Vyrju is a black, cold, heavy entity. Formed in 2006, they had been working in the dark until 2014, when they presented their first offering – Black EP. Awed by the results, Zero Tolerance contacted mainman Jan F. Lindsø to find out more about the process behind the product… Starting from the title: Black. What is it that goes into this word for Lindsø ?
“It was the title I had for the EP all along, and I think it really fits this EP perfectly. It represent the lyrical content, the genre, and the overall atmosphere of the music. Black is not merely a colour, but indeed a concept, and I wanted to embrace it as a whole.”
So how would Lindsø himself describe Vyrju’s music? What are the main sources of inspiration, and how does he work on Vyrju material?
“It has never been harder for me to describe my own music, as it has been with Vyrju” Lindsø (also in Gjenferdsel) offers. “I think there have been a lot of different inspirational sources for me during this process, and this has also affected my songwriting. I started working on the first riffs for Vyrju back in 2006, so the material is influenced from different periods of my life. I think that this way of working has made the EP more diverse and interesting, as it doesn’t really belong to just one special epoch but has grown with me throughout these years. In general I would say that Black draws mostly from black metal, but at the same time it has this melancholic doomy atmosphere that permeates the whole EP”.
Difficult though Lindsø may find it to describe his music, when asked to do so he manages perfectly. So I dare ask the creator: What is more important for Vyrju, atmosphere or heaviness?
“Definitely atmosphere is most important; it is a great deal of what Vyrju is about. With the EP I wanted to create a dark and melancholic atmosphere, and evoke a sad feeling of a constant void.”
This constant void is somehow expressed through the six empty eye sockets and the Roman numerals that decorate the album cover. What do these stand for? Any deeper meaning? Why three skulls? Why the clock?
“Everything has a deeper meaning somehow and is strongly related to the musical and lyrical content. I actually created all the cover artwork myself, and this way I was able to visualize the atmosphere that I wanted to present along with my music. At first I was planning to release a completely black CD, black cover and black booklet with pages without text, but after some thinking I went for the skulls. The skulls represent death, which is a big part of the lyrics. The clock represents time, waiting, and in a sad way it’s a symbol of time flying-by unnoticed. In the big picture, the clock more or less symbolizes life in itself.”
Lindsø may be the sole member of Vyrju, but other people have been involved in the creation of Black.
“Even though Vyrju is mainly Norwegian, I think that it isn’t bound to any borders at the moment” he begins. “The guitars and vocals were recorded in Norway, while the drums and clean vocals were recorded in Australia by Tim Yatras (Germ, ex-Austere, ex-Woods of Desolation). An Ukrainian friend of mine named Vadym Bezkrovnyi contributed with the songwriting of the track There Is No Grave Big Enough To Take All My Sorrows. Then I mixed it at my home studio, and afterwards it was mastered by Magnus Devo Andersson of Marduk. As you say, I’m the only permanent member, so nothing is certain for future contributions from the mentioned, but on this debut EP I would like to consider it an international cooperation.”
Listen and buy Vyrju’s Black at their bandcamp page.
