https://distortednoizezine.wordpress.com/2026/05/21/shamorga/: SHAMORGA
Interview by Spyros
Shamorga is not the kind of project that can be introduced cleanly through genre labels. To call it black metal is true, but incomplete; to call it dark ambient or industrial is also true, but still too small. Emerging from Tallinn, Estonia, through the singular vision of Wolos, Shamorga feels more like a psychological chamber built from sound, image, fever and dread. It is black metal pushed toward expressionism,where riffs, noise, ambience and distortion become brushstrokes across a canvas of inner collapse.Across Mordia, Grimoire, VPUHIVPRAH and “KAKUKOKOL,” the project has already formed a strange and private language. Mordia opened the first corridors, full of invented names, haunted rooms and demonic architecture. Grimoire turned toward occult invocation, presenting names and entities not simply as symbols, but as masks for psychic pressure and spiritual disfigurement. VPUHIVPRAH descended further into fever, illness, dream, delusion and self-confrontation, while “KAKUKOKOL” seems to open yet another door beneath the door, because apparently one nightmare basement was not enough.What makes Shamorga compelling is its refusal to become tidy. The music is chaotic,but not careless; visual, but not decorative; solitary, but not empty. It feels like one mind attempting to externalise states that ordinary language cannot contain: dread,hallucination, ritual, disgust, revelation, and the strange beauty that sometimes appears inside ruin. Its world is not built for passive listening. It asks to be entered like a cursed house, one room at a time.In this conversation, we explore the full path of Shamorga so far: the origins of the project, the expressionist use of black metal, the invented and occult language behind the releases, the relationship between sound and visual art, the role of chaos, solitude and human performance, and the deeper darkness that may still wait beyond Mordia,Grimoire, VPUHIVPRAH and “KAKUKOKOL.”Shamorga feels like a project that should not be introduced only through genre terms.The music uses black metal as a foundation, but the deeper impression is closer to an expressionist canvas of dread, distortion, nightmare and emotional disorder.For listeners discovering Shamorga for the first time, how would you describe the project’s true purpose beyond the words black metal, ambient or industrial?First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Distorted Noize for scouting Shamorga from the vast depths of the internet. In a world saturated with “safe” content, your genuine interest in unusual and unconventional bands is exactly what keeps the underground alive.A huge thank you goes to Spyros personally for providing space in the publication and, most importantly, for the time he invested in listening to the Shamorga albums.Navigating through these “psychic chambers” is no easy task, and I truly appreciate your attention to detail and the depth of your approach.We live in a world overflowing with trivial meanings. The purpose of SHAMORGA is to return the listener to a state of sacred silence through noise. Where words no longer work, and where guitar distortion replaces the human scream, a true dialogue with the Abyss begins. It is a musical invitation to look into the eyes of your own “subjective vision of darkness” and find a strange, terrifying harmony within that chaos. We take the sound of a guitar, distort it into a state of glowing plasma, and use that sound to paint a world where there is no time, no names, and no comfort. This project is for those who seek authenticity in art rather than “beauty”—no matter how frightening or absurd it may be. We don’t just play music; we document the process of matter turning into spirit through flame and ash.The official description of Shamorga speaks about rejecting triviality in favour of emotional chaos, and about transforming black metal into something visual, raw and expressionist. That idea is fascinating because it treats sound almost like paint violently applied to a dark surface.Do you think of Shamorga more as music, visual art, psychological theatre, ritual self-expression, or a place where all of these collapse into one another?SHAMORGA is not a choice between music or theater; it is a nexus of sonic collapse,where all these elements merge into a singular act of deconstruction.I perceive it as ritualistic self-expression captured through the lens of expressionist painting. If the music is the vibration, then the covers and visuals are its shadows,while the “absurd” or “funny” video sequences act as a psychological theater designed to shatter the barrier between “serious” art and living chaos.It is a space where sound becomes as tangible as thick paint, and visual imagery begins to “echo” with dissonance. We