CVLT Nation Interviews:
Oranssi Pazuzu

Oranssi Pazuzu are redefining the borders of reality. Their psychedelic approach to black metal has already spawned two full-lengths, Muukalainen Puhuu (2009) and Kosmonument (2011), along with a split album with Candy Cane. Now they return with their third record, entitled Valonielu, which explores even further the capabilities of the band and unfolds their full potential in all its glory.

Ontto, bassist of Oranssi Pazuzu, found some time to answer some of the fundamental questions regarding the origins of the band, their influences, the production stage of Valonielu and the band’s future plans.

CVLT Nation: Hi Ontto! First of all thanks for finding the time to do this interview. It is really appreciated. Would you like to introduce the band and its current members?

Ontto: It’s a pleasure. Oranssi Pazuzu members have been since the beginning:

Jun-His – vocals & guitar

Moit – guitar

Korjak – drums

Evill – keyboards & effects

Ontto – bass

CVLT Nation: Could you also shed some light on the origin of your name? As far as I know the word “Oranssi” means “orange” and the name “Pazuzu” comes from Assyrian and Babylonian mythology and is the name of a demon.

Ontto: That’s right. The name Oranssi Pazuzu is a symbol of our musical duality. Pazuzu represents the darkness, the unknown, the mysterious and our purpose to travel into uncharted musical territories. Also, Pazuzu symbolizes the darkness inside us, the nihilistic, chaotic side of our minds. So for me, it is not an occultist symbol, but instead a psychological and philosophical one. Oranssi, on the other hand, represents our psychedelic side and the energy of cosmos.  It is also a polarization against black metal’s “traditional” colour. There is blackness in our music, but that’s not the whole picture, it’s more like a black and white film with colours dubbed on it.

Cvlt Nation: You are currently signed to two labels if I am not mistaken, 20 Buck Spin and Svart. What does this mean for the release of your album and are there any advantages to be signed to more than one label?

Ontto: We thought of a few label options we had, and in the end we figured it makes sense to have one label doing the release in Europe and another one doing it in US. It has some benefits with logistics and stuff like that. But the important thing is that the record, the artwork and such are the same everywhere. The album comes out in both Europe and North America as a CD and a gatefold vinyl.

CVLT Nation: Valonielu is the third full-length you are releasing. How would you compare to your two previous albums (Muukalainen Puhuu and Kosmonument)? Do you consider it to be the natural evolution of your sound?

Ontto: Yes, it’s natural evolution. This is where the music has gone, and it will not stop here, but will always keep moving to some direction. Compared to the previous albums, I think Valonielu is at the same time more progressive and more direct. It breathes more, maybe partially because we allowed the songs a long time to grow naturally. We didn’t want to force them quickly into some predestined form. Some of them decided to grow pretty long. On Valonielu you can also hear the benefits of using a professional studio, the band’s overall sound is now maybe more balanced.

CVLT Nation: The sound of the album is absolutely great! Can you give us some insight on its production stage? Where was it recorder, mixed and mastered and which engineer(s) did you use?

Ontto: That’s cool to hear. We worked with Jaime Gomez Arellano, who recorded, mixed, mastered and produced the whole album. I think Gomez was a great choice. He has worked with bands like Cathedral, Ghost and Ulver. He had a deep understanding of our musical aesthetics and knew how to accomplish that in a studio environment. We recorded all the basic tracks live, like we did on the previous albums, but this time Gomez also urged us to do lots of overdubs, which was something we had not done before. That gave us lots of possibilities in enriching the albums overall sound.

CVLT Nation: What are the lyrical themes that you deal with in Valonielu? Is there a concept behind this album?

Ontto: If Kosmonument was about a drifter lost in existential space, Valonielu goes more into the sheltered human consciousness and life’s microcosmos. It’s not strictly a concept album, but there’s a repeating theme about the mind and it’s conception of the reality. In my view we, humans, have holes in our understanding, and we have different ways in reacting to them. You can accept the unknown and gaze into it, or you can deny it and romanticise it with illusions or ideologies. The main conclusion at the end of the album is that you can draw a perfect circle around you, but the circle is in reality not perfect, that in the end it’s only a drawn line in the dust.

