Hey, folks, thanks for your time! I have to say it's pretty hard to dig up anything about Møllehøj, so I think I will leave a proper introduction to you...
Møllehøj is a project I started at the end of 2011 after a head injury from an ice-climbing accident. Before the accident, I had spent several months in the wilderness. I walked from Utah to Mexico through the desert, climbed snowy volcano to snowy volcano through the Cascades and felt certain that the only thing I knew to be true about my existence was my connection with nature and my deep desire to save it from destruction. In my travels I met and became inspired by folks who were passionate about forest defense, people tuned into the sacred nature of the land and this too fueled the music I was writing. As soon as I recovered, I traveled to Durango where I met Tony McCargar from Music Distroyer who agreed to help me translate some of what I had been writing into a live performance.
The name Møllehøj comes from the highest natural point in Denmark. My family emigrated from a place not far from there and I feel inspired imagining myself wandering around that spot in winter and looking out on the land, where my ancestors lived and died.
Møllehøj is a project I started at the end of 2011 after a head injury from an ice-climbing accident. Before the accident, I had spent several months in the wilderness. I walked from Utah to Mexico through the desert, climbed snowy volcano to snowy volcano through the Cascades and felt certain that the only thing I knew to be true about my existence was my connection with nature and my deep desire to save it from destruction. In my travels I met and became inspired by folks who were passionate about forest defense, people tuned into the sacred nature of the land and this too fueled the music I was writing. As soon as I recovered, I traveled to Durango where I met Tony McCargar from Music Distroyer who agreed to help me translate some of what I had been writing into a live performance.
The name Møllehøj comes from the highest natural point in Denmark. My family emigrated from a place not far from there and I feel inspired imagining myself wandering around that spot in winter and looking out on the land, where my ancestors lived and died.
What was the reason for you to start the band? Have you been involved in any bands or projects before? Any influences you could name?I've been wanting to do a black metal-inspired project for a long time. Black metal as a genre has always spoken to me very deeply and makes me feel like I belong to its droney guitars and the thrashing of the drums. I can often feel meditative, energized, depressed, empowered or nostalgic within the same chord progression.
When I first started making music, I was inspired by the radical female bands of the 90's. Probably the first metal album that I really got into was The Red in the Sky Is Ours by At the Gates. I still have the original cassette tape that I listened to so much back then. From there, I fell in love with Norwegian black metal. I feel influenced as a vocalist by Dead from Mayhem, not so much in the vocal style but in the way that he seemed to channel and embody darkness.
I have been involved with a couple of musical projects, mainly I played bass in the all-female hardcore band The Wage of Sin, based out of NYC. I did a lot of the song-writing for the first album The Product of Deceit and Loneliness (2002).
Re-listening to the demo once again, I have to commend you for putting out very interesting stuff! What can you tell us about its preparation, can you tell us something more about the lyrics? As far as I know, they are not the standard "hey you, let's worship Satan and drink blood" lyrics...and by the way, what is the response to that demo?
Thanks! Musically, I write a lot of the music spontaneously as I perform or record. Otherwise, I like to write from the cello, classical guitar or piano and then translate it to the electric guitar. I try to be as open as possible to inspiration from the forest. My lyrics are mostly phrases or thoughts that have come to me in the woods, from meditation. Sometimes they are in English and sometimes in Danish. When performing live and creating somewhat improvisational pieces, a lot of what I do could be considered channeled cries from the wilderness. I try to lend my voice to something that has a lot of that "pulp," the things that move us when we go for a walk in the woods, hear a birdcall break the silence from somewhere above us or feel the wind above treeline on a mountain journey.
The response to the demo has been pretty good but I know folks are frustrated about the poor quality of the recording. A lot of the magic of this music I feel is best felt live and in the presence of it, so when I have recorded (including the demo), it has all been recorded live, with minimal equipment and in a single take to preserve that spontaneous, "true" quality. I think some of that will be sacrificed in the future if I'm to do a cleaner studio recording but I'm sure there will be opportunities to enhance the listening experience in other ways.
I think I am right to put you into the field of Red-Anarchist Black metal bands, no matter how strange this label may still sound to me..also you describe yourself (if I am not mistaken, of course) as eco/black metal..can you describe the concept behind it?
I don't think that I could say with confidence that Møllehøj is a Red-Anarchist Black Metal project. There isn't anything specifically communistic about the music or the lyrics. I would say that Møllehøj lends itself in support of the Green Anarchism movement. I've performed at anarcho-primitivist gatherings, such as Wild Roots Feral Futures where I've had the opportunity to inspire a deeper relationship with the wilderness . I would like to continue to do this as much as possible, because it's really the essence of what the music project is philosophically about. Also the songwriting is very unstructured, open and anarchistic. It changes somewhat depending on the needs of the environment. At times the music of Møllehøj could be heard as a battle cry to save what's left of what's wild. In this way, we are "eco". A lot of folks seem interested in the fact that I'm raw vegan also but I don't feel like this makes Møllehøj particularly eco-black metal, the imagery, inspiration and concepts behind the music do.
Judging from the live appearances, you are certainly busy playing live. What performance would you highlight as your best to date and why? Did you think about getting some session musicians to enhance the live sound?
I think that the best performance so far was on March 9th at Paint the Town Gallery in Durango Colorado. I had been traveling since the day before and hadn't slept and then we didn't end up going on and starting our hour and a half long set until 1 in the morning. I was so tired that it was easy for me to just allow the music to come through me without trying to impose structure. There's a video of parts of this show online and it seems like at times I was almost completely out of my body while playing.
I haven't thought too much about adding musicians because the set changes so much spontaneously. Møllehøj has had a few amazingly talented live guest musicians in the past that have played Native American flutes and drums. That is an element that I would love to expand upon the future. We've highlighted the flutes to sound like bird cries--at many times very atonal bird cries, like the piccolo in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The traditional drums mimic the heartbeat of the wilderness spirit and together with our music, the sound is powerfully transcendental.
Black metal bands almost always put the importance into visual presentation. As I can see from the pics you certainly don't wear yourself out by wearing tons of spikes and studs, nor you need a corpse-paint...do you reject such an image as an outdated cliché (shall we say), or you just don't give a damn?
I don't think spiked wrist bands, corpse paint--or "traditional black metal stage garb" is necessarily outdated but it doesn't fit the ideology of the band. This might be inaccurate but I've always associated the wrist bands with violence and the corpse paint with death. Møllehøj is more about life and defending life so the imagery doesn't feel appropriate. I 've worn beet-paint on my face to identify myself as a forest defender before but that's about it.
US underground is full of surprises, are there any interesting but still obscure bands/projects you would recommend to look out from your area?I'm not really listening to much black metal right now while I am writing but I'm excited to hear more indigenous and radical black metal in the future.
Plans for the future near and far?
I'm in the process of relocating to Cascadia and experimenting with being a solo project for a little while. I expect to do a lot of song-writing and recording in the woods over the next few months and there's talk of a possible tour come January.
Well, we are almost done...any final words for the readers? How can they contact you in case they are interested in getting your stuff?You can download or listen to the demo at: http://mollehoj.bandcamp.com/album/m-lleh-j
The best way to contact me right now is through the facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mollehoj
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