NOTE:
This interview was originally published by Heathen Harvest in 2015, and
has been republished here only because Heathen Harvest is no more, and I
wanted people to still be able to read it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fierce Strength: an Interview with Eko Eko Azarak
Eko, eko, Azarak
Eko, eko, Zomelak
Bazabi lacha bachabe
Lamac cahi achababe
Karrellyos
Lamac lamac Bachalyas
Cabahagy sabalyos
Baryolos
Lagoz atha cabyolas
Samahac atha famolas
Hurrahya!
Eko, eko, Zomelak
Bazabi lacha bachabe
Lamac cahi achababe
Karrellyos
Lamac lamac Bachalyas
Cabahagy sabalyos
Baryolos
Lagoz atha cabyolas
Samahac atha famolas
Hurrahya!
So goes the Wiccan chant, also known as the ‘Witch’s Chant’, or the ‘Eko Eko Chant’, as popularised in the early 1900s by Gerald Gardner
(widely considered to be the founder of Wicca as a proper organised
religion), although parts of it (particularly the opening Eko Eko lines)
had been published in various forms much earlier than his (including
one version published twenty years earlier in Austin Osman Spare’s Form
journal). No-one is exactly sure what the chant means, but—like many
other religious chants—it is still practised by hundreds of thousands of
Wiccans the world over. Mysterious as it is confronting, obscure in
specific meaning but rich in visceral power, ‘The Witch’s Chant’ defies
easy interpretation: much like Emma Albury, the sole figure behind
Australian dark ritual act ‘Eko Eko Azarak’.
Like her namesake, Eko Eko Azarak
is difficult to categorise, seemingly made up of polar opposites: her
work is deeply mystical, and yet she displays a wary atheism; she revels
in both the authenticity of true ritual, and the crowd-pleasing world
of pure gimmickry; she admits to both a need for blatant
attention-seeking, and a need for intense privacy. She is just as
likely to bring up the World Wrestling Federation as she is to reference
elemental mysticism or the power of butoh. Before the interview, she warns me that she feels ‘really uncomfortable talking about Eko Eko Azarak’, and yet, when answers are given, they are lengthy, detailed, and effusive.
Acutely aware of her own inner contradictions, Emma begins with a disclaimer…
Emma Albury: I actually feel really uncomfortable talking about Eko Eko Azarak because
I don’t really understand, or therefore know how to verbalize, what
happens. I know the language I use makes me sound like a total jerk-off
hippie space cadet when I try to explain it, because it isn’t easily
defined through digestible concepts. If someone spoke to me about their
music the way I’m about to, I’d consider them a shit dribbler. Usually
when people ask me to talk about my music, I tell them to just listen
to it and they’ll hear what I have to say.
Heathen Harvest:
I think that the jerk-off hippie space-cadet language is all we’ve got
to describe these experiences, though. When you’re raised in a
scientific-industrialised culture, there’s this prevailing notion that
just because something can’t be measured yet, it doesn’t exist; there’s a
confusion between an absence of proof, and proof of absence. We’re
raised into this system that doesn’t give us a decent linguistic
framework with which we can express our experiences, and so we end up
having to use words like ‘energies’, ‘possession’, and ‘spirit’, and
kind of feeling like we’re mentally deficient in some way.
EA: True. I feel the
linguistic framework we have been provided with has been misused by so
many to validate a denial of privilege (i.e., ‘I manifested for the universe to grant me this gift.’
No, you didn’t. You were born into a life of white middle-class
privilege, and due to this were granted opportunities which you then
took.), to validate inaction and laziness (i.e., ‘The spirits will guide me to my fate when the forces are aligned.’
No, just get off your ass and quit bumming off everyone else … and
rinse out your bong water. That swamp will give you lung disease.), or
to validate being a total creep (i.e., someone saying ‘Oh, your energy is misaligned. Let me cleanse your chakras.’
and then attempting to put their hands down your pants to access your
groin chakra or whatever.) You know, I’m blatantly jilted by their
misuse and cautious of the stigma surrounding these subjects, but I’m
not a nihilist and do actually have a lot of belief in the esoteric.