aren’t just creating an atmosphere—we are constructing a temporary reality where the listener stops being a spectator and becomes part of the process. It is a ritual where the trivial is incinerated, leaving room for pure, unfiltered superconsciousnessMordia seems to be the first major doorway into the project’s world, with titles such as “Xiltario,” “Aelory,” “Colestroin,” “Elyndrax,” “Gelindox,” “Mithandor,” “Lunareth” and “Shatana.” The names feel strange and invented, almost like entities,places or psychic rooms rather than conventional song titles.What was the creative world behind Mordia, and were those titles meant to suggest a private mythology, a dream-language, demonic presences, or something deliberately beyond explanation?Mordia is the first threshold, the opening of my personal “geometry of the spirit.”Titles like Xyltario, Elori, Shatana are not words in the conventional sense. They are acoustic seals or keys to the “psychic rooms” you’ve identified.The creative world behind Mordia was not built on existing mythologies, but on dream-logic. These are the names of entities and spaces that manifest when the mind deactivates its logical filters.Each title is a vibrational code. It doesn’t describe a song;it is the name of the presence captured within the sound.This is a personaldemonology, but not in a religious sense—it is a psychological one. These are the shadows of our “superconsciousness” that take on names only so we can engage them in dialogue.Mordia is an attempt to impose structure upon absolute chaos, turning the inexplicable into tangible landscapes. These are places where words are useless, yet names are necessary to find the way back.The notes around Mordia describe labyrinthine halls, shadowed corridors, cellars of dread and attics of epiphany, which gives the album an architectural horror feeling. It sounds like the listener is not merely hearing songs, but moving through a haunted structure built from ordeal and revelation.When you were creating Mordia, did you imagine the album as a building, a journey through the mind, a descent into demonic majesty, or a series of separate nightmares joined by atmosphere?Forget the mansion. Mordia is a colossal, ancient mountain, riddled with a labyrinth of endless tunnels.When you hit ‘Play,’ you’re not just walking in—you’re taking your first step into the maw of a cave. And here’s the thing: there’s no way back up. With every track, you’re not just moving from cave to cave; you’re descending deeper and deeper into the very womb of the mountain.The opening tracks are the upper levels, where glimpses of light still flicker through cracks, but the air is already turning heavy.The middle of the album takes you through narrow tunnels where the walls start pressing against your shoulders. This is where you hear those ‘dead languages’ echoing off the stone.The finale is the deepest, blackest caverns, with miles of solid rock crushing down from above. There’s absolute silence there, broken only by the vibration of that guitar drone.You’re literally falling into the abyss. And the deeper you go, the more this ‘architecture’ transforms into pure superconsciousness. You’re alone in the dark, under the weight of an entire mountain made of sound.It was a descent into demonic majesty, not in a religious sense, but in the sense of the sheer scale of the human shadow. I built this labyrinth so that everyone could get lost in it and perhaps find an exit through a door they never even knew existed. This isn’t a series of nightmares—it is one vast cathedral of pain and revelation, which rebuilds itself every time you press Play.What stands out across Shamorga’s releases is the use of chaos without the music simply becoming random. There is disharmony, but also a sense of deliberate emotional pressure, as if the disorder has been composed to force a specific inner reaction.How do you decide when chaos is expressive and when it becomes empty noise,and what tells you that a Shamorga composition has reached the right level of instability?How do I know when a track is done? It’s a purely physical sensation. I listen to the dissonance until it stops being just “sound” and starts becoming a presence. When I can feel the walls of that cave we’re descending into start to vibrate, forcing me to lean in and truly listen—that’s when I know I’ve hit the mark.The right level of instability is that moment when the composition feels like it’s about to fall apart, yet it still has you by the throat. There are moments where I myself forget which chord comes next, genuinely surprised by how the music shifts. It’s like a bridge on the verge of collapsing into the abyss, yet for some mystical reason, it stays standing. If I feel a flash of fear or a sudden spark of insight during the recording,that’s when the track has reached its boiling point.
