MORTIIS Announces And Streams “Farewell Romero” Digital EP
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Iconic Norwegian artist, Mortiis, is now revealing a digital EP, “Farewell Romero.” The EP draws its inspiration and namesake from the eponymous song, which was originally featured on his recently released full-length, Ghosts Of Europa.
“Farewell Romero” features the original album track and a fascinating new version of this song with renowned French artist Nicolas Horvath. The classical pianist has previously collaborated with Alcest and is also known for his work with the famous Japanese animation Studio Ghibli, among many other exciting projects. The third track is a new variant (Madrigal version) of the Ghosts Of Europa track, “Violent Silence,” featuring former Todesbonden vocalist Laurie Ann Haus.
Mortiis comments, “It has always been my nature to experiment and try new ideas, so to some, it’s probably not a surprise that I had a couple of variations of some of the songs from Ghosts Of Europa sitting around. When I write songs, I tend to try a lot of directions out, and sometimes there are brutal production decisions to be made, such as killing off otherwise great melodies, or entire sections, from songs. This is probably why I have always been pretty open to creating variations of the songs. Sometimes ‘killing your darlings’ is just too damn painful. Oh, and the artwork for this EP might be my personal favourite from the Ghosts Of Europa series.”
The cover artwork for “Farewell Romero” was created by Nihil. Tracklisting:
“Farewell Romero”
“Farewell Romero” (No Longer Feel the Same)
“Violent Silence” (Madrigal Version)
Stream the EP here.
“Farewell Romero” – “This song was always meant as a homage to the John Carpenter sound of ‘Escape from New York’. I always loved that sound. So most of the synths here are ARP Odyssey sounds, with some Sequential Prophet Pro-5 thrown in. I even got to use my ARP 2600 from 1975 for a moment in here, as well as my weird Electro Comp 101. At one point we actually asked John Carpenter if he wanted to contribute to the song, but unfortunately he was too busy. I always liked the first verse vocal performance, ‘How long can you remain human, when they treat you like an animal’, but remained very self-conscious about the other vocals, to the point where I deleted it all, and re-recorded all of it, right before we started mixing. The title refers to a character in the movie, and it felt especially apt as I discovered the actor had fairly recently passed away (at the time).”
“Farewell Romero (No Longer Feel The Same)” – “This version started as an idea between me and Nicolas Horvath to do some piano versions of songs from Ghosts Of Europa. We decided to begin with ‘Farewell…’ and see where that would take us. Initially, the intent was to make a laid back, piano dominated variation, but as I was removing lots of sounds, and slightly altering the dirtier and darker aspects of the song, ideas started forming, and once that happens, I am no longer in control. The simple drum became a big and mean thing, and the dirt, darkness and the grit started dominating. It just keeps swelling up like that until the end where everything feels like it consumes itself. Marc Urselli mixed this variation, and did a great job.”
“Violent Silence (Madrigal version)” – “This variant came about through both planning and coincidence. Once Laurie had recorded her vocals, for what I originally intended to be part of the album version, I quickly realised that this just needed to become its own version. At this point, I stripped away most of the other vocals, and a few other bits and pieces. Secondly, when Sean was mixing it, and I think I had left him confusing or sloppy instructions, the entire ending was accidentally left a cappella. I remember Sean saying, ‘this sounds kinda cool, but is it supposed to sound like this?’ I had a listen and said, ‘no, but it is now’. This is a perfect example of a happy accident.”
The new EP follows up Ghosts Of Europa, which was released on June 26 via Prophecy Productions, making it Mortiis’ debut to the label.
Ghosts Of Europa is available as ltd. box set incl. 2CD artbook edition, gatefold LP (excl. handmade sand-filled vinyl), bonus LP, music cassette et al. (50 copies). Ltd. box set incl. 2CD artbook edition, gatefold LP (excl. ‘galaxy’ metallic vinyl), bonus LP, music cassette et al. (450 copies). As a 60-page hardcover 2CD artbook incl. 8-track bonus CD, ltd. Gatefold marble smoke vinyl LP (300 copies), ltd. Gatefold crystal clear vinyl LP (300 copies), Gatefold black vinyl LP, and Digipak CD.
