#dylan desmond

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Primož Bončina & Phil Maguire, Stone and Worship, (CD, Digital album), #CC51, Cloudchamber Recordings, 2025

All tracks written and recorded by Primož Bončina & Phil Maguire at the Paulie Oliveros Recording Studio V-MMXXIII, Corcaigh Additional arrangements and tracking done at The End of the Line by Primož Bončina, MMXXIV

Vocals on 'Dolorosa' by Golem Mécanique Vocals on '(Vangelis) Acolyte' by Dylan Desmond

Primož Bončina: electric guitar, prophet synthesizer Phil Maguire: doepfer modular synthesizer

(on the way of Rutger Zuydervelt / Machinefabriek)

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Bell Witch (ph. Marie Štefková)

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Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper (October 20th, 2017)

Lineup: Dylan Desmond - Vocals, Bass Jesse Shreibman - Vocals, Drums, Organ

Guest/Session: Adrian Guerra (R.I.P. 2016) - Vocals Erik Moggridge - Additional Vocals

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Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

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Bell Witch Interview: New Voices

BY JORDAN MAINZER

One of our favorite albums of the year was Seattle metal band Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper, a moving, 80-minute, one-track metal opus centered around death. The album features two distinct halves called “As Above” and “So Below”, the first featuring previously recorded vocal takes from late founding member Adrian Guerra, who after separating from the band two years ago died of a heart attack last year. The other founding member, bassist Dylan Desmond, recruited Jesse Shriebman to replace the drums of Guerra; as before, they both sing, as does guest Erik Moggridge on the second half of the album. Bell Witch also introduced organs to their arsenal. “How do we create this new voice in what has been a bass and drum band?” Desmond hypothetically asked over the phone last month in reference to one of the many dilemmas the band faced during the recording of Mirror Reaper.

In general, for Bell Witch, the fluidity of voices is a major theme. The band was in the middle of a tour during our conversation, one in which they had been playing the first 48 minutes of Mirror Reaper up until the point the song flips, right where Guerra’s vocals stop and it becomes ambient before Moggridge enters. If they were to play the second half live sans Moggridge--alive and well and making music as Aerial Ruin--it would feel kind of empty and wrong. Playing the first half without Guerra--they have no choice--rightfully makes his absence loom as large as it has since he died.

The band does have plans to play all of Mirror Reaper with Moggridge at Roadburn 2018, and they’re planning a European tour from March to May around their festival appearance. Having just finished a West Coast tour, as you read this, they’re likely already thinking about their next record. For now, check out my interview with Desmond below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: Did you decide during the recording of Mirror Reaper that having the album be one track was necessary?

Dylan Desmond: Yes and no. The song kept coming together, and the structure started to get finalized. I suppose it became a little more obvious that “maybe this isn’t something we need to be breaking up.” This is one song built off of one simple riff and variations. As it became apparent to us, we thought, “Well, one long song is going to be kind of annoying to listen to in one regard, but in another regard, maybe it’s fitting to what the song is and what we’re going for.” We started leaning more towards that. You kind of listen with different ears at that point. Eventually, we thought, “We can’t break this up into tracks.”

I feel that even more so playing it every night. When we finish playing--we just play the first half of the song--I think, “I’m so glad we didn’t break this into tracks.” It would have been doing a huge disservice to it.

SILY: How was the album recorded?

DD: Basically, we went through it once with the hopes of putting the drum tracks down, and a usable bass. Then we went through and did the organ and vocals after that. The main goal was to get the drums solid and keep adding layers. I think that makes it kind of hard. Some bands go in and do all the tracks at once. It’s tough for us because while it works live, recording it, tapping on the bass doesn’t properly communicate to the microphone the highs and lows at the same time. I’ll go through and do the lows and the highs separately. It ends up being 30-40 bass tracks per song. 

Mixing took forever because it was such a large track. We were exceeding the bounds of Pro Tools as designed for one track. We had to keep stopping it. It kept overloading the computer. It was kind of annoying but kind of exciting. There were these error messages that Pro Tools kept shooting up. The engineer, Billy Anderson, would go, “I don’t know what this means.” So he would ask in a forum, and someone from Pro Tools chimed in and said, “That error message should never ever happen. It’s pushing past what Pro Tools is designed to handle.” [We were like] “Yes, that’s cool!”

