在打破中重构 - 德国Progressive Death Metal乐队Alkaloid专访

Volcano Magazine
2 hours ago
48 min read

说到德国Progressive Death Metal，熟悉这一流派的乐迷朋友脑海里一定会立刻想到许多的世界知名乐队。而今天，火山杂志有幸请到了一支由Obscura、Dark Fortress、Necrophagist等乐队的前成员组成的全明星Progressive Death Metal乐队——Alkaloid。2013年，Alkaloid由Hannes Grossman、Morean、Christian Münzer、Linus Klausenitzer和Danny Tunker组成。这五位顶尖的德国Progressive Death Metal乐手带着彼此独特的音乐语言与各种渴望创作的作品走到了一起，2015年的首张专辑"The Malkuth Grimoire"便是承载了每一位乐队成员强烈创作渴望的杰作。成员们将Alkaloid作为可以自由展示一切创作想法的舞台，毫无保留地表达各自的音乐语言，而在Alkaloid中，这一切各自具有鲜明个人特色的音乐表达有机且自然的组合在一起。即使听过数百遍，你依然能时不时在Alkaloid的乐句中发现新的惊喜。杂志有幸与Alkaloid主唱Morean（Florian Magnus Maier）与鼓手Hannes Grossmann进行了一次专访。二位非常详尽地回答了关于Alkaloid的成立初衷，音乐创作以及歌词理念等问题。此外，主唱Morean也分享了他对荷兰电视台NTR为他拍摄纪录片的感悟，关于他担任主唱的黑金属乐队Dark Fortress的回忆以及Alkaloid即将在1月26日发行的最新现场专辑《Bach Out of Bounds》的歌曲细节。

（V: 代表笔者 M: 代表Morean H：代表Hannes）

When it comes to German Progressive Death Metal, fans familiar with the genre will instantly recall numerous world-renowned bands. Today, Volcano Magazine is honored to feature Alkaloid—an all-star Progressive Death Metal band formed by former members of Obscura, Dark Fortress, Necrophagist, and others. Formed in 2013 by Hannes Grossman, Morean, Christian Münzer, Linus Klausenitzer, and Danny Tunker, Alkaloid brings together five elite German technical death musicians, each carrying their unique musical language and a thirst for creation. Their 2015 debut album, The Malkuth Grimoire, stands as a masterpiece born from the intense creative drive of every band member. The members treat Alkaloid as a stage to freely showcase all creative ideas, expressing their musical languages without reservation. Within Alkaloid, these distinctly personal musical expressions combine organically and naturally. Even after thousands of listens, you can still discover new surprises in Alkaloid's musical phrases. Volcano Magazine had the privilege of conducting an exclusive interview with Alkaloid's vocalist Morean (Florian Magnus Maier) and drummer Hannes Grossmann. Morean and Hannes provided detailed answers regarding Alkaloid's founding vision, musical creation, and lyrical concepts. Additionally, vocalist Morean shared reflections on the documentary filmed about him by Dutch broadcaster NTR, memories of his role as frontman for black metal band Dark Fortress, and more song details from Alkaloid's upcoming live album Bach Out of Bounds, set for release on January 26th.

(V: Author | M: Morean H: Hannes)

采访对象：Morean / Hannes（Alkaloid乐队主唱 / 鼓手）

采访时间：2026.01.07

V: Morean！非常感谢您能参加Volcano Magazine的采访！Alkaloid一直是我最爱的技术死亡金属乐队，向乐队的所有人问好！

Hello Morean! Thank you so much for joining us for this interview via Volcano Magazine! Alkaloid has always been one of my favorite technical death metal bands—sending my regards to everyone in the band!

M: 嗨Jingwen，这是我的荣幸！非常感谢你邀请我们！

Hi Jingwen, it's an absolute pleasure! Thanks so much for having us!

V: 首先我想问的是，您第一次接触到金属乐是什么时候？您还记得您第一次听到的哪一支金属乐队吗？是哪支乐队让你觉得“这就是我想投入我的一生来做的事情”？

First, I'd like to ask: When did you first encounter metal music? Do you remember the first metal band you ever heard? Which band made you think, “This is what I want to do in my life”?

M: 我记得我最早接触金属音乐的雏形，是父母黑胶唱片里皇后乐队"News of the World"专辑里的"Sheer Heart Attack"。我认为这首歌称得上是速度金属的早期祖先。当时我五岁左右，缠着父母一遍又一遍地播放这首歌。我会在沙发前绕圈狂奔直到天旋地转，狂喜地放声大笑尖叫。专辑封面上的人们正逃离吞噬他们的巨型机器人，在空心山洞里惊惶奔逃。起初我不被允许看封面，那画面确实吓到我了。但对学龄前的我而言，那种令人战栗的快感同样难以抗拒。正因我对音乐如此痴迷，父母很快放弃了保护我远离这种诡异狂野的高速音乐艺术的尝试。后来Accept的"Fast as a Shark"和Iron Maiden的"Killers"等曲目彻底点燃了我的热情，一两年间，我就开始购买Slayer的黑胶唱片了。这显然就是命中注定！

I think the very first kind of proto-metal experience I had was with the track "Sheer Heart Attack" off of Queen's "News of the World" album among my parents' LPs. I'd consider that song a very early ancestor of speed metal, actually. I was about five years old, and wouldn't stop annoying my parents to put that song on again and again. I'd run around in circles in front of the couch till I got dizzy, laughing and screaming with wild joy. The album cover shows people inside a hollow mountain running in panic from a giant robot that's eating them. I wasn't allowed to look at the cover at first, and of course it scared me. But there was this delicious chill it gave my pre-school self as well. And since I became so obsessed with the music, I guess my parents soon gave up trying to shelter me from creepy wild high-speed art. Later on, tracks like "Fast as a Shark" by Accept or "Killers" by Iron Maiden did the rest, and within a year or two, I was buying Slayer LPs. It was clearly meant to be!

V: Alkaloid的歌曲展现了每位乐手极高的演奏水平，而您在乐队中却可以同时担任主唱和吉他手，这真的非常不可思议。您是如何成为一名金属乐主唱的？您又是怎样学习吉他演奏的？

All songs of Alkaloid showcase each musician's exceptional skill, yet you manage to serve as both lead vocalist and guitarist in the band—truly remarkable. How did you become a metal vocalist? And how did you learn to play guitar?

M: 感谢你的赞美！我12岁开始学习古典吉他，不久后买下了人生第一把电吉他——一把五手的Les Paul复刻版，全新的时候就已经很烂了。我攒了一整年的零花钱才买下它，我还记得当时通过立体声的（质量很差的）麦克风接口来弹奏，因为能得到失真的声音。我真正开始玩金属乐始于和同学Mike的结识，那时我们都上九年级。从最初我们就用纸箱当鼓，靠小型卡带录音机创作歌曲录制demo。尽管当时根本不会弹琴，幸运的是这丝毫没有阻碍我们，直到我21岁移居荷兰前我们始终在一起弹琴。我成为金属主唱的经历堪称典型的青少年时期激流金属故事：总得有人负责唱，但没人唱，所以，吉他手们就得硬着头皮上，无论是否有这方面的天赋。于是这个角色最终落到了我身上。在音乐学院求学期间，每逢圣诞假期我都会和家乡的朋友们聚在一起翻唱金属乐曲，而我是唯一一个会唱嘶吼的人。受藏传佛教僧侣诵念“唵”咒的启发，我还自学了次谐波唱法。其中两位家乡的朋友正是Dark Fortress的V Santura和Seraph。当Azathoth（Dark Fortress原主唱）退出乐队时，他们告诉我乐队正在寻找新主唱，我半开玩笑地说：“要的话，我可以试试看。” 随后我与Santura在录音室录了一次音，他想确认能否从我身上获得乐队所需的主唱声音。幸运的是他很满意，新主唱的事就这样定下来了。至今我仍不太愿意自称歌手。我清楚认识到自己作为音乐人的优点和缺点，更曾多次有幸与真正的古典歌手进行专业合作。因此我深知自己与职业歌手的在专业上的差距何其巨大，我对真正的，怎么说呢，歌唱艺术家，唯有由衷的敬意。不过，我一直对自己的嘶吼很满意，这主要是在与V Santura合作多年，参与制作多张专辑的过程中逐渐练成的。我很容易在音乐上察觉到厌倦感，我不断在寻找新的表达方式。所以，我鼓起勇气尝试音调唱法，后来又尝试清嗓演唱，只是时间问题。虽然清嗓演唱对我来说还有些生疏，但我确实很享受这个过程。只要我的乐队成员不说我唱歌有多烂，我就会继续做下去。

