Mortiis

Mortiis performing in Leicester, 2005

Mortiis [ mɔʁ'tiːs ], whose real name is Håvard Ellefsen (born July 25, 1975 in Notodden ), is a Norwegian musician who is best known for his music project of the same name. It was initially founded in 1993 as a solo project in which biographical elements were in the foreground. Over time, Mortiis developed into a band with several members, including Sarah Jezebel Deva .

biography

Håvard "Mortiis" Ellefsen was born in Notodden in the Norwegian province of Telemark and began his musical career as a founding member and bassist of the influential black metal band Emperor . This was founded in 1991, Mortiis stayed with the band until 1992 and then turned to solo activities. As bass player he can be heard on the demo Wrath of the Tyrant from 1992, the EP Emperor from 1993 (recorded in December 1992) and on the EP As the Shadows Rise from 1994. Also on the album In the Nightside Eclipse (1994 ) there are songs that the band had written with Mortiis, but he was no longer involved in the recordings. In addition to his own musical activities, Mortiis brought out a fanzine called ZAST in the early 1990s .

After separating from Emperor, he turned to the ambient with his solo project Mortiis and founded his own label, Dark Dungeon Music. In June 1993 Mortiis released the demo cassette The Song of a Long Forgotten Ghost on Dark Dungeon Music . As the title suggests, the cassette contains only one title that is almost sixty minutes long. In Poland the demo album was released on the Pagan Moon label. He also released the single Havard-Vond of his side project Vond, which focused on dark ambient music.

The debut album Født Til å Herske of the Mortiis project followed in 1994. It was released on the German label Malicious Records, which was known in the 1990s for releases of Norwegian black metal albums; works by the bands Gorgoroth and Dødheimsgard have also appeared here .

The follow-up album Ånden som Gjorde Opprør was published in 1994 by Cold Meat Industry , one of the most important labels in the post-industrial sector . Mortiis also released the album Keizer Av En Dimensjon Ukjent a year later through Cold Meat Industry . He also experimented with other musical styles and released an album of the same name as Fata Morgana in 1995 and The Devil's Songs in 1996 under the project name Cintecele Diavolui .

In 1996 the album Crypt of the Wizard was released via Dark Dungeon Music. This album is a compilation of the tracks from five individually released EPs, making it the first album with more than two tracks.

This was followed by a change to the British label Earache Records , on which the album The Stargate was released in 1998 . This album is the last in the band's history that still has ambient influence. In retrospect, the creative phase up to the album The Stargate by Ellefsen was titled "Era I" in order to distinguish it from the very different follow-up album, which, so to speak, ushered in a new creative phase. All Era I albums contained music composed entirely on synthesizers. A change was already being announced on The Stargate , as acoustic guitars and flutes were also used here.

With the release of the album The Smell of Rain on October 22, 2001, the "Era II" of Mortiis' musical history began, which brought about a drastic change. Mortiis picks up electronic elements here and programs pieces that can be assigned to electro pop . For the first time real lead vocals and more classic song structures are used. Ellefsen began to look for session members for live performances, which the later change to a band was favored.

The album The Grudge , which was released on September 13, 2004, brought about an even greater musical change. This album is strongly oriented towards industrial rock . In 2005 the Norwegian government declared the album a cultural artefact, so it has been available for free listening in libraries in the country ever since.

On April 16, 2007, the band released a remix album entitled Some Kind of Heroin , which included remixes of various pieces from the Grudge album. Artists such as Gothminister , Implant , The Kovenant , Velvet Acid Christ , Girls Under Glass , David Wallace, Kubrick and Dope Stars Inc. worked here .

After the band was initially confirmed for the Wacken Open Air 2017, the performance was canceled, according to the organizers, on the grounds that the band "would no longer exist in its current form in the future".

style

Image / appearance

From the time the band was founded, Håvard “Mortiis” Ellefsen changed his appearance, especially the masking of his face, until he used a prosthetic mask and ears. The original mask is based on the Goblin Blix from the fantasy film Legend . After the release of the remix album Some Kind of Heroin , Mortiis stated that he had taken off the mask. The masquerade over the years created a special image for Ellefsen, which was addressed in almost every interview. When asked what the mask represented, he replied, “I don't see myself as a goblin or a troll or an elf or medieval at all. I'm just Mortiis. "

Concept and texts

While the albums initially almost exclusively contained titles with Norwegian lyrics, since the album The Stargate was released in 1998, the lyrics have primarily been written in English . Topics, which are taken up in the texts, are mainly the imagination as well as emotions like depression and anger.

music

The ambient pieces do not have a classic song structure (verse, chorus, etc.), which is why Mortiis' pieces from this period usually have lengths of over a quarter of an hour.

With the album The Smell of Rain , Mortiis turned his back on ambient music and produced tracks that are more based on the classic song scheme and tend towards electropop and industrial rock .

Discography

With Emperor

• Wrath of the Tyrant (demo, 1992)
• Emperor (EP, 1993)
• As the Shadows Rise (EP, 1994)
• In the Nightside Eclipse (1994; texts on Cosmic Keys to My Creations & Times and I Am the Black Wizards )

With Mortiis

Albums

• The Song of a Long Forgotten Ghost (demo, 1993)
• Født Til å Herske (1994)
• Ånden som Gjorde Opprør (1994)
• Keizer Av En Dimensjon Ukjent (1995)
• Blood and Thunder (1995)
• The Crypt of the Wizard (1996)
• The Stargate (1998)
• The Smell of Rain (2001)
• The Grudge (2005)
• Some Kind of Heroin (2007, remix album / compilation)
• Perfectly Defect (2010)
• The Great Deceiver (2016)

Singles

• The Grudge (2004)
• Decadent & Desperate (2005)

With Vond

• Havard-Vond (1993, single)
• Selvicide (1994)
• The Dark River (1996)
• Green Eyed Demon (1998)

With a mirage

• Mirage (1995)
• Space Race (EP) (1996)

With Cintecele Diavolui

• The Devil's Songs (1996)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Bernard Van Isacker: Mortiis . I'm a bit of a control freak . In: SideLine , No. 59, July / August / September 2007, p. 9, URL: Interview as a scan on Earache.com (accessed July 1, 2008).
2. ^ Metalion : magazines .
3. ^ Andreas Diesel, Dieter Gerten: Looking for Europe . Neofolk and backgrounds . 2nd Edition. Index Verlag 2007, p. 340.
4. ↑ Discography on the official website ( Memento from October 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ earache.com (April 13, 2005): Album made available to public for free ( Memento from August 15, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
6. ↑ Mortiis say W: O: A performance from April 25, 2017
7. ^ Translation of the quote "I do not look upon myself as a goblin, or troll, or elf, or medieval. I am merely Mortiis. ”- Starfox.net (April 11, 2001): Interview with Mortiis about the album“ The Smell of Rain ”. ( Memento of May 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (Accessed July 1, 2008)

Web links

Commons : Mortiis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Mortiis on MusicBrainz (English)
• Mortiis at Discogs (English)