CVLT Nation: Your music has a great deal of variety, ranging from black metal to 70s progressive rock and psychedelia. Do you find it difficult balancing between different musical styles without losing yourselves in the process?

Ontto: When we write songs, the one of the most important things for us is the atmosphere. We don’t think about genres too much and don’t see them as limitations, they are only references to particular feelings. Combining words from different dictionaries creates sentences that might not have been said before. But the sentence has to have an actual meaning. To me our music has meaning and purpose, but it’s a subjective experience of course. I do hope we are losing ourselves in the process!

CVLT Nation: How does the creative process works in Oranssi Pazuzu? Is it an individual process where one guy comes up with the basic structure of the song and then everyone else adds their parts in, or is it more of a collaboration, so you jam out in order to come up with the songs?

Ontto: It’s both of what you mentioned. We like to try different approaches, and we have done both jamming and more songwriting-oriented stuff. We are also combining those two in as many ways as we can think of. Me and Jun-His usually bring in most of the “written” material, but we always leave room for unexpected twists and turns. I think everybody has room for their ideas in the band.

CVLT Nation: Quite a few people have described your music as “surrealistic”. Do you agree with that term?

Ontto: Sure, I think it has some surrealistic qualities. We are trying to capture something dream-like. But there are both conscious and unconscious aspects in it.

CVLT Nation: The cover of Valonielu is very intriguing (also quite surrealistic), I think it is a perfect representation of you music. Which artist did you use and did you give him/her any specific guidelines for the artwork?

Ontto: The artwork was hand-drawn by a romanian artist called Costin Chioreanu, whom we had met at Roadburn festival. We talked about the philosophy behind the lyrics and gave him a demo version of the songs, so he could get a taste of how we felt about the music. I think the cover does a great job in visualizing the themes on the album.

CVLT Nation: What have been your biggest influences musically?

Ontto: We are into lots of different bands and music styles and everybody has their own tastes. But if I have to pick a handful of the most important ones, I think I got to mention Circle (the one from Pori, Finland), Darkthrone, Can, King Crimson, Sonic Youth and Electric Wizard.

CVLT Nation: On a similar note, do you draw inspiration from any sources other than music? From areas such as art or film?

Ontto: While writing lyrics, the exploration of nature’s mysteries is a very inspiring theme for me. Films and paintings and art in general influence in a more subconscious level. Some great films, like for example “Antichrist” by Lars Von Trier stick in your head for a long time and dissolve into music, but it’s more like an underground stream that you might not be completely aware of.

CVLT Nation: Do you guys participate in any other projects outside Oranssi Pazuzu?

Ontto: Yeah, some. Maybe in the future the most interesting for people who like Oranssi Pazuzu is Atomikylä, which includes me and Jun-His, and two of our friends from Dark Buddha Rising, but we have not released anything at this point.

CVLT Nation: I am not going to ask you which are your favorite bands of all time (that would be just cruel) but are there any new bands you have recently discovered that you would like to share with us?

Ontto: Sure, there are some fine new psychedelic bands coming from Finland right now. If you haven’t already, check out Dark Buddha Rising, Mr. Peter Hayden and Domovoyd (whose debut album will be released by Svart at the same time with us). Apart from the Finnish “scene”, the greatest impression to me was made by Aluk Todolo performing their Occult Rock material live last year. Not exactly a new band, but totally unique and amazing.

CVLT Nation: I know it is quite soon to ask but I can only hope: are you working on any new material?

Ontto: Yeah, but we will take it slow and give it the time it needs. Now the number one priority is to do some shows when the album comes out. We’ll see what happens after that.

CVLT Nation: Do you have any future gigs planned?

Ontto: Yes. We are planning a tour in support of the new album in late October – early November. It will include at least Scandinavia and most Mid-Europe countries. The dates will be notified as soon as everything is ready, that is, very soon.

CVLT Nation: All right Ontto! Thank you again very much for finding the time to answer to my questions! Valonielu is an amazing album. Wish you all the best and hopefully I will see you playing live soon.

Ontto: Thank you for the interview!

[promo photos by Maija Lahtinen]…Label 20 Buck Spin