With his solo project MARE COGNITUM Jacob Buczarski is creating atmospheric black metal in the truest sense of the word: On his latest album „Luminiferous Aether“ he deals with cosmical and phliosophical subjects and supports his lyrics with epic, ambient music. In the following interview you’ll learn more about why Jacob prefers to work on his own and still is more productive than most bands and what, in his opinion, is the musical equivalent to cheese on fish.
Hello! Thanks for letting us do this interview with you! How are you doing?
I’m doing very well, thanks. Now that the business of the holidays is over I am back to thinking about MARE COGNITUM’s activity for the next year. It’s pretty exciting. Thanks for letting me talk about it.
MARE COGNITUM is a small lunar mare which is quite a fitting name for your music. However, why exactly did you choose this specific lunar mare to be the name of your solo project?
In particular the name of this mare was interesting to me. Translated it means „The Sea Which Has Become Known“, and to me it was the perfect representation of discovering something mysterious buried deep in an unkown place. It was a way to grasp the enigmatic nature of the universe which is a core concept of what I illustrate musically.
As already mentioned, MARE COGNITUM is your solo project. So you play all the instruments by yourself, right? Why do you prefer making music on your own over playing in a band?
Yes, that‘s correct, I do everything myself. This happened naturally after years of bands forming and disbanding. I had played lots of different music and had experience on each instrument, and after one band broke up I just started working on things myself since I didn’t really know anyone else to start a band with but still wanted to create music. By this time I had been doing lots of demo recordings and other such bedroom band stuff so I had a pretty good grasp of what I needed to do and just went for it on my own. I prefer working this way because I feel like none of my work goes to waste (such was the case with the many bands I formed and had to disband for whatever reason in years previous). And as the reaction to my work has been really good, I prefer to keep working this way going forward.
MARE COGNITUM can rather easily described as atmospheric black metal, would you agree? By which bands have you been influenced?
Sure, that fits. I was influenced by lots of melodic black metal and other melodic styles of music, so it seems apt. I think the main type of stuff that was in my head when I was crafting the MARE COGNITUM sound was stuff like Agalloch, Dissection, Wolves In The Throne Room, Emperor, etc etc. Those are the influences I wore on my sleeve for the first record and was able to coagulate into something less obvious later on!
Especially in atmospheric black metal clean vocals are also often to be heard. You, however, use only screaming. Do you consider also using clean singing in the future or do you go without them on purpose?
Nah, I don’t like clean singing very much in extreme styles of metal, with very few exceptions. It just doesn’t mesh very well at all in my opinion. I like other music with clean singing, but in this kind of metal it tends to sound so jarring to my ears. It’s like if you try to put cheese on a piece of fish, they’re great separately but together it just doesn’t work (sorry if you are a cheese-fish lover…). I certainly don’t think it’s something you’ll ever seen on a MARE COGNITUM record.
Even though MARE COGNITUM is a solo project, you are very productive. You just started in 2011, but still your new album „Luminiferous Aether“ is already your fourth full-length. How do you manage to create that much music on your own?
I really don’t try to push it – I only work on music when I feel inclined to do so, and if it starts feeling like „work“ I take a break and don’t do it for a while. I think this plays well into releasing exactly the quality music I want to release, since I don’t hold myself to deadlines and am not under some contractual obligement to do so either. I simply love creating music and the pace of my releases is the completely natural pace for me to be completing projects. I think the fact that this pace appears to be quick is simply due to the fact that I’ve developed a nice workflow for myself and can work on the albums on my own at home whenever I like.
„Luminiferous Aether“ is incredibly atmospheric but not at all monotonous. For example, while the opener „Heliacal Rising“ is rather light with a lot of ambience, „Occultated Temporal Dimensions“ has quite a raw black metal sound. Is there any certain reason for the tracks to be so different?
I’m not entirely sure, because I try to just write naturally and don’t think too much about writing this song in this style, that one in that style, etc. I usually like to keep the albums varied but in the end I’m not concerned about it in the sense that I set out to do it that way, but just that I think it is what I feel drawn to write at the time. The albums are put together over long periods of time so this could have to do with what I’m listening to at the time and how it affects the songwriting, or perhaps just the way that I feel the album is flowing with what I already have done and what I think it needs to keep it exciting. I tend to like the energy on an album to rise and fall dynamically. It keeps things fresh.