HH: When
I first saw you perform, you were enrobed in cloak and adorned with
massive horns, standing powerful in the middle of a darkened smoky room
made of mud and straw, and the audience was all around you, silent,
while you formed these ritualistic soundscapes from scratch, drop by
drop, with an eclectic array of instruments (drums, synth, bells, tape
machine, monochordy-type thing) and many layers of voice. The vibe was
intense and concentrated, and you moved gradually, incrementally, from
near silence to seriously inhuman exorcist voices—growling, shrieking,
demonic, and ancient voices of fearful supremacy—and the overall feeling
in the room was like we’d all just been part of some rite of passage;
some unifying supernatural witnessing; some inexplicable
pressure-and-release of energies beyond the mortal ken. Is that what Eko Eko Azarak
is all about? I guess what I’m trying to ask here is: Is it about the
music first, or the ritual first, or are they both one and the same?
EA: Both, for sure! Performing
music is a ritualistic act—for everyone. I guess I just consciously
heighten that element of the process.
I feel the ritual of making music as Eko
Eko Azarak is an evocation of something from within me. It taps into a
very grounded, strong, powerful, primordial, almost animistic element of
myself. It has a very feminine quality to it, but by that I don’t mean
‘feminine’ in the general regard of the word. Not one of a delicate,
pretty, and quaint nature. I mean ‘feminine’ as in the true essence of
women. Instinctive, intuitive, emotionally wise, resilient, and loyal,
with a firm inner strength (qualities that are unfortunately often
denied in women but intrinsically there). When I evoke that state from
within, I feel connected to a lineage of women (I’m not sure why only
women?) tracing far back throughout history, and far into the future.
Not necessarily of my own descent, because the connection spreads
broader than that.
HH:
‘Feminine’ is such a weasel word, isn’t it? For every one of us that
has been born, a woman has howled and groaned and bellowed and pushed,
gone beyond their enculturation and into something primal and biological
and intensely strong, earthy, and powerful, in a way that men can never
quite access. Comedian Shen Wang said, ‘Why do people
say ‘grow some balls’? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be
tough, grow a vagina.’ The actual ‘feminine’ experience is rich with
blood, strength, pain, and biological being-hood. I mean, the menstrual
cycle matches the cycle of the moon, birth-rates can be correlated with
storm activity … there’s something deeply elemental going on inside
ladykind.
EA: For sure! I’m still in awe of
the fact that when I have a close relationship with a woman, our
menstrual cycles will sync. This is a phenomenon most women experience. I
think it illustrates the powerful connection between women and our
surroundings.
I feel extremely connected to the
elements and nature, which is why I named myself Eko Eko Azarak. It’s
the first line in a Wiccan chant evoking the powers of the elements. I
feel, in a way, that’s what I somehow do when I perform as Eko Eko
Azarak. It’s very bizarre. The ‘energy’ (for lack of a better word) I
evoke has light and gentle elements to it, and there is also a beauty in
the truth of the darkness and violence within it. None of it resonates
as negative or bad, because there is an honesty to the bleakness, just
as in nature. I’m sure the feeling is something most would consider
supernatural (but that term has too much stigma for my liking) as I’m
tapping into something within myself to connect with something that
feels far bigger than me (not ‘God’—I’m an atheist). I’m then somehow
able to release this as an energy out into the audience. I guess the
music and my body language acts as a vessel to carry the expression of
that energy (It’s fucking hippie wank, but I honestly don’t know how
else to describe it). I do wonder if many other musicians experience
this.
