Entrance Into the PORTAL Hath Been Granted (Interview)

 

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Portal, the presence, the power, the entity.  But what is it?  What are they?  And what is this?  An interview?  Of course not, we don’t waste much time with that unless it hasn’t been done, that’s why the title has ‘interview’ in parenthesis.  Deaf Sparrow knows, we know, the Portal has been opened many times, but no one has ever really asked the questions it desires to answer, or permitted it to go where it requires.  We won’t be wasting your time with “what is their favorite band” or “who is their main influence,” because such questions elucidate nothing on what Portal actually is.  Are they one, many?  It’s time for all of you who are truly of the Olde Guarde to understand one thing, Portal is a force, not a band, and it’s time they were properly explicated in the form they desire to take.  If you’re looking for an interview with banal questions about things which Portal is not, seek a blog, seek Metal Sucks, because such a mindset shall not prepare you for what you’re about to read.  Let us go from the basic to the esoteric.  Most photographs taken from the band’s Book of Face page.

 

Deaf Sparrow – Before we begin, I think it’s best to give you an understanding of how this is going to work.  I’ve read interviews with you before, and they’re a bore.  I’m not going to waste time with questions about why you formed, what you think of band X, what album X means to you, it’s all been done, and it’s all trite.  I also will not be wasting time with references to Lovecraft, which is merely the surface scum of better, darker ideas.  Frankly, I find it pathetic anyone would question you about it, so we’ll leave all such references aside.  My first question is thus, to whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?

Being Who Has Yet to Be Named – Yes, every single interview hardly attempts to go under the surface so we can’t deliver what we want off on our own tangents.  The Lovecraft thing gets very old, we have 5 songs only in tribute to the mythos, and those were all written in the 90’s during our fetal days.  This is Horror Illogium.

DS – Before we enter the Portal for a full elucidation on the meaning of your Hell-spew, please explain to us the meaning behind each member.

HI – I, Horror Illogium, am responsible for all Avian geometric Stitchings, Memetic Conjectural Disfiguring Weaves, Stringular Dictatorship Marewerking Cygnatures, command the Eight Deadly Sinews of Enigmatic Trauma, Creeping Hypnotic Poison, and Aural Tumors.  Next we have The Curator, who is the HeirLoom Medium / Custodian of The Steeping Arc, Omenknow Aut-Archistral Motions, Piper of the Drogue Maw Equivocals, Terse Double Entendre, KeyFraysing Dour Pitch, Anti Grammarian Cipher / Registrar, Overseer of The Vint-Age, Mantled In-Spire of Seepia Transmission, Pulpitt Forecaster DictatorShip On His CuratorShip, The Perfect Stranger – Noone has everything to do with.  His Number – 11:11, His Letter – Q.  Fictician / Logician, The HorrorScope.  Thus he is.  Then Aphotic Mote.  The Inanimate Animate, controller of Eight Maudlin Cacophonic Infrastructures, Listless Corridor Forebodings &Frantic Equations, Standing Capsules of Abysmill Horror, and Locker of Aphotic Mote/ Worr Drobes.  Next Ignis Fatuus, who commands all Spiral staircase rolls, Pounding Nightmares, and Funeral Clocking.  Finally Omenous Fugue, responsible for Shockwaves & Tremors, Subversive Pulses & Bloating, Five Pulpittating Dredging Appendages, Wirthing Undertow, Omnitidings and Rifts, Telemetric Throbbings and Tolls.

DS –  Excellent, I thank you.  This provides the perfect backdrop to go further in the knowledge of the Vint-Age of the Olde Guarde.  So, the dark maw of deceit from which Portal emanates is generally much more arcane than to which the usual listener is accustomed, even those who pride themselves on their “underground” knowledge.  For once, let us engage in a discussion of the doctrines of Portal so that it may be clearer to those who wish to begin their quest into the recesses of the turbulent coils of gloom you command.  Explain to me the lore of Portal, if you please.

Horror Illogium – Portal exists to hatch and cultivate abominable lifeforms to blot the minds of our audience.  We feed from the engines of horror and evolve our mental states of being towards foulness, to explore and document illnesses of the mind, body and soul as seen through a lens of seemingly alien and as in past works vintage antiquarianism.  Such states of mind come from the Ether, we are constantly feeding our imaginations in order to give birth to our creations and so the cycle continues.  This is as broad as one can put it, each piece has a multitude of facets in the details.

