward is that of ambient music and metal.

It's a bit of an understatement to say that it's a thin line where the two meet. On the one side sits ambient music, defined by its master Brian Eno as "aural wallpaper," meaning that while it can be deeply absorbed through close listening, it also serves a secondary purpose by pleasing the ears in a background role as white noise. It's music to read to, condoning both zoning out and blissing out. On the other side crouches metal, particularly doom metal. The past couple of years have seen metal open up a lot of doors, and no other sub-genre has gained more than avant metal.

Alabama's The Angelic Process has for six years been striving for just that balance, and with increasing rewards. The duo, who go by the names of K.Angylus and MDragynfly, chatted with Flagpole and expounded upon the art of mixing volatile cocktails of powerful music.

Flagpole

I understand you have a soft spot for Athens.

MDragynfly

While not an Athens native, I spent a good deal of time there and eventually ended up moving to a sweet little house off Chase Street. There's nothing spookier than walking down Boulevard at 2 a.m., but I think some of my best soul-searching was spent pounding the pavement, trying to find myself. It was a rough period of time for me, but Athens will always be my true home.

I moved to Alabama to be closer to my family and stayed after getting a great job there. [Laughs.] Not that I didn't love working at Taco Stand; it's the kind of thing you have to do in a college town. After moving, I met K and everything with the band came together. We still spend a good bit of time in Athens when possible, and I stay in touch with a lot of my friends there.

Flagpole

How much of an influence does ambient/ drone/ etc. play in your music? I'm fascinated with how two extremes such as this and doom metal can meet in the middle and create such a wondrous maelstrom… Could you describe how you go about balancing the delicate with the brutal while avoiding the cliché soft-loud formula?

K.Angylus

The use of drone plays a very important part in The Angelic Process' sound. Drone is a very primal sound element that can be found at the foundation of most all ancient cultures. We take drone and instead of just letting it drift like a lot of ambient music does, we harness it, give it a charged emotional connection to the song. Drone is such a powerful thing and most bands never properly recognize that. When we first applied that idea of drone, with the heavier, more extreme end of metal, everything just fell into place.

MDragynfly

I generally tell people that we're not as much composers as we are translators. It's more stream-of-consciousness than method or formula. We like to show the full spectrum of emotion or state of being, everything from hate and anger, hopelessness, to absolute joy and epiphany. To us, this is what living sounds like, and when we write something, it is obvious if it is an Angelic Process song or not.

Our purpose isn't to play with our audience like puppeteers, leading them forward quietly and then slamming them into a wall. It seems that some bands are going for that. What I want is something that a person can wrap themselves up in and then ride the wave, whether it is through joy or pain. I always hope that our music is an experience, perhaps even a spiritual one, as it is for me.

Flagpole

Avant-metal has received an enormous amount of fanfare in the last couple of years, due to the dominance of Sunn O))), as well as many others. Why do you think this fairly young genre, or sub-genre, if you prefer, has ratcheted up so much interest?

MDragynfly

I am so excited for our genre right now. Around the world, people are discovering us, collectively, and can't seem to get enough. I think part of that is due to bands like us and like Isis who seem to bridge the gap and make a smoother transition into doom, black metal, and other more extreme genres.

Many people are becoming disenfranchised with pop music, not only the sound, but the attitude and the way it makes, or doesn't make, them feel. They need something deeper, and with the Internet, all kinds of music are accessible to people who might have never encountered it otherwise. MTV is losing its stranglehold over what people will be exposed to. I can't wait to see how things change over the next few years.

Flagpole

Obviously, like everyone else, you guys love My Bloody Valentine. Would you say shoegaze is on par with drone and doom on your influence list?

K.Angylus

I always loved the experimental attitude the shoegaze bands had toward the guitar, and that they never lost sight of using it as a songwriting element. Obviously, My Bloody Valentine was something extremely special and stood well apart from its contemporaries. Loveless was one of those albums that, when I heard it, changed the way I thought about music. That fluid guitar sound really resonated with me. Combining it with things I liked about other bands seemed like a natural response.

Flagpole

How does your sound translate to the stage?

K.Angylus

Extremely well, we believe. Most people think we layer everything on the records a million times to get that sound, but it's not nearly as much as one might think. We build our own effects pedals and modify all our gear. That, combined with my playing guitar with a cello bow, created much of that sound. So live, we use volume and our absolutely HUGE bass sound to fill in the spaces, along with a laptop for the drums and additional atmospherics.

Flagpole

Any plans for the near future?

MDragynfly

We've got a lot of exciting things going on this year. Our new album Weighing Souls With Sand will be out on May 15 on Profound Lore Records, and then Sound Devastation in the U.K. will be releasing it on vinyl around mid-July. We will be touring as much as possible in the U.S. and Europe to promote these releases and are really looking forward to meeting everyone who has given us such great support. We feel extremely fortunate.

Michael Wehunt

WHO: The Angelic Process, Giant Squid, Grayceon
WHERE: Tasty World Upstairs
WHEN: Wednesday, April 4
HOW MUCH: $5