MORTIIS: New Audio Interview Available

Italian journalist Paolo Bianco recently conducted an interview with MORTIIS' namesake frontman. You can now stream the chat at Musica Metal.

MORTIIS's "Perfectly Defect" LP was released last month as a completely free, full-length, downloadable album.

"Putting 'Perfectly Defect' out as a free download was a decision we made after some consideration," said the band's namesake Mortiis.

"The new model of the music business is important to keep in mind; there's a new mentality out there in terms of how people acquire their music now. For better or worse, music seems to have become a medium a lot of people aren't prepared to pay for in the old-fashioned way. So, we paid to record it out of our own pockets 'cos we thought it would be a really cool gift to our fans that have been waiting around for ages for something new to come out."

MORTIIS has spent much of the past couple years writing and recording "The Great Deceiver", the long-awaited follow-up to 2004's full-length, "The Grudge", and the 2007 remix album, "Some Kind of Heroin", "Perfectly Defect" is the quintessential prelude to the world of "The Great Deceiver" — while the latter is heavier and darker, the former is varied, experimental, and largely instrumental. The bottom line is that "Perfectly Defect" leads into "The Great Deceiver" acting as a crucial stage in the evolution of MORTIIS' music.

"When we were writing and working on 'The Great Deceiver', we were coming up with all sorts of inspired stuff, a really varied collection of music," Mortiis offered. "Some of it was far too varied and experimental to be included in such an angry, dark album as 'The Great Deceiver' so we created a brand new album that is the introductory element to the more intricate world of 'The Great Deceiver'."

"I think we really captured a cool vibe here," Mortiis enthused. "It's not easy marrying anger with melody, but I believe we did it. The songs on 'Perfectly Defect' were created across a period of time, and I believe it shows in terms of what inspired these songs. They're rather soundtrack-y in a dark and sometimes bombastic way."

With the concept of digital distribution came a new empowerment for MORTIIS — one where the artist controls his own artistic destiny.

"After our record deal finally expired, I had developed a profound aversion to the very idea of letting other people control my art, my lifework," he said. "So, again, the idea of the new technology really did grow on me. We dealt with some really evil stuff in the industry. Nothing shocking in terms of industry practice, but at a human level, it was a living nightmare. It reached a point where we fired everyone around us except for the handful of people we knew we could trust. It was a big move, but had to be done in order to survive. It was like rewinding the clock back to the start and beginning with a clean slate. We started working on a ton of new music right then. With the advent of modern technology, we realized we could do a lot of stuff without the often self-serving, meddling record labels. No record label would ever have let us put out an album for free, with the option to donate if the fans wanted to."

The album is available at www.mortiis.com. There is no cost for the download, but donations to cover the cost of recording may be made through the web site.