Wryngwyrm: 'Black Metal for lonely girls'

Some entities have an aura, a mythos, that’s so powerful it pervades even the hard-edged ones and zeroes of digital communication. The ghost in the machine. The ghost beyond the machine.

Such is the power of persona of one L Coats, also known as Wryngwyrm.

See Wryngwyrm Friday, December 9 at Oracle Tavern

Self-described “Black metal for lonely girls,” Wryngwyrm’s sole album, Nerve Endings, is a monumental work. Dark and ambient at turns, crackling with electric fury at other moments, the album is nothing if not evocative.

Evocative of what exactly? The unknown.

Nerve Endings, like L Coats / Wryngwyrm herself, feels like an artifact found on the shore, washed in from some other place, time, planet…

I’m so proud to present Wryngwyrm in concert.

Please enjoy this exclusive interview:

Who is Wryngwyrm?
Wryngwyrm is a widow who is mourning the loss of her true love, the sailor. The sailor perished at sea but she does not know this, or she is in denial. She cannot accept the fact that he is a ghost so instead she writes him letters and always watches the horizon waiting for his ship to return. She lives on the coast in the attic of an old house. She is very lonely and full of longing and heart ache. She is every woman’s dark side/shadow. She is the tenderness of woman but also the terror.

When did you start this project and why?
I started it in April this year. I was falling in love with someone who was only visiting for a short time so I knew he was going to leave back to his hometown in ten days. So I felt very lonely—but also so filled with love and joy. But also, like, screaming. Lots of confusing feelings.

Where did you grow up?
In my grandmother’s attic by the sea.

What originally inspired you to make music and art when you were a child?
Dreams.

What are your top five bands or artists?
Contemporary: Fire-Toolz, Dvstrr, the album No More Dreams by 1991, Këkht Aräkh, Chat Pile, the album Sult by A Different Cloud, Grouper, Old Tower, ML Buch, Puce Mary, Vortal Curb, HiHelga.

Get more Vortal Curb on SEANCARNAGE.COM

Not contemporary: Joni Mitchell, Def Leppard, Alice In Chains, Erik Satie, African Head Charge.

Get Wryngwyrm’s Nerve Endings on cassette (limited release)

Can you tell us more about Nerve Endings, your most excellent album release?
It’s my first solo record. It was made in April while I was working full-time and I had Saturdays off. Someone who I was falling in love with had just shown me the film Until The Light Takes Us—which has a beautiful score. He’s from Norway and I have my roots in Denmark and we felt this deep kinship about a lot of things.

I woke up the next day so inspired, and it was my one day off, and I wanted to be alone. So I was like “Well, might as well try and make a Black Metal album today.”

The rule was that I had to finish it in one day—make the album art and everything and upload it to YouTube exactly twenty-four hours later. So I started on it Saturday, April 16 around 8am, and I had to finish it by 8am on Sunday because I had to go to work. It was purely instinctual and raw because there wasn’t enough time for it not to be. I was basically just writing the lyrics live as I was singing them.

It was an interesting way to work—just sing straight into my laptop and then transcribing later what I had sung. I really don’t really know where it all came from. It was really fun and cathartic to produce. It’s not mixed or mastered. I recorded it in my grandmother’s attic while she was downstairs watching TV. She’s pretty deaf so I’m pretty sure she couldn’t hear me screaming. It’s pretty much dedicated to that one person.

And of course Nerve Endings is not a traditional black metal record at all. Black Metal heads would probably get really mad at me if I said it was. I was just super inspired by the lineage and the feeling of it. The vulnerability of black metal is so beautiful to me. I love ancient pagan stuff and I have always loved the stories of banshees and the madwoman in the attic in Jane Eyre. Just something about the wild wandering woman who is heartbroken and has lost her mind is so beautiful to me.

Mythology is very important to me. Especially for young people right now—it’s so important that our generation be crafting new art right now since we survived Covid. It’s a new era. The Golden Age is coming. What we have to say and what we leave behind is extremely important. It will be looked back upon.

You seem to have a fascination with some genres that people would probably think could never go together, but you make them fit—like ambient, noise, black metal, electronic beats… How and why are you bringing all these elements together?
Sometimes things sound different but deep down they’re all saying the same thing. It’s just a different language, but the same meaning. I’m very inspired by multiple genres. I think you can combine styles on a record as long as they are secretly communicating the same message—mood and atmosphere are everything.

I feel that music should move like a movie.

Is it true that an artist tries to remake the world according to their imagination? Is that how you feel when you make art?
Yes absolutely. I would go insane if I didn’t make art. Art is purely escapism for me. There is no other destiny besides the fantasies I create for myself. My imagination keeps me continuously entertained. It’s extremely selfish but I hope it can inspire others in some way. I treat it like a full-time job. I used to want to be a marine biologist, but I started drawing imagined seascapes and sea creatures instead, and that somehow kind of took over.

