Morris Kolontyrsky (Interview)

Today we’re listening to Morris Kolontyrsky, an American guitarist and composer from New York City. His dad was a musician in the USSR army and left for the U.S., where he played classical, jazz, and rock music for young Morris. Those influences took hold after he picked up the guitar around age seven. Once an adult, he moved to Colorado where he met guitarist and vocalist Paul Riedl, with whom he would form the psychedelic death metal band Blood Incantation. That band’s music is intense and epic, while Kolontyrsky’s solo work is atmospheric and krautrocky. On his Bandcamp page he describes it as “Baroque inspired melancholic interludes for uplifting inspiration.” We’re playing his latest LP, Origination, which came out in October. We’re also playing the Blood Incantation record Timewave Zero from 2022, which is a quasi-ambient aberration from the rest of their discography. Following the streaming links is a conversation with Morris, in which the metal guitarist avers among other things that Alice Deejay’s “Better Off Alone” is “is one the greatest songs of all time.”

Origination - Morris Kolontyrsky (69m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

Timewave Zero - Blood Incantation (41m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

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What’s your earliest memory of music?

Some of my first recollections of music stem from my family and family friends. My dad is a major driving force of the reason I do what I do. His decision for me to play guitar is amongst my earliest memories. I must’ve been six or seven. From my subconscious childhood I remember how he’d always be playing Queen, Bach, and a wide variety of jazz ranging from Ellington, Basie, to Davis, Coltrane, Jim Hall, Bill Evans, and beyond.

Aside from family influence, I was always drawn to soundtracks of whatever cartoons I was watching. One of my first actually desired albums was the Pokémon TV show OST. Soon after that it was the Rugrats intro music, created by the fantastic Mark Mothersbaugh, whose role in DEVO would later influence a band I was in for years called Homebody. Lots of full circle moments realizing I’d been listening to many of the same people through different versions of their sonic palette since I was a toddler.

Another big one, again thanks to my Dad, was the music from Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2; one of the first video games I ever played was scored by Michael Hoenig. Thinking about it now, his contributions to my evolving understanding of music are huge. The Baldur’s Gate OST mesmerised me as a child, and then I learned of his involvement with Philip Glass’s score for the hugely influential film Koyaanisqatsi. That ruled my world as an LSD-obsessed teenager in high school all the way into my adult life, later having learned he was a part of Tangerine Dream. (Thorsten from Tangerine Dream being on the most recent Blood Incantation album was a full circle moment.) His current influence on me comes from the now classic Berlin School album Departure from the Northern Wasteland.

A little later in life my dad would gift me burned CDs from a collector buddy he had back when a burned CD was considered contraband. Those CDs included Sabbath, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and one curve ball, which he went out of his way to buy me when I was 13. It was Nirvana’s Nevermind, which somehow occurred to him as a record I should know about despite the fact that he wasn’t very much into it.

On a side note – more related to my current interests and ever growing love for ‘70s prog and kraut rock – my math tutor when I was 13 who was also a family friend (and the first true pothead I ever encountered in my life) showed me CAN. Safe to say I didn’t really care for the curriculum after that.

Tell us about your journey with guitar. How did you get started and what records/artists inspired you the most early on?

My journey began when my father made the decision to teach me how to play. Our lessons focused on proper classical technique, simple music theory and notation. His background is predominantly rooted in classical music and jazz. In a nutshell it was all the academic parts of music I would later run away from.

My dad’s musical background is a long story rooted in the history of the USSR. I’m first generation – they escaped in the late ‘80s. He spent his time in the Russian Air Force playing in a band doing covers of whatever they were allowed to hear behind the Iron Curtain and a few other “secret” songs they’d hear through bootleg LPs. The influence of the regime is a big part of the reason the classical aspect stuck; it was a widely accepted form of art. His curiosities extended outwards, however, leading him to discover what became his favorite form of music, jazz.

