(Michael Mosher Music)
Free downloads of (and information about) my own music (all rights reserved, and owned by me, unless otherwise indicated), and from a few friends/collaborators (posted with their permission).
Bandcamp only has 200 free downloads per month, so if it's not 'name your price,' you'll have to wait a month (or else purchase to show your support, of course).
(Album cover photo taken by yours truly @ local cemetery)
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think that Gathered Here Together is some of my best work; at very least, it is some of the best work I've done in a long time. It's funny, I say that while listening to some new music I've made over the past week, for a new album (and new project? TBA) as yet unreleased, which I also think is some of my best work (albeit, a totally different genre).
Euphemism is Funeral Doom with clean vocals, that was the idea. Specifically, what I was going for was to really capture the sound of what it might sound like for a Doom Metal band to be performing at an actual funeral or wake. As such, the majority of background synths are only organ(s) and a lonely piano.
A lot of cannabis was used in this recording. Switching from alcohol to cannabis has greatly increased my creative output, and I daresay the quality of it(?), and certainly elevated the quality of my life overall. Aside from the marijuana psychosis, depersonalization, and the gaze of Lovecraftian beings peering at me from an unseen vantage point, I feel almost sane again.
There are a few reasons for my choice to use clean vocals, as opposed to the typical windy growls so commonplace in Funeral Doom generally. Actually, that's one of the reasons right there, I wanted to try something different and unique.
In addition to this, I have been wanting to use clean vocals for some time now, and only recently (thanks to the cell phone) have I been able to experiment with real singing again.
It's strange, I used to be such a song writer. I had songs where I actually sung, but all of those early recordings (1997-2001) are sadly lost to the annals of time and memory (probably no one else's but my own, I'd imagine, as anyone else who was there at the time wasn't interested in whatever music I was doing).
All that is to say, that I'm glad to be able to try clean vocals again. The album Blood Sacrifice(by Exalted Saviour) was supposed to have had only clean vocals, but the microphone I had was terrible for recording them. You could growl in it, and gurgle, but it wouldn't do justice to clean singing.
(Alternate Euphemism logo prototype)
Anyways, whatever... this Euphemism album is easily one of my favorites so far. Recorded (mostly) within a few days in Feb. 2020 (the exception being the drum/synth foundation to the track "Funeral Home," which was composed sometime in 2019).
I figured 'Euphemism' was an interesting name for a band, and one that hadn't been used before. As of now, my project is the only one on Metal-Archives going by that name, one I'd actually thought of using since 2012. Fun factoid.
Only later did I look up the lore associated with the word and it's etymology (which appears in the bio on the Euphemism bandcamp page, linked below).
Musically, I think it does well in the 'Funeral Doom' genre, but there are moments when obvious influences from My Dying Bride (see "Weeping") and other usual suspects bleed through.
The execution is sloppy at times, not always perfectly on time, but who cares? As a whole, it fits quite well, the haphazard approach giving it an 'underground' quality.
I love every song on this album, except for maybe "Funeral Home," which at least serves well to ... I dunno, something. It does something. Now that I hear it, it's still pretty good. Funeral Doom with Nirvana vocals, haha.
"Black Velvet Drape," in my opinion, is the one track that should be listened to in total. Really, in order to get the full effect of the atmosphere/emotion, the entire album should be heard as a whole, beginning to end in its entirety; but barring that, at very least the last track should be heard. Everything works on it, it's almost a microcosm of the record itself.
I'm listening to the song "Weeping" right now, and honestly, if I didn't know this was me, I'd think it was some underground UK Doom outfit lol. I almost forgot it was me for a second, lost myself in my own music. I love when that happens.
It almost makes me feel as if it (my music, my art) matters; or at least it serves the illusion.
These albums are the soundtrack of my broken dreams, shattered hopes, fears, regrets... everything.
(Closest thing to the actual logo that I can still find)
Methysticum is/was a 'Narcotic Metal' project, with two albums recorded within two weeks of one another. It may not be some of my best work, but it's still one of my favorite projects.
