From Corners Unknown

Back in July/August, I interviewed Noctilucant (J. Mlodik) shortly after he dropped Crumbling Cities Echoing Their Terror—essentially a compilation of unreleased tracks that never made it onto Joe's official albums. Though it has only been three, almost four, months since we've worked together to produce some content together, Joe has been quite busy. He recently wrapped up production and released an original soundtrack for a brand new comic titled Descension; it is sliced into six scenes which link up with the harrowing events that unfurl throughout the comic book's 28 or so pages. He also just had his latest full-length record released into the ether, Bleak and Drained of Colour, through Noctivagant Collective not more than a couple days ago.

This latest record, Bleak, is what I call a "world-building" record. It tells the story of a lone man trapped in his bunker who muses over his lost and one true love, Emily. Taking place sometime after the events which spurned Noctilucant's apocalypse in his debut record, Back to the Mud, the story told in Bleak occurs long after humanity's downfall. Voiced by Scottish voice actor, play actor (The Jacobite Officer), and musician, Matthew Donnachie, makes Noctilucant's chilling soundscapes flesh.

In an effort to continue building a series of conversations with artists, I sat down (virtually) with Joe and discussed with him his soundtrack for Descension, Bleak, and what lies ahead for Noctilucant in the looming year ahead. This episode differs a bit from the first in that I layered a mix of Joe's tracks into the background of our conversation. It's an experiment and I'm hoping to procure some feedback from listeners to see if it meshes nicely with the conversation or if it's distracting. Feel free to email me with your thoughts; I also address this a bit in the opening seconds of the conversation. See below the embedded YouTube link for a track listing with time stamps and the respective album the track is from. Thank you so much for listening and your support.

Deep in Chicago's underbelly writhes the stoner-doom trio, Plague of Carcosa. Initially launched as a solo bedroom project by Mark (who also goes by Johnny Carcosa), the moniker served as a vehicle for him to explore the sprawling soundscapes of dense, droning music. He put two releases out into the world by himself, The Color Out of Space and Ritual I; the first a massive slab of reverberation tinged with Hindu-based guitar scales, and the second, an hour-long improvisational piece. Shortly after Ritual I, he dropped the track Hastur. But he wasn't alone.

He recruited long-time friend Zack, guitarist and sometimes bassist for Plague of Carcosa, as well as Jason, their new-to-doom metal drummer. It is in Hastur where plumes of stoner-influence begin to cloud Plague of Carcosa's short—but expanding—discography. With a new fifteen-plus minute behemoth brewing and other tracks yet to come, the nascent collective are well on their way to becoming gargantuan conjurers of doom and despair.

This interview is in a new format for FCU. It's a recorded conversation between myself, Mark, and Zack. This was unbelievably fun to do and a nice way to break up the pace of the traditional text-based interviews I've been doing here on the website. Hopefully you folks enjoy it enough so that it pushes me to do more of these in the future. You can listen to our conversation below, which includes a snippet of Hastur.