Interview: Xadaa of Megafauna, VNRL, Grumm Trencher and Syrup Moose Records!

Xadaa is a British Columbia based musician who takes the path less tread to find greater rewards at the cutting edge of the underground. The pursuit of unique sounds, personalities and true creativity has fueled Xadaa's own music and the artists who have collabed with the Syrup Moose Records banner. 

It was fun to discuss avant-garde musical creation, scoring and other topics with Xadaa, as well as what it was like live scoring to the classic version of Nosferatu on a recent mini-tour! 

1. Have you always been interested in avant-garde or experimental music? I have been realizing recently with my Walking Bombs project how much the bands Suicide and Sebadoh informed a lot of my approach, even though they on the surface are very different. Any certain acts that sort of opened your mind to different things? It is inspiring to me that you have early tracks you did with Garageband out there, as a DIY artist myself.

Xadaa: I think to a certain extent I have, for sure. Growing up, my dad introduced me to bands like Ween, Morcheeba, and Portishead – and I think Ween in particular really laid a foundation for me to understand just how weird music can get. Even as I grew up and went through my teenage phases of various kinds, Ween in particular stuck with me and honestly, they still do. I do find myself lately being drawn to more experimental or avant-garde music, or at least finding it to be the most inspirational. Especially seeing bands like Am I in Trouble? or Agriculture do really unique things in metal, or seeing Andre 3000 come back with an experimental flute-album; there are people doing really cool shit and I find that to be deeply inspiring. Lately I find myself drawn to stuff like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Author & Punisher – even finding bands like Ulcerate or Hellish For, even if the connection between what I put out with MEGAFAUNA to metal might not seem as clear.

As for the Garageband tracks, yeah, I really never really considered myself someone who could make or release music, then I started fiddling with Garageband on my phone and realized, like, “oh, hey, maybe I can do something” – and then everything grew from there. I’ve just sort of taught myself how to use this different software, expanded into playing with midi controllers, and now… here we are.

 

2. The album title for your mostly instrumental and very textural, brilliant new Megafauna album ('I Owe This Land A Body') is compelling. We were talking in messages about sustainability a bit and better resource management being dissuaded under the deadly mindsets of capitalism. What inspired you to title the record 'I Owe This World A Body'? It reminds me of my Druidic Welsh heritage, haha. Or the Mari Lwyd! Although, that is a horse skull.

Right away, I need to shout out Teresa Sutherland who wrote and directed the film Lovely, Dark and Deep from 2023. It’s a movie about a back-country park ranger who is trying to understand a tragic incident from her past. In the movie, a different ranger walks off into the woods, leaving behind a sign that reads “I Owe This Land a Body” – and that phrase just crawled into my brain and stuck there. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and it was something I would – as weird as it is to say – meditate on. It would repeat in my head. The idea for the album came out of that, and the idea that the very least we can do after the damage and harm we’ve done to the planet, is die. Feed ourselves back to the world and nourish it, at least a little. Especially at a time when it really doesn’t seem like we’re prepared to do anything else to stem the tide of climate change and environmental collapse – so we should have the decency to die. I’ll be the first to admit that its bleak to the point of feeling nihilist, at least from the outside; but MEGAFAUNA has been more or less my outlet to cope with and process my own mental illness and this is simply a further extension of that.

 

3. You did a score for F.W. Mernau's 'Nosferatu' pieced from live tour dates you did last year. Such a cool endeavor? What was the experience like reacting to the work in this manner and how did it give you a deeper appreciation for it? Has it been interesting seeing renewed interest since the Eggers version? My favorite is actually Herzog's 'Nosferatu the Vampyre', which came out when I was one years old!

Yeah! This was such a cool thing that started as a small, simple idea and sprawled out into a mini-tour. This was the first thing I’ve ever done that could be considered a tour, and the reception was really positive. It was a really interesting process, because each show (as with all of my live shows) was completely improvised. I set samples and plugins that would be used across each show, but from there, the score would be different each night. Finding things that worked and didn’t work on the fly, and then bringing the pieces from each show together into the final version, which is the one I released. Some of the tracks on the official release are also different shows stacked on top of each other to create the final version.

I’ve always loved the 1922 version of Nosferatu, and doing this felt like my way of thanking it for being so important to me, but it did absolutely also give me a further appreciation for that source material. Appreciating how much is done with visual storytelling, there is no dialogue and only interstitial text to convey more complicated information, but so much is given through the performances and the sets and costumes, you really get a sense of time and place and story, through just what you can see. It’s something that – at least in my opinion – that gets lost in a lot of modern movies. “Show don’t tell” is advice that a lot of folks should consider.

It has been really cool to see such a positive response to Egger’s remake of Nosferatu, and honestly if anyone was going to make it and do it justice, it was going to be him. I did see it recently, and it is truly excellent. So much attention to detail and bringing as much of the original to a modern audience as possible – down to even colour grading some scenes to match the film tinting to the original. It’s a really phenomenal adaptation. I do like Herzog’s version, and I also think that Steve Katz Shadow of the Vampire is great too.