SILY: What is it like working with Billy?

DD: He records really creatively. It’s almost like having another member of the band there. He never puts input into the playing style. But during the mixing process, he’s brilliant. He’s got the best set of ears I’ve ever seen in a person. He brings things out I don’t even notice. He can hear so many tracks simultaneously. I remember, I stayed at his house one time. He has a display of the records he’s done. There was a 7-inch from an old Seattle band, and [it was signed,] “Billy, You are alchemy.” That’s a good summation.

SILY: How did you balance your and Jesse’s different vocal styles?

DD: I guess the way that all came about was when Jesse started, it was after Adrian had left. He was playing and learning the vocal lines from the older songs. So he was trying to emulate and was on board with the style the band was doing already. That’s always been the case, where I’ll do the screams and he’ll do the growls.

SILY: To what extent in the back of your mind were you thinking about past notable one-track albums?

DD: We definitely discussed that. Dopesmoker gets the most attention. But I don’t think we were creatively referencing it. If anything, El mundo frio by Corrupted is what we’re more in line with stylistically, especially with the long passage in the middle that’s more of an ambient thing. I wouldn’t say we were trying to recreate anything in that regard. Our approach was more just to write a song as a Bell Witch song would be. The original approach was to write one song with several movements. As the movements whittled away, we were left with one big song. I don’t think we were trying to recreate or create something that hasn’t been done.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?

DD: We were searching for artists and had a couple in mind, but we were kind of just creatively shopping around, looking for who out there was doing really cool stuff. We came across [Mariusz Lewandowski] and thought, “This guy’s incredible. If he’s available and willing, we should do it.” We wrote him an email, and he wrote back that he had always wanted to do a record and had never done it before. He even listened to [previous record] Four Phantoms and said he was really into that. We kind of described what we were thinking based off of his style and the themes of the record, the “as above, so below” aspect. He came back with [the cover], and we were both floored.

SILY: Had you decided on the title at that point?

DD: No, at that point we were sticking to the “as above, so below” idea. I think the artwork was even a point of us thinking “as above, so below” is over-said and overused. One of the Erik Moggridge lyrics--“Mirror reaper / arrow of my eye”--was related to “as above, so below,” so we thought we would use that, and it fit with the cover.

SILY: What about the feature-length video Taylor [Bednarz] is doing? Is that set to the entire piece?

DD: Yeah, he’s still working on it. He’s past the half-way point. He’s working on archived footage from the 50′s and 60′s. It’s really cool. He’s trying to piece together stories to make a bigger one. We saw the videos he’s done. He has a really cool approach to things.

SILY: Adrian’s vocals on the album were from unused vocal takes from Four Phantoms. Were there any unused takes that didn’t make it onto Mirror Reaper?

DD: Nothing from Adrian. He had already died when we were doing that. We just dug back and were like, “Here are some takes that didn’t make the final recording.” We found some that could be lined up and fit. Having Billy Anderson be the guy who can do that was great. I think there are leftover vocal tracks from Mirror Reaper from Jesse and I’s recording. Maybe if I die, he can use that [laughs]. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

SILY: Even before Adrian passed away and after he left the band, do you feel the fan base embraced Jesse as part of the band?

DD: Yeah, I think so. Jesse’s a pretty cool guy. He’s a lot of fun. Maybe a few friends might have been on the fence because they were personally close with Adrian. But it was a good fit, because Jesse and Adrian were friends as well. It wasn’t an outsourcing scenario. He was already in the family.

SILY: How do you guys feel about people constantly labeling you “funeral doom?”

DD: It doesn’t really come up in conversation. When Adrian and I were starting the band and sort of toying with the direction we would take, we would talk about bands we liked, and what aspects we liked, and what made those bands so special. Those conversations were centered around funeral doom and death metal, more or less. I think that Bell Witch’s style is set at this point. That’s not really a conversation that happens as much.

SILY: Is there anything cool you guys have been listening to in the tour van or on your own?

DD: We’ve been listening to a lot of Waylon Jennings. I’ve been listening to the new Ruins of Beverast album. We’ve been listening to a lot of Blut Aus Nord. A Scottish band called FVERNALS--they’re great. Those have been the things on heavy rotation the past few days.

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