Interview mit Örnatorpet

Hello! Thank you for taking the time for this interview. Everything fine?
Hi, and thank you! I’m all good, this is the first time I’m being interviewed so of course I can spare some time for it.

With ÖRNATORPET you primarily create dungeon synth. Is it your only music project or have you already gained experience in other genres too?
It’s not my only project, but it’s the one that I’m giving 90% of my attention, and the one that’s been most successful and known to the community. I have about four other projects where I’ve tried out different styles of dungeon synth, but I have absolutely no experience in other genres, or creating or playing music at all before I released my first album about one year ago.

What was the trigger that made you realise that you wanted to create your own music?
I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. It began somewhere around December 2017, I think I was finding more and more dungeon synth online and slowly this whole world was opening up to me, from where I had previously just listened to Burzum to discovering new albums of this same style every day. I joined the DS Discord server and Facebook group, and found out that everyday regular people were releasing their homemade music on cassette all the time, and I thought „I’d like to do that“.
I knew that I had always had some kind of ability to easily come up with melodies, learning to play songs on my sister’s piano, hearing what sounds good right away etc without ever studying any music theory, so I just decided to buy a small midi controller, get some software and start experimenting!

Dungeon synth has never really made it into the mainstream, it is mostly an underground thing. What do you think is the reason for that?
I guess it’s just not that appealing to most people, and probably also because if you don’t want to find it, you almost never will. I’m not sure, but I think you have to be a certain kind of person to want to listen to whole albums of this stuff regularly, but I’m absolutely not saying that’s bad.

Since dungeon synth is a rather „small“ genre, there are only a few projects that „lead“ the whole style. Who are your musical role models in that regard?
I don’t know about leading role models, but if we’re talking contemporary artists I would say the ones I admire, and listen to the most are Fief, Vindkaldr and Fåntratt. If we’re talking older ones then it’s Lunar Womb and Wongraven all the way.

On the internet there’s only little information about ÖRNATORPET and even less about you to be found. Do you deliberately keep a low profile and if so, is there a specific reason for this?
I do, for the simple reason that I don’t want to be „famous“ (I know dungeon synth will not make you famous in that regard) but I just prefer it this way. In the beginning when I made my first and second album I did post them in the Facebook group directly from my private account, but I later felt like I was getting too much attention, and people outside the community started asking and reacting to it, which I just wasn’t interested in; talking about that with people who doesn’t care about the genre, so I made a new anonymous account from where I post music related stuff instead.

You have released quite a few albums since 2018. How do you manage to produce so much output in such a short amount of time?
I had lots and lots of free time in the first half of 2018, I think I made about eleven albums, all side projects included. And I can’t say for sure, because I don’t know how other people work, but I have a feeling that I can be extremely fast and very creative from time to time when I just sit down and start making music. That, and also the fact that I’m very impatient with these things and can never wait to release something new once I feel like I have enough material. My second release „Vid Ett Berg Uti En Dal“ was written, produced and mastered in two days.

Do you intend to keep on releasing new albums that quickly or will you take more time at some point?
I probably would have, but since I’m with Nordvis Produktion now I will have to wait for quite some time, since their release schedule is pretty busy. But that might be a good thing for me, allowing me to sit for long periods of time on my tracks and think through and review them to see if I want to change anything, what can be done better etc. So it’s gonna be a challenge for me, but I really think it’s going to be worth it.

Would you say that it is easier to create instrumental keyboard tracks than songs with vocals and a variety of different instruments?
I definitely think it CAN be, not but necessarily. I just feel like this genre is very forgiving and understanding that many of the artists making music don’t have proper musical education or knowledge. That is part of the reason I started making dungeon synth too, because I felt like it would be the best place to start, it just felt easy. But of course, it depends on what kind of dungeon synth you’re making, I mean I don’t think anyone would say that what Thangorodrim or Murgrind for example are making is easy.

