INTRODUCING: The Ember, The Ash
Mental health is often a big part of music making. Whether it is expressing feelings in a way no other medium can, or learning to deal with certain aspects of ourselves and the lives of those around us, music is an integral part of healing and understanding. In project THE EMBER, THE ASH solo artist only known as 鬼 explores the effects of someone close to him dealing with severe mental health in his release Fixation.
It’s a heavy topic to navigate, but one of deep mental health issues is one that feels very close to home for. “The record is a product of watching a loved one endure the throes of severe depression and intrusive thoughts. After a suicide attempt occurred, I decided I was going to put all of the feelings I couldn’t properly express verbally into a record. Music has always been the outlet I rely on as a coping mechanism for traumatic events, because I haven’t been able to find other ways that work for me.”
The music has a huge range of influences, from symphonic black metal to metalcore and everything in between, there’s been a lot of scope for influence and inspiration on this record, “Absolutely,” 鬼 agrees. “I write while pulling from all of my current influences, and I don’t hold anything back as long as it feels right to me. I likely do this to a detriment, as having this broad a range of sounds can occasionally come off as incohesive to a listener, despite the record’s formatting being very intentional.”
While the project has been an important one to work through 鬼 ‘s personal feelings, it’s evidently had its challenges. “Writing lyrical content isn’t something I do often. There weren’t many surprises during the writing process because the entire reason I wanted to write a lyrical record at all was to convey something very specific. As much as there is still lots of imagery and symbolism obscuring the exact meanings of certain songs, I wanted the theme of the record to be unmistakable.”
While working solo has its benefits, it can also be a path that can be hard to walk without additional support. “I am someone who likes to work alone, so having creative control is nice, however I’m not confident enough in my work to always know what a song might be missing. Luckily, this project was incredibly personal, so it really couldn’t have been done any other way.”
It’s easy to think that this kind of project would be a hard one to pull together in isolation, but it’s been necessary for 鬼 to find clarity in the mass of struggles. “Probably a little bit of both, but it had to be done,” 鬼 tells us, “Otherwise, that negative energy would have plagued my life in some other way. For the past decade, writing songs has been my only consistent outlet to express myself as honestly and as eloquently as I can. I think for as long as I live it will always feel cathartic to put my experiences into music, no matter how difficult it may be to do so in the moment.”
While this is a personal album, there is a lot to take from it, that listeners can relate to, “As hopeless and bleak as the songs on Fixation are, I hope the record can be just as cathartic to a listener as it was to create. I hope it makes those going through similar hardships feel comforted and slightly less alone in their suffering. Because we are all suffering.”
The point of THE EMBER, THE ASH might have been short term creation, but it’s developed into something much more. “THE EMBER, THE ASH‘s debut record Consciousness Torn From The Void was just an idea that I wanted to explore outside of the music I had been writing for Unrequited. I began writing a few lyrical pieces that all centred around the same idea, and thought it would be a fulfilling musical experiment to start a new project for it. It was actually meant to be the only record from THE EMBER, THE ASH, but that changed once I discovered I had some more dark subject matter I wanted to express through aggressive music.”
Fixation is out now via Prosthetic Records.
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