Thank you for the kind words! I started classical guitar lessons at 12, and soon after, I bought my first electric guitar - a fifth-hand Les Paul copy that was already crappy when it was new. I saved a year's worth of pocket money for it, and remember playing it through the (very bad) microphone input of my stereo, because it came out distorted. The real start of playing metal was together with my friend Mike from school; we were in ninth grade then. We pretty much started writing songs and recording demos on a small cassette recorder with cardboard box drums from the get-go. The fact that we actually couldn't play at all yet luckily didn't stop us, and we ended up playing together until I moved to the Netherlands at 21 years old. How I became a metal vocalist was a classic thrash metal tale as a teenager: someone had to do vocals, but there was nobody, so one of the guitarists had to do it, no matter if they had talent for it or not. So that role fell to me. During my studies at the conservatory, I'd get together with my friends from home during the Christmas holidays and play metal covers, and I was the only one who would do the growls. I had also taught myself how to sing subharmonics, inspired by the famous Om mantras of Tibetan monks. Two of these friends were V Santura and Seraph from Dark Fortress. So when Azathoth (the original vocalist of Dark Fortress) quit the band, and these two told me they're looking for a new singer, I said, more as a joke actually, "If you want, I can try out". I then had a studio session with Santura where he wanted to see if he could get the vocal sound the band needed from me. He was satisfied, luckily, and that was that. I'm still reluctant to call myself a singer. I know my qualities and shortcomings as a musician quite well, and I've been lucky to work professionally with real classical singers multiple times. So I'm very aware how gigantic the gap between my and their skills is, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for, well, real singers. However, I always felt good about my harsh vocals, which I got to develop mainly in collaboration with V Santura over many album productions we did together over the years. I get easily bored musically, and I'm always looking for new ways of doing the things I do. So it was only a matter of time until I had enough courage to also try out pitched vocals, and later really clean singing. I still feel kind of like a newbie with the clean vocals, but I do enjoy doing them. And as long as my band mates don't tell me how much I suck as a singer, I'll happily keep doing what I'm doing.

V: 给Hannes Grossmann的提问：在离开Obscura后，您组建了Alkaloid，Morean在Obscura也曾与你合作过，Alkaloid组建的契机是什么？是什么让你在组建Alkaloid时选择了Morean？

Question For Hannes: After leaving Obscura, you formed Alkaloid. Morean had also collaborated with you during your time in Obscura. What prompted the formation of Alkaloid? What led you to choose Morean when forming Alkaloid?

H：离开Obscura后，我强烈渴望在音乐上重新开始——摆脱风格束缚与外界期待。Alkaloid的诞生源于这样的愿景：创作既具智力挑战性又对技术有着高要求的音乐，同时还要在死亡金属、前卫摇滚乃至融合爵士元素之间游刃有余地游走。这并非要组建“又一支技术死亡金属乐队”，而是构建一个能承载复杂理念与深度概念探索的创作平台。若非Morean最初同意加入乐队，Alkaloid根本不会存在。我早已知晓他是位才华横溢的音乐家兼思想家。除了惊人的声域跨度，他还对概念、歌词和叙事结构有着敏锐的洞察力。他在古典作曲上的成就以及在Noneuclid乐队的表现都令人赞叹。除了极端金属之外，我们还有许多共同的音乐爱好。正是这种开放的心态、智慧和绝对的可靠性，使他成为组建Alkaloid时的不二人选。永远都是。

After leaving Obscura, I felt a strong need to start from a clean slate musically—without stylistic constraints or external expectations. Alkaloid was born out of the desire to create music that is intellectually challenging and technically demanding, yet free to move between death metal, progressive rock, and even elements of jazz or fusion. It was less about forming “another tech-death band” and more about building a creative platform that allows for complex ideas and deeper conceptual exploration. Alkaloid wouldn't exist though if Morean hadn't agreed to for the band in the first place. I had already come to know him as an extremely versatile musician and thinker. Beyond his impressive vocal range, he brings a strong sense for concepts, lyrics, and narrative structure. His work as classical composer and also with Noneuclid is impressive. We also share many musical interests outside of extreme metal. That combination of open-mindedness, intelligence, and absolute reliability made him an obvious choice when forming Alkaloid.always

V: 在加入Alkaloid之初，您对Alkaloid的音乐期望是什么？Alkaloid现在的音乐是否符合你最初的设想？

When you first joined Alkaloid, what were your expectations for the band's music? Does Alkaloid's current sound align with your original vision?

M: 非常一致。我们在2012/13年组建乐队的原因，正是因为我们每个人都怀揣着迫切的音乐构想，而这些构想无法融入我们当时所属乐队的定位或创作可能性。Hannes当时已创作了多首宏大的前卫史诗，Chris和Danny兴奋地渴望在同一支乐队中成为双吉他手，Linus历经了多年在Noneuclid乐队的狂热洗礼，又承袭了他家族深厚的古典音乐背景。而我亟需一支能承载我创作《Dyson Sphere》传奇的乐队——这个酝酿多年的宏大乐曲构想早已在我脑海中孕育成形。那时我们作为音乐家和作曲家彼此已经足够了解，所以我们可以信任彼此在这个新项目中的想法。随后，每个人都开始创作自己想写的东西，这至今仍是我们的创作模式。当然，共同的审美基础不可或缺——我想对我们而言就是Morbid Angel和前卫摇滚，但正是这些差异造就了乐队的独特性。我们未必认同彼此的所有音乐影响——比如我始终无法接受Rush，尽管反复尝试。但我是Hannes Grossmann的粉丝，当他以Rush为灵感时，我非常欣赏他作为Hannes重塑的音乐成果。我们是致力于音乐创新与开拓新领域的乐队——这种特质未必有助于我们融入（通常相当保守的）主流金属圈。但我们创作音乐并非为了取悦他人，而是为了满足自己的创作欲望；我们创作这些音乐，是因为它们必须被创作出来。我们无比幸运的是，乐迷们似乎能够接受了这种持续不断的惊喜与不可预测性。将所有创作灵感都发挥到极致，看看最终会碰撞出怎样的火花——尽管最后还得是可怜的Hannes在录音室里得把这些碎片拼凑出意义。若在创作前就预知下一首Alkaloid歌曲或专辑会是什么样子，我想我们所有人都会感到无聊至极。

Very much so. The whole reason we formed this band back in 2012/13 was because all of us had urgent musical ideas that didn't fit into the profiles or possibilities of our existing bands. Hannes wrote one huge prog-epic after another already back then, Chris and Danny were excited to become twin shredders in the same band, Linus had been steeled through years of Noneuclid madness and his family background in serious classical music, and I basically needed a band I could finally write my Dyson Sphere saga for, which I'd run pregnant with in my head for a few years already. We knew each other well enough by then as musicians and composers that we could trust in each other's ideas for this new endeavor. And then, everybody basically set out to write whatever they wanted, which is still very much our modus operandi. Of course you always need a good common base in taste, which I guess in our case was Morbid Angel and Prog Rock, but it's exactly our differences that turned this band into something unique. We may not agree with everyone's individual influences always; for example, I can't stand Rush, even though I try again and again. But I am a Hannes Grossmann fan, and when he uses Rush as an influence, I love what he as Hannes does with it. We're a band devoted to musical innovation and conquering new territory - something that doesn't necessarily help us to connect to the (usually rather conservative) metal mainstream. But we don't make the music we make to please anyone else than ourselves; we write what we write because it needs to be written. And we're extremely lucky that our fans have apparently accepted this constant element of surprise and unpredictability. It's just so much fun to turn up all creative glands to eleven and see what comes out - even though poor Hannes has to make sense of it all in the studio when it all comes together. I think we'd all be bored out of our minds if we already knew what the next Alkaloid song or album is gonna sound like before we write it.

V: 对于Alkaloid来说，你们的创作流程是怎样的，一般由谁来启动writing process？大家一般怎样向其他的成员展示各自在音乐上的想法？你们会在开始录制歌曲或者专辑之前制作Demo吗？

For Alkaloid, what is your creative process like? Who typically starts the writing process? How do you generally present your musical ideas to other members? Do you create demos before starting to record songs or albums?