DS – Do these lifeforms have any distinct form or are they amorphous? If the former, can you please describe the variety of creatures you utilize to condemn your audiences to an eternity of loathing?

HI – These visions are indeed ongoing thriving manifestations, for example …paradoxical animated inanimates, deathly denizens who inhabit the Swarthly Ectoscapes of Ill and unwant as we would say.

DS – You say you derive this exploration from the ether, can you further define this?

HI – The Ether is our term for the transmissions we receive and the cause of our creations, a gateway to the multitude of harmful energy on display.

DS – What is the ultimate source of Portal’s power, if not the statement you made previously about the exploration of the arcane?  Is Portal a form of dark deity, something unspeakable that has superseded all gods and/or goddesses, perhaps something older than all?  Older than time, before there was even darkness?  Is Portal the entity in question or the way to this entity?

HI – We believe that we are vessels to an unknowable force, as far as we know what we are communicating has not been dealt with until now, however the ultimate source of power comes from within.

DS – Ah, so we have yet to experience the being that commands you, one can only assume it will emanate further through the coming years.  In consideration of your transmissions, I would like to investigate the meaning behind each of your releases.  As I said, this is not simply an interview to ask about what tuning you use or if you listen to Behemoth, nor what you consider metal to be.  It’s time to understand, for once, the knowledge of Portal, which transcends all of these things.

HI – Answers will be presented to be as broad and simplistic as possible because there are many fragments that make up the whole.  I will answer both in hindsight and the present.

DS – I sense in Seepia that you were funneling the decay when steam and coal were superseding our natural roots, creating a new form of man numbed by electric lights and frozen by flashes. It seems like a phonograph exuding the dull, washed-brown tones of forgotten lives of nameless bodies, seeping from the Steeping Arc. Can you comment on this album as a whole? Am I correct in my assumptions, or have I yet to learn the proper meaning? If the latter, please inform me, and our readers, of the lore of Seepia.

HI – Seepia is the undead frequency of an apocalyptic force, set about to end all things on this planet, a corrosion and cause to dilapidate, draining all life unceremoniously.

DS – So in seeking the color-tone of dead images, you have taken this washed stripping of life and made it whole.  Let us now consider Outre.  With this work, I sense you have dipped into the moving black and white of silence.  It seems Portal is speaking the language of forgotten, moving images, going from the static to the fluid as it develops. Insects in motion, evil beings forming from nothingness, the ticking of clocks marking time as these things pass and become immortal.  Are these assumptions correction?

HI – Your view is a very interesting one, the entire point is to bring about said visuals.  Outre’ is the end result of the Seepia clearing, the Vint-Age of our ideal barren landscape and atmosphere, a time heralding antiquated and stern artifacts which yield only the foul.

DS – Then the unusual and startling is what you seek in antiquated forms, interesting.  Now in Swarth, Portal seems to have moved into the realm of esoteric thought, bringing together the static and the fluid to properly conceive of the philosophical textures of the lost times.  It is, perhaps, like a sheet of skin on which ancient words have been placed to conjure the beings you create and abjure those you seek to eliminate in your spreading of mental corrosion.  This seems ideal, since the track “Larvae” suggests you consider your true listeners, those of the Olde Guarde with the sight to comprehend, have gone from pupae to pupils by this album, and by the next shall be moved on to the master level, from which I assume, perhaps, we shall see even greater suggestions of the being behind you, commanding your limbs like a puppeteer.

HI – Swarth is the black storm by which the slithery, malign and submerged invade/attack.  Grime and filth elite.

DS – Your words put into such succinct quality what takes me several sentences.  Teach us more with Vexovoid.  Here I sense that Portal has now drawn its believers into the Master phase, into the swinging, spinning void that is Portal itself.  I believe that you are drawing your audience into yourselves, into that which is Portal, in preparation for future eclosing into new forms, whatever that may be, which we shall not witness until the future is unfolded before us via the Overseer of the Vint-Age.  Am I correct in these assumptions?

HI – Vexovoid is the evolution by sickness, the advancement by mutation where all has become clear, the third eye open, think tanks in construct.

DS – I’ve seen you mention some terms several times, which I understand, but perhaps, based on the above, I am merely below where my knowledge needs to be.  Can you explain to the uninitiated what you search for in the Vint-Age? All of the forgotten? The Decadent? The Symbolist?