Unfortunately I haven’t yet been able to
harness control over this energy. It’s not a switch or mode I can just
shift into. There are a number of variable factors that need to align
before I’m able to tap into that place within myself—if I’ve been too
busy or stressed and am therefore not grounded, or if my mind is
elsewhere. I struggle to reach that place if I’m having lots of
technical difficulties, which happens a lot because I don’t have the musical skills or equipment to create these epic sonic
pieces my mind conjures. I know when I’ve tapped into it because I
feel possessed, yet at the same time very grounded. I often finish sets
and can’t remember anything I’ve just done. I need to be left alone
for a bit once I’ve finished, to allow myself to come back to
‘reality’. Saying that, I do appreciate it when people come up and tell
me they enjoyed the set, because that’s why I’m doing it: to share it
with people and to affect them in a positive way. But I’m just unable
to have conversations with anyone for a bit.
HH:
Is the ritual more powerful because it’s in a room full of witnesses,
or is it a ‘band’ playing ‘to’ an ‘audience’? Is the audience part of
the ritual, or watching the ritual, or, again, do you think it’s one and
the same?
EA: The ‘audience’ is an essential
element in the ritual. I get nervous when I perform in front of people
and the adrenaline heightens my senses and makes it easier for me to
tap into these energies I’ve discussed. For a digestible description of
Eko Eko Azarak, I refer to what I do as a ‘performance’, but I have
experience in performance and what I do with Eko Eko Azarak doesn’t suit
the conventional understanding of the term. Because—and I admit this
sounds pretentious—if I’m present in the moment and the ritual is taking
effect, I feel like I’m no longer ‘performing’. It’s not an ‘act’, and
so it is no longer delivered ‘to’ an audience, but envelops them in the
energy (for lack of better word) that is intensified in the space. I
think a lot of musicians feel this way, but during a good set I feel
like the energy between the audience and I is this growing, swelling,
pulsating, beautiful amoeba. That amoeba of beautiful energy is the
idol we all devote the ritual of making music to. The audience partakes
in the ritual whether they intend to or not. I feed off their energy,
but I’m also generating it from my own sources and sending it back out
to them. I think this is why the audience seems quite invigorated after
successful sets (either that, or because I scream and blast their faces
off). I hate it when I can’t tap into that place within me, or
whatever external energies I seem to connect with in this ritual.
Because then it does feel like an act, a performance, or a
farce—so hollow and meaningless—and I want to apologise to the audience
for that. It feels like a ‘show’ rather than some unexplained
harnessing of power, truth, or primordial regression shared within the
space that I’ve somehow managed to draw from within myself and from an
external force for a brief moment in time. That’s what I want to
share with the ‘audience’, because I want them to feel whatever
phenomenon I’m experiencing within and for themselves.
HH: Before Eko Eko Azarak you were part of Leopard Leg,
a band which numbered members in the double figures, mostly playing
percussion, all pounding rhythms, repeated chants, and ritualistic
vibe-generation. How long have you been exploring these ritualistic
approaches to music?
EA: Ha! You’ve done your research! Yeah, Leopard Leg was rad. We were pretty hit-and-miss (we did some terrible performances/recordings
and some amazing ones too), but we were sometimes able to collectively
tap into this force I’ve been discussing. They were only brief moments
and more dispersed, so it didn’t feel as immense within me as it does
with Eko Eko Azarak, but it was there. The ‘noise scene’ was
very much a cock fight back then, and most of us had never been in a
band before, so Leopard Leg was a collective we felt safe within—to
delve into that world and gradually build confidence. And Leopard Leg
was a posse of really excellent women. It was something special,
but maybe everyone thinks that about their band … unless they’ve had a
brutal breakup and then there’s only spittin’ words left.
I’ve played musical instruments and
studied music all my life, but I’ve never been one to conform and didn’t
want to practice scales and compose pieces according to the rules. So I
never actually became any good at it. I’m not a musician, I’m a
fucking hack! I don’t know what I’m doing, but I do love throwing away
whatever I’ve learned about music (though I’m sure some subconscious
residue sticks) and non-verbally communicating through music in whatever
munted form it takes.
After Leopard Leg in the UK, I moved to Berlin and played in a duo called Ankoku No Oto with Holly Herndon (who
is now ruling that high-brow experimental electronic scene in the U.S.