M: 正如我所说，我们的基本理念是每个人都可以随心所欲地创作，而且我们的大部分作品都是由成员们各自独立完成的。所以，我们的新歌在乐队内部传阅之前，通常已完成细节打磨或至少接近完成。我会非常详细地制作歌曲的demo，并录制除鼓组外的所有音轨。其他成员常使用Guitar Pro创作，所以我们首先收到的是完整的器乐版本（通常不含人声），需要发挥想象力直到正式录制成专辑曲目。许多曲目在专辑制作过程中带来惊喜，毕竟MIDI demo版和实录终究不可同日而语。但每首歌都在创作中不断升华，偶尔我们还会在最终定稿前反复打磨创意。Danny的《The Cambrian Explosion》（寒武纪大爆发）便是一个很好的例子——这最初只是一首纯粹的技术死亡金属歌曲，纯粹为了好玩。但当Hannes和我注入各自创意后，歌曲彻底打破了原有界限——到处加点福音合唱、弗拉门戈独奏和突如其来的爵士元素怎么样。某杂志曾称我们为“极端金属界的疯狂科学家”之类...某些时刻，这个形象确实精准。对我们而言，音乐本身才是唯一核心——若有人喜欢，那真是太好了！我们还能接着一起做乐队！即便无人欣赏，我们仍会创作这些歌曲。一切源于内心深处的创作冲动，而非追求外界认可的野心。我们相信：只要能满足自身严苛的标准，这些作品终将赢得听众的共鸣。

M: As I said, the basic premise is that each of us can write whatever the muses tell us to, and most of our material is written by our members individually. So mostly our new songs are either finished in detail, or at least quite far along, before we send them around within the band. I demo my songs quite in detail, and I record everything besides the drums at home. The others often write in Guitar Pro, so we'll get a complete plastic version first, usually without vocals, and have to use our imagination until we've recorded them properly as album tracks. Many tracks surprise us during the making of an album, because of course you can't compare a MIDI demo to the real thing. But every song becomes better during the process, and occasionally, we pass an idea around between us before the final version emerges. Danny's "The Cambrian Explosion" is a good example. It started as a pure tech death song, just for fun. But after Hannes and I went over it with our own ideas, we managed to send the song completely over the edge, what with the gospel choir, flamenco solo and jazz bits out of nowhere. Some magazine once called us "the mad scientists of extreme metal" or something... and in some cases, that image is absolutely true. It's always only about the music itself for us - if people like it, great! We get to live on as a band! But even if they didn't, we'd still have to make these songs. It all comes from a profound internal pressure to create, not from any ambitions to achieve whatever in the outside world with it. And we assume that if we can please our own high expectations, the songs are hopefully good enough for our listeners too.

V: Alkaloid的乐手们都是德国Progressive Death Metal圈里的明星乐手，都有极高的演奏水平和独特的音乐表达。在组建这支乐队之初，您是否曾担心过乐队成员之间的不同意见会难以协调？你们在在创作上出现过分歧吗？通常会如何互相协调？

Question For Hannes: All the musicians of Alkaloid are all superstars within Germany's technical death metal scene, possessing exceptional technical skill and unique musical expression. When forming this band, did you ever worry that differing opinions among members might be difficult to reconcile? Have you ever encountered creative disagreements? How do you typically coordinate with each other?

H: 从最初我们就意识到，Alkaloid由个性鲜明、目标明确且艺术特质突出的音乐家们组成。当然有人会质疑这是否会成为长期发展的障碍，但我们并未视其为隐患，反而将其视为乐队最强大的优势之一。创意分歧确实存在，但极少陷入消极或无果的僵局。事实上，最精彩的创意往往诞生于这些讨论。每个人带来自己的作品与构想，我们坦诚探讨哪些方案最契合音乐本质与Alkaloid的整体愿景。个人主观意识被刻意控制在合理范围内。协调机制主要建立在相互尊重与清晰沟通之上。每位成员都深知彼此具备极高水准，因此能坦然接受批评与替代方案。归根结底，Alkaloid并非妥协产物，而是强烈的个体声音汇聚的共享空间——而这种特质，正是我们希望通过音乐传递的核心精髓。

From the very beginning, we were aware that Alkaloid consists of very strong and individual personalities—musicians with clear visions and distinct artistic identities. Of course, one might wonder whether that could become challenging over time. But rather than seeing it as a potential problem, we viewed it as one of the band’s greatest strengths. Creative disagreements do happen, but they are rarely negative or unproductive. In fact, the most interesting ideas often emerge from these discussions. Everyone brings in their own compositions and concepts, and we talk openly about what serves the music and the overall vision of Alkaloid. Personal ego is deliberately kept in check. Coordination is based largely on mutual respect and clear communication. Everyone involved knows that the others operate at a very high level, which makes it easy to accept criticism and alternative ideas. In the end, Alkaloid is not a compromise-driven project, but a shared space where strong individual voices come together—and hopefully that’s exactly what comes through in the music.

V: 你参与了很多乐队，在Alkaloid，Changeling和Dark fortress中你都创作过大量的歌词，而这些乐队中，由您创作的歌词各有特色且符合乐队的气质。在给不同的乐队创作歌词的时候，你是怎样把握不同乐队间的区别的？

You've been involved in numerous bands, writing extensive lyrics for Alkaloid, Changeling, and Dark Fortress. Within these groups, your lyrics possess distinct characteristics that align with each band's unique identity. When crafting lyrics for different bands, how do you maintain the differences between them?

M: 我很幸运，乐队里的大部分成员都是我的好朋友，所以我在歌词和演唱方面一直拥有很大的自由度，因为他们很乐意让乐队里的其他人来负责这些工作。但每个乐队的化学反应和成员的个人喜好都不同。乐队之间在某些可能性和接受度方面存在一定的重叠，但例如，科学和科幻元素在Alkaloid中比在Dark Fortress中更合适。同样，Tom Fountainhead更希望我为Changeling的专辑创作一个更具个人色彩的歌词概念，而不是一个视角更为中立的太空史诗，或者传统的、充满亵渎或恐怖元素的狂暴之作。音乐和歌词应该相辅相成，而不是互相掣肘，所以我根据每首歌、每个乐队或每个项目的具体需求来调整我的创作思路。表达想法的方式总是多种多样，无论是音符还是文字，我都能根据每个乐队的特点调整歌词的重点。在Alkaloid，科学和自然始终是我的灵感源泉，尽管我喜欢把这些想法发挥到极致。而在像Dark Fortress这样的黑金属乐队中，你需要更多个人情感作为音乐的基础。在此之前，我在Noneuclid乐队担任主要作词作曲，这段经历让我为这些不同乐队的演唱和歌词创作做好了充分的准备。起初，我对写歌词有点犹豫，因为我对这方面一窍不通。但写作和创作对我来说总是轻而易举，如果要我说实话，很多时候，写歌词、在脑海中构思那些天马行空的故事，反而是音乐创作中最令人享受的部分。我常常穿着睡衣，窝在沙发上，抱着笔记本电脑和几本字典，不知不觉间，一大堆文字就涌了出来（每个专辑设计师都要恨死我了，因为每次歌词本都得用好多页）。我的意思是，当然，谁会去看歌词呢？用V Santura在我加入Dark Fortress时（半开玩笑地……）的话来说：“哥们，歌词是为了让主唱不至于只会唱‘啦啦啦’而存在的。” 这话也有点道理。我和他有时会比赛谁能更快地写出老套的金属歌词……结果很多都成了Thulcandra乐队的正式歌词，哈哈。如果我当时只是唱“撒旦、金属、啤酒和鲜血，嘿嘿嘿”，我想我们的听众肯定会更多。但我把这些歌词空白处看作是构思奇特故事和概念的机会。总是用同样的陈词滥调真的很无聊，所以我还不如让真菌说话，或者想象自己被吸入卷曲的弦理论维度。对吧？”

