FRACTURED: “Altered States – A Fractured Mix”… Posted: 21/12/2017 by John O'Brien

About three years ago now, John Mulvaney set out on a journey. Maybe he didn’t think it would take him as long as it eventually did. But after the first introductory episode of his ‘Fractured’ Irish Underground Documentary Series, Mulvaney had struck a chord with Irish Underground Scene and exposed an aspect of it that has been lacking and waiting to explored. To really get behind the veil of how bands and artists think and reveal what drives them forward, but in a more accessible and upfront format. From that initial episode featuring Death/Grind stalwarts ABADDON INCARNATE to it’s follow-up featuring the almost polar opposite Noise/Drone artist BRIAN CONNIFFE, it was clear that this really was going to be something special.

After finishing out the series only last month with the fourteenth and episode with VIRCOLAC being the final band to be featured, it’s time for John to close the door on the whole experience. And to that end… he has compiled a Mixtape to showcase some of the bands featured as well as others that didn’t but were on his shortlist…

“I had originally planned for the documentary series to be a bit more ‘broad’ in terms of the musicians featured – The first half of the series probably gives a better picture for what I had in my head; dark ambient, harsh noise and more experimental bands sitting alongside death metal and grindcore, giving a greater sense of what was bubbling beneath the surface of the Irish underground music scene.

However, as plans came and went (as did several bands), the series ended up focusing more on the metal side of things – this was just simply the way it worked out; plans to film with a hardcore band just didn’t happen as they broke up, same with a more doom-laden noise band who simply went into hibernation. I was happy that the bands I was working with were the best at their game anyway, so I never minded that it steered more into the death metal genre; it’s a genre that needed a camera pointed at it for once, anyway.

This mix is basically a showcase for all the great musicians I wish I could have worked with, and essentially it’s exactly how I saw the series in my head – dark tonal shifts between noise, drone, black, death and doom metal, all mixed together to take the listener on a journey into the bowels of Irish underground music…”   – JOHN MULVANEY