And, yes, my paintings and drawings are how I view the world, or more so how my dreams feel. The invisible things and spirits, premonitions, just instinctual gut stuff. I don’t know. If I’m thinking while I’m making something, it’s probably going to be bad. With music it’s so important to make it when you are really feeling the certain emotion the song is about. It has to be true. Or else it will be false. When I’m making art my brain stops and it feels so good and quiet in there.

Wryngwyrm L Coats Sean Carnage Fridays Oracle Tavern December 9 2022

L Coats’ original, brilliant artwork for the Oracle show (click image to download & print full-size).

Please tell us about your visual art? What media do you work in?
I paint, draw, or make flyers on whatever I have around. I also make videos. I don’t really ever plan anything or think about anything while I’m making. It just has to be raw and pure. The album art for Nerve Endings is a self-portrait I took with self-timer on my iPhone right after finishing the album.

Your instagram is full of so many interesting images—glamorous, digital, contemporary, street, ominous, and confusing—all at once! Do you care to comment on your visual aesthetic?
Wow that’s so nice. Yeah, I like to keep people on their toes. Nothing lasts forever. Nothing should make sense. Nothing matters. Nobody cares. I am responsible for myself and my actions. It’s an extremely liberating and motivating feeling.

What are your feelings about the Uncanny Valley—when reality gets so digital and mushy that there’s no there there any longer? How does that make you feel?
I hate it. I hate it so much. It feels evil. I hate most digital art. I love the connectivity of the internet but I consciously try to be more and more physical and get back to the analog, the slow, the human.

That’s why screaming feels so good and real. It’s not uncanny or mushy at all. When you hear a scream you know exactly what it is—a scream. It’s very much there, it very much just happened. It forces you to be present. A scream knows exactly what it is. It’s terrifying and it shakes your core and wakes you up. It’s one of the most animal things you can do. And people can feel okay and safe to scream with me when I scream—it’s so beautiful because everyone can relate on some level to that feeling. You feel so good, you get, like, a high after you scream.

Your computer can make noise but it can’t breathe. So it’s important to continue the tradition of screaming music.

How do you bring Wryngwyrm music to a live environment like Oracle Tavern?
For this live performance my friend מוֹשִׁיעַ will be joining me. We have been experimenting with his jaw harp and my accordion. Plus a beat machine and a destroyed guitar; we run a nice sitar effect on the guitar which I play with a nail or a power drill. Very simple and meditative loops. Loops are so healing. They make me feel closer to god.

I like performing with מוֹשִׁיעַ because we do a more free-form jam-based set, instead of me performing my album front to back. When I’m solo I have to conjure emotions that are very difficult to do every weekend. I can really only do Wryngwyrm solo once a month probably because she takes a lot out of me, and the simultaneous feelings of sadness and hope have to be true. So performing alongside מוֹשִׁיעַ helps me and inspires me. Plus he does amazing vocals. We’ve been doing a kind of gypsy-music New-Professionalism Neolithic-trance cave-man type thing. The accordion is one of my favorite instruments.

Wryngwyrm at Orifice, San Jose, December 2022. Courtesy: L Coats.

What do you want an audience to walk away thinking or feeling after one of your shows?
Like they just were in a dream. That’s the goal.

Are you working on anything new right now that you can tell us about?
There’s a single I’m sitting on which is more dance-y and it has a real catchy chorus. The lyrics are dumb and fun. Maybe I’ll release it soon.

Also מוֹשִׁיעַ and I want to lay down our jams on a 4-track. But I want to do a proper Dungeon Synth record before the new year. I love Dungeon Synth. I love the traditions of storytelling in Black Metal and Dungeon Synth, and I like experimenting within their rules/limitations/aesthetics.

But the record has to be made in a day. That’s the rule. No time to think about it too much and no time for self-doubt or criticism. I want to make something very washed out and blurry and distant sounding. Like the fog. The memory of a lost dream from another time.

If Wryngwyrm made a movie, what genre would it be and who would star?
Point Destiny 2023.

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Get Wryngwyrm music

Don’t miss the show:

Tricky Youth Wryngwyrm SAZA Vitamin Wig C Solar Wimp Oracle Tavern Sean Carnage Fridays December 9 2022 L Coats

Image: L Coats. Color: Carnage.

Sean Carnage presents…

Friday, December 9th at Oracle Tavern:

Tricky Youth – Raw & loud, like Three 6 Mafia on a Nü Metal jag
Wryngwyrm – Sumptuous metallic vibes, atmospheric death noise
SAZA (formerly Sauber Zauber) – Black Metal / Prog experimentalism at it’s cutting-edge best
Vitamin Wig C – Monday Night superstar Robbie Hansen back with enthralling keyboard madness
Solar Wimp – Ascendant power trio rock—from a duo! Their final show!
DJ Kyle Mabson – Just added! Pro wrestling superstar & ’90s fanatic internet sensation