Vito

(aka Morkesis, Alfarinn, Nefernacht, Neferkhet)

Genres: Keller Synth, Tänzelcore, Ambient/Atmospheric Black Metal

Q: How did you get into making music?

A: I started wanting to make my own music in late 2018, when I was influenced by breakcore and jungle music. So I decided to install FL Studio and since then I make music almost every week.

Q: Who are your main inspirations?

A: In morkesis my biggest inspirations have always been Sigfrid and B.S.o.D, of course, i've been listening to the german scene for a long time. However, lately I've been influenced by pagan black metal and symphonic black metal, and also of course by other genres, like house, garage, brazilian music and experimental music.

Q: Are you a self-taught musician, or did you learn instruments/music theory?

A: I'm self-taught! However, i play drums, and i had piano lessons when i was younger, which honestly didn't change much. So basically, i learned to compose through practice, and by listening to a lot of music.

Q: What do you aim to express in your music? Why do you make music?

A: I make music because i love music, and wanted to create my own. Usually my releases are according to my mood, so they often vary between a completely dark dungeon synth, or a crazy techno song.

Q: What is your favourite part of composing songs?

A: My favorite part is putting my ideas into practice and seeing the sound gradually build and become a complete song.

Q: What is the most challenging part of being an artist?

A: The most challenging part for me is dealing with people and with the little hate you get online. I'm a very introverted person, and sometimes it's really hard to be in public.

Q: If you could give any advice to others making music, what would it be?

A: Do what you really enjoy. Listen to everything and not just one musical genre, because that is what expands your ability to compose.

Q: Do you have any side projects or bands that you are a part of?

A: Yes! i have a black metal side project called "Alfarinn". It's inspired by specific black metal bands from the 90s, where the focus was more on the synth than the guitar itself. This style of sound was very common in Europe, but i've never seen/noticed a project like that here in Brazil, so i decided to do it myself.

Q: And just for fun, what’s your favourite song currently?

A: Destroyer of Thousand Worlds by Beherit.

WHERE TO STREAM

Alfarinn:

Spotify

Morkesis:

Youtube

Spotify

Soundcloud

bandcamp

Maya Malice

Genre: Crunkcore

Q: How did you get into making music?

A: I had been wanting to for a long time but didn’t know where to start. I ended up getting into crunkcore a few years back and it was super inspiring to see people just having fun and making dumb music for the sake of it, so I decided to give it a try! Bands like the Millionaires described their origin story about how they started off making beats in garage band and it felt a lot more doable from there

Q: Who are your main inspirations?

A: Like I mentioned above, the old artists on myspace were a huge inspiration for me! Millionaires, The Medic Droid, Dot Dot Curve, and Brokencyde to name a few. I also really admire some of the smaller artists like Subscene, Boy Talks Trash, and JJ Demon. All of them are really talented and I wish they got more recognition.

Q: Are you a self-taught musician, or did you learn instruments/music theory?

A: I actually have some experience with music theory! I used to be in band and can play a few instruments (ukulele, keyboard, and flute). Surprisingly a lot of what I learned wasn’t super helpful for the music I make now, it’s more about the general sound than scales or time signatures n such

Q: What do you aim to express with your music? Why do you make music?

A: Since crunkcore can be so versatile, it’s really however I’m feeling at the moment. Sometimes I’ll make a fun party song, other times I’ll make something a little darker (more so inspired by someone like Subscene). I mean I make literal fan songs sometimes so once again it’s just how I’m feeling lol

Q: What is your favourite part of composing songs?

A: That’s a hard choice, but my favorite part is probably making the beat. It’s really fun to play around with different instruments and it’s even better when the song really starts to come together! That or adding autotune, its just fun to mess around with

Q: What is the most challenging part of being an artist?

A: Definitely being consistent. I would love to dedicate more time to my music/other creative projects but I tend to just not have the time. That or burnout, which is always hard especially when you have a really good idea for a song.

Q: If you could give any advice to others making music, what would it be?

A: Just to have fun!! Making crunkcore helped me learn that your art doesn’t have to be super deep or meaningful to be worth it. More importantly though, just make something. I know it can be easy to get caught up in the details and comparing yourself to others, but I guarantee that whatever you make is better than what’s in your head simply because it actually exists. Plus, no matter how rough your early work is, someone out there will still connect with it in some way! Just give it a try, even if it’s just to experiment

Q: And just for fun, what’s your favourite song currently?

