Unearth Noise Interview: Talks Of Thee Ancient Aliens, Shadowface & Dreamspeak (Mt. Olive, New Jersey)

 

Today’s interview is on Roger O’witz aka Unearth Noise. O’witz is a music artist from Mt. Olive, NJ, but he was originally from New York City. To identify the genre of this man’s music is a bit difficult, because for the majority of the time, I suppose one could describe him best as a psychedelic rock and electronic experimental artist?  It is my personal opinion that his music is suited for all things organic: the trees, flowers and humans alike. He has a natural flow that brings beauty and nature and harmony to its full bloom festival. There is a defiant joy here, not allowing you to classify that which changes constantly.

 O’witz started to tell me that “Unearth Noise is my primary artistic outlet. It’s very personal, and I have a sort of philosophical approach to it. Mainly, it means that I am attempting to remove my ego from the process of making music and collaborate with likeminded spiritual forces. With Dreamspeak, Ancient Aliens, and Shadowface, there is more ego and ‘taste’ involved, as well as the contributions of Mariam, Stone and Bitzone.” 

Thus, we shall run through three music groups where Unearth Noise is both committed and heavily involved (Thee Ancient Aliens, Shadowface and DreamSpeak.) Let’s start by sharing a couple of my favorites from Unearth Noise’s greatest solo tracks.

ACCELERANT

Accelerant is the type of track that reminds me a bit of artists/groups such as Rage Against The Machine and Death Grips. He creates a heart pounding beat that will mostly, will you to come closer, then pull you in and addict you to its mid-summer sparkling frequencies. Floating on air, it brings the listener into a trance like state, a feeling of resolve, a possession of sorts that takes you to a colorful paradise where you can finally feel like know who you are for a second. There is a transformation within the unspoken darkness, as the fire burns brightly in the center of these ritualistic instrumentals. The chanter screams and screams all the while and you fuse with the sound. This liquid gem of a song seeps through the surface of the skin, sinking deeper and deeper, before ingraining itself into the mind.

MERCENARIES

Unearth Noise declares the track, Mercenaries “jihad rock” in its SoundCloud description. Sweeping the mind back into the depths of psychedelic rock mixed with dreamlike chanting and a riff that is perhaps only a bit reminiscent of TOOL.  The influence is there if you ear is attuned to it. Can you hear it?

Fire energy power rises growing more and more into gigantic proportions of chaotic consumption. One will take a trip through the flames and into the jaws of the rainbow machine charring and flickering with heat and fury. The cage opens to unleash a wrath filled entity that Unearth Noise has created here to play and to destroy and burn on and on in our presence.

“I was always attracted to music and sound. I remember there was a drummer in the apartment complex I grew up in, and I would peek through his basement window when I was like 4 years old to watch him practice. My father had an interesting record collection that I would browse through. I don’t remember him playing much of it, but I found a Ravi Shankar album and Julian Bream. I was hooked on those. It’s unavoidable to be influenced by music or musical concepts that one likes. I grew up listening to Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. I don’t think I will ever escape those aesthetics, no matter how remote they may be. Eno, Fripp, PiL, Harry Partch and Cage of course. It’s all in there…but as I say, within Unearth Noise, I seek to escape these influences and let something bigger take over. I guess it’s what the beat writers were after with cut-ups, and what Cage did with aleatory.”  Thus O’witz’s music, flowers in the direction that it’s meant to, leaving its fate to the decisions of earthly muses.

THEE ANCIENT ALIENS

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The lyrics and tracks of Thee Ancient Aliens at times, contain the freshly formed gut wrenching patterns of bitterness and regret.

SATURATED

oh, my cheek’s been saturated
it’s been weeks since I deflated
Strong & Sleek says he’s belated

wet with that attitude
so why would I question you
bet all in on gratitude
go all in if you’re in that kind of a mood

fixed my brakes when I tried stoppin’
through the gates & hell so often
right through plate glass into coffin

wet with that attitude
so why would I question you
bet all in on gratitude
go all in if you’re in that kind of a mood

maybe I’ve been the same . . .

Just the same, it also delivered to me the warm memories of listening to Alice In Chains as a teenager and riding in the back of my best friend’s and her boyfriend’s car in high school. It also partially brought along with it, hints of a Donovan inspired style. The songs of Unearth Noise and singer, StoneCatcher Eye, ultimately lead a person into a nostalgic domain of magic, enchantment and childlike wonder. The veil is thin and you can feel the Gaia’s eyes and smiles. Within their words, the possessed connect, creating a sound map that only they can see and another lucid dreamlike world that to the average listener, is so easy to see with eyes closed, but so impossible to actually touch.

“I read and listened to a lot of John Cage and the concept of not being in control of the music really appealed to me, like an epiphany,” explained O’witz. “Generally, I set up some sort of process to let the music happen, and guide it in some way. In the case of Dreamspeak, Aliens and Shadowface, we are all making conscious decisions about what notes to play.” Essentially this means that nothing really seems to be entirely planned within these projects. Each time it continues to happen as it wills itself, taking on a life of its own.