She’s bitchin’, and I’m heaps proud of her). ‘Ankoku No Oto’ roughly
translates to ‘the sound of darkness’. The name was a bit of a homage
to ‘Ankoku No Butoh’ (‘the dance of darkness’), so yes, I was dipping my
toes in beautifully grim places much like now.
Incidentally, both bands tapped into the
occult for inspiration: witch-burning, harpies, spirits. I really don’t
know why the occult is a recurring theme. Eko Eko Azarak uses less
direct references in the music itself, but occult visuals are
implemented in the performances. I guess it’s because in all musical
incarnations we were tapping into something unexplained, and the only
way for us to interpret that was to present it through already existing
beliefs in mysticism. I don’t know, it was never really discussed.
But I’ve always had an interest in the occult, because of course there is more out there than human senses are able to detect or comprehend. I mean, that’s not hocus pocus,
that’s a scientific fact … watch any documentary on astrophysics! And
I’m fascinated by what those unknown things may be, and the ways in
which humans attempt to harness the ability to experience such things.
Eko Eko Azarak is a practice in exactly that, but I don’t try to
question whatever it is I’m tapping into, because it almost feels like
it isn’t useful to dissect it. I’ll never have the answer defining what
it is, because I’m not sure such definitions exist. I think it is just
best felt and shared.
Like Leopard Leg, Ankoku No Oto was
hit-and-miss (we tried to cram too many ideas into single pieces and we
didn’t have the technical aptitude to execute our sonic visions), but
there was something really unique there. We had a heartfelt connection
with one another, and I feel it served as an important stepping stone in
my personal musical evolution.
HH: From Leopard Leg and Ankoku No Oto, you became a solo project. What precipitated the formation of Eko Eko Azarak? When and why did it become a ‘thing’?
EA: After Berlin, I moved to
Melbourne and often found myself as a guest musician, jamming with lots
of different people, and I felt confident being part of a band. But I’m
a masochist and always need to challenge myself. I was terrified of playing solo. So of course I had to do it. That’s how Eko Eko Azarak was born. My first ever gig was at Stutter (an experimental night regularly held in Melbourne), and it was the worst!
I still shudder thinking about it. Everything that could go wrong,
went wrong. It was so bad that everyone felt too sorry for me to heckle
and instead started cheering me on, shouting things like ‘you can do it!’.
It was so humiliating, but I knew I couldn’t possibly ever play a worse
set than that, so it gave me some kind of warped confidence to keep
going and continue on with the project. A few sets later, I found my
mojo.
After I played solo for a couple of years
I missed the collaborative approach to music-making and the unique
relationships you form with people in your band. So Gurner (with Sharryn Koppens [Dick Threats] and Fjorn Butler [Oranj Punjabi / N3 Warriors])
was formed, and it’s now one of the most important aspects of my life.
Making music with those two and the relationship we share is the shit
that makes life worth living. I feel a lot more pressure with Eko Eko
Azarak. I hold sole responsibility for how it does (or doesn’t) affect
people, and it’s such an intense project that there’s a lot of pressure
placed upon myself to pull it off. Pressure mainly from myself, but
audiences have expectations too. I can’t always pull it off, and that’s
all on me—and that sucks! I can relax a lot more in a band
knowing that I can ebb and flow, and together we can create a sonic
landscape. I do thrive on the high of committing to your own vision and
pulling off the desired effect though. I dig playing solo and in
bands, and would like to continue doing both.
HH: So far, we haven’t touched on the actual music of Eko Eko Azarak. It’s built up in layers with loop pedals, but can be wildly eclectic, ranging from John Carpenter-style synth-tastic horror soundtracks, to Goblin-esque pieces of abstract giallo, to Druidic-sounding free-folk dirges. What are your instruments / sound sources / processes?