Actually, on this, there is a screening planned in Vancouver, BC of the “composer cut” of Nosferatu with my score attached on February 19^th at the Hollywood Theatre which is massively exciting. I’m also planning a second tour next fall, providing a score to another classic of German expressionism, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

 

4. The title track of the newest Megafauna features Alex Loach of black metal band Ashenheart. They are a very driven and passionate band who are rising in popularity from just being cool people and talented, it seems. The way it should be! I love when bands like that make other people excited about music and community in general, especially these days when it is so easy to be jaded. Anyhow, I love how the Alex appearance sort of moves in and out like wind through a shroud in the mix. Spooky! Also, it reminded me of the excellent Earth album 'Primitive and Deadly', which featured Mark Lanegan and Rabia Shaheen Qazi in unexpected vocal roles amidst mostly instrumental work.

Alex is a rarity in the community I think, someone who spends just as much time promoting and celebrating the work of others as he does his own. Honestly, everyone in Ashenheart – Amanda and Steve both, are the same way and its humbling and a good reminder of what we could all strive for. Community over competition or clout, it means a lot. Alex’s willingness to jump on the song was great too, he was quick he liked my lyrics, and it really came together exactly how I hoped it would; I hope that he and I can work together again, honestly the door will always be open to him and to everyone in Ashenheart.

You’re right about how easy it is to get jaded, I’ve fallen into that hole as well, I think it happens to everyone, what’s going to make all the difference is acknowledging it and making active attempts to make it better. We’ve got enough working against us in capitalism, we shouldn’t work against each other too.

 

5. You took a year off from releasing stuff with Syrup Moose Records, correct? That seems healthy, if you were so inclined. Sometimes it is best to refresh our batteries. It is like approaching a mix with fresh ears after a marathon studio session. You might hear it differently when you come back.

Yeah, I started SMR as almost a goof in 2022 and it grew way faster than I was expecting, and in all reality, probably faster than I was ready for. I spent two years flying by the seat of my pants, making mistakes, having successes, highs and lows. I started to realize that it wasn’t something that I was feeling the same joy and enthusiasm for, and things started to get on top of me, so I thought it was time for a break. I want to take the year to get through pre-order backlog and decide what – if anything – SMR will be in 2026. I’ve kept up the radio show, but that’s about it, and its already made a difference just on my sense of well being. My day job requires a lot of emotional and stressful work, so having something that was supposed to be lighter and more fun start to turn, I knew it was unsalvageable. That said, I will forever be grateful to everyone who trusted me with their art and I hope that they know that.

 6. "Sea of Trees" is one of my favorite tracks of yours. The spaciousness really feels almost like you are zooming over the Amazon or something, like a bird's eye view more than a drone. What were you feeling when you were composing this one?

“Sea of Trees” was one of the first songs that I finished for IOTLAB, I think it started with me finding that hit that repeats throughout the song and then building from that. It set itself into the grooves in my brain and here we are. I found it kind of … haunting and meditative as I was assembling the song and wanted to chase that feeling. I like your description as being “birds eye view” instead of a “drone” – I think that’s a really interesting distinction that I hadn’t necessarily considered before. A side note that might add to the song, “Sea of Trees” is the English translation Aokigahara forest in Japan, a forest that is referred to often as the “suicide forest”. There is something in that correlation that I found really disquieting – the despair that leads someone to take their lives, and what is also almost a return to the land. These forests are dense and vast, and something calls these people there. I absolutely am not trying to put any supernatural connotations on to the tragic stories that I’m referring to, but rather something in us that feels like a place like the Sea of Trees is a place to find rest, even in moments of utter despair. In no way to I mean to take ownership of these stories, or these tragic losses, but rather just want to reflect on what that means.

 

7. I love the vertigo inducing noise doom soundtrack-esque music of your upcoming side project VNRL. How did you pick the name? It reminds me a bit of Justin Broadrick's Techno Animal in places. Also, how was it working with my friend Garry Brents (Homeskin, Gonemage) on a track?

I would love to tell you that there is some kind of grand and meaningful story that speaks to how I came up with the name VNRL, but its kind of mundane. I had an idea for a project that was sort of in opposition to the dark, contemplative stuff that I make as MEGAFAUNA and the lighter, fantasy-centric work that I make as Grumm Trencher. I wanted to make something grim and unpleasant and grating and harsh, a container to put my anger and feelings of doomer-nihilist despair into. I was thinking about words that were kind of gross, Venereal floated across my mind, I dropped all the vowels, and here we are with SICK, maybe the ugliest EP that I’ve made so far.

Garry is such a fucking delight to work with, a guy with infinite and endless creativity and drive to create. I’ve said on more than one occasion that Garry has no chill and should just leave some music for the rest of us to make (haha). He also really took the track and ran with it. Wrote the lyrics based on some quotes and themes that I gave him for the album and delivered a really nasty set of vocals for this. I had hoped we’d do more of the EP together, but time just wasn’t on our side – that said, I’m extremely grateful for his appearance and I think it absolutely rules.