regal murk

By Sean Maldjian, Contributor

Photo provided by, regal murk

Meet regal murk

A self-portrait by, regal murk

Would you rather…

eat pizza you picked up from the subway stairs or lick the bottom of every subway seat?

Anything not yet claimed by the rats has got to be pretty fresh.

Some questions with regal murk

Hey there, thank you for putting an interview together with us. Can you introduce us to your project regal murk?

Hello – Thank you very much. Regal Murk is a kind of lo-fi rock project that is attempting to enter a dialog with culture beyond simply being dictated to, to make myself feel less like being exclusively a consumer. It is made in defiance of death, and an attempt to not practice resignation. It's also just for fun and contains lines like, “a reflecting pool full of piss remains nonetheless a reflecting pool.” This is what I think is good.

How do you decide when a song is actually finished? Is it easy?

The trope is true, eventually it is abandoned. But there's a lot of layering and stripping of layers involved. There is plenty of just exporting WAV files and looking for The Feeling (tm), which is a sense of the accumulated elements becoming something other, a pleasing by the sum of parts kind of startling and transfixing you. Maybe, rarely, there are goosebumps, maybe it's just a little bewildering. Maybe there's a considerable doubt you can do it again, or that something will be lost in tampering, or that you think you hear a ghost chorus or some instrument you didn't directly put in it as the tones refract off one another. Sometimes that happens in the demo, then you record 6 versions and nothing is as good. Sometimes you gotta strip off 12 tracks you elaborately layered on the week before. The better, shorter answer is from Elliott saying: If you like it, maybe someone else will. You can make and release different versions, the important thing is to make anything at all and refine.

Your 2022 recently released EPs seem to follow a similar pattern in album artwork and structure. What inspired this series?

I was in a creative rut. I thought I had finished an album at the end of 2021 but it turned out it wasn't. The Dead Dream Team series is an EP a month for the year 2022, to build off the seeds of the usable tracks from 2021 and attempt to develop the ideas further. Then when it's over the plan is to cull them all back down again and make a record in 2023. Anything I like that doesn't make it will be the core of the next album... and it goes on like this. Like any good coward worth his weight in blood, I wouldn't start a project unless I was already mostly finished with it.

Each EP cover features the skeleton of an individual who in my estimation fought for decency relative to their miserable contemporaries: Toussaint, Garibaldi, Qiu Jin, Paoli, Keller, Allende. History can be instructive but most of the real heroes are footnotes at best and we do not know their names. These precious few outliers were dragging their civilization forward and provide us with some guidance and company in bleak times. The plants they hold symbolize renewal, despite their deaths their lessons contain the seeds of how to move forward, in kindness and with dignity.

What movie has your favorite soundtrack?

For range and wonder and effect, It's got to be a Morricone. Either "The Thing" or "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly." Both are somehow impossibly elevating greats like Carpenter and Leone.

But also please indulge me in some cheating as this may be the first and last interview I do, these films are relatively undersung and rely heavily on superb songs/soundtracks:

Short: Niki Lindroth von Bahr – The Burden (Hans Appelqvist)

Feature: Roy Andersson – Songs from the Second Floor (Benny Andersson)

Documentary: The various artists used in Travis Wiklerson's superb film “An Injury to One.”

You have been releasing recorded music on your band camp page since as far back as 2009. Have you noticed any change in how you approach the creative process since then?

In 2009 I was living in Indiana and had friends who resided near me and also made music. The drummer was a Spanish guitar major, the bass player was Mr. Hawaiian tropic 1989, the lead guitarist was later a deputy mayor. It was a good group. But I decided to flee. Theoretically you can make new friends but it's not recommended. When I moved to the city most of my new acquaintances were painters and photographers and filmmakers. The few musicians seemed to have strong and particular visions that I didn't share. So for the last decade all the work has been solo.

In October 2021 I started a written log of works I admire (plainlyandpainfully.com), daily for the first year and then we'll see how it goes after that. It takes some time scouting about and then attempting to coherently explain the appeal. But consistently articulating what I admire in the works of others has hopefully allowed me to refine my own output.

Jon Doyle (varioussmallflames.co.uk) wrote a very kind review of Neat Defeat (2019) and I wanted to return a part of that feeling to others. You want to reify and reinforce that which seems of rare quality in the world. I know that’s also what you’re doing here and appreciate it. Part of that dialog I mentioned earlier has to be listening as well. And on agreeable, humane terms without the bombardment of monopolies and advertisements that act as a kind of cultural cancer. Tom Waits said “Everything you absorb you secrete,” building these reliable nodes and bridges is valuable.

Your production style utilizes a ton of texture and fuzz to achieve a whole lot of personality in each track. What inspired this effect?

Thank you, I hope it is somewhat comprehensible. I always hope to include the lyrics in case of confusion, if the platform allows it. The addition of noise/fuzz is a counterweight to the perceived kitsch in the world. There's always pretense in production, but I see it as a kind of leveling to the context of kitsch we find ourselves embedded in. The clean extraction of sound presented in most popular culture feels like a lie, hollow and bubbly, a plant extracted without roots, or in other words dead. All genres have a way of narrowing these bands and grinding your nose in it, cleanly defining channels. It feels like mockery, like somebody talking down in a patronizing tone of voice. The noise acts as metaphorical representatives for the inclusion of uncertainty and chaos, as a symbolic approximation of that unknown aspect. It's kind of diegetic with the field recording, but two dimensions of sound instead of sound and film. It all feels a lot denser/richer and more convincing to me. It is an attempt to properly incorporate uncertainty into the model.

What is the best cover of an original song that you have heard?

I have a dislike for karaoke and don't really go for covers generally speaking. But here are two really great exceptions: Daga Voladora – La Tormenta (Lorena Álvarez) and Amy Annelle – Buckskin Stallion Blues (Townes Van Zandt).

Which do you prefer: scented candles, or room spray?

We've got some candles that cover up some of Merle's cat food stink... He's a small pudding-shaped man that lives in our house, half prisoner and half parasite, a nice lump sum of a boy. We love him very much.

How do you view your relationship with writing lyrics?

I am probably overly proud of them, without much warrant. Balancing content and form is very important to me. I think a lot about style and substance, metering design and function. I want a couple really solid lines at least to build off of for each track. I use David Berman's strategy of writing 20 lines a day then refining them at the end of the week/month into another notebook/open office file. Then I write a song and unceremoniously bury them in production, disappointing my friends.

I'm overly pleased with lines like “without the luxury of perpetual lamentation,” or “some irreparable harm in the grand tradition,” or “every dullard's got the same idea,” or “can't hear the nuance from the noise,” or “on the altar of ulterior motives,” or “to quell the myriad chaoses within you,” or “a man is made whole by the holes in his heart.” These feel like good, basic, coherent units of measure. But nothing adds up. I'm going to rip myself off and throw them in poems at some point, some of them are already in the works. Then the lines themselves can stop blaming my singing voice and obscurantist production for their failures.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

Thank you, it's a beautiful site. I hope I haven't sullied it in some discouraging and irreparable way with my presence.

There is merit in being he who goes singing into the grave. Make a record (or whatever) now while you can or otherwise you will at best be the back of someone else's tombstone. Also, remember to just have fun out there!