Lifelover is an obvious influence philosophically and practically (being composed while high on opioids), musically I also take my cue from the 'Slowcore' genre of alternative Rock. To my knowledge, I wasn't aware of any bands on the more 'Black Metal' side of things, who mixed Slowcore with Depressive or Post-Black Metal.
I therefore decided to give it a shot, and this project happened.
(that feeling when you do a split-album with yourself because reasons)
Funny story... I was talking about doing a split with this one band, when Agrimonia Black (from Tristitia Nigrum) told me they sucked and that I shouldn't do the split. I took his advice to heart, and backed out of doing the split.
Instead, I did a split with myself, making a 'Funeral Doom' project called MOLD to complement Methysticum.
Now, while I do like the Methysticum songs, I really like the MOLD songs, as I felt they really captured an air of dense claustrophobia (which, when speaking about Funeral Doom, is a problem you want to have).
Music for crawling around in a dank, wet, concrete basement in an abandoned building. Come to think of it, it sort of sounds like it could've been recorded there.
(album art caused a bit of an unintended stir)
The second album is the best, in my opinion. I like both of them, but the material is maybe stronger on this one, Methysticum solidifying its sound defined by the blending of 'Slowcore' with Depressive Post-Black.
The choice of album art was kind of spontaneous. I was looking through images that would give the feeling of addiction in an urban environment. I happened across this image, and used it just because of the dread associated with it.
I dunno, some people thought it might denote racism I guess, just because the victim in the photo is non-White. Not what I meant to convey, but I suppose people will think whatever they're going to think.
After finishing Praise Addiction, about a week later, something happened to my PC. It's an ancient thing, so some connection in the line-in port may have finally disintegrated, or there may have been a complication with how the new speakers I'd bought were set up.
Either way, the end result was that I was no longer able to record using real instruments, nor vocals.
This was the last album made using real instruments until very recently (Feb. 2020 at time of writing).
2017's "Hempgnosis" is probably the most musically interesting album from this project, Cult Of Divine Mercy.
Originally, CODM was a Catholic-oriented noise project, following the earlier noise created under the Harsh Noise Wall (HNW) project Escape From Hell. The latter still exists today, albeit in a different form.
The first CODM releases were styled as 'funeral noise,' a sort of cavernous, reverberating extension of the Harsh Noise Wall genre. This, of course, was not even picked up on by most who criticised it in the beginning, probably having no idea at the time what HNW even was, let alone an attempted variation of it. Ah well, such is the plight of the artist, to rarely, if ever, have his art understood. Semper fudge.
The albums themselves focused thematically on the divine mysteries of the Holy Rosary; one can hardly say that it's a common concept in the noise scene.
"Hempgnosis," by contrast, is an excursion in Funeral/Stoner Doom Metal. I had thought, even early on, that CODM would make a good Doom Metal project. It's one of the albums I'm more proud of and satisfied with over all. The title, aside from the obvious, is a play on the word "hypnosis."
After relapsing into heavy DXM abuse for a few months between late 2016 through to Spring of 2017, I started to think maybe weed was a better alternative. How I feel about cannabis, and my history/timeline of drug use and abuse in general, is a story in itself. I'll probably end up making a separate post about it at some point, but I digress...
I had considered using cannabis, and just going full stoner, but upon trying to smoke weed again, I quickly realized why weed had become my least favorite drug over the years: panic attacks.
So, I started drinking instead around this time. In spite of its cannabinoid theme, "Hempgnosis" was created entirely under the influence of alcohol (much like practically every release since then, up to present time). Plot twist: at time of writing I haven't had a drink in a month, ironically because I started smoking cannabis again, after learning the importance of CBD in regulating and reducing the negative side-effects of THC. This revelation has been nothing short of miraculous. I used to look disfavourably on people who praised CBD as a miracle drug, but damn if I haven't become one of them. I was wrong.
Interestingly enough, this post ended with an actual hemp-gnosis.
Download the album at 'Name Your Price' (free or donation):