HI – The Vint-Age is an Edwardian/Victorian element where the Olde Guarde dwell, antiquated machinations thrive on their own accord towards their abnormal harmful endeavour.

DS – Can you define the Olde Guarde further?  Is it the worshipers of Portal?

HI – The Olde Guarde refers to our circle or sect.

DS – Ah, so correct, then.  Well, if members of the Olde Guarde have achieved the process of sickness through listening to your creations and their Hell-spew, by this point in your existence it seems you intend us to have an opening in consciousness, an awakening of decay within our minds, creating perhaps a form of spiritual decay so we can truly become the cursed.  How will you lead those before the Portal further into madness?

HI – Embracing foulness, death worship and forbidden harmful energy is our indulgent way to empowerment and enrichment.  We place value upon our own experiences first and foremost, the audience receives a report after the fact and it is their choice to follow our code if they are willing to decipher it, or the energy will often strike at the brain immediately depending on how one is attuned to us telepathically.

DS – This begs the next question.  Everyone is always interested in the costumes, but are they costumes? I think they are actually images, but I seek the truth.  Other than The Curator, I know the rest are typically in black attire with hoods, often with a noose around the neck. Clearly, to me at least, this must be the entangling tentacles of what lies within the Portal, commanding the music to create the deathly denizens you mentioned earlier. True or false? Have those other than The Curator appeared in any other forms?

HI – The noose is a symbol of death and a gateway to a higher experience when performing live via mild asphyxiation, one can also see it as an escape from death and the telepathic chord, while cut it remains attached.  The hoods represent the executioner; we execute and pollute, we possess eyeless sockets to block out the human aura, mentally inward.  In the first shows in 2002 I had also worn what would appear as a wizard’s tall hat, however we had used the term Spires, which were used to siphon the ether into our minds. With our limitations we had endeavoured to display Olde-Guarde antiquity.

1DS – Now the The Curator.  In being the ultimate commander of the things of the Vint-Age, they clearly direct the exposition of unlife that you present to those who seek entrance. The Curator appears in the most varying of forms. Can you give details on all of these forms? What did they mean for each manifestation of the dark energy of Portal? I will give my commentary, feeble though it may be. I believe I see different forms for each abominable creation you have so forth given us.  First, the tattered wizard’s cap seems to be of the Seepia era, unless I am mistaken. In taking this form, what was the Curator’s intention? To summon denizens with death spells? To conjure black circles of hate to encapsulate the audience? If the hat is removed, is under it merely a void? Or is it a tattered, tangled being created of distended nerves and rotting brain tissue?

HI – Tattered moth blown scarecrow and the figurehead to call forth Seepia, Heirs Masters Voice.

DS – The clock head seems to be from the Outre’ era. Here it seems the Curator has gained control of the human construct of time. Has he transcended to become the infinite?

HI – Father time, the reaper.  Collecting souls as would be poisonous grain.

DS – The ultimate reaper, perhaps.  After this, it seems the Curator’s form has changed to that of a shapeless pope, a black, formless shroud of religious nothingness. The symbolism of the filth elite seems pretty clear to me now. But am I mistaken?

HI – The Octopriest and henchman, using the 8 sided gate to summon the disgusting Swarth.

DS – What is this Swarth? It is clear I had improperly defined it, but it seems to be some daemonic beast that you give form through your sickening sounds. What is it?

HI – Visually speaking, Swarth is an amorphous black mass, a raging tempest containing foul writhing appendages, storming filth over the planet.  Spiritual embodiment of total negativity.

DS – Ah, as made clear by your sound, this is obvious, thank you.  Finally, for the Curator’s current incarnation for Vexovoid, it seems his fingers have elongated into tentacle-like extensions, reaching further into one’s sense of being to pull forth any remaining positive essence. For perhaps the first time, under the dark veils that cover the empty hole of his gaping face, we can see a vague entity forming. Will this take further shape in the future? What does it seek?

HI – Exposure to the Swarth had caused haglike, beastial mutations both physically and mentally, lurking the globe with it’s diseased sermon.

 

DS – Excellent, very clear, praise the Vint-Age.  Finally, on a more banal note, what do you perceive as the end goal of Portal? Is their an end? Or shall you become an endless, frothing whirlpool of spiritual decay into eternity? Does Portal have an end, or is it already just beginning? Are you endless?

HI – A force has no goal, no beginning or end, it simply exists.

 

 

Summoning of the Vint-Age of the Old-Guarde Commanded by Stanley Stepanic