Your current album „Hymner Från Snökulla“ differs clearly from your other releases in its sound and artwork. How did this new approach come about?
It wasn’t anything I thought about much at all, I just wanted to create a really cold, wintery album for the season and this is how it turned out. In the beginning I was thinking about using a fantastic painting by Theodor Kittelsen for the album instead, showing a lonely snow covered pine tree out in a snowy field with blue sky behind it, but I later realised that the songs I had made sounded a bit too „new“ or hi-fi to justify using that kind of artwork. Instead I used on of my own photographs that I had taken while out on one of my many winter forest walks.

Can you tell us something about the overall concept of „Hymner Från Snökulla“?
There’s really no big concept to it, it’s just a tribute to the fantastic winters and landscapes we have up here in the north, and I sort of wanted to make a soundtrack for this time of the year. Most of the track names are bits and pieces taken out of traditional Swedish folk poems which are often read during Christmas time.

There are two two-part tracks on the album. Are they only connected because of their similar compositions or is there another reason for them to be tied together?
Yes, they are obviously very alike in their compositions, I don’t really have a good answer for that, maybe lack of inspiration! (laughs)

Which of your compositions do you think is the most accomplished one so far?
Ah, that’s a really hard one. Almost too hard, but I guess I’m particularly proud of „Älvorna Dansa Över Isen“ from my latest album.

I have the impression that the record sounds quite meditative most of the time, but becomes a bit more lively later on. Is there a reason for this?
I think I just wanted the album to have some kind of „action“ to it too, and the reason it ended up so far back on the tracklist is because I had this vision about the previous tracks kind of being connected and hanging together in narrative and soundwise, so I really couldn’t have placed the tracks any other way.

As you already mentioned, instead of using an old painting or a specially created artwork, the cover simply shows a photograph of snow-covered trees. What was the idea behind it?
It is a photograph that I’ve taken myself, it is taken in the very forest that the name „Örnatorpet“ comes from, a forest I walk around in every day, and where lots of my inspiration comes from. When I decided that I wasn’t going to use that Kittelsen painting (I think it was called „The Christmas Tree“), I decided that this was the best choice for this album. (Fun fact; the cover for „Bergtagen“ is also a photo taken by me from the same forest, only that one has gone through a bit more editing!)

In contrast to your other albums, which you released on your own, „Hymner Från Snökulla“ was released via Nordvis. What made you decide to take support from a label this time, and how did the collaboration come about?
Well, I had dreamt of collaborating with a Swedish label for some time, I was a fan of the stuff that Nordvis put out, and I thought that this new album didn’t really have the sound suitable for a tape release, which made Nordvis a great choice. So I simply wrote them an e-mail, with a preview of the unreleased album and we got along very quickly.
The second reason is that I was at the time living in Italy for studies, and did not have any time or possibility to release stuff on physical format on my own anymore, which is why I reached out to a label right away. The album was already finished before I moved there in September. I did not write a single track during the whole time I stayed there, but now that I’m home again I’m back to making music and can’t wait to share my new stuff, but like I said, it’s going to be quite some time before that happens!

Do you think that you will keep your recent wintery style on upcoming releases or could there be a change of direction again?
No, it will be different for sure. I’ve already completed quite a few tracks, and I can say that this is going to be more along the lines of traditional dungeon synth, but still with my own touch, of course! It will, if you ask me, be the best thing I’ve created so far.

At metal1.info we usually end our interviews with a short brainstorming. What is your first thought about the following terms?
Vocals: Nice, but never necessary.
Summer: Beautiful nature
Black metal: Love it, especially symphonic.
History: Interesting, but can be boring.
Background music: Piano
J.R.R. Tolkien: Liked the movies, never read the books. I’m a Harry Potter guy, (please don’t kill me).

Finally many thanks again for this interview. The last words I would like to leave to you:
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity!

Publiziert am 5. März 2019 von Stephan Rajchl