Grimoire immediately shifts the imagery toward named powers: “Izidia,”“Adrameleh,” “Abraxas,” “Leviathan,” “Mammon,” “Alister,” “Iszuzis” and “Mastoma.” Compared with Mordia, it feels more openly occult, like a book of entities or invocations being opened track by track.What does the idea of the grimoire represent in Shamorga, and did you approach each track as a spell, a portrait, a possession, or a chapter in a larger occult descent?That’s a spot-on observation. If Mordia was the landscape—the mountain itself and its winding tunnels—then Grimoire is what we stumbled upon in its deepest, darkest reaches. It’s an inventory of the shadows that dwell within that place. For me, the concept of the ‘Grimoire‘ in SHAMORGA isn’t just a collection of occult names pulled from old books. It’s a living record of my encounters with these forces within the ‘psychic rooms’ of the subconscious.I don’t view these tracks as just ‘songs.’ Each one is simultaneously a portrait and a possession.When I write ‘Adramelech’ or ‘Abraxas,’ I’m not trying to retell a myth.I’m trying to become that sound, to let that force dictate the dissonance. It’s the sonic incarnation of the entity.To me, every track is a seal (sigil). When you open the ‘Grimoire,’ you aren’t just reading chapter by chapter—you are invoking these entities into your reality one by one. It’s a large-scale occult descent where we are no longer just wandering through caves; we are sitting at the table with those who dwell within. It’s music as aninvocation ritual, where distortion replaces words, and pure possession replaces melody.The names on Grimoire include figures that carry strong religious, demonic or esoteric associations, but the album does not feel like simple occult theatre. It feels more like each name becomes a distorted psychological state.How do you use occult names and symbols without letting them become decorative clichés, and are these figures external powers, inner demons,archetypes, or masks for human emotion?The use of an occult vocabulary in this case is a psychotechnique. Symbols cease to be “decorative” when they begin to resonate with real human experience. This is not a story about a hell “out there,” but a report from the hell within, where ancient names are merely a way to label one’s most hidden fears and aspirations. For example, if a name associated with destruction, it describes not the end of the world, but the entropy of the personality and the collapse of internal convictions. In moments of deep immersion, the boundary between “self” and “not-self” blurs. A psychological state becomes so intense that it is perceived by the individual as an external force taking hold of them.The project is repeatedly described as darkly magical and deeply atmospheric, but also as unpredictable, bright in emotional colour and infernal in delivery. That combination is unusual, because the music can feel both blackened and almost feverishly vivid.How important is colour to Shamorga’s darkness, and do you imagine the music visually while composing, almost like scenes, shapes, textures or violent brushstrokes?For Shamorga, “darkness” isn’t just a lack of light; it’s the backdrop for infernal color.When people describe the music as “feverishly bright” yet “hellish,” they’re hitting on our core philosophy. It’s not a dull, grey depression—it’s an infernal carnival. The “brightness” in Shamorga is a tactical move. If everything is dark all the time, your ears and your eyes eventually adjust. It becomes predictable. But when you’re submerged in shadows and an eye-searingly bright sound suddenly explodes, it creates a shock to the system.Shamorga music isn’t a photograph of reality; it’s a hallucination where the colors are too saturated and the shapes are constantly melting and reforming.VPUHIVPRAH seems to take the listener deeper into a more hallucinatory and underworld-facing version of Shamorga, with “TLEN,” “V PUH,” “I V PRAH” and “V PEKLO” forming a short but intense sequence. The release notes describe dreams,delusions, illness, corridors, basements, attics, bad trips and the confrontation with one’s own demon.What was the state of mind behind VPUHIVPRAH, and did you want the EP tofeel more like a fever dream, an exorcism, a symbolic provocation, or a journey into the underworld of the self?To be honest, all albums and VPUHIVPRAH was like a massive laboratory for me. I wanted to test the very limits of what black metal can sound like. The guitar here isn’t just an instrument anymore; it’s a test subject we’re putting through an electric chair of effects.I was deeply curious to see what would happen to the genre if you cranked the knobs into the unknown. How layers of delay turn into claustrophobia, how reverb builds those endless caverns, and how harsh fuzz can mimic the decay of matter. I wasn’t just playing riffs—I was searching for new textures, mutating the sound to see how far you can push destruction while staying within the realm of the black arts. This is black metal stripped down to its atoms and reassembled through the lens of a sonic anomaly.I wanted the sound to be physically tangible. I wanted the listener to feel that exact fever where you’re alternating between hot and cold, and the shadows in the corners of the room start to move. “TLEN” and “V PUH” are that exact moment where you realize: “Oh, it’s hitting me, and this isn’t going to end well.For me, this isn’t a religious it’s a psychological rite. You just take all the crap that’s piled up inside—the grudges, the fears, the sickness—and you hurl it out through screams and distorted guitars. “V PEKLO” is the final point where you just burn to the ground so that the demon finally shuts up.All those images in the liner notes are direct metaphors for our brains. We’re forcing the listener to crawl into the dustiest, darkest corners of their own mind. It’s not aguided tour; it’s a survival mission in the “otherworld” of your own self.