Electromancy, physical emotional and deeply spiritual level

Electromancy’s music is technical black metal, mixing black metal with bits of death metal, experimentalism, and technical composition. The robots aren’t a gimmick, they are core to the sound, allowing textures, patterns, and compositions that are not natural to and sometimes not possible for a human musician. Some of these compositional eccentricities include phasing multiple rhythmic melodies on a single instrument and simply extremely fast and chaotic composition. In addition to the robots, Satyra fills the bass frequencies with a drone horn made from a modified PVC pipe (the resulting instrument is similar to but not quite the same as a didgeridoo). This full, enveloping bass sound creates a grounded floor for the otherwise chaotic music. More than half of this album was painstakingly composed by foot during periods where Satyra’s illness made their hands unusable.
Electromancy’s lyrical themes largely revolve around Satyra’s struggle with a physical disability, the uncertainty of their lifespan with chronic illness, and the spiritual experiences brought on from facing human fragility & mortality so directly (often with surprisingly uplifting conclusions). These musical themes paired with the robotic instrumentation and the story of why this all came to be create a profoundly raw and unique experience.

Musicwebzine – Hi there, first of all, tell us something about the band
Electromancy – Electromancy is a series of robots hacked together by a disabeld musician to play technical black metal. Literally. That’s not a thematic concept, that’s the literal true story.
I’m Satyra, the creator of Electromancy. I met my bandmates at a recycling center, where I haggled for their lives to then only carve out their faces and fill them with hacked together electronics. My bandmates are all mannikins. In 2018 I started having strange and intense health issues that, among other things, caused me to lose a lot of function in my hands. Honestly, I didn’t know if I was dying or not (and sometimes I still don’t know). It was a huge kick in the butt to stop putting my dreams aside, a big one of which was releasing a metal album. But with my hands issues I couldn’t play instruments anymore. So what did I do? I built robot guitars, drums and bandmates to play my music for me.

Musicwebzine – Which is the main theme of your album ?
Electromancy – This album Technopagan is largely about my experience with disability and chronic illness, from a physical emotional and deeply spiritual level. Going through such intense and uncertain health issues, especially in the beginning having zero idea what was going on and now only having a slightly clearer picture, it’s a traumatic experience. As I stayed in some of the lyrics, disability asks for a repeated grieving of oneself, Who we were before and what our bodies can physically do. This project helped me express that grief and return to states of peace, over and over again. It also reminded me through proof that my life and dreams weren’t over, that my process may be slower and a little crazier now, but my life is still full and many of my dreams are still in reach. The release of this album was a big dream of mine.

Musicwebzine – What about the cover and the title of your album ?
Electromancy – I am so so happy with how the album art came out. It’s a picture of one of my “bandmates”, the hacked up mannikins I have on stage with me that light up according to the compositions. These mannikins embody so many concepts I play with in my music & band, there duality between organic and inorganic, and the paradox of being broken yet filled with life and presence.

From very early on I had this vision for the album cover. A portrait. Of a shattered body. Somewhere between human and inhuman. But the emotional tone is not one of defeat. The figure in the portrait does not look destitute, it stares back, alive and fierce. I am broken. And I am more powerful than ever.

I almost want to call it a self portrait of my emotional state at the time, but obviously it’s not of my physical self. I guess in lots of ways that’s just sort of what art is, isn’t it?
The album is called Technopagan for so many reasons. This mix between organic and technological, human and inhuman, it’s a spiritual journey brought forth through technology. It was just a perfect album name as soon as I thought of it.

Musicwebzine – Which bands has influenced your sound ?
Electromancy – I would count my biggest musical influences as Portal and Liturgy on the metal side. I love their rawness & willingness to experiment, and in particular love Liturgy’s ability to do that from a deeply emotional place. on the conversational side my biggest influence is probably Dan Deacon. I just love the way he takes some of the compositional minimalism foundations of Philip glass and really explores them in a maximal sensory stimulating way. Brilliant. Moritz Simon Geist was also a big influence on the robotics side of things as well. Dude it’s just a robotitcs wizard.

Musicwebzine – Do you think that we can still live only on music?
Electromancy – My music has made me live in a way I absolutely could not have otherwise. So I will say a big yes to this.

Musicwebzine – That’s all!! greeted our readers with a message!
Electromancy – Thank you so much to everyone for being interested in my band and music. It feels surreal every day to have actually managed to bring this crazy project to life & I’m be really proud of the music I’m making. This is just the beginning, and I’m so grateful for everyone of you who follows along on the adventure. Please follow along with the links below!