Which song on the album is the most important to you and why?
„Occultated Temporal Dimensions“ is the most memorable writing process for me in that it was definitely the most complex song on the album and took the longest to compose by far. It just kept evolving and improving each time I worked on it, the original scratch track was so different. This one really pushed the boundaries of what I was used to doing and I’m really personally proud of how it turned out. I think it’s a lot different than anything I’ve ever done and is sort of a milestone in my mind. It’s a sort of style I’ll surely be exploring more in-depth in the future.
Do you think that „Luminiferous Aether“ differs from you first three albums or do you continue your musical style on it?
To some degree it of course extends the style of what I’ve already been doing, but there are aspects to it that are different enough that set it apart from previous albums. To me it is a more refined version of what I was doing on „Phobos Monolith“, production-wise and musically. I attempted to develop the kind of structures I did on that album and create a more enveloping experience on „Luminiferous Aether“. „Phobos Monolith“ was a sort of culmination of my experience, and „Luminiferous Aether“ built on that experience in a more refined and polished way. In that regard, I expect that the next MARE COGNITUM record will have to be a little different if I want to create something truly new.
How was the feedback by critics and fans?
Quite good, although it seems that some folks liked „Phobos Monolith“ more. I understand why people think this and got great feedback in this regard. It’s not my place to decide that I think the most recent album is better, is it? That’s up to the fans. I’m proud of it and think it’s a great album (as do even those who say „Phobos Monolith“ was better, generally) but if I have created some more magic previously I am okay with that. I always try to improve upon what was on the previous record and I think that in many ways I did that. In any case, the response for the new album was fantastic and I feel like it was a great accomplishment.
Your lyrics are filled with philosophical and cosmical subjects. Which subjects in particular and is there a certain cohesive solvent on „Luminiferous Aether“?
On „Luminiferous Aether“ I took a slightly more human and personal approach to the overall theme in that it rests more heavily on the ideas of introspection in the context of the human experience and expansion of knowledge and consciousness. There is a sort of overarching idea of the death of self and ego and rebirth in which peace can be found which can only come as the result of a painful and horrifying process of internal self destruction and reconstruction. That being said I don’t like to dictate the meaning of the lyrics to people strictly because I would rather people just experience the album purely from their own point of view without me guiding them into something they should or should not feel about it.
What is your personal connection to the subjects of your lyrics?
All of my lyrics connect to myself in direct and indirect ways, sometimes to be taken literally and sometimes under a layer of symbolism. Many tracks represent experiences I have had or opinions I hold, but like I said, I would rather people find out what the music means to them personally, which is why I intentionally leave many things sort of vague.
The spacey artwork looks really good. Who designed it and where there any guidelines to how it should look?
Yes it does! The artwork is courtesy of Moonroot Art. The concept was one I came up with and described in great detail to him and he was able to interpret it and expand upon it in exactly the right way. It is a symbolic artwork and has a lot to do with the themes mentioned earlier – that of desperation, and through desperation, rebirth.
Do plan to do live shows in the future, maybe with guest musicians?
There have been several very generous offers for MARE COGNITUM to play festivals and many musicians have shown interest in supporting this effort, but currently I decided that it is not the right time for this to happen due to personal reasons and the fact that I would be sacrificing creating new music in favor of the effort required to play live. Perhaps in the future I will find the situation I’m looking for where I feel comfortable shifting into this arrangement but that time is not now.
What will be the next steps for MARE COGNITUM?
I have many plans for this year, hopefully a new album and a bunch of other really exciting things, including possible reissues of the older albums. And a couple secret projects! Keep a look out.
To finish the interview, I would like to ask you to take part in our traditional Metal1.info-Brainstorming. Please tell us what comes to your mind while reading the following terms:
Black hole: Solution
Post-Metal: Confusion
Astrology: Delusion
MARE COGNITUM in five years: Reclusion
Favorite album: Omission
Extraterrestrial life: Invasion
Thank you again for this interview. The last words shall be yours:
Hail space and embrace the nescient void.
22. Februar 2017 Stephan Rajchl