EA: Oh, I like those
comparisons! Thanks! I listen to a really diverse range of music (while
still admittedly being a total music snob), but I don’t think there’s
any direct influences on my music creations. I guess it’s just a
subconscious witch’s brew of genres bubbling away inside of me. The only
exception to this was an ode I wrote to Burzum entitled ‘I’d Love You More if You Weren’t a National Socialist’. Varg Vikernes
is one of my all-time favourite musicians (and we share the same
birthday), but I had to quit listening to him because I felt I couldn’t
align myself with the rhetoric that he was espousing. I feel his racist
beliefs are disseminated through his art, unlike other artists whose
personal beliefs or lifestyle choices I may not agree with but are kept
isolated from their output which I am digesting and supporting. I have a
similar relationship with many misogynist and homophobic hip-hop
artists who I love. I just determine my support on a case-by-case basis
in consideration of where my boundaries lie. There’s definitely a
questionable grey area I struggle with, but other times it’s clear that I
need to take a stance. So yeah, I guess I wrote Burzum a break-up
song. (laughs) That’s the only piece I’ve ever written with
any set intention or vision. Every other song involves me just sitting
down, trying to clear my head, and letting whatever happens happen—just
adding layer upon layer while rarely editing.
As far as the techs go … you know, that’s
a tough one because the instruments change every time. I collect an
array of instruments to misuse. There’s only a few instruments I
actually know how to play, but that doesn’t stop me from utilising all
the others. The only thing that is constant is my loop pedal and the
delay on my vocals. I don’t use any other effects on my vocals. People
think I use a pitch shifter, but I don’t. I just have phantom balls so I
can hit those deep notes while also being able to squeal high like a
piggie. I used a vocoder for a bit, but it was fucking with my signal
flow and I kept feeding back like a motherfucker. I tried a few
different chain formations with it but without much luck. It was never
intended to be a main feature so I ended up ditching it.
HH:
I’ve seen you play encased in a cocoon filled with branches and sticks;
I’ve seen you with bullhorns and druidic robes; I’ve seen you play from
within a white pyramid projected with images of flickering fire. How
important is the visual aspect of Eko Eko Azarak? Not
just in ‘how it looks’, but in creating a spectacle, a psychopompic
manifestation of some sort? And where is the line between creating a
‘show’, and having a ‘gimmick’?
EA: I think Eko Eko Azarak is gimmicky!
And I’m down with that. I’m not pretentious enough to deny the appeal
of gimmicks. I mean, 80’s wrestlers like WWF’s ‘Macho Man‘ Randy Savage and G.L.O.W.‘s ‘Heavy Metal Sisters‘ (in fact the music genre heavy metal in general), John Water‘s ‘Odorama‘ … these things are awesome! People consider gimmicks to be low-brow and cheap. I love low-brow
and cheap! Perhaps gimmicks are viewed as insincere and without
integrity. Well, I think that’s bollocks because every corpse-painted
Norwegian dude, tromping through snow-buried forests, freezing his
leather-harnessed nipples off, must really fucking mean it! Gimmicks
are about increasing appeal, making things stand out a bit more,
creating something a little more unique.
There’s a lot of top-notch
music in Melbourne, and I’m not that crash-hot a musician, so I wanted
to give people something more than what’s already on tap. I want people
to have a real ‘experience’ when they see me live. Take them to
another realm, or tap into unfamiliar or rarely visited places within
themselves. My gimmicks aren’t intended to be funny or even fun like
most are (hey, if people find them fun, that’s cool too), but they are
sincere attempts to attract people, drawing them in and making them more
open to the experience. Besides, surely no one wants to just watch me
fumbling around with my instruments. That’s boring. One of my bachelor
degrees is in Theatre Arts and although I hate most theatre, I do
appreciate the power of its elements (costumes, sets, props, lighting,
multimedia, etc.) in effectively creating an atmosphere and drawing
people into a moment. I actually want to extend these elements a lot
further, but I don’t have the money or resources to turn my visions into
a reality just yet.
HH:
It’s almost like it’s only ‘gimmicky’ if the ritual as a whole isn’t
genuine; on one of those nights when you just can’t ‘feel it’, your
props are just props, but on a night when you’re fully transcendent,
your props are powerful spiritual allegories, as ‘real’ as any wand,
totem, Ouija Board, or Tarot deck. It’s like Communion or
something—those wine and crackers can be just gimmicks, or they can be
the actual blood and body of God.
