Worms of the Earth

Worms of the Earth is a solo project by Dan Barrett that's been on my radar ever since I listened to Azal\'ucel. After reviewing both the aforementioned album and Anagami, I decided to get in contact with the man behind the music to discuss his influences, projects, as well as his new side project, Venal Flesh.

First off, I would like to say it's a pleasure to be doing this with you. But, to start off this interview, for those readers that don't know who you are and what Worms of the Earth is, tell us a bit about yourself and the project.

Dan Barrett - "Worms of the Earth is my ethno industrial / ritual ambient project which I?ve been doing since about 2004. It focuses around the search for knowledge and wisdom. From 2008-2010 I released several things with the Canadian label Bugs Crawling Out Of People, in 2012 I signed with Tympanik Audio to release the tribal/ethno/rhythmic noise album Anagami, and in 2013 I released the dark ambient album Azal'ucel with Industry8."

Now, what I'd like to do is talk about a lot of your works, starting with your first full length album, "The Angels of Prostitution". On that album, one of my favorite songs was "Dew Falling Over the Garden". I adored the vocals on that track, however, in your most recent works, "Azal'ucel" and "Anagami", the vocals are gone. Will they ever make a return?

Dan Barrett - Oh man; to be honest with you, I hate that album. I know you?re not supposed to admit that, but I'm embarrassed at how amateur that stuff is. I guess that's how it goes though, first album and all. Before I answer the question, let me backtrack a bit. When I started Worms I did not have a solid idea of what I wanted to do with the project or where I wanted to take it, musically or thematically. In the very beginning (2005-2007), I was writing Terror EBM stuff. I did some shows and released some demos with songs in that style, one of the tracks being "Dew Falling Over The Garden". At that time, I had a couple of guys who would play live with me and it was kind of vaguely like a "band". In 2007 we all parted ways and I gravitated away from the EBM sphere into making rhythmic noise with dark ambient and IDM influence. So the first record, The Angels Of Prostitution, was the point where I was first starting to find the Worms sound, though there was still lingering residue from the past. Back when I was writing the EBM stuff I didn't know what I was doing vocally; we had a bunch of problems early on at shows with vocal effects and it all scared me away from singing. It worked out in a way; in lieu of expending effort on developing my voice I was subsequently able to focus on studying music theory, songwriting, and production. Only recently have I started to "find my voice" again. I have begun experimenting with vocals as an instrument, and there are myriad vocal sounds on the dark ambient album I am currently working on. Vocals will always be a large part of this project (whether sampled or my own), and I plan to continue developing my voice; however, I would say with a high level of certainty that there will never be another Dew style track."

As well as with the "Angels of Prostitution", on "The Serpents that Lick the Dust (By Embodi)", there seems to be a sort of monologue (around the two and a half minute mark) explaining the title of your project. However, it was hard to actually make out what was said in the song. Could you elaborate on that?

Dan Barrett - If I remember correctly, that's just an excerpt from the bible. The whole "mocking Christianity by taking its texts and bastardizing them" thing. For the record, there was an actual version of that song (as in, not a remix), but it got lost in a hard drive crash. One day I'd like to remake it, but who knows."

And, moving into "Anagami", this was a bit of a surprise to me when I discovered it. What actually inspired you to move into Middle Eastern sounds?

Dan Barrett - "I am predominantly interested in crafting music with depth, atmosphere, and a spiritual essence. I feel that in regards to rhythmic music, the tribal/ethno sounds are most suited to this - at least for me, I find these sounds to have an extremely high potential for being molded into something visionary and evocative. Anagami is heavily influenced by Buddhist ideals as you can tell from the art and song titles, so Asia (China/Southeast Asia) was a big influence. The main non-"synth" instruments on the album: Guzheng, Er Hu, Flute are all Chinese. I also used Bansuri and Tablas which are Indian. And of course there are monk chants (mostly Tibetan). When it comes to "spiritual" music, I feel that vocals are a key element in connecting with listeners on a subconscious or metaphysical level - especially vocals/voices in a foreign tongue, as (in a similar manner to sigil magic) the brain is more easily able to allow itself to attribute some kind of deeper meaning and power to something it can't outright understand or compute. I have a slight interest in the Middle East due to its history with alchemy and the black arts, but it wasn't really an influence on the album.

One of the main motivations on this album was to show people that I'm not just "a power noise guy" and I am capable of writing actual, absorbing music. So I wanted there to be at least a moderate focus on instrumentation and melodies/harmonies. In addition, writing power noise is not challenging from the perspective of a musician. The thought of writing another album of nothing but distorted beats and simple keylines did not inspire me at all. I am always looking to improve as a musician/producer and was interested in ways of making "rhythmic noise"-based music more unique and stimulating."