M: Since I've been so lucky to mainly work with really good friends in my bands, I've always had a lot of freedom with the words and vocals, since they're happy someone else in the band will do that work. But every band has different chemistry and composition of individual tastes. There's a certain overlap between the bands in what's possible and welcome, but for example the science and sci-fi stuff fit much better in Alkaloid than in Dark Fortress. Likewise, Tom Fountainhead preferred a more personal lyrical concept from me for the Changeling album than a new space saga from a more neutral perspective, or a traditional rabid orgy of blasphemy or horror. Music and lyrics should make each other stronger, not stand in each other's way, so I adapt my creative flow of ideas to what each song, band or project requires. There are always different options how to say what you wanna say, be it in notes or words, and I have no problem adjusting the focus of the lyrics to what fits best to each band. In Alkaloid, the basic inspiration will always be science and nature, even though I like to take those ideas to absurd extremes. In a black metal band like Dark Fortress, you do need more personal emotions as a basis for that kind of music. What served me well as preparation for the vocals and lyrical concepts for these different bands was that in the years before that, I could find and define myself as the main lyricist and composer in Noneuclid. I was a bit reluctant at first to write lyrics, because what the hell did I know about that? But writing and creativity always came easy to me, and very often, writing the lyrics and creating those far-out stories in my head can be the most enjoyable aspect of making music if I'm honest, spending all day or night on the couch in my pyjamas with a laptop and some dictionaries, and suddenly, there's a huge flood of text ready (which every album designer will hate me for because it's too many booklet pages every time). I mean, sure, who reads lyrics? In the (only partially joking...) words of V Santura when I joined Dark Fortress: "Dude, lyrics are there so the singer doesn't just have to go "la-la-la", and there's a bit of truth to that. He and me sometimes had battles who could write cliché metal lyrics quicker... and many of those ended up on Thulcandra albums as actual song lyrics, hahaha. Had I just gone "Satan, metal, beer and blood, hey hey hey", I suspect we'd have a lot more listeners. But I see this blank space where some lyrics have to go as a chance to come up with outrageous stories and concepts. It becomes really boring to use the same cliché words over and over again, so I might as well let fungus speak, or imagine getting sucked into rolled-up string theory dimensions. Right?

V: 我非常喜欢Alkaloid的歌词中独特的科幻感，读着Alkaloid的歌词常常会感觉自己在读科幻小说中的人物写出的诗歌。在为Alkaloid创作歌词时，您的灵感来源主要是什么？

I absolutely love the unique sci-fi vibe in Alkaloid's lyrics. Reading them often feels like discovering poetry penned by characters from a science fiction novel. When crafting lyrics for Alkaloid, what are your primary sources of inspiration?

M: 就像我在之前的回答中提到的，我们希望Alkaloid表达的一切都基于现实，换句话说：科学和自然。我是一个有精神追求的人，尽管同时我也是一个彻底的无神论者，我一直热爱优秀的世界构建和天马行空的想象力。但我的生活无数次地告诉我，如果你真正审视我们的现实——它是什么，它从何而来，它由什么构成，以及它将走向何方——你会发现一些如此深刻奇异、丰富多彩、令人叹为观止的史诗般的事物，相比之下，我们人类所能创造的世界简直就像一个微不足道的笑话。顺便一提，"Malkuth Grimoire"（马尔库特魔法书）的含义是这样的：“马尔库特”（Malkuth）作为塔罗牌生命之树中最底层的“塞弗”（Sepher），代表物质世界；而“魔法书”（Grimoire）则是召唤神灵和恶魔的咒语集。如果你把科学所阐述的自然法则看作是一系列咒语，那么中世纪的神秘主义迷信就显得黯然失色了，因为无论你是否相信，科学都独立运作。它是我们世界的基石，人类创造的任何形而上学的幻想都永远无法企及现实的影响力。这番话出自一个长期逃避现实的人之口，或许听起来有些奇怪，但如果你越过人类的视野去看，就会发现现实和宇宙远比我们虚构的世界更加奇异和极端。那么，为什么不以此为基础，创造更多新的世界呢？写歌词而不是写科学论文或文学评论的最大优势在于，你可以随心所欲地写，没人会评判你，也不会对你抱有任何具体的期待，只要歌词有力，与歌曲契合即可。我是一名音乐家，而非诗人，但从形式上,我确实会用音乐的视角来创作歌词。对我而言，音乐始于节奏，也终于节奏。如果你找到了节奏、韵律、重音和押韵的完美结合，歌词便会成为一种咒语、一种魔咒，一段催眠般的神秘文字与思想的交织，它能够帮助听众打开心灵的大门。我倾注大量心血在歌词创作上，因为歌词也是音乐的一部分，它应该像即兴演奏、节奏和独奏一样律动十足、充满力量和激情。从这个意义上讲，形式与你想表达的内容是两回事。我基本上是在脑海中寻找最有趣的世界，然后将它们精心雕琢成严谨而连贯的形式。我喜欢玩味语言，也明白大多数听众无法领会我的这些努力。对此我完全理解。比如，我喜欢Opeth和Meshuggah，但我完全说不出他们的歌词是什么意思，我只是听他们的专辑。我为我们创作的歌曲，几乎每一句歌词背后都倾注了大量的心血，所以我并不指望每个乐迷迷都能费心去解读每一句歌词、每一个词、每一个意象。然而，那些真正用心解读的人，会在我的每一篇文章中发现无数的世界和想法。当他们告诉我，我的文字带领他们进行了一次奇妙的脑海之旅，甚至让他们去研究歌词的主题时，有一瞬间我感觉自己仿佛成了世界之王。因为我同样也喜欢欣赏别人用高度浓缩的语言来表达丰富的想象力。我最喜欢的专辑是那种即使听上千遍也能发现新细节的专辑。

M: Like I mentioned in the previous answer, we wanted everything Alkaloid expresses to be based in our reality, in other words: science and nature. I'm a spiritual person, even though at the same time I'm a complete atheist, and I always loved good world-building and extreme imagination. But my life has shown me countless times that if you really look at our reality - what it is, where it came from, what it's made of, and where it might go - you find something so profoundly strange, rich and breathtakingly epic, that the worlds we can make up as humans seem like a weak joke in comparison. This is what "The Malkuth Grimoire" means, by the way: "Malkuth" as the bottom Sepher in the Tarot's Tree of Life represents the physical world; a Grimoire is a collection of spells to conjure gods and demons. If you look at the laws of nature as science has formulated them as an equivalent to a collection of spells, it puts the medieval superstitions of the occult to shame, because science works independently if you believe in it or not. It's the foundation of our world, and no metaphysical fantasy humans can create will ever achieve the impact of actual reality. This may sound strange, coming from a chronic escapist, but if you look beyond our human sphere, reality and the universe are turning out to be a lot stranger and more extreme than our made-up worlds. So why not make up more worlds with that as a basis? The great advantage of writing song lyrics rather than science papers or literary essays is that you can write whatever you want, and nobody will judge you for it or expect anything concrete from you, as long as the words have power and go well with the song. I'm a musician, not a poet, but I do approach the words also very musically in a formal sense. Music begins and ends with rhythm for me, and if you find the right flow of rhythms, meters, accents and rhymes, a song lyric becomes a mantra, a spell, a hypnotic and mystical succession of words and thoughts that should help to open all kinds of doors in the minds of the listeners. I put a lot of effort into my lyrics, because they're also part of the music, and should be as groovy, powerful and fiery as the riffs, beats and solos. In that sense, form is a different discipline than the content of what you want to say. I basically search for the most interesting worlds I can find in my mind, and then craft them into rather strict and consequent form. I love to play with language, and I'm aware that most of this effort is lost on most listeners. I don't blame them at all for that. I love for example Opeth and Meshuggah, but I couldn't tell you for the life of me what their lyrics are about, I just listen to the albums. And there's so much thought behind almost every line I pen for our songs, I really shouldn't expect every fan to go through the effort of unraveling every line, word or image. However - those few who do will find a plethora of worlds and ideas in everything I write, and when one of them tells me that my words took them on a huge trip in their heads, maybe even making them research the topics of the lyrics a bit, I feel like the king of the world for a moment. Because that's exactly how I enjoy other people's hyper-condensed verbalized attacks of imagination as well. My favorite albums are the ones that let you discover new details even after a thousand spins.

V: 据我了解，在发行Alkaloid的第一张专辑"The Malkuth Grimoire"时，你们通过向乐迷们众筹资金来完成这张专辑，而这也是一张非常有诚意，高水准的专辑，也是我最爱的Alkaloid专辑。后来，Season of Mist厂牌签下了你们，您今年的新专辑"Changeling"也由SOM厂牌发行。可以向我们分享一下你们是如何与SOM展开合作的吗？

When releasing Alkaloid's debut album The Malkuth Grimoire, you funded the project through crowdfunding from fans. It turned out to be a truly sincere, high-caliber album—my personal favorite Alkaloid release. Later, Season of Mist signed Alkaloid, and your new album Changeling is also being released by SOM this year. Could you share how you came to collaborate with SOM?