Later the two brought in a third party from Germany, who goes by the name of Bitzone. The three then formed the group Shadowface, making them officially a psychedelic trio…

SHADOWFACE

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…and so Shadowface became a reality.

COZEN

bitzone – percussion, samples, mix & treatments
stone catcherye – bass, vocals, lyrics
unearth noise – acoustic and electric guitars

please don’t bother, don’t root for me
please erase your opinion-ed mind
trees for fodder, as moon to sea
why we bother, I cannot see

sleepy hollow is headless-ness
crying sorrow, ’cause you got dissed
please don’t bother and save your spit
why we bother, I just don’t get

and you call yourself a friend
where are all your hands to lend
one way street, time and again
and you call yourself a friend

and you want in, you want to be friends
screaming something that doesn’t make sense
and you want in, without consequence
saying something that doesn’t make sense
and you call yourself a friend

your selfishness has broke the dam
swimming now, you look for my hand
please don’t bother or understand
why we bother, it just won’t end

and you call yourself a friend
where are all your hands to lend

I don’t have any sympathy for you
when I look at your face, I see there’s two
tell me, what did I ever do to you?

and you call yourself a friend
where are all your hands to lend
one way street, time and again
and you call yourself a friend

and you want in, you want to be friends
screaming something that doesn’t make sense
and you want in, without consequence
saying something that makes you look dense

and you call yourself
a friend, a friend, a friend ’til the end

Written by Stone Catchereye, “Cozen” is a well made piece, with lyrics that provoke such an acute and unexplainable twinge of agonizing sorrow. Cozen brought me to that all too well-known place where humans continuously harm and mistrust one another, and with good reason. Perhaps Stone Catchereye and Bitzone are both artists in which I’d like to learn a little more about at another time. As a trio, their talent & wit will not be able to argue itself away or hide underneath a cloak of invisibility.

                                           Stone Catchereye (Above)

                                                Bitzone (Icon Below) 

O’witz both poised and careful in his responses, allowed his creative consciousness to search for the right words, so he could most accurately convey a sense of understanding both with me, as well as with himself. “Non-verbal language is much more difficult to manipulate than words. I think words are a blunt tool. That’s why I like animals and what I try to do with my music.”

DREAMSPEAK

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(Myrh & Unearth Noise Shown Below)

Unearth Noise features the vocals of (Myrh) a.k.a taRka (Mariam Zohra) on both his solo project tracks (my favorite “Ahona” up above,) as well as in the project Dreamspeak.

(A link to some of taRka’s work is featured here.) 

“So our project (Mariam & I) is Dreamspeak. We met via Soundcloud. I think she made some comments on some Unearth Noise pieces, and then I listened to Tarka/Myrh – a song called “Wooden Horse,” and I really thought we could do something interesting together. I’ve always loved South Asian music, and she has a command over that. Her vocal approach is very unpredictable and greatly appealed to me. In the past, I used “found” voices for the more experimental Unearth Noise pieces, but she gradually sort of replaced that need for the exotic.”

I thought about this for a moment, and thought to myself that perhaps Myrh paved the road for Unearth Noise to allow his experimental nature to erupt, burn and flow, creating and destroying all in the same moment.

“What do you mean when you say found,” I asked. It was a terminology that I was not all that familiar with, and so, naturally I was being my typical inquisitive self and desired more explanation.

“That’s a term that I think Eno used, but maybe it came from Marcel Duchamp. Basically, it means you find some source material (in my case maybe a recording of some Arabic chanting,) and cut and splice until it fits your piece of music. “Accelerant” from Unearth Noise is a good example of this.”

(See track link to Accelerant closer to the beginning of this article.) 

Unearth Noise‘s and Myrh‘s latest track is called “Scorpia” and it is one of Unearth Noise‘s personal favorites that he would like for me to share with you, music enthusiast.

…And of course, here’s my pick from Dreamspeak, under the Amsterdam record label, “Lullabies for Insomniacs.” It’s called “Offering Bowl” and it is 7 minutes of cleansing and purity that you can only receive when the mind wishes to let go of all that might disease it. You can find this track here on BandCamp at the link below.

Offering Bowl Under Lullabies For Insomniacs

Perhaps the song appeals to some deep ancient instinct buried within the many mysteries that this physical realm contains, but it reaches inside my human shell, and touches what one would call a soul, and so I feel that there is no end to the dance that has been mixed and burned inside the offering bowl. My thoughts are murky and muddled now, as I listen to it once more.

I hope you enjoyed this article, as this has been another Waking Dream All Exclusive “SoundCloud Interview.” Please Let us know what you think of Unearth Noise‘s tracks, as well as those of Thee Ancient Aliens, Shadowface & Dreamspeak in the comments section below. Also feel free to message us if you have any thoughts of who you’d like to hear about next. Thank you again, and until the next article, take care.

-Liz Lund

Waking Dream’s YouTube

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