Poland’s VARMIA have never approached black metal as simple songwriting. With their new album, the band push deeper into a world where ritual, ancestry, landscape and sound become inseparable. Recorded live inside abandoned castle ruins and shaped around themes of identity, belonging and cultural memory, the record embraces imperfection, physical space and primal atmosphere in open defiance of modern metal’s polished artificiality. We spoke with Lasota about chaos, ritual, tribal instinct, and why VARMIA feels less like a band and more like a living echo of something ancient.
Hi! You described lauks as existing on the verge of chaos. What kind of chaos were you chasing on this album: emotional, spiritual, or purely musical?
Lasota: A musical one. I’d say that Varmia is steady in a spiritual and emotional sense. Sounds, however, could be disturbing and in some ways chaotic. On the new album, they attack you as a swarm of notes. But these notes are in order.
Recording live inside abandoned castle ruins feels less like a studio decision and more like part of the composition itself. At what point did the place stop being a location and start becoming part of the sound?
Lasota: When I was writing the music, I didn’t know that we would end up in this particular castle. I knew what kind of location I was searching for, but at that time it was not yet revealed. Eventually, when I did the reconnaissance at the castle, everything fell into place. That was the first stage. The second stage was during the recording once we’d set up the microphones and heard how the band sounded in the castle halls. The third stage was during the mixing stage when I shaped how the ambience microphones were used in the songs. So yes, it was part of the composition from the very beginning, but it also evolved and unfolded during the production cycle.
The album title refers to old communal identity and territorial belonging. Do you see those instincts as something humanity has evolved beyond, or simply hidden beneath modern life?
Lasota: I think it’s well hidden. I also think that this is the most natural way of coexistence here on earth. To have the roots and protect them. But I also see that the modern lifestyle is becoming more and more bipolar in that sense. On one hand, you’ve got people who identify as world-citizens. On the other hand, there are people who cherish their small homelands and I think that group is getting bigger and stronger. But there’s less and less people who are between these two mindsets.
The use of traditional instruments never feels decorative in your music. How important is it that these sounds feel alive rather than archival?
Lasota: We always want these instruments to sound minimalistic and cold. To honour their original character. These are rather primitive tools and we sometimes exceed their original abilities, but only to the extent that molds with music and is not something that stands out. Originally, these were very functional instruments that served as an addition to the gatherings rather than being independent tools. That’s how I see their role in Varmia music.
Your work often feels deeply connected to land and ancestry without becoming nostalgic. Is avoiding romanticism important to the identity of VARMIA?
Lasota: I’d say that getting rid of some degree of nostalgia in Varmia music is almost impossible. These topics, stories and melodies are sometimes screaming in that vibe. But you’re right, I don’t approve of romanticism in this music. In the end, this is black metal that goes to the very roots of primitivism and brutality, so there’s no room for softness. We try to invoke the character of ritualistic and wild music from the times when it was carving its way to the Baltic civilization.
The concept of “us and them” runs through the album in a very instinctive way. Were you exploring tribal identity as something dangerous, necessary, or unavoidable?
Lasota: Unavoidable. And today it is even more confirmed in the world events that it was when we recorded the album. The Romans used to say “divide and conquer” and there’s hardly any better sentence that would describe human “genetics”. The desire to separate “us” from “them” is embedded in our nature.
The live recording approach leaves imperfections and physical space inside the music. Do you think modern metal has become too disconnected from physical presence and environment?
Lasota: Totally, yes. Modern metal, even if labeled “organic” or “natural” or “analogue” is so deeply fake. I don’t know any, literally any other musicians that would have the courage to leave the imperfections in the recordings. People are getting rid of their natural way of playing their instruments and music in general and trading this to the dull, predictable and repetitive time grids, click tracks and heavy editing in post production. We literally live in times where the recipe for the metal recording is well-known and accessible. And it seems that this very fact has killed the need for individualism and searching for “your” sound. Everything has to be comparable by the current standards and any abbreviation is a defect. I don’t want such music to even exist. To me, music is made when a group of people is actually playing it together. Everything else is just a form of pre-production. At least to my ears.
Whitevoice singing has a very different emotional effect from harsh vocals – it feels ancient, communal, almost unsettling. What does that vocal contrast allow you to express?
Lasota: It allows me to express the most primitive and accessible music that humans can make. Sometimes this type of voice is called shout. Allegedly, it was firstly used as a way to call someone from a distance. By using that, I feel that I’m calling the Ancestors.
When you perform this material live, do you see the songs as compositions, rituals, or something closer to collective memory?
Lasota: Rituals. I know that this word is overused, especially in black metal. But to me it really is a ritual. Playing live is the core reason why this music was even made, so that’s why we record albums that way. And that’s why shows are something far deeper than just the performance in front of the audience.
Does VARMIA feel more like a band, or like an evolving language for expressing something older than the music itself? Thank you!
Lasota: Good question. I’d opt for the latter and I like that definition. I often say that our music is an echo of the defeated’s culture scream. Such echo is very much present in our land and making music is my attempt to converse with it. Thanks!