M: 据我所知，这些合作之所以能够持续下去，最大的功臣是 Gordon Conrad，他曾在 2008 年将 Obscura签到了Relapse Records厂牌。Obscura的音乐风格或多或少地受到了Necrophagist乐队的专辑"Epitaph"的影响，Hannes和Christian Münzner 都曾参与过这张专辑的制作。最初并没有任何厂牌对Alkaloid的首张专辑感兴趣，但在我们为"The Malkuth Grimoire"进行的众筹活动取得巨大成功之后，又是Gordon将我们签到了他当时的新公司，也就是Season of Mist。Gordon也签下了Obsidious和Changeling。所以，如果没有Gordon将艺术置于商业利益之上，一个接一个地签下我们的乐队，我们这些由德国南部前卫/技术死亡金属乐队组成的“小圈子”可能至今仍然只是默默无闻的本地乐队。

As far as I know, there is one person who deserves the biggest credit for these ongoing collaborations, and that's Gordon Conrad, who signed Obscura to Relapse Records in 2008. Obscura followed more or less directly in the footsteps of Necrophagist's "Epitaph", which Hannes and Christian Münzner had played on. With Alkaloid's debut album, not a single label was interested initially, but after the big success of our crowdfunding campaign for The Malkuth Grimoire, it was again Gordon who signed us to his new employer, Season of Mist. Gordon also signed Obsidious and Changeling. So our lovely incest cluster of South German prog- / tech-death bands here might still just be local acts that nobody knows if Gordon hadn't put art over profit and signed us one by one.

V: 兰电视台NTR曾拍摄了一部关于您的50分钟的纪录片“A METAL DUDE IN THE CONCERT HALL — THE STORY OF FLORIAN MAGNUS MAIER”，这部纪录片详细记录了您作为古典音乐作曲家和金属乐手的生活，我非常喜欢这部纪录片。您认为是什么让荷兰电视台选择了你？在拍摄过程中您最难忘的部分是什么？

Dutch broadcaster NTR produced a 50-minute documentary about you titled “A METAL DUDE IN THE CONCERT HALL — THE STORY OF FLORIAN MAGNUS MAIER,” which meticulously chronicles your life as both a classical composer and a metal musician. I thoroughly enjoyed this documentary. What do you think led NTR to choose you? What was the most memorable part of the filming process for you?

M: NTR是荷兰主要公共广播机构之一，不仅在节目中呈现高水准的当代艺术，更将其作为核心内容。作为古典作曲家，我此前曾多次与他们有过精彩合作。这部纪录片是为其传奇性长期音乐会系列“NTR周六午间音乐会”创作的管弦乐作品的延伸项目。此次委约源于古典吉他大师伊扎尔·埃利亚斯（Izhar Elias）、时任NTR周六午间音乐会策划人凯斯·弗拉丁格布鲁克（Kees Vlaardingerbroek），以及我与我的乐团The Hungry Gods共同参与当代音乐电视节目《自由之声》（Vrije Geluiden）的契机。所以，这虽非突如其来，但受邀为自己、伊扎尔与卓越的荷兰广播爱乐乐团创作双协奏曲，并在荷兰最负盛名的音乐厅首演，这对我来说仍是莫大的荣幸——这至今是我职业生涯中规模最宏大的音乐会。而NTR电视台决定为此创作纪录片，无疑是锦上添花的完美收官！整个项目都令人难忘，但最珍贵的莫过于摄制组专程前往我的故乡巴伐利亚——在那个孕育我音乐梦想的排练室拍摄，与我们在Santura的工作室共饮咖啡，甚至造访我祖母在慕尼黑的居所（这部乐谱正是献给她的），这些都是真正一生仅此一次的珍贵时刻。

NTR is one of the main public-service broadcasters in the Netherlands which not only allow high-level contemporary arts in their programming, but make it their focus. As a classical composer, I had had several wonderful encounters and features with them before. This documentary was made as an extension of an orchestral work commissioned for their long-running legendary concert series "NTR ZaterdagMatinee". I got this commission thanks to classical guitar virtuoso Izhar Elias, the then-NTR Zat Mat programmer Kees Vlaardingerbroek, and me with my ensemble The Hungry Gods all being guests at another TV show with contemporary music called Vrije Geluiden ("Free Sounds"). So it didn't exactly come out of nowhere, but the commission to write a double concerto for myself, Izhar, and the fantastic Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra to be performed in the Netherlands' most prestigious concert hall was a gigantic honour nevertheless, it's still the biggest concert I have played in my life. That NTR chose to make a whole documentary about me and the creation of the piece was the absolute icing on the cake of course! The whole project was memorable, but having their film crew travel to my native Bavaria to film me in the rehearsal room I started making music in, and us all having coffee at Santura's place and even my grandmother's place in Munich (the score is dedicated to her) were real once-in-a-lifetime events.

V: 我在纪录片中了解到，您在大学时学习过弗拉门戈吉他，但因为一些原因，最终选择了作曲专业。您是在什么时候接触到弗拉门戈吉他的？您在十五、十六岁时就和朋友一起组建金属乐队并一起演出了，为什么在大学时您选择了弗拉门戈吉他和古典音乐作为您的专业呢？

I learned from the documentary that you studied flamenco guitar in college but ultimately chose to major in composition for certain reasons. When did you first encounter flamenco guitar? You formed a metal band with friends and performed together when you were fifteen or sixteen. Why did you choose flamenco guitar and classical music as your majors in college?

M: 选专业时，作为吉他手，我所在的学校只有古典吉他和爵士吉他可选，但两者都不太适合我。现在很喜欢爱爵士乐，但当时对爵士一无所知；而在古典吉他曲目里，每首我喜欢的曲子（通常是西班牙或现代风格）后面都跟着十首能让我瞬间睡着的曲子。十七岁那年，我第一次听到弗拉门戈吉他，感觉就像被闪电击中了一样：它迅疾而阴郁，采用弗里吉亚调式而非枯燥的大调小调，充满狂暴能量甚至近乎偏执。正如我当时的一位朋友所言，这就像是原声吉他的死亡金属。我当即明白这就是我毕生所求。当时我在的地区没有弗拉门戈老师，我自学了许多年才达到得以进入鹿特丹音乐学院帕科·佩尼亚的弗拉门戈班的水平。但这条道路最终为我之后的音乐生涯打开了通往所有方向的大门。在鹿特丹的第一年学习结束后，我还去参加了古典作曲专业的面试——起初更多是出于兴趣，因为我想学习作曲技法，而且我一直很喜欢音乐理论。令我十分惊喜的是，我被录取了——又过了一年半，我发现自己在创作音乐方面远比假装成为solo大师更有天赋。我曾同时兼顾两者的学习，直到不堪重负。当时我必须在两门专业间做出抉择。我选择了作曲，并且从未后悔，但弗拉门戈早已融入我的骨髓，永远成为了我的一部分。即使我20多年前就不得不放弃演奏弗拉门戈。去年，我很高兴能与优秀的荷兰管乐团（Nederlands Blazers Ensemble）以及三位来自安达卢西亚的世界级弗拉门戈独奏家一起重返弗拉门戈舞台。

When the time came to choose my studies, as a guitarist, classical guitar and jazz guitar were the only choices where I was, and neither really were for me. I love jazz now, but had absolutely no clue about it back then, and in the classical guitar repertoire, every piece I liked (usually Spanish or modern) was followed by ten that put me to sleep instantly. When I heard flamenco guitar for the first time when I was 17, it was as if a lightning bolt had struck me: it was fast, dark, in a phrygian key rather than boring old major or minor, and extremely energetic, obsessive even. As a friend at the time said, it's like the death metal of the acoustic guitar. I knew immediately that that was what I wanted to do. There weren't any teachers in my area at the time, and it took me years before I had taught myself enough flamenco to get admitted to Paco Peña's flamenco class at the Rotterdam Conservatory. But in the end, that path opened the doors to everything else that happened in my life as a musician afterwards. Ahter my first year in Rotterdam, I auditioned for classical composition as well, more out of interest at first, because I wanted to learn composition techniques, and I had always liked music theory. To my great surprise, I was accepted - and within another year and a half, I saw that I had much more talent for writing music than for pretending to be a virtuoso soloist. I did both for a while, until it became too much. At that point, I had to choose between my studies. I chose composition, and never looked back, but of course flamenco is ingrained into the marrow of my bones as well. It will always be part of me, even though I had to give up playing it over 20 years ago. And I was elated this past year to return to flamenco together with the amazing Dutch Wind Ensemble (Nederlands Blazers Ensemble) and three world-class flamenco soloists from Andalucía.

