TORPOR

Answered by Simon Mason

Q1. If you would, please provide some context for readers who may not be familiar with you—where you’re from, when you formed, your sound, etc.

Hi there! We’re TORPOR from Bristol & Wales in the UK. We formed in 2012 and we play music that reflects our combined influences & artistic ventures, which seems to come out as an amalgam of doom/ sludge & post metal.

Q2. I first got into doom and post-metal in the mid-2000s with bands that were local to me in Maine in Ocean and Conifer and some of the much more well-known acts like Pelican, and sludge and post-rock around the same time. This is not “easy” music. I’m curious as to what drew you to the “slow-burn”: What were your entry points and what are some of Torpor’s influences?

We’re from a similar age group, so we were all listening to the bands you listed as well as ISIS and Neurosis at that time as well as Will Haven, Torche & Floor.  Mono played a part in our lives as well as the post hardcore scene of the time Planes Mistaken for Stars & These Arms are Snakes being a big part of that for both myself and Lauren. There’s a lot of trip-hop in our early influences (Portishead & Massive Attack etc.) as well. We’re all drawn to good riffs and hooks. songs that resonate on a personal level and speak to our soul. So I guess the answer to your question is that we find parity and a deep connection to slower, drawn out songs. Music with grit and a sense that you can feel the music rather than something that is consumed in a shuffled playlist.

Q3. What made you want to pursue making music?

This is an interesting question. If I really dig down into it, I would say that it was the sense of community that drew me to becoming a musician. Hanging out with people, improving your craft and spending time in the practice room used to be an escape from a fairly complicated and messy life in the early years for me. These days, the community aspect is the primary driver.

Q4. Your album Abscission came out a few months ago—talk to us about the record’s sound, theme(s), and what you were seeking to convey.

The album grew from a place of personal loss and disappearance, and became an exploration of the different spaces opening up within us. Our main guiding principle through the writing and recording was the idea of this psychological journey, and how through our individual processes of meditation, contemplation and catharsis, loss and identity are transformed. We've always worked by allowing our experiences to converge into something new - Abscission is our collective dialogue of rupture and renewal.

Abscission refers to the natural cycle of trees shedding their leaves from Autumn into Winter. Specifically, the process of cutting off and letting go; part of the cycle of maturity and renewal which is reflected sonically and structurally by the flow of the five slow-burning meditations that make up this record. To quote Katherine May in ‘Wintering’, "The tree is waiting. It has everything ready... It is far from dead. It will not burst into life in the spring. It will just put on a new coat and face the world again."

Q5. I read on your Bandcamp that a percentage of the proceeds of the record would be going to a mental health charity. Could you tell us a little about how this came about, about the charity itself, and why this is so important to you?

Honestly, we have all struggled with our mental health for our own personal reasons. These experiences have forced us to reflect on our existence and made change and self exploration completely necessary. Society in its current form is hostile to existence. We're all made to feel as though anxiety or depression are abnormal reactions to being asked to cope with the endless battles we all fight on a daily basis. The charity we chose is called Second Step who are a Bristol based mental health charity who provide essential community support and we feel they are best placed to receive the funds we hope to raise from sales.

Q6. How would you say Torpor has evolved—musically and/or yourselves personally—since you began?

Well we are all 11 years older than we were when we first started out. So that’s an obvious one. I feel as though over the four releases the biggest change was between the first album (From Nothing, Comes Everything) to the split EP we did with Sonance (RIP). We were always getting darker in our sound, the vocalist we had on that first release added their influence to our sound, but after they left we just went forward and found ourselves where we are today. Evolution and incremental improvement is what life is all about. Abscission is reflective of that.

Q7. What does the future hold for Torpor?

We are playing Cvlt Fest (UK) in February, Roadburn Festival (NL) in April, Doom Lines Festival (UK) in July, ArcTanGent Festival (UK) in August and hoping to arrange a tour of Europe & Scandinavia which we are currently working on. We hope to add a few more festivals to that list as well. So if anyone reading this is around for any of the above hopefully we see you soon!