Label Profile: The Ajna Offensive
March 20 2008 at 10:40:01 PM
Tyler Davis’ The Ajna Offensive is a label emboldened by incomparable—and eclectic—taste and aesthetic sense. Having released recordings by the likes of Ondskapt, Deathspell Omega, Sigrblot, Averse Sefira, Atomizer, Destroyer 666, Negative Plane, Villains, and a host of others, The Ajna Offensive consistently shirks trends, maintaining a staunch and effective selectivity that many listeners—and genres—have benefited from.
Proprietor Tyler Davis has been involved with Metal and innumerable types of boundary pushing music for years. Davis worked with the omnipresent Stephen O’Malley on the exquisite music magazine Descent and has continued to cast wattage on unique ensembles with panache and unapologetic erudition. Despite Davis’ consuming work, he was gracious enough to entertain a few questions about Ajna’s origin, his writing and dissatisfaction with music’s status quo.
When and why was :AJNA: started? Is the label a fulltime profession run only by you? Did your involvement and relationships established with Descent carry over to working with music from a different perspective?
AJNA: was started, I guess, about '92 or so. It evolved out of a venture I did under the name ‘Warloch.’ The label is rapidly becoming a full time job in terms of hours in the day it consumes.
My involvement with Descent only jaded me. I realized soon after doing reviews with Stephen that there was way more shit out there than I had ever imagined—and this was over 10 years ago when Black Metal, or whatever, was yet to be in vogue.
When you say Descent jaded you, is it that you were overwhelmed by how much was out there and decided to take a more active role in the music by releasing it, or was it that the volume of bands wore you down to where you didn't want to write about metal anymore?
By jaded I mean that the amount of garbage was extreme, even back then. Stephen [O’Malley] came out to where I lived one Autumn and brought a trunk of demos—over 150 in all. We listened to every one of them and only gave a handful of them good reviews.
It simply illustrated the point that Black Metal would be a future commodity, which was incredibly discouraging. I had no idea that Black Metal wasn’t that far off from being the new punk rock where everyone who listens to the music decides to start a band . . . But, it all made me want to write about metal all the more always stressing the core issues and the substance of the music and the beliefs, trying to hit the essence rather than the trivial. I still don’t know if I succeeded…
This is an interesting situation/predicament especially for me, as I didn't even hear Mayhem until 1994. I grew up on West Coast Thrash, Venom, Bathory, some Deathrock. It seems like the volume of releases is deadening the Metal scene rather than enlivening it. When I was a teenager, all my friends and I listened to all Summer were two or three records: Possessed's Seven Churches, Bathory's The Return, Venom's At War with Satan. We knew every riff, every fill, every lyric. Now it seems that people are more interested in "collecting" and amassing records. Do you think this is something that was going on years ago, or do you think this is a "phenomenon" generated by mass media/internet?
It’s odd to look back now with everything being re-issued. Why didn’t I hear about bands like Morbid Saint or whatever back in those days?! I had my subscription to Metal Forces and tried to keep up, but even then, being 16 or whatever, I didn’t have enough money no matter how much I worked for more music.
I do think the focus these days is on collecting. Another plague is that of collecting in quantity via downloading. We all know people who have downloaded 800 CDs worth of material and listen to an album for a week before they move on. What’s the value or worth in that? How can you possibly gain any essence of the music in such a short span of time, especially considering how much time and energy went into an album’s worth of material? OK, maybe not Black Metal, but you know what I mean. The new Celtic Frost, for example. I can’t sum that up in a week no matter how many times I listen to it. Any CD with any depth demands months, years of attention in my opinion. My mind takes that long to ingest.
:AJNA: appears to be an aesthetically steered label, from the color and layout of the website, to the bands it chooses to brand and unleash. As a result, it's impossible to delineate the label as being this or that. Is this a conscious decision—or just indicative of your appreciation a wide array of music?
Aesthetics is everything. I should say—when doors are opened to the outside world—aesthetics is vital. It has always been the intention of :AJNA: to push the bounds of what is accepted within an otherwise very conservative and close-minded set of subcultures. I suppose the tactics of the label mirror my musical interests—eclectic and fairly unpredictable. Suicidal in terms of running a ‘business,’ but integrity and aesthetics will long outlive any financial or material gain.
I came to know you through your writing with Descent. Occasionally, interviews have appeared on :AJNA: and some of the site’s record blurbs appear to have your mark. When did you get interested in music writing and are there any plans to have more of your writing on the :AJNA: site?
I would consider myself a terrible writer and haphazard interviewer. But, I've always been interested in what the bands were saying as much as the music. In seemed only natural that I was inquisitive and consequently tried corresponding with those who made such an impact on my psyche. I was bored to death with questions that were utterly superficial.
As for more writing, there are plans to continue to feature (or ‘expose’) others via the website. A few interviews are currently in the works, although no one is in a hurry these days with so much else to tend to. What that translates to: keeping checking the site.
What :AJNA: release are you most satisfied with and why? What bands would you like to work with that you haven't?
I'd say the Tormentor picture disc still makes me the proudest after all these years. Next would probably be the laboriously hand-made Sacrificial Totem CDR. I'm still proud of MOST of my past releases even though, in my eyes, most of them have had flaws of a minor sort. Such is the nature of this.
There is quite a bit of interest in Descent; have you and Stephen considered reissuing the material?
I mentioned it once, but if I consider myself to be a busy man with no time, and I can only guess at Stephen’s situation jetting all over the world, doing art installations, composing with 20 different people per month, etc. Since I wasn’t the founder/creator/editor it’s up to him to initiate another issue at this point. I put in my vote. There are many people/bands I’d still like to speak with, indeed.
[Stewart Voegtlin]
print
email
RSS
list
big
small
TWITTER