V: 纪录片中有一点让我感触非常深刻，为了学习音乐，您从家乡搬到了荷兰，而在荷兰，您找到了一种特别的归属感。您是否认为这是您音乐生涯中最关键的选择？回看当时，这种“可以做自己”的归属感在音乐上都给了您哪些启发？

One aspect of your documentary deeply resonated with me: you moved from your hometown to the Netherlands to study music, and there you found a unique sense of belonging. Do you consider this the most pivotal decision in your musical career? Looking back, how did this sense of belonging—where you could truly be yourself—inspire you musically?

M: 当然。我永远是巴伐利亚人，但直到来到鹿特丹，我才第一次感受到，我人生中想做的事情或许真的能够实现，这都要感谢当时的学校及其包容一切的教育理念。我从巴伐利亚乡间一个美丽却沉寂的小镇，来到这座拥有欧洲最大港口的城市。整个世界就在眼前——无论是在学院内还是校外，世界各地的味道、色彩、风格与声音尽收眼底。我就像糖果店里的孩子。突然间，我结识了来自世界各地的朋友，他们演奏着你能想象到的所有乐器。每天，我的冒险精神都在那里迸发出新的发现和可能性。当我突然感受到与来自地球各个角落的人们之间这种如此强烈的亲近感时——而在家乡，我常常感觉自己像个异类，在僵化保守的结构和思维中找不到归属——这对我来说简直是一次重生，对我而言，这也是我音乐生涯真正的起点。

Definitely. I'll always be a Bavarian as well, but it wasn't until I arrived in Rotterdam that I felt for the first time in my life that what I wanted to do in my life might actually be possible, all thanks to the school and its all-encompassing philosophy at the time. I came from a pretty but sleepy small town in the Bavarian province to the city that hosts Europe's largest port. The whole world was right in front of my nose, all tastes, colours, styles and sounds the world has to offer - both at the academy and outside of it. I was like a child in a candy store. Suddenly I had friends from everywhere playing everyhing you could imagine, and my adventurous mind exploded with discoveries and possibilities there every day. Feeling this overhwelming kinship with all kinds of people from all corners of the Earth suddenly, where at home I had mostly felt like an alien that has no place in its rigid and conservative structures and mentality, was nothing less than a rebirth, and the real beginning of everything for me as far as music is concerned.

V: 有许多喜欢Alkaloid的金属乐迷因为您去听了你创作的古典音乐，我也是其中之一。在纪录片中，您描述了您创作"Schattenspiel"时的其中一个片段，您用手和影子的关系来描述您想表达的内容，而当我带着您的解释去聆听时，原本对我来说难以理解的音乐变得清晰且具体了，这也成为了纪录片里我最喜欢的片段。我想知道在您创作时，您会经常像这样通过描述具体的事物来构建音乐的草图吗？

Some metal fans who love Alkaloid went to hear the classical music you composed, and I am one of them. In the documentary, you described a part of music during the creation of Schattenspiel, using the relationship between your hands and shadows to convey what you wanted to express. When I listened Schattenspiel with your explanation in mind, the music that had previously been difficult for me to grasp became clear and concrete. This became my favorite part of the documentary. I'm curious—when you're composing, do you often sketch out musical ideas by describing tangible objects like this?

M: 我会。我们想象力的一个奇妙之处在于，同一个想法可以呈现出多种不同的形式。从根本上看，它的内容并不一定决定它属于哪种感官。你可以用画笔描绘一种情感，用舞蹈诠释一首诗，用音乐来构建建筑，或者给一串数字赋予音符，看看能否从中产生任何音乐元素。一切皆有可能，而联觉能力（将一种感官冲动“翻译”为另一种感官体验的能力）正是创造性思维的强大工具。重要的是，你要有一些东西，任何东西都可以，让你在脑海中不断生长，直到它变成一个有形的想法，拥有清晰的“味道”、动态或方向，即使最初它是完全抽象的。这可以是任何东西——声音、词语、云朵、石头、香料、树木，甚至是任何最模糊、最转瞬即逝的感受。然后，我会在脑海中放大它，直到它最终构成一个完整的世界。这过程大多完全凭直觉，只有当它被赋予一个具体的难题去解决时，思考才会介入。一旦你克服了面对如此之多的选择时的震惊，这种表达绝对自由的感觉就令人愉悦。即使是创作一首短小的乐曲，也需要做出成千上万个决定；如果你必须有意识地思考每一个决定，你永远也无法完成任何东西。直觉要快得多——而且理论上来说，它的潜力是无限的。

I do. One amazing quality of our imagination is that the same idea can take on many different forms. Its content doesn't necessarily pre-determine to which sense it belongs when you take it at its root. You can paint an emotion, dance a poem, compose architecture, or assign notes to a string of numbers and see if it yields anything musical. Anything goes, almost everything is possible, and synesthesia - the ability to "translate" an impulse from one sense to another - is a powerful tool for the creative mind. The important thing is that you have something, anything really, that lets you start growing it in your mind until it becomes a tangible idea with a clear "taste", dynamic or direction, even if that's completely abstract at first. This can literally be anything - a sound, a word, a cloud, a rock, a spice, a tree, or even just the vaguest, most fleeting of sensations. I then just zoom into it in my mind until it eventually becomes a whole world. It's a completely intuitive process mostly, and the thinking only enters once it can be assigned a concrete puzzle to solve. This sense of absolute freedom what you are going to express is a delight, once you get over the shock of how many options you have. Composing is a string of thousands of decisions for even a short piece of music; if you had to think consciously about each of those decisions, you'd never get anything finished. Intuition is so much faster - and the sky is the limit, at least in principle.

V: 2026年1月23日你们将会发行现场专辑"Bach Out of Bounds"（巴赫跨界），在你们最近发布的《Haunter of the Void》现场视频中我看到，除了Alkaloid的乐手之外你们还添加了许多客座乐手来演奏女高音，小提琴，手风琴等。可以向我们介绍一下这会是一张什么样的现场专辑吗？你们制作"Bach Out of Bounds"的契机是什么？

On January 23, 2026, you will release Alkaloid's first live album, Bach Out of Bounds. In your recently released live video for “Haunter of the Void,” I noticed that besides Alkaloid's musicians, you added several guest artists to perform soprano, violin, accordion, and more. Could you tell us what live album this will be like? What prompted you to create Bach Out of Bounds?

M: 应荷兰多德雷赫特巴赫音乐节之邀，我们策划了这场融合巴赫不朽的旋律与金属乐的演出。我立刻意识到Alkaloid正是实现这个构想的理想载体，而扩编阵容中的客座乐手也必须精通两种艺术领域。只要选对乐手，一切皆有可能。我同样深知，这绝非两种极端风格的简单碰撞，而是要打造始终自成体系的完整作品——无论演奏巴赫还是原创曲目都应浑然天成。因此作为金属乐队，我们必须突破舒适区——既要精准演绎巴赫多层次的精密乐谱而不被噪音淹没，又要在原创作品中突出古典与交响元素，这远超死亡金属乐队的常规范畴。这张现场专辑力求展现这个项目的完整光谱：从巴赫"Agnus Dei"的静谧温柔的美，到增添复调甚至爵士即兴的段落，再到像"The Fungi From Yuggoth"Death Metal的Death Metal劲曲，以及介于两者之间的一切。能够邀请更多乐手和歌手加入真是太棒了，因为我们所有的歌曲都层次丰富，融合了多种元素，而我们作为一个金属五重奏乐队，可以更深入地展现这些元素。

We put this program together at the request of the Bachfestival Dordrecht in the Netherlands, who invited me to come up with a show combining Bach's immortal notes with metal. It was immediately clear to me that Alkaloid is the right vehicle for this idea, and that our guests in this extended line-up had to be at home in both worlds as well. With the right musicians, you can do anything. I also knew right away that rather than create just a collision between two stylistic extremes, I needed to approach the program as one whole that makes sense at all times, no matter if we played Bach or our own music. So as a metal band, we had to go quite a ways beyond our comfort zone to do justice to Bach's multilayered, hyper-precise scores without drowning it in noise, and feature the classical or symphonic elements in our own music more than we would just as a death metal band. The live album tries to show the full spectrum of this project, from the quiet, tender beauty of Bach's Agnus Dei to added polyphony and even jazz improvisations to a death metal banger like The Fungi From Yuggoth, and everything in between. It's been fantastic to have additional musicians and voices, since all our songs are multi-layered and rich in ingredients that we could feature more deeply than just as a metal quintet.

