I knew I’d speak with Thomas Eriksen again. We first spoke in 2023 after he released his sixth album as Mork, Dypet. In conversation, he was warm, open, and self-aware, the inverse of the insularity Mork projected. At that time, he was in the midst of a turning point for his life project–black metal that, on one hand, seemingly had never listened to a record past 1993, while on the other was innately tied to Eriksen’s personal growth. Never the fastest or most aggressive player, Eriksen had attitude, and all decisions and directives came from the reptilian center of the brain that chased prey when hungry and laid in the sun when cold.
Since our last conversation, Eriksen has changed his aims for Mork. What was formerly an outlet for his necro black metal affectations has acquired depth and a sonorous range. In 2024, he released Syv, evolving out from the crawlspaces where black metal thrives to explore the fields around him. That same year, he released a self-titled album under the name Udåd, flattening the production and returning to a low-budget horror flick aesthetic, albeit one whose terrors were suicidal ideations. Eriksen forked his path, one way pointing towards refinement and the other towards barbarism.
Monolitt, Mork’s recently released eighth album, follows the former road. It could only come from someone steeped in Norwegian black metal to the degree that they wish to progress it without outgrowing or fundamentally altering it. As with all Mork releases, Monolitt is identifiably black metal yet absconds most of the genre’s cliches, both old-school and modern. Neither a twinkling post-rock homunculus nor Under the Sign of Hell 3, Monolitt deepens black metal’s shadows, giving shape to what was formerly formless. The record’s clearer production directly buffs Mork’s riffs, whether it be the neotraditional “Utryddelse” or “Under Vekten Av Verden” and its roaring opening. Riffs are seemingly Eriksen’s native tongue, as he can dish them out from the top of his head and each is the phoneme from which Mork speaks. Nobody has his accent.
What follows here is best thought of as a conversation between artist and journalist rather than an out-and-out interview (though some may say the two are synonymous). Eriksen, as always, was eager to discuss Mork’s underlying philosophies and even more willing to perform wherever will host him. Promoters, if you’re reading this, book Eriksen.
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You’ve spoken before about how your music just comes to you. You don’t put a lot of thought aside from how you’re feeling at the time. Correct?
Yeah, and that still rings true today. That’s basically my process. I just do whatever feels right then and there, and that is also why, at least in my own humble opinion, Mork has achieved its own voice now within, call it the genre or whatever. It’s not just a run-of-the-mill black metal band anymore. If you go back to my first couple of albums, it’s a bit more traditional black metal. But deliberately over the years, I have also aimed outside the box and it’s always been a goal for me to be one of those bands who are their own thing. Dimmu Borgir is their own thing, Mayhem is their own thing.
You can separate Immortal from Emperor, if you know what I’m talking about here. Basically I don’t want to be on a branch on the tree. I want to be my own branch on the black metal tree, if that makes sense.
I think a lot of it too, especially with black metal, is if you find the one album that you really like, you keep trying to find bands that sound exactly like that.
I understand this point 100% because back in the day when I found Burzum and Darkthrone, the core black metal albums from the ’90s there, that was what I was aiming for as a fan. When I was exploring other bands, I was hoping they would be similar to those albums, and because that was the specific atmosphere and vibe I fell in love with. On those albums, it was its own thing. It sounded like it’d been around for ages and eons. That kind of feel in the sound, the lyrics, riffs, everything was perfect. And, of course, I was then searching for more stuff exactly like that. So I understand black metal fans that fall in love with this genre.
But me, now, as a guy who has already passed over 40 years of age, and if I can call myself an artist, this is my eighth album with Mork. It’s about time I just be human, if that makes sense, and do my own thing. The tribute is always there in my earlier albums, you can never take those away, , it will always be there.
What’s interesting about the new Mork album is, like you said, how you’ve developed away from your roots without discarding black metal. Your music is not very fast and it’s more melodic without being Dissection-type melodic.