And, correlating with the unique sounds in your ever-evolving works, "Azal'ucel" was definitely remarkable. It seemed to toy with the ideas of Satanism a lot (just by the description and the bonus disc that came along with it, "4 Rites for Transformation". Do you take in these beliefs yourself, or do you just find religion fascinating when incorporated into music? Or is there something else entirely?

Dan Barrett - "There is no quick and straightforward answer to this, but here's the condensed version:
Firstly, let me say that dark ambient is my favorite kind of music. It is the music I listen to the bulk of the time and while it was always an influence, there came a point where, as a musician, I was compelled to delve into it more thoroughly. This album correlates directly with my increased interest in/practicing of occult matters, and ambient is perfect medium for ritual / transcendent music. One quick note: I actually wrote this album before Anagami and it was supposed to be released earlier but due to label issues I was forced to delay it quite a bit before ultimately having to find another label.

The most important thing in my opinion is balance, whether we are talking about the physical or metaphysical. Where Anagami is about understanding "light"/"positive" energy + becoming one with the universe and the godform, Azalucel travels the opposite path which involves understanding and working with "dark" energy + becoming your own god via unification with your higher self. Anagami focuses on the more Buddhist ideals, while Azalucel focuses on the Luciferian path. By understanding and conquering both sides true balance can be achieved.

Ok so, Azal'ucel. Firstly, the name "Azal'ucel" is a name for the higher self (it comes from a book on Luciferian Magic and is a combination of Lucifer and Azazel - personally I see Lucifer ["the light"] as another name for this higher self rather than some kind of deity or archetype ["the devil"]). The album is meant to be an audio ritual to help invoke it and, at least on some level, open up a channel to communicate with/understand it. The second layer of the album is a little more specific to my life: it's a story along the lines of Paradise Lost about confronting "god", being rejected by the heavens, cast down into hell, and rising up again to combat and finally destroy Christianity. This chronicles my own life struggle to "break free from the chains of Christian enslavement" as Michael Ford so eloquently puts it.

So the short, to the point answer to "am I a Satanist" is absolutely yes. However, at the most fundamental level this mainly means that I seek the empowerment / ascension / evolution of myself to the utmost. Do I follow/believe/practice some of the Luciferian stuff? Yes. Do I follow/believe/practice everything? No (it's not a particularly developed system anyway). Personally, the Luciferian stuff resonates with me and is more effective to work with due to its, for lack of a better term, "relevance" in western/christian society / my personal filter as developed by being raised in said society, meaning I can more easily comprehend energies and currents via judeo-christian archetype association vs. some other spiritual pantheon. Anyway...you didn't pick up a book on magic so I'll stop there for now (although at this point it's impossible to discuss Worms without delving into magic to some extent). There are lots of things out there which people probably consider to be Satanism and they don't pertain to me, but that is all beyond the scope of this interview."


Why was the bonus disc included, anyway? Did the songs just not really fit in with the rest of what was going on with "Azal'ucel"?

Dan Barrett - "Azal'ucel follows a storyline which is told in its entirety through the 9 tracks on the album. The label (Industry8) wanted to include limited edition bonus material with the release, so I finished/polished a couple b-sides from the Azal'ucel sessions and used the opportunity to re-work some of my favorite previously released compilation songs for a proper hardcopy release. There isn't really any connection between the tracks on "4 Rites for Ascension" beyond them all dealing with the same general atmosphere and goal of being audio utilities for the journey to connect with the higher self.

The bonus disc was a great idea; there was a ton of interest and we sold through those very quickly. Much respect for Joe @ Industry8 for making it happen (and all his hard work to get the album out in general)."


Okay. Now we're going to be talking about your newer endeavors. The one announcement that I am absolutely ecstatic about is that you are currently working on a spiritual successor to "Azal'ucel". Can you tell us anything about that? Title, songs, or even what record label it's going to be under?

Dan Barrett - "Yes, the new album that I am writing presently will be the continuation of the Work started with Azal'ucel. It's rather close to being finished so hopefully it will see a release in early/mid 2014. After I released Azal'ucel I was planning to write another tribal style album, but had an insufferable mental block which prevented me from getting anywhere. I realized that my Work with the Luciferian / dark ambient stuff needed to be continued in order to make any further spiritual/musical progress (basically to understand and purge that which was holding me back). This album deals with extreme dark/negative energies and involves journeying to / understating the Qliphoth, which is basically "the realm of evil/impure forces". From a magic standpoint, this basically means working with nothing but harshly abysmal/destructive/chaotic energy and the books will tell you that it's super scary and dangerous (cue the comedic relief guy from Hatchet 2 saying "Spoooky").