V: 专辑里既有Alkaloid发表过的歌曲，也有很多融合了古典音乐和Alkaloid音乐的新歌曲，这些歌曲是为了这张现场专辑专门创作的吗？在2026年你们会在现场表演这些歌曲吗？

I see the album features both previously released Alkaloid tracks and many new songs blending classical music with Alkaloid's sound. Were these songs composed specifically for this live album? Will you be performing them live in 2026?

M：新委约作品"Haunter of the Void"构成了本次演出的核心，它将我们独特的和声旋律风格与巴赫的复调作曲技法相融合。此外，我们还以特别新版本呈现了"Cthulhu"的前传篇章。我还逐音符地改编了四首巴赫乐谱，并在我们现有的作品中为古典乐器增添了新层次。我们的目标是让听众欣赏到一个需要这些元素和乐器才能完整呈现的音乐世界，无需分辨所听是新是旧、是巴赫还是我们、是金属还是古典，而是感受这些极端元素自然交融的音乐宇宙。去年我们在纯金属演出中呈现了"虚空潜伏者"与巴赫d小调羽管键琴协奏曲第一乐章；今年，我们会在演出中演奏专辑中的其他几首曲目，但仅以乐队形式呈现。这项耗费大量心血的作品能够以这种方式延续下去，以现场专辑的形式呈现，并且部分曲目也会加入到我们的常规演出歌单中，真是太棒了。

The new commissioned work, Haunter of the Void, formed the core of this encounter, combining our own style of harmonies and melodies with Bach's counterpoint composition techniques. Additionally, we got to offer a substantial prequel to "Cthulhu" in a special new version. I also arranged the four Bach scores we used note by note, and enhanced or added new layers for the classical instruments to our own existing songs. The goal was that the public gets to enjoy an integral vision that requires these elements and instruments, and doesn't have to wonder if what they're listening to is old or new, Bach or us, metal or classical, but rather a universe that smoothly brings all these extremes together. We took Haunter of the Void and the first movement of Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in d minor to our pure metal shows last year; this year, we'll offer a few other cuts from the album in our shows, but only as a band. It's great that this work-intense project gets to live on in this way, as a real live album and, in parts, in our regular set list.

V: 的中国乐迷是通过您在2007年加入的黑金属乐队Dark Fortress认识您的。Dark Fortress在2023年解散了，有许多的乐迷想知道，您觉得Dark fortress有可能在未来重组吗？

Many Chinese metal fans first discovered you through your involvement with the black metal band Dark Fortress, which you joined in 2007. Dark Fortress disbanded in 2023, and numerous fans are wondering: Do you think there's a possibility of Dark Fortress reuniting in the future?

M: 凡事皆有可能，就我个人而言，我非常乐意重组聚——但前提是必须时机合适。我们解散绝非音乐或成员，直至最后一刻一切都很好。迫使我们挂起乐器的原因是维系乐队运转的条件已变得无法承受。多年间，乐队一直在缓慢衰败，我们越来越难以找到哪怕是有限的时间和资源来偶尔聚一聚，一些老成员也因为各自的原因离开了。最终只剩下Santura和我，我们一致认为，只有我们两个人不能说是Dark Fortress。若要重组，我们几乎要从零开始，组建全新阵容，一切都要重新来过，但我们也清楚这毫无意义，也与乐队最初的风格相去甚远。因此我们选择体面而庄重地告别，而不是眼睁睁地看着心爱的乐队腐朽到面目全非，或在无人察觉中悄无声息地死去。我们对这个决定感到欣慰，也没有任何理由改变主意。倘若未来局势能再次好转，甚至发生翻天覆地的变化，谁又能预料会发生什么呢？但就目前而言，我们真的不打算重组，尽管在乐队几乎就快成立满30年时宣布解散令人难过。

Never say never, and I for one would be more than happy to get back together - but only if it makes sense. We didn't quit because of the music or the people in the band at all, that was always great, right until the end. We were forced to hang it up because the circumstances to keep our band alive became impossible. It had been a creeping decay for many years; it got more and more impossible to find even the limited time and means to get together occasionally, and some long-term members had left for their own reasons over the years. At the end, Santura and me were pretty much what was left, and we concluded that only the two of us aren't Dark Fortress. We would have had to start again from practically zero, with a new line-up and everything, knowing how little sense that would make, and how little that would have to do with what the band always was. So we decided to quit in style and with dignity, rather than see our beloved band decay to the point of unrecognizability, or die a quiet death that nobody notices. We're happy with our decision, and we don't see any reason to think differently. If circumstances should change for the better again, and drastically so, who knows what can happen. But for the moment, we really don't see ourselves getting back together, even though it was sad to announce our end after almost 30 years.

V: 2025年4月，您主导的Changeling乐队发布了首张同名专辑，除了lineup里的大家都非常熟悉的乐手之外，这张专辑里有非常多的客座乐手，阵容非常豪华，Changeling的是如何创立的？为什么在加入了这么多乐队之后，您会决定：“我还需要再组建一个乐队来做这些音乐”？

In April 2025, the band Changeling, which you spearheaded, released its self-titled debut album. Beyond the lineup featuring musicians everyone is very familiar with, this album boasts an impressive array of guest musicians, making for a truly star-studded cast. How was Changeling founded? After being part of so many bands, what led you to decide, “I still need to form another band to make this music”?

M: 这当然是个好问题。"Changeling"完全是Tom Geldschlähger（喷泉头老师）的创作。疫情初期他联系我，问我是否愿意为他的下一张个人专辑创作歌词并担任主唱——我当然答应了，毕竟我们音乐上的默契一直很棒，相处也总是超级融洽。但在早期阶段，这张专辑项目规模要小得多。只是当他完成所有音乐创作时，作品不断发展，不知不觉间我们意识到这已远不止是由几首零散歌曲组成的普通个人专辑。尽管我在演唱与作词方面贡献了重要创意，尽管每位乐手的精彩演绎同样支撑着音乐，但其余所有环节——作曲、录音、制作、工程、混音乃至所有后期制作——都是Tom一个人包办的。他倾注了数年心血完成这项工作，这份执着令我无比敬佩。它丝毫没有在艺术上妥协。通常，创作出特别且具有突破性的作品需要倾注全部心血，甚至更多，而他毫无保留。幸运的是，Season of Mist签下了这张专辑。他们如同支持我们其他乐队那样力挺这张新锐之作，这真是太好了。我想，最初是他们建议我们用一个新乐队的名字来发行这张专辑，这确实很有道理，因为我认为它应该拥有自己的独特身份，而不是仅仅以某个人的名字来命名。但这确实是Tom的心血之作。

That's a fair question of course. Changeling is completely Tom Geldschlähger's baby. He contacted me at the start of the pandemic if I was interested to do lyrics and vocals for his next solo album - and of course I said yes, since we always had an excellent musical click, and we always got along super well. But at that early stage, this album project was a lot more modest. It's just that while he composed all the music, everything just kept growing and growing, and before we knew it, we realized it's so much more than just another solo album with a few loose songs. And even though of course I had an important creative contribution with the vocals and lyrics, and although the stellar performances of every other musician on there of course carry the music as well, everything else is Tom's work - composing, recording, producing, engineering, mixing, and dealing with everything else as well. The guy has literally put years of his life into this work, and I respect the hell out of that. No artistic compromise at all. Often, it takes absolutely everything you've got and more to create something special and groundbreaking, and he didn't hold back. Luckily for us, Season of Mist Records picked up the album, and it's great that they support this rather fresh offering just like they did with our other bands. The decision to release it under a new name for a band was initially their suggestion I think, but it did make sense, since I think it deserves its own identity not limited to some dude's name. But it very much is Tom's thing.

V: 您的音乐背景和人生阅历非常丰富，相信您的经历可以给许多正在成长的年轻音乐家很大的启发。在将来您会考虑写一本自传吗？您有哪些建议想分享给年轻音乐家们？

Your musical background and life experiences are incredibly rich. I believe your journey could greatly inspire many young musicians who are still developing. Would you consider writing an autobiography in the future? What advice would you like to share with young musicians?