I suppose I take a lot of creative freedoms. I’m a bit daring in that way because I don’t give a shit. Because I know that beneath it all, it’s still me. It’s still the Mork guy, I still have the voice, I still have my feelings that I follow, and my riffs are always going to be within my own Mork realm, if that makes sense. But, on this album, one little high point in the evolution here is that the music is obviously more progressive and different than older stuff I did. When the mixing guy came along, somebody mentioned that I should try to mix at the Toproom Studios at Børge Finstad’s. That was a good idea. He did my favorite Mayhem albums back in the day. He recorded and mixed Grand Declaration of War and Chimera.
I’ve always been a fan of Chimera. The sound of that album–the production is fantastic. That’s an album I always go back to. Blasphemer joined Mayhem back in the mid-’90s and he brought a progressive element into it. He brought himself and his personality. And I have so much respect for that stuff. So when I was able to travel to Toproom Studios and work together with Berg over the mixing console for a couple of days there in a row, I remember I spent the night in the studio on the couch and brought some TV dinners for the microwave.
When I listen to Monolitt now, as it’s finished and we’re closing in on release date, I’m super proud of it. It has the little nudge up from before that sounds better. It’s closer to what I’m after.
With the cleaner and more professional sound, has it made you change how you think about what you want to do with this band?
You should definitely watch your tone, mister (laughs). It’s not nicer. I’m trying to stay away from words like nicer and polished and well-produced and that stuff, because those are loaded terms and words, regarding this kind of extreme music. If you listen to Monolitt, it’s not overproduced or polished. It still has the rawness there, but what Toproom and also Enormous Door and Applebaum mastering brought to the table is more depth in the sound. It sounds more three-dimensional, if that makes sense. Compare it to Dypet, which is a bit more raw and surfacey.
I guess the best terms, then, for Monolitt would be deeper and clearer.
I feel that on Monolitt you can hover inside the soundscape while you listen, whereas on earlier Mork albums, it’s more like a hard surface that hits you in the face. Which suits the purpose of those albums, don’t get me wrong. But this album, you just look at the artwork. Everything from album art to sound and to lyrics and the music, it’s darker, it’s heavier, so the sound fits all that, the package. I know this sounds like a corny line, but this is probably the album I’m most happy with overall. On Syv, the previous one, I was still searching a bit. I’m happy with it. I’m super proud. But this time it’s like in my mind’s eye, it’s 100 percent there.
Your last two would have been around the same time as Udåd, which is your rawer project. Why did you start a new project rather than just make the new Mork sound more raw?
That’s precisely because I don’t want to repeat myself. It felt wrong to all of a sudden just rewind the clock and start doing primitive again with Mork. That would be cheating my own creation, if that makes sense. In late ‘23, I, all of a sudden, became super inspired again to do primitive black metal. And that was triggered by me going to Bergen and getting a tattoo by Jannicke Wiese-Hansen, who did the Burzum covers back in the day. She did one cover for me. She’s a legendary woman in the black metal world and she told me some inside stories about the early ‘90s and just by coincidence, we started talking about movies. And it turns out that Varg was very inspired by a German art movie that came out in the early ‘90s. Super somber movie about depressive stuff by a German director, Jörg Buttgereit. Der Todesking in German, which translates to the Death King. You should see it, it’s an art movie. It’s several sequences about depressing and suicidal situations, more or less, which obviously is super inspiring for black metal artists.
When I got home from that tattoo session, I checked it out and I was ablaze in the inspiration to do this again. So that entire Udådalbum is a result out of that little inspirational glow that I received from that movie, actually.
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You said Udåd dealt with mental illness and loneliness, especially on the song “Positive Tanker.” Did any of that carry forward into your later albums like Monolitt?
Musically, it’s not related at all. But with the themes, absolutely. Over the years, I suppose this is like a cliché Norwegian thing that happens to Norwegian men when they grow older, we grow more introverted, and we start to dwell inside our lonely thoughts. I have become like this, lyric-wise. Mork is not about anti-religion, burning churches, Hail Satan, or racism or whatever bullshit that comes with. It’s more about existentialism, the meaning behind things and just the realization that we are born here, but what is the purpose? Is there a purpose? In general, I suppose, depression and loneliness, it’s a bit more real in my world and easier for me to relate and write about that stuff. It rings true with me. I have a lot of heavy thoughts hovering around my head. I’m an only child. I know life is vulnerable and it’s actually quite lonely when you think about it. And this is something that fits really well in this dark landscape where I’m trying to create my art.
