READERSVOICE.COM: Do some landscapes or seascapes from his stories, or creatures, inspire some of your pieces, like Abysmal Sunken Waste. And are visual scenes, like the work of Goya, the starting point for your songs? Or even locations around Kansas?

IRON CTHULHU APOCALYPSE: I actually made most of my songs in Colorado. Or at least half of them, as of now. But neither Kansas nor Colorado influenced me at all, aesthetic-wise. Visual scenes are also never a starting point in my music, though I do find good scenes after the fact to put alongside them on Youtube. Nonetheless, the actual sounds I pursue are very much in line with the feelings and moods I get from horror and weird fiction, specifically, and Lovecraft most of all. Visual representations of Lovecraftian scenes, as well as a lot of science fiction and horror imagery from the late 1950s to early 1990s is all very influential. I pursue these sounds because I love that imagery and, for me, these sounds do evoke exactly that.

RV: What are some of your favorite drone or dark ambient albums from other artists?

ICA: I don’t listen to complete albums so much anymore as just playlists of an artist’s music, but Forgotten Dawn and Sekelslyper are two of the latest ones I’ve really liked. They’re both on Youtube and fans of my music should check them out. If we’re talking old-school, though, I think the song Flowered Knife Shadows by Harold Budd is the best dark ambient song I’ve ever heard. Nothing has compared to it. I want to live on the planet depicted in that song. Thomas Koner’s Teimo and Permafrost are great, and anything by Lull. I’m a big fan of Sunn O))), also.

RV: How did you meet with and come to work with Forgotten Dawn on the song Umbra?

ICA: He contacted me on Youtube. It was as simple as that. He’s very gifted when it comes to music – not only dark ambient, but a lot of other genres as well.

RV: What are some of your plans?

ICA: I’m slowly re-releasing all my albums with better mixing. A lot of the mixes I did were sloppy and sub-par, to be frank, so I’m making them better. I haven’t actually gotten any complaints from people but if I know I could do better, I want the better stuff to be out there. It’s a lot of work, though, because I’ve got multiple hundreds of songs to go through. Other than that, I just make mixes for Youtube to keep getting my stuff out there.

– see Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse on Youtube and Bandcamp.
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