I don't have any titles yet which is due to the process in which I write (esp. regarding ambient music) which is this: the process of writing this music involves me mentally opening a channel with "the other place" (spiritual realm, whatever you want to call it) and pulling these ideas through the conduit and piecing them together. At the time they don't always make sense to me, but I just have this inherent feeling of "how it should sound" and work from there to achieve that sound. After all the music is written the second phase begins which is interpreting the data and figuring out what it means / how everything fits together. Ultimately, our physical bodies can't comprehend much of the spiritual world, so this is a way of manifesting content and knowledge from that place into this realm in a way that can be understood by the physical body. After I have all the audio components in place, I can begin the process of figuring out song/album titles.

This album is a two part ritual. The first part being the composition, wherein I had to connect with these energies and compose some kind of audio document about it. After this, I close the gateway and come in as a producer and do the mixing to make everything sound as best as it can. The second part is then listening to the finished album which serves as a beacon to reconnect to these energies for further study and analysis.

There was a lot of shit involved in the writing process, but I will save that for a more in depth interview after the album has been released.

Musically, this album focuses around more complex ambient soundscapes. It keeps with the classic CMI vibe, but evolves it. I was very influenced by the styles of Atrium Carceri and Squaremeter ("The Frozen Spark" album). I wanted to focus less on drones and more on constantly changing, very dense compositions with tons of subtle bits that you almost don't consciously register. This is definitely headphone music. There is also the inclusion of tribal instrumentation and percussion on a few songs. Like I mentioned earlier, there are a plethora of voices and vocal sounds on this. I used significantly more of my own voice and less sampled choirs (but still some of those). I feel that overall it's a pretty diverse record which has a strong collective theme and vibe to it which will really appeal to fans of deep and sacral ambient."


I also saw mention that you want to work on a follow up to "Anagami", going for more tribal aesthetics. Is there anything you can tell us about that?

Dan Barrett - "Unfortunately not too much yet; I have not started any significant work on this. My goal is to focus on writing it in 2014. I think that in many ways it will be similar to Anagami - the focus on dark and exotic atmospheres while blending rhythmic noise with ethnic sounds & instruments. It will probably also span the same genres in about the same frequency (a couple mostly tribal songs, a couple mostly IDM songs, a bunch of rhythmic noise songs). The major difference is that I am thinking that I will greatly increase focus on dynamic songwriting and further let go of the restriction of writing for the club."

As well as recent announcements, I saw that you wanted to get away from your laptop during live performances and work on being able to make the shows more enjoyable. What else do you plan on doing in order to make the live shows better?

Dan Barrett - "The live show will be two people with the goal of providing a profound, ritualistic experience. There will be live percussion + organic things like bells & singing bowls, and live keys/instrumentation. There will also be more vocal stuff (chanting, etc.) and theatrics. If you want more specifics you'll have to attend a show, haha."

I also noted that you have a side project, a harsh electro project by the name of "Venal Flesh". Did you start this project because the songs being written didn't really fit in with the "Worms of the Earth" style? And did you actually plan out Venal Flesh, or did it just kind of happen on accident?

Dan Barrett - "Let me answer both of these at the same time. Venal Flesh is a new project I have been working on for the last 2-3 years. Musically, the goal is to expand upon the classic terror ebm and dark electro sound of bands like Suicide Commando, VAC, yelworC, Pain Station, Seven Trees, etc. As a project, the goal is to work in a band format and create a theatrical, encompassing experience for listeners that goes beyond simply audio. It started because VanityKills mentioned the idea of doing this band to me and enough time had passed that I was interested in writing "terror" stuff again. I guess you could say that on some level this is a continuation of the early demo-era style of Worms, but it?s so far beyond than that.

One of the biggest regrets I have about Worms is that when I started it I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with the project, no direction, and no knowledge of the music industry / scene. With Venal Flesh came the opportunity to do it all again the "right" way. Of course this band is tremendously meaningful to us, so it was essential that we sat down and planned the project out for quite a while before ever writing any music. We developed a distinct concept and are working to continually bring that into being through various forms of media. I?m only partially qualified to speak about the themes of Venal Flesh, as most of the concepts came from the other core member VanityKills, so an in depth discussion about that will have to wait for a specifically VF interview."

So far, with Venal Flesh, you only have a single digital release that came out earlier this year. Do you have plans to press CDs later on with the project, or a different idea entirely?

Dan Barrett - ""We are currently in talks with a label about releasing an official full length which will be available in hardcopy, digital, etc. It will be mostly new stuff and a few updated tracks from the first release. Look for that in 2014. We have also done a few remixes which should be out later this year or early next year."

And, finally, I thank you once more for the interview. But, now, at this time, is there anything you'd like to say to the readers or your fans?

Dan Barrett - "Thank you."