Have you ever been in the situation, where you discover an artist by a random chance, that then goes on to change your entire outlook on music as a whole? I’m sure you have. We are hardwired to certain expectancies and automated bias, even if subconsciously so, and ever so rarely something comes up to thoroughly mess up the status quo and change your trajectory. To some of us that has happened maybe once or twice, for others a multitude of times. For me, there was one artist in particular, whose doings permanently altered the way I hear and approach music as both a listener and a musician, and today we’ll talk about him a little bit.
Gnaw Their Tongues is the festering evil conjured by the Dutch multi-instrumentalist Maurice de Jong, a.k.a Mories, who has been realising his vision of hellish anguish in musical form for thirty-five years now, over twenty of which have been spent with Gnaw Their Tongues. The moniker undoubtedly rings a bell for anyone even remotely invested in the experimental sonic realm, and for a rather good reason. Over the years and across an an insane amount of releases, the project has established itself as one of the most notable ones in the scene, for de Jong’s uncompromising and unique approach to the meticulous craft of blending together elements of noise and black metal, with a wide scope and influence from other genres as well.
Normally I’d do a bit of a history check and proceed through each release and so forth, but such approach would lock me out of the daylight for months, so instead I contacted de Jong to pick his brain a little bit about what Gnaw Their Tongues exactly is and how it came to be. ‘I started the project because everything I heard around me, at the time, sounded tame and bland. And I was in a very weird, dark place mentally. It was basically me venting my frustration about life and humans. These days I’m in a very different place. My dislike for most humans and human things stays the same.‘
Gnaw Their Tongues‘ debut album Spit at Me and Wreak Havoc on My Flesh came out in 2006, and already made a noteworthy impact in all of its cacophonic glory, that firmly laid down the groundwork for the project, from where it would flourish into myriad directions over the following twenty years, through a hefty amount of albums, EPs, splits, and collaborations. The wound has been steadily bleeding since, but never without direction or ambition. Having heard most if not all of these releases by now, I can’t really recall any missteps or errs from along the way, and that is quite something when considering the scope of everything.
With all that in mind, it begs the question if there is any particular mindsets or motives required to approach writing new material, but based on the answer, not really. I personally find it fascinating to see and hear creativity bloom in such a manner, and we’re really only scratching the surface when talking about Gnaw Their Tongues as a singular entity. He says, ‘It will sound stupid, but I just begin recording. Sometimes I have an idea, but most of the time the idea will morph into something completely different. I have been making music for over 35 years, so I know I can make something out of the simplest idea, snippet of sound, etc.‘
Continuing on the subject of influences and sources of inspiration; ‘The music, books and movies I grew up with are probably the biggest influences. GTT‘s subject matter always came natural. But all the negativity can be also pretty demanding on me… tiring even. Thats why I also do ’lighter’ music from time to time. These days, real life and the state of the world inspires most of my music.‘
With the unbelievably abrasive sound and extremely R-rated thematic matters in mind, it’s not exactly a surprise that the creation process takes its toll. I mean, hell, just think about some of the album titles, such as Eschatological Scatology, Abyss of Longing Throats, Hymns for the Broken, Swollen and Silent, An Eternity of Suffering, an Eternity of Pain, and you get the idea. Let alone digging into the song titles or themes thereof, you can bet your ass you’re dealing with some of the darkest things human nature has to offer – or explore rather – when it comes to Gnaw Their Tongues. Everything is explicit, and there’s no safe havens to be discovered from anywhere. It’s just blunt force traumas in sequence.
If memory serves me right, my first encounters with the project was around 2015, soon after the release of NV, a collaboration with Dragged Into Sunlight. To this day I can vividly recall getting completely blindsided and awestruck by the mountain-moving mass of dread and horror disguised as music, and quickly had to dig deeper into each of the artists involved, and while I greatly enjoy his collaborators to this day, Gnaw Their Tongues led me on a very dismal path as far as my current preferences are considered, and continued to provide plenty of gut punches along the way.
The variety between the albums and smaller projects is quite remarkable, as it’d be too easy to assume that such an output would equal to rehashing the same old things and just copying oneself. That isn’t the case here at all, as at times it seems that the main connecting red thread between these releases is just the name itself, even though there are certain undertones and hues beyond that, tying everything neatly together. Whereas albums like The Cessation of Suffering and I Speak the Truth, Yet with Every Word Uttered, Thousands Die revolve around harsher noise, The Genesis of Light wallows in droning murky ambiances, Reeking Pained and Shuddering is an explosive whirlwind of rough industrial black metal, and Genocidal Majesty is something of an amalgamation between all of these. Each album has their own central sound and vibe, which also proves to be beneficial when trying to decide upon what fits today’s particular mood the best.
The gear with which these corrosive walls of sound are created are from the more customary end; ‘I do a lot with my DAW and it’s native plug-ins. Plus I have lots of pedals, a few hardware synths. A few noise synths etc. But I have a standard set up for recording guitar and bass. A old Marshall top and a Peavey class D bass top.‘
The tools may vary, but the vision is what holds firm and stays true to itself. The fountain of disgust, hatred, and pain that waters the one-man machinery is without a doubt palpable and very much understandable to all of us, and as insinuated above, it does come with a certain cost. Some years ago, it even momentarily looked that Gnaw Their Tongues as a project had reached its end;
‘Every time I thought of a new idea for GTT at the time, I had the feeling I had done that before. I did not want to repeat myself. I always try to do something else, something new. But then I just started on some new ideas that morphed into new material. I also had a hard time letting go of the ’metal’ aspect of it. At one point I just made the decision that GTT does not need to be anything. So some material has no ’metal’ aspect at all.‘
This mentioned ‘metal’ aspect is something that, while never been on the front and center that much, has loomed around the perimeters in one way or the other, until the few most recent albums, that have indeed explored other planes of torture instead. As mentioned earlier, de Jong’s doings venture far past the Gnaw Their Tongues moniker into a label roster’s worth of other ones, some one-offs, and some recurring. While we’re not going to cover those today, you’ll find plenty of them through Gnaw Their Tongues‘ Bandcamp page. Just bring some snacks and wear something comfortable prior to taking it all in. ‘I have all these different ideas,’ de Jong states. ‘I work fast and disciplined. So I can materialise ideas pretty quick. These last two years I have slowed down considerably. I’d rather spend time with my kids these days, than sitting behind my DAW.‘
The last point is something plenty of us can identify with these days. Of course, our personal ambitions and drives are something that we should strive to focus on and to realise to the best of our abilities, but simultaneously, as much is true that everything is fleeting, and choosing to spend that time around your loved ones is equally important. Life’s a balancing act, after all, and often we simply must pursue many things at once. You can sleep when you’re dead, all that.
This brings us to the end for now. I hope I have managed to pique your interest into checking Gnaw Their Tongues out if for some reason you haven’t already, and conversely to the subject matters, will have a damn dandy time with it. I’ll leave you off with a pretty sufficient and apt answer gotten directly from the back of the hearse when asked about his plans for the nearer future;
‘I have no plan. I have about three unfinished albums on my harddrive. I intend to finish those first.‘