This is all to say that my early experience playing and learning guitar wasn’t one of curiosity – it was placed upon me. The real journey began when I wasn’t accepted into a performing arts high school. My years of learning things I didn’t necessarily like at the time didn’t yield the intended result. Throughout my high school years I struggled with identifying practice versus jamming along to songs I liked. I would sit in my room and learn Iron Maiden riffs, solo along to live Allman Bros recordings, and then try to focus and learn a Bach piece. The range of influence is massive and wasn’t even a part of what I was thinking about when playing guitar. The instrument has been an extension of my being since I was a child.

The new album is not easy to classify but it’s more ambient / krautrock / space rock than your work with Blood Incantation. Has that kind of music always been a big part of your life or have you gravitated more toward it in recent years?

Experimental, ambient, kraut, electronic music, or however you want to define all my outside influences that aren’t rock/metal/punk adjacent has always been a part of my life to varying degrees whether I knew it at the time or not. Before I actively started listening to Aphex Twin or William Basinski, all the more ambient passages from bands I’d been listening to for years intrigued me. I guess early college would mark the turning point where I would go out of my way to seek more electronic music I could resonate with. All the early Warp records stuff was a big push that led me to many avenues of the genre I wasn’t familiar with. Of course I had already known Kraftwerk, and having grown up in the ‘90s, Alice Deejay’s hit “Better Off Alone” was and continues to be a staple for me. I honestly believe it is one the greatest songs of all time. So in a way, yeah, that interest has always been there, but the levels of appreciation and fine tuning what it is I seek out of experimental music has changed and continues to evolve today.

What artists / albums in this general category were most influential on your work for Origination?

The main three cornerstones for proof of concept when it comes to Origination are as listed:

• Manuel Göttsching

• Steve Hillage

• Robert Fripp

Each of these guys have pushed the boundaries of what it means to be a rock/prog guitar player and composer. Their ventures into the electronic/synth realm helped shape today’s understanding of everything from techno to industrial, noise, etc. The free spirit these guys embody as guitar players and band leaders first is a huge source of everlasting inspiration for me.

What was your studio setup for Origination – what instruments/gear did you use to make the album?

This album was recorded in my tiny bedroom “studio” with very little room to move. Despite the space limitations the gear list is somewhat hefty. I tried to use everything I had before me which was:

• ‘80s NJ Series Mockingbird

• Roland JP 8000

• Moog Micromoog

• Soma Lyra 8

• Korg Minilogue

• Alesis Quadraverb x 3

• Eventide Space

• Neural DSP Quad Cortex

• Logic Pro X

All that and my trusty Macbook from 2012. My studio is stuck in time. It’s a delicate ecosystem of things that work together perfectly as they are. Any one update would make some other thing obsolete, so I work with what I have to make the most of it… for now.

Name an underrated artist from the past 50 years.

There are so many great artists and bands… this is a tough question. The answer is based on what I’m thinking off the top of my head so the realm I’m sticking with is ambient/experimental as per this interview. I’m gonna choose two contemporaries and friends:

• Alex Mcfarlane. Alex has been a long time creator of all types of soundscapes. His myriad of tapes under his own name offer a look into a pastoral audio experience that allows the listener to drift off smiling into the setting sun without a lingering thought in mind. Ranging from mystical medieval tunes to deep experimental electronics, he is always delivering a 10/10 performance. Not to mention, his contributions to one of the best death metal bands to come out of Australia, Faceless Burial. The duality of musical interest and genuine exploration of art make Alex a true head and one that should be more widely known about. Oh and he’s a great lad to have a yard with :)

• Gareth Quinn Redmond. Gareth is an amazing musician who taps into the ambient realm of Kankyō Ongaku aka Japanese Environmental Music. I won’t go too deep into what that is if you’re not familiar, but he’s the closest thing we’ll get to another Hiroshi Yoshimura, and by doing so proves the point that music is truly an international language. His 2023 release, Ar Ais Arís, is a master class in tape loop ambience and composition.

What are you working on next?

Aside from always working on new Blood Incantation and Natürgeist material, I’ve been developing a soundtrack to an RPG board/card game created by my buddy Andrew Orvedahl, aka Occupied Hex Games, titled Echo Life Boat. This OST will likely be a big part of my next solo release.