“I V PRAH” was also given a video, and the project’s visual world seems inseparable from the sound: AI-assisted artwork, Unholy Icon visual development, surreal imagery and a strong sense of nightmare composition.How do visuals function within Shamorga, and do you see artwork and video as illustrations of the music, or as parallel rituals that reveal things the sound alone cannot explain?The more surreal the video becomes, the more at home Shamorga’s music feels.A standard “realistic” image just can’t carry the weight or density of our sound. We need fractured spaces, absurd imagery, and nightmare logic because the music itself issonic surrealism. When something wild and illogical happens on screen, it creates a perfect resonance with the feverish rhythm of the tracks. The sound and the visualsfeed off each other: the music explains the weirdness of the image, and the image gives a physical shape to the sonic chaos.These videos are engineered to keep you in suspense until the very last frame. There’s this obsessive urge to understand: “What happens next? How much deeper can this madness go?” At that precise moment, the music and the absurdity of the visuals merge so completely that they stop existing as separate entities. They become a single,monolithic organism.When it’s over, you’re left with a very strange, unsettling aftertaste—much like the feeling after a heavy, vivid dream that refuses to let you go. But that is exactly how it was planned. My goal isn’t to entertain the viewer; it’s to leave that emotional residue in their mind, forcing them to revisit those images long after the screen goes dark.In the end, you get this strange cocktail where you feel scared, weirded out, and occasionally amused by how absurd it all is. It’s exactly at this point of “wrongness” that Shamorga truly clicks. We aren’t just illustrating music—we’re creating a space where “normalcy” is officially dead, and surrealism is the only reality left standing.“KAKUKOKOL” arrives after the larger journeys of Mordia, Grimoire and VPUHIVPRAH, and its own description says that for those who reached the end of the last journey, it is time to go deeper. That makes it feel less like a standalone track and more like another trapdoor opening beneath the project.What does “KAKUKOKOL” reveal about the current direction of Shamorga,and does it point toward a new cycle, a deeper nightmare, or a more concentrated form of the project’s expressionist darkness?“KAKUKOKOL” arrives after the larger journeys of Mordia, Grimoire and VPUHIVPRAH, and its own description says that for those who reached the end of the last journey, it is time to go deeper. That makes it feel less like a standalone track and more like another trapdoor opening beneath the project.What does “KAKUKOKOL” reveal about the current direction of Shamorga, and does it point toward a new cycle, a deeper nightmare, or a more concentrated form of the project’s expressionist darkness?“KAKUKOKOL” is the opening shot for our upcoming EP, “IZ UMRUD“, set to drop on June 26, 2026. If you thought Shamorga had already reached its peak madness, get ready—we’ve officially crossed into the territory of radical experimentation.On this record, I took a massive gamble. I pushed the guitars to produce sounds that,at first glance, have no business being in dark, heavy music. These are strange,perhaps even “wrong” textures for the genre.My goal was to take these alien sounds and force them to serve the overall atmosphere of the nightmare. It’s like placing a neon sign fragment inside a Francis Bacon painting—it disorients you, creeps you out, and makes the whole image even more surreal.IZ UMRUD is an attempt to prove that darkness doesn’t have to be predictable. It cansound weird, experimental, and even wild in terms of technical execution.
Because Shamorga is a solo project, everything seems to pass through one mind:composition, performance, recording, mixing, mastering and the surrounding visualidentity. That kind of total control can create a very intense and private atmosphere,but it can also become isolating.How does working alone shape the emotional honesty of Shamorga, and do youexperience the project as freedom, burden, self-exorcism, or a necessary chamber where no outside voice can interfere?Because Shamorga is a solo project, everything seems to pass through one mind:composition, performance, recording, mixing, mastering and the surrounding visualidentity. That kind of total control can create a very intense and private atmosphere,but it can also become isolating.How does working alone shape the emotional honesty of Shamorga, and do youexperience the project as freedom, burden, self-exorcism, or a necessary chamber where no outside voice can interfere?When it’s just you—handling everything from the first riff to the final mastering and visual art—the music becomes a direct wire to your nervous system. There are no filters. In a band, you often have to “smooth out” the edges to reach a consensus. In Shamorga, there is no democracy. That’s where the intense emotional honesty comes from. Every “wrong” note and every uncomfortable frequency in the upcomingShamorga is there because I decided it had to be. Isolation is the price you pay for purity.I see Shamorga as a soundproof cell where I lock myself away from “external voices.”There’s too much noise in the world. This project is my bunker where I can dissect my own mind without anyone telling me, “That’s too weird” or “That’s not how you’re supposed to do it.”I’ve voluntarily exiled myself from the standard music scene to find something real.Those bizarre guitar textures I’m experimenting with, In a group setting, they might get vetoed. Here, they are the law.When