A: Another hard one, but probably “she felt like destroying something beautiful” by Friday Night Fever. It starts off as any goofy scene/emo song but by the last third it becomes an absolute masterpiece!!

WHERE TO STREAM!

Spotify

Soundcloud

YouTube Channel (they post really cool vlogs n stuff here!!)

They also have SpaceHey, so please go show them some support!!

HEXENKESSEL

Genre: Tänzelcore

Q: How did you get into making music?

A: I actually started out making joke music, throwing together random loops and funny samples, just to share amongst my friends for fun, but I eventually started wanting to take things more seriously. Around the same time I was just starting to get into Tänzelcore and Keller Synth, and I thought it might be fun to give that a try, which has somehow lead me to this point lol

Q: Who are your main inspirations?

A: I would say my biggest inspirations are projects like Friedhof and Morkesis, however artists like Daft Punk and The Mummies are also huge inspirations to me, even if it may not show through in the music I make lol. I also take a lot of inspiration from video games, most notably the old Doom games

Q: Are you a self-taught musician, or did you learn instruments/music theory?

A: About a month or two before I started working on my first demos that would eventually become the first Hexenkessel EP, I started taking a Music Theory class at my school, however it still took me a while to really get the hang of it all and really understand music theory lol

Q: What do you aim to express with your music? Why do you make music?

A: There are several different reasons as to why I make music, but to put it simply, I make music because I enjoy it, and I use my music as an outlet to express myself freely. Something I really love about making music is that I can put so much emotion into a track, or have a clear idea in my head about what a song is about, and yet anyone who listens to it can find their own meaning behind it. Multiple people can all listen to the same song and all take away completely different ideas from it, and I think that's amazing. Hexenkessel has no true centralized theme or meaning behind it, it's simply just a way for me to express myself, and it makes me happy knowing there are so many people who enjoy my work :-]

Q: What is your favourite part of composing songs?

A: I think my favorite part about composing a song is just hearing all of your hard work come together in the end. That feeling of hearing all of your hard work pay off after what may have been days or weeks of effort, there's nothing quite like it

Q: What is the most challenging part of being an artist?

A: For me, the most challenging part of being an artist, specifically in the Tänzelcore and Keller Synth scene, is just the sheer amount of toxicity and hate in this community. It's a shame having to try to explain to close friends and family about the music I make, when so much of the scene is full of racists, homophobes, etc. However I am happy to say that I have also met many great people through my music and I am very grateful for them :-]

Q: If you could give any advice to others making music, what would it be?

A: My biggest piece of advice for others making music would be to just make music that you enjoy. If you don't have a passion for what you're making, it will show in your final product. Another piece of advice I would like to give, don't be afraid to try new things when it comes to making music, and don't restrict your creativity just to try to fit into a certain style or genre, branching out and trying new things often leads to some of the best music. (Also NO AI SLOP >:-[ )

Q: Do you have any side projects or bands that you are a part of?

A: I have had a couple side projects in the past, and I currently have two active side projects, however I want to keep them seperate from Hexenkessel, so they will remain a secret for now ;-]

Q: And just for fun, what’s your favourite song currently?

A: Hardest question by far lol, I'd say my current favorite song is probably Godzilla To Tokyo Bay by Akira Ifukube (Truthfully though I've been listening to the entire Godzilla 1954 OST as a whole so much lately lol)

WHERE TO STREAM!

Spotify

bandcamp

Soundcloud

YouTube

They also have SpaceHey, so please go show them some support!!

Dart Darling

Genre: Crunkcore

Q: How did you get into making music?

A: I've been a choir kid since I was in 4th grade so I've been surrounded by music a long time. In 6th grade I organized an Acapella cover of Havana by Camilla Cabello with a group of choir friends for the school talent show. I downloaded bandlab to record us singing. The next year, 7th grade, was quarantine, and I started messing around with this little music app. I put out some songs under different usernames before Darling back then, but that was how it happened. I worked with very different genres back then, but starting Dart Darling with Crunk's Not Dead was just a natural progression for me. I still play in other genres in my free time, I have many MANY project files on my phone, but I doubt I'd revisit any older characters I've played. If anything, I'd invent new ones if I ever wanted to do anything else.