It makes sense why your music isn’t necessarily super fast or super heavy because a lot of the themes work really well with your slower, more progressive style. Which isn’t to say it’s doom metal but it’s a bit slower, a bit more contained.
I appreciate you wording it like that. Absolutely. There have been several times on this album, and the previous albums, where I have been sitting in the creative stages and I feel pressured to have more pure aggression and up-tempo stuff–this is a black metal band–but when I start doing that stuff it feels forced. It’s not what’s naturally there for me. Obviously we have some aggressive tracks and riffs and beats and lyrics, don’t get me wrong. But I always have to take it somewhere else, if you know what I mean.
Do you have an idea of what New Mork is like? Let’s say you’re writing a song and you’re trying to do something new. Would you know what feels true to this band or would it only be after you experiment with it a bit?
Other than the bits where I’m feeling it’s forced somewhat, most stuff that comes onto the session or the paper is stuff that feels right straight away. To be honest, I usually use the riffs that come first. For example, right now I’m working on a song that hopefully will be on the next album again. I tend to listen back to where a part meets another part and as if it’s correct. Can I do better? I think I do more of that now than I used to do. You call it searching a bit more, but most of it is pure spontaneity. And sometimes it feels a bit off, sometimes it’s on. But I suppose that just differs day by day, just like people experience writer’s block and fruitful days with creativity, I suppose. I have a project folder here that has hundreds of songs, and I can see whether an idea is the result of a bad day with writer’s block, or it’s a genius idea, but I didn’t have time to finish it.
Did you write all the songs thinking they would all be on Monolitt? Or, how did you choose what to keep?
The last three albums, including this one, I usually have about 15, maybe 20 tracks that I’m working with. I try to pick the 10 best ones. That’s usually the process there. And lately I have also been using my band members from the live band and people around me and asking them to pick their 10 favorites. And I can compare notes and stuff, because at the end of the day, I’m a bit too close to the thing, so sometimes I need a little bit of outside input and maybe some overview, if that makes sense. I really appreciate people helping me with that
This new album in particular, the drummer, Asgeir Mickelson, he is no longer in the live band, but he plays on the album and he was spending a lot of time with me in the studio when I was touching up and picking songs. So he actually had a lot of say this time around. What’s the word in America in English, like co-producer role. I understand why people need those guys.
This album too sounds a lot more collaborative. Like the drums sound like they’re doing a lot more, they’re more involved in the songwriting.
That is also a big point on this one. It’s the first album where someone else from outside has played the drums on the album. Usually I play them. It’s been a one-man thing all along, also in the studio, but I’ve done that now seven times over, including EPS and whatnot. And now I want to try to bring people in to see what that adds to the music.
Asgeir, he’s an artist in his own right and he’s a legend in the metal scene, not only in Norway, but outside of Norway as well. He has one of those names that people respect out there and you could hear it on the album. He paints with his drums, it’s not just straight-up beats. He does so much little stuff, and I really feel that elevated the whole product a whole lot.
Would you also consider bringing someone in to do guitar?
We are talking about it. I’m still the main creator here and create and write all the riffs and show and teach the other guys, but to have them actually play on the upcoming albums, that is something I am toying with at this moment. Not necessarily new ideas, because this would be them repeating what I already did. But there will be a new touch. To put it like this, it wouldn’t be four guitar tracks that are played by me. If I do one track and Alex, from the live band, does another track, you get some dynamics already there. I’m aiming for the more dynamic part. I’m still the same old bastard and only child I’ve always been. This is my baby.
It may not be much in comparison to what other great people have done, but it is my life’s work. I will go to the grave with this thing, and hopefully some of it will live on after I’m gone. It’s important to me that my creation stays within my control, to put it like that.
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Monolitt is available now via Peaceville Records.
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