a mix isn’t sitting right or the vision feels blurred, there’s no one else to blame.You carry the full weight of ensuring the “demon” in the music reaches the listener’s ears without being diluted.For me, isolation isn’t a punishment; it’s a requirement. Shamorga is a survival lab.Only in total solitude can you truly hear that inner voice that’s actually running the show.The repeated emphasis on “performed and mixed by a human” is interesting in an agewhere AI, digital polish and automated creation are becoming unavoidable parts of the conversation. Shamorga uses AI in visual development, yet insists on the human source of the music itself.Where do you draw the line between human expression and technological assistance, and why is it important that Shamorga’s sonic chaos remains physically and emotionally human?The repeated emphasis on “performed and mixed by a human” is interesting in an age where AI, digital polish and automated creation are becoming unavoidable parts of the conversation. Shamorga uses AI in visual development, yet insists on the human source of the music itself.Where do you draw the line between human expression and technological assistance,and why is it important that Shamorga’s sonic chaos remains physically and emotionally human?For me, using AI for visuals is like using a powerful telescope. It allows me to see things already hidden in my subconscious that I can’t physically paint myself. AI pulls images from a “digital limbo,” but I’m the one steering the ship.However, when it comes to music, the rules change. Shamorga’s sonic chaos must be human because AI doesn’t know how to “ache.”AI strives for perfection or a statistical average. Human performance is about flaws—heavy breathing, a string hit too hard out of pure rage, a slight lag in rhythm. The soul of Shamorga lives in those imperfections. When I scream into the mic or wrench those “wrong” sounds out of my guitar, I’m putting in physical labor. My body reacts to the music. A machine can simulate pain, but it can’t feel the burnout.The listener feels the difference instinctively. Human-made music is a transfer of energy from one nervous system to another. Shamorga’s sound needs to feel tangible, almost grimy. If you polish everything with neural networks, you lose that “hellish” organic quality. We need the sweat; we need the tension of real tendons. Our chaos isn’t a random set of numbers. It’s the structured madness of a living being. By insisting that it’s “performed and mixed by a human,” I’m giving the listener a guarantee: “This is real.This hurt. This isn’t a simulation.”The whole idea of incorporating humor and absurdity into the videos actually started as a massive “accident.” When I was generating visuals with AI, the results were often so wildly different from my prompts that they should have been discarded. But looking at those “failed” scenes, I realized they possessed a logic of their own.Instead of redoing them to fit a traditional “dark” mold, I decided to make those rejected, nonsensical fragments the core foundation of the clips. As it turns out, this “wrongness” fits the music of Shamorga perfectly. It adds a layer of unpredictable,surreal humor that mocks the typical seriousness of the genre. By embracing the machine’s hallucinations, I found a visual language that matches the sonic instability of the project—where the more it feels like it’s “falling apart,” the more authentic it becomes.Technology is a great servant but a terrible master. In Shamorga, AI might paint the walls of our “solitary cell,” but the one screaming inside those walls will always be a human. That contrast between cold digital visuals and feverish, human sound is exactly where the magic happens.Across the releases so far, Shamorga seems to move from infernal corridors,through occult books and demonic names, into underworld dreams, illness,delusion and deeper expressionist nightmare. The project already feels like amap of psychic chambers rather than a conventional discography.Looking at Mordia, Grimoire, VPUHIVPRAH and “KAKUKOKOL”together, what has Shamorga become so far, and what darkness remains unexplored beyond the next door?“KAKUKOKOL” from the upcoming album “IZ UMRUD” is a direct continuation of “VPUHIVPRAH“. It is that very “trapdoor” beneath the floor we’ve been talking about. There are no more names or walls here—only pure, concentrated emotions and sonic experiments cutting through the silence.“IZ UMRUD” (releasing June 26, 2026) is not the final experiment; it is a continuation of our evolution. Shamorga is no longer just studying Hell—it is harnessing its energy to seek out entirely new sonic forms. These distortions and “wrong” guitar solutions will serve as the foundation for all future albums. Shamorga will continue to find ways to dismantle sonic and traditional structures, turning every subsequent release into an even deeper and more unpredictable form of expressionistic darkness.I highly recommend checking out the other fascinating interviews by Spiros on Distorted Noize. It was through this platform that I discovered the band Veilburner,I really enjoyed their musical style, and I feel they are very much kindred spirits to me.I want to thank everyone who took the time to engage with this conversation. If this interview has failed to leave even one person indifferent—if it reached someone—then the whole endeavor was worth it. My goal has never been just to ‘release music.’I wanted to create a resonance.If what you heard or read today serves as a spark, or if it pushes you to pursue your own mad ideas and launch new projects, that is the ultimate success. Do not fear dissonance, do not fear ‘wrong’ decisions, and do not fear your own inner labyrinths.Create, dismantle, and forge your own unique sound.
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