M: 这确实是个有趣的提议。我也喜欢写作——正如这次访谈所展现的，哈哈——撰写自传，甚至创作一部与我歌词理念相关的小说，绝对值得我投入时间。迄今为止我从未拥有过这样的时间，但若条件允许，我渴望以书籍而非音乐的形式，用自己的方式讲述我的人生故事。至于给年轻音乐人的建议，基本原则是：坚持你所热爱的，并且始终保持真我。艺术创作中永远不存在过度展示自我的风险，真正的危险在于为了模仿他人而稀释自己的本质。以我的经验，以我的经验来看，即使是喝得酩酊大醉的音乐节观众，也能感受到他们所看到的表演是否真实。无论你的演奏是否完美，无论环境多么艰难（这种情况很常见，原因不胜枚举），你所能做的就是尽力而为。如果你做到了这一点，并全身心投入到你所热爱和信仰的事物中，人们总会感受到你至少展现了自我。没人需要他人创意的拙劣复制品，更无人能比你更出色地活出你自己。另一关键在于永远不要忘记享受创作的乐趣。若身为音乐家却无法从中获得快乐，不如另谋出路——毕竟对我们大多数人而言，音乐在收入等物质层面的价值早已荡然无存，尤其在我们这个始终以创新与冒险为中心的领域。如今留下的支持者比以往任何时候都更热血而忠诚，这令人惊叹。但他们也无法弥补数十年来那些规模庞大的公司对我们艺术的背叛和掠夺，而作为一位创作小众音乐的作曲家或演奏家，我们根本无力反抗。所以，在这个噩梦般的世界里，我们最不能失去的就是音乐带给我们的快乐。一旦连这份快乐也消失殆尽，一切也就真的结束了。

It's an interesting suggestion for sure. I like writing text as well - as this interview probably shows, haha - and an autobiography, or even a novel linked to some of my lyrical concepts, could definitely be something worthwhile putting my time into. So far, I've never had that time, but if I can ever afford it, I'd love to make work of telling my story in my own way as a book, rather than in music. As for advice to young musicians, the basics would be: Stick with what you love, and always try to stay close to yourself. You can never be yourself too much in art, and the much bigger danger is watering down your own essence because you're trying to be like someone else. In my experience, even the drunkest festival audience still has a sense if what they're watching is authentic. Doesn't matter if you play perfectly or not, or if circumstances are difficult (which is very often the case, for a million possible reasons) - all you can do is your best. If you do that, and go completely for what you are, love and believe in, people will always feel that at least you've manifested yourself. Nobody needs bad copies of other people's ideas, and nobody will ever be a better you than you. The other crucial thing is never to forget to enjoy what you do. If you don't have fun as a musician, you can better do something else, because all other tangible value of our music with respect to income and stuff has pretty much completely evaporated by now for most of us, especially in our field, which always centers around innovation and adventure. The remaining supporters are more fiery and dedicated than maybe ever before, and that's amazing. But they won't be able to compensate for decades of betrayal and robbery of our art by corporations way too big to defend yourself against as a little composer or performer of strange music. So the last thing we can afford to lose in all this nightmare world is the joy the music gives us. Once that goes as well, it's truly over.

V: 是否有电影或者电视剧剧组找您合作过影视配乐？如果有机会，您希望给什么样的电影，电视剧，或者电子游戏制作配乐？

Have any film or television production teams approached you to compose music for their projects? If given the opportunity, what kind of films, TV series, or video games would you like to compose music for?

M: 我曾为几部短片和长片创作过配乐，但都是艺术性很强的地下作品。比如，在阿姆斯特丹大提琴双年展上，我为1920年的默片经典《化身博士》（Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde）创作了全新的现场配乐，由四把大提琴演奏。这类项目总能为配乐留出空间，且不惧怕标新立异。在我看来，主流电影配乐市场已被汉斯·季默（Hans Zimmer）彻底垄断了。当然，他确实很成功，但如今所有电影作曲家似乎都被限制在同一种模式下——也就是他那种过度简化、公式化且毫无原创性的风格，永远重复着那几个固定音符和音效。当然也有例外，比如去年的电影《可怜的东西》（Poor Things）的配乐就堪称杰作。如今许多剧集不仅在叙事上远胜传统电影，音乐也更具新意——即便像《白莲花大饭店》（The White Lotus）这样轻松主流的剧集亦是如此。作为观众，我偏爱硬科幻题材、高雅的自然影片，以及超现实主义、荒诞主义等与众不同的作品。但只要能与影片产生共鸣，且确信自己想创作的音乐能被接纳，我乐于尝试任何类型的创作。我绝不会像过去一百年来所有人那样，在影片结束前五分钟塞进那套老掉牙的管乐大调和弦。

I have made a few soundtracks to shorter and longer films, but it was always artsy underground stuff. For example, a brand new live soundtrack to the 1920 silent film classic "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", for four celli on the Cello Biennial Amsterdam. It's always projects that give space to the soundtrack, and aren't afraid to be different. The mainstream film music market has been killed by Hans Zimmer in my opinion. I mean, good for him, but his oversimplified, formulaic and profoundly non-original style of always the same few notes and sounds became the only thing any film composer seems to be allowed to do these days. There are exceptions of course, for example the excellent soundtrack to last year's Poor Things. Also nowadays, many series have not only much better story telling than the classic movie format by now, but also a lot fresher music, even a rather lighthearted and mainstreamy series like The White Lotus. My own preference as audience is in hard sci-fi, in classy nature features, and in surrealism, the absurd, and everything that's not like everything else. But I'm happy to take on anything if I can connect to the film in some way, and get a feeling that the music I'd want to write would actually be welcome. I'm not gonna put the same shitty major chord of the horns five minutes before the end of the movie, as everyone else has done for a century now.

V: 可以请您分享一下您的2025年年度歌单吗？在这一年您都在听哪些音乐？您最想给你的乐迷们推荐哪些专辑？（任何流派和风格都可以）

Would you mind sharing your 2025 playlist? What music have you been listening to throughout the year? Which albums would you most like to recommend to your fans? (Any genre or style is welcome!)

M: 这个问题很难回答，因为我听音乐的习惯比较随意，也没什么规律。比如我听了不少蒂格兰·哈马斯扬（Tigran Hamasyan）的作品，还现场看过他的演出。Blood Incantation乐队做的东西真是太棒了，真是支优秀的乐队！我还喜欢两支希腊地下乐队/项目——The Wothrosh Collective和Throne of Want。最近发现的两支德国新锐极端乐队Nekus和Abstractyss也很出色。此外，我竟然听了比我预期更多Madness和The Cardiacs的音乐。尤其是The Cardiacs，每次聆听都像一次独特的体验。这音乐丑陋、恼人，大多甚至可怖得令人极度反感。但它又极具原创性、颠覆性，更蕴含着难以言喻的抓耳魅力。听这乐队的感觉就像在体验一场事故观光，但不得不承认他们独一无二。今年他们甚至发行了一张新的遗作专辑。

M: Complicated question to answer, because my music consumption tends to be a bit erratic and random. I've listened to a good bit of Tigran Hamasyan for example, and got to see him live too. What Blood Incantation have been doing is amazing, what a good band! I also enjoyed two Greek underground bands / projects, The Wothrosh Collective and Throne of Want. Two good, new-ish German extreme bands I recently discovered would be Nekus and Abstractyss. And I've listened to more Madness and The Cardiacs than I ever thought I could bear. Especially The Cardiacs is an experience every time. It's ugly, annoying, mostly even horrible and more than just a little off-putting music. But it's also extremely original, radical, and catchy in a way I can't even begin to describe. Feels a bit like accident tourism, listening to that band, but I gotta hand it to them that there's no-one like them. They even released a new posthumous album this year.

V: 非常感谢Morean接受Volcano Magazine的采访！我喜欢您做的一切音乐，非常期待听到完整版的"Bach Out of Bounds"。期待未来有机会邀请Alkaloid来到中国演出！

Thank you so much, Morean, for speaking with Volcano Magazine and all your fans in China! I love everything you did and am really looking forward to hearing the full version of Bach Out of Bounds. I hope we can invite Alkaloid to perform in China in the near future!

M: 再次感谢你们的邀请，也感谢给予我如此广阔的空间来分享我热爱的事业。我们的音乐能传入中国令我们无比欣喜，向那里的乐迷致以最诚挚的问候！期待有朝一日能来中国演出。若您认识有兴趣的演出经纪人或音乐节主办方，请通过官网https://alkaloid-band.com/contact/联系我们。下次再会！

Thank you again for having me, and for giving me so much space to talk about what I love and do. We are extremely happy that our music is finding its way to China, and send a big salute to our fans there! We hope one day we can come to play in China. So if you know of interested bookers or festival, please do send us a message through our website: https://alkaloid-band.com/contact/. Until next time!