Cruxis Interview

 

 1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the musical project?

Since we’re new, I don’t think many people have heard of us. We are two, the Dok-tor and myself. He makes the music and I sing the words. 

2.You have your first album coming out towards the end of January, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style that you went for on the recording?

The Dok-tor is responsible for all the music here, but I think it’s safe to say he wasn’t trying to emulate someone else’s sound when recording these songs. I’m sure some of the genres and bands we’re both fond of had some influence on the sound. There’s some crust punk, some industrial, a bit of black metal, even some post-punk and deathrock. In the end, though, I think it sounds like itself more than a patchwork of bands and genres either of us enjoy.  

3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band has explored so far with the music?

Some are more abstract impressions and representations of a place, a time, ideas. Lyric writing, all of music making, is a bit like Debord’s dérive in that it requires some disorientation or, like Breton said, psychic automatism. Fāl-gūsh came out of overheard, misheard conversations. Fāl-gūsh is a type of divination usually associated with young girls. You would stand in a dark corner or concealed spot behind a fence, maybe a garden wall, and listen to the conversations of passers-by. The words you hear, the subjects being discussed, would provide answers to your questions. 

Unquiet, the last song on our album, was also the last song I wrote words for and sang. I had been talking with a couple friends who have family in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine about the ongoing destruction happening there. About how their family’s homes were destroyed or had been seized decades ago, about what the long history of colonialism and efforts to demoralize and oppress the people there have done to them, their family and friends in Palestine. About what living with colonialism and racist oppression does to you, both personally and how it reveals power to be the inherently abusive, extractive, violent force it is. Though lyrically as abstract as anything else I write, Unquiet is fiercely anticolonial, antifascist, and an oppositional force to all forms of oppression.

4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Cruxis'?

There’s a constellation called Crux, or Crucis, the Southern Cross. The brightest star in Crux is Acrux, the 13th brightest star in the night sky. You could think of Cruxis as drawn from those stellar names.

5.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?

That’s the Dok-tor again. I’ll say that, as in our sound, there’s a confluence of influences. Let’s call it a lo-fi, diy, analog, photocopied zine aesthetic combined with an enigmatic mysticism. 

6.Currently there are only 2 members in the band, are you open to expanding the line up or do you prefer to remain a duo?

I can’t really imagine we’d need to add more people. It worked well like this and if we do it again, we already have everything covered between us.

7.Are there any plans for live shows in the future or is this strictly a studio project?

There’s an ocean in the way of live shows.

8.On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of extreme and underground musical styles?

Since we’re quite new, and I’m answering these questions before our album is out, we haven’t really gotten a lot of reaction yet. The messages I’ve received from people who have heard it so far have been positive, which is nice. I know we’re both really happy with what we did here and hope that when it’s more widely available that other people will enjoy it, too.

9.What is going on with some of the other bands or musical projects these days that some of the band members are a part of?

The Dok-tor is always making new music, which you’ll hear in time whether you realize it or not.  

I have a new project, Deep Fade, which is a sort of noisy, blackened pastoral industrial experiment. The first album will be out in late February, and, like Cruxis, will be on Fiadh Production. Then I have several other things coming, more Deep Fade, a few new collaborations with old friends, a final album from my old project, The Floating World. I’m sure there will be more as the year wears on.

10.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?

I think it’ll go where it goes, there isn’t a definitive plan for it. It’s easier to make music when it happens because there’s something you want to hear that you aren’t hearing, maybe don’t even realize that’s what you’re creating when you start, but as you get into it what you create coheres around some idea that becomes central through the act of making songs. The map draws itself as you go.

11.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and what are you listening to nowadays?

I can, again, only speak for myself here, but some of it I’m sure overlaps with the Dok-tor. Over the years, I’ve listened to a lot of Killing Joke, Godflesh and Godflesh-y industrial-esque stuff, Amebix and Rudimentary Peni (I’m finally reading Nick Blinko’s Primal Screamer right now), some black metal, some post-punk, deathrock. Of course, then there are artists like Anita Lane, who has always been a huge influence of mine. Her uneven and wavering, haunted singing hovers around the edges of anything I do. Rowland Howard had a gorgeous shimmer, too.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of JK Flesh, another Justin Broadrick project. He had an album out this past fall, NO EXIT, which is incredible and disorienting and I’m still hearing new things in it. Same for Darkthrone’s Eternal Hails, which passed me by when it came out a coupe years ago, but got drawn in by Fenriz’s description of it as “heavy like a dinosaur.”

12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?

https://cruxis-13.bandcamp.com/