Q: Who are your main inspirations?

A: For a long time I've been inspired by scene artists that started at home like the Millionaires, but I've been recently drawing inspiration from a lot of genres. I've gotten more into industrial tech than ever, and I like the idea of blending those sounds with my poppy sound how I've heard Ayria do it. She's like a aggro princess I love it. 

Also, if anyone's seen my social media presence lately, I've been getting really into the gyaru subculture. The high energy, high fun, eurobeat parapara music is infectious and also shockingly structurally similar to industrial dance music. People are so scared online to touch gyaru and make it there own, they ask if they can be scene and gyaru and ppl literally tell them no! I think it's insane. They have all these substyle labels and they try to adhere to them cleanly as if thats the point. The thing that inspires me so much is the nonconformity through hyper-feminity and the way their insular groups created their own styles and tastes regardless of general opinion. I think of Dart Darling as a performance in a very similar way and I think that's why I've been fixated for so long.

Q: Are you a self-taught musician, or did you learn instruments/music theory?

A: My basic understanding of music theory comes from choir, but I never learned any instruments. I'm strikingly uncoordinated. Public school music education can only take you so far, and I've never had any private lessons cause it's expensive. I wouldn't say I'm well trained musically. You can probably hear that, though. I have a few friends that are far more self taught than I am, and I do consult them often. 

Q: What do you aim to express with your music? Why do you make music?

A: A lot of Dart Darling music struggles with identity, objectification, and sexualization. I think in some ways it's very liberating to do this performance being freaky and creepy with blood dripping from my mouth and calling it sexy because it's very off-putting to the normal audience of barely legal teens in bikini tops. Like "dead girls have more fun" came from the phrase "blondes have more fun," and in some ways that can be interpreted very grimly which is fun. But furthermore it's also saying the most fun comes when you kill that facade and start to live authentically. Ironic sentiment from what I describe as a character, I know. 

But also there's this sense of anemoia that pervades all the aesthetics and references. I started music making saying there wasn't enough new scene music, and that I was creating the music I wished to see. That attitude is so 2020s revivals, honestly. Not only am I carving out a hidey hole in music for myself, but trying to create my own place in the world and subculture after it's been dead and gone for years. 

I aim to express a lot that's sad and painful through disgustingly chipper and upbeat songs cause the dissonance should be kinda queazy. And sometimes playing with the idea that your place in the world is gone can feel cynical and nihilistic but what are you meant to do? Dance, I'll just sing and dance about it. 

So basically cause I'm hot and really annoying about it.

Q: What is your favourite part of composing songs?

A: Writing lyrics. I love words. I don't know if you can tell, but I write a lot. I love poetry, creative writing, fanfic, the works. I put down lyrics all the time with no plans. I just stuff em away and go diving once I have a track I need to write for. 

Q: What is the most challenging part of being an artist?

A: Time. I am constantly struggling for the time to work on music. Especially when I use my voice so much, I've been struggling with vocal abuse for about a year. It's been a constant pain in the ass, because I'll finally have time to record but I won't have a voice. But I still work in the short bursts I can. I'll usually have an incredibly productive few days and then I'll work on tweaking things for a few minutes every day in between. I'm constantly involved in music and performance. I'm in 3 choirs, a Musical Theater class, and just finished up a musical. I work on music with a friend of mine along with my personal projects. I am spread very thin, even if you all don't see a lot of that online. 

Q: If you could give any advice to others making music, what would it be?

A: I don't have anything profound to say, honestly. But, Basic music reading is all math. It's all math! All of it. Learn your rhythm notation basics before you start with midi, then you can program melodies to your hearts content. Just do it, please.

Q: Do you have any side projects or bands that you are a part of?

A: Not really at the moment. A few ideas of bands have fizzled out cause we never met in person. I've got a friend who plays guitar and we've written a few songs together, but we're going to different schools in a few months and our one live performance together went ...poorly

Q: And just for fun, what’s your favourite song currently?

A: I've had a few songs stuck in my head recently and it's been confusing! Here's a list;

Electroworld - Perfume

ICANTDOITALONE - 3OH!3

Shots - LMFAO ft. Lil John

Golden I - MSI

#STUPIDFACEDID - Wallpaper

WHERE TO STREAM!

bandcamp

Soundcloud

YouTube

They also have SpaceHey, so please go show them some support!!