EA: Right on.
HH: There’s a tape out through Sabbatical and a couple of live bits and pieces around the internet—is that all the Eko Eko Azarak material that
we’ve got? Are there any more recordings ferreted around that may see
the light of day (I know I’ve got an audio recording of the pyramid
performance somewhere)? How important is documentation when it comes to
Eko Eko Azarak? Is capturing the moment ever as important as the actual moment itself?
EA: Yeah, that’s about it for now.
I don’t like doing recordings and I’m not really interested in
documentation. I’d really rather people just come to see me play live.
I’m aware that a certain energy is created when I’m playing and am able
to tap into that place I’ve discussed. It can be felt by the audience;
it’s exchanged by them and rises in the space. You can’t capture that
in a recording and creating that feeling in the audience is my main
desire, so what’s the point? I’m not trying to make money or a name for
myself, so I don’t give a toot about getting my name out there. I’m
not a good musician, and when I play live, no one seems to give a shit
because it’s about the experience. But in recordings, all the
out-of-tune, out-of-time bung bits are captured, and it sounds like
dogs’ balls. Plus the pieces never sound as epic as they do in my head,
so it’s always underwhelming, but people are supportive and keep asking
me to do releases. Every now and then I surrender because I’m honoured
that people want to listen to my music, and I swallow my pride and
share something with them. I’m sure I’ll do more in the future—probably
sooner than later because people are bugging me for stuff, which is
sweet.
HH: So Eko Eko Azarak isn’t dead?
EA: No, not dead. She’s a zombie
and she will rise again and again. I just decided on some time out
about a year ago for a few reasons. I found myself going through a
period where I was more frequently going through the motions; there were
less ‘evocations’, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. When I can’t tap
into that place, I walk off the stage (or whatever space I’m performing
in) feeling totally gutted. I feel like con-artist faux witch doctor. I
hate it after those performances when people tell me they enjoyed it
because I feel like I’ve deceived them, because they’ve bought the
‘act’, and also because I couldn’t create what I intended to share with
them, and it feels pointless and insincere.
When I do these performances I make myself really
vulnerable. You know, there’s no rock-god posturing going down. I dig
deep and wrench it out. So, another aspect that I struggled with is
that I don’t always feel like being that vulnerable in front of a group
of people. Sometimes I’m in a more introverted mood and so then it’s
like, ‘right, do I metaphorically spew myself raw, or do I not dig to that place and then feel like a fucking farce?’
In those cases, I want to do justice to whatever it is I evoke with Eko
Eko Azarak, and I want to give the people what they want, so I usually
try to evoke that place of truth, even if I’m not in the mood. You
can’t force this shit (well, at least, I can’t), so if I’m not in
the right state to succeed, I can’t reach it, and by the end of the set
I feel totally gross. At times like that I even have moments during
the performances where it feels so disingenuous and I just want it to
end. It’s horrible! I mean, it’s not like genocide or anything (you
have to keep things in perspective), but forcing myself to be that
vulnerable—raw as fuck, stripping down ego and shields—while then being
unable to tap into that place of strength just leaves me feeling
vulnerable and let down. It does make me very emotional in a negative
way. Particularly because in those cases I’m often literally under a
spotlight!
But on the flip-side, when I do tap into that space and I can tell the crowd is resonating on that energy too, and it fills the space, fuck,
that feels immense! I feel like a giant ball of power and fierce
strength. And my intention is to send that out into the audience so it
triggers that same feeling within each individual. I mean, it’s a
shared mass phenomenon that I’ve never experienced from any other
source. I want more of that and it seems like others do too.
HH: Absolutely! Thanks heaps for your time, it means a lot.
EA: No, seriously, thank you! That’s from the heart, man. Your support, and the fact that you get something out of Eko Eko Azarak, gives purpose to what I do. So, thanks.
