Following the release of “Hyperspace Odyssey,” the latest full-length by Spectral Sorcery, we had the opportunity to delve deeper into the creative vision, compositional process, and sonic philosophy behind this immersive blend of Cosmic Doom, Heavy Psych, Space Rock, and progressive long-form songwriting. In this interview, the artist reflects on the genesis of the project, the conceptual and technical aspects of the album, and the broader artistic trajectory
moving forward.
To begin, can you tell us about the origins of Spectral Sorcery? How and when did the project first take shape?
Spectral Sorcery first took root in early 2023, towards the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many people around the world during that time, I had been throwing myself into creative projects that could all be done wholly indoors, and in my case, this project was music. I had fallen in love with psychedelic doom metal at that time, and decided to create Spectral Sorcery as a solo studio project to explore that style as a means to express my creative impulses as an artist.
What were the initial artistic intentions behind the project, both sonically and conceptually?
During the initial phase of first conceptualizing the music that would eventually become Spectral Sorcery’s demo EP, Dungeons of Doom, I was primarily inspired by two currents that I sought to combine into a cohesive musical vision. First, I was completely enthralled with the hypnotic and trance-like riffs of psychedelic doom, drawing musical inspiration from some of my favorite albums in that genre, like Electric Wizard’s Witchcult Today (2007), Windhand’s Soma (2013), and Jex Thoth’s eponymous debut LP (2008). Jex Thoth in particular is a band I’d like to highlight, because it was their music that first introduced me to doom metal in general, and to psychedelic doom specifically. I first heard them when they opened for Agalloch back in 2014. At that time, I was mostly interested in black metal, but Jex Thoth’s performance really opened my eyes to how incredible their genre of music was, and wholly converted me to being a huge fan for life. It took nearly a decade for the seed that took root back then to fully germinate into my own musical project, but I always look back to that show as the beginning of my love for that style. At the same time I was pulling together the musical threads that would lead to the first Spectral Sorcery riffs, I also started searching for a unifying concept behind the project. I wanted to both differentiate Spectral Sorcery from the legions of doom metal bands (many of whom I adore, don’t get me wrong) whose thematic elements draw on canonically “doomy” subjects and points of inspiration. Instead, I thought that classic fantasy and science fiction would make a more interesting backdrop for the kind of music that was beginning to take shape in my practice sessions. To that end, the first demo single released under the Spectral Sorcery name, “The Tomb of the Demilich,” was very much based on the classic Dungeons & Dragons module, Tomb of Horrors (1978). I took both lyrical inspiration from the D&D module, and even went to far as to design the single’s cover to mirror the graphic style of the original modules from the 1970s — with that overarching theme of classic fantasy fiction and role-playing games continuing through to the other two songs that eveltually became the Dungeons of Doom EP.
Your music blends elements of Space Rock, Heavy Psych, Stoner, and Doom within a progressive framework. How did this stylistic fusion develop over time?
Although I’ve been a huge fan of space rock and progressive rock more broadly since first discovering Rush as a teenager back in the 1990s, my initial plan for Spectral Sorcery was conceived as a strictly psychedelic doom metal project similar in form to the same inspirational bands I’ve indicated above. However, after releasing the Dungeons of Doom EP, when I sat down to really think deeply about what would come next, I realized that a big part of what I really wanted to do musically was to somehow interweave this genre that I’d already been working in with some of the stylistic aspects of space rock as well as the more complex formal structures that are especially present in 70s prog. Specifically, what I wanted to bring to the table was a genuine marriage of the two styles, where I could take the heavy hypnotic riffing of psychedelic doom, supplement this with the kind of spaced out analog synthesis that characterizes space rock, and develop this combination within song structures that reach beyond the standard verse-chorus-bridge types of patterns that are so common in most modern music today. Essentially, what I was looking to achieve was an organic marriage between the two styles, where the best aspects of both could come together in the shape of something that participated equally in each, but was in a sense distinct insofar as it was neither just one or the other. As I went about experimenting with ways that the more strict psychedelic doom style from Dungeons of Doom could be expanded to incorporate everything that I was envisioning, there was an enormous learning curve involved, not only in terms of coming to grips with new instruments and musical techniques, but also significantly more music theory. It had been quite a long time since my music theory classes in high school, and actively understanding enough about what differentiated a lot of the progressive rock I had previously on a more passive level took a great deal of self-education in order to make this stylistic blend a success. I think most of all, in taking two relatively different styles and blending them together in a single album, the one thing I wanted to pointedly avoid was any kind of tonal shift between sections. That is to say, the absolute last thing I wanted was for one section of a song to be clearly “doom” and the next section to be clearly “prog” — with a stylistic break between the two. Rather, what I wanted for Hyperspace Odyssey, was for each song to represent an organic fusion between all of the genres and styles I was trying to bring into the mix, and for the resulting music to be holistically coherent.
Which artists, bands, or movements have had the most significant influence on your sound and compositional approach?
Apart from the core psychedelic doom bands I discussed above in connection with the original Dungeons of Doom EP, I would say that the doom and doom-adjacent (e.g. those bands that straddle the line between the doom and heavy psych genres) largely includes those bands whose sounds intentionally draw on a lot of the same 70s hard rock that I was looking to introduce into Hyperspace Odyssey. This would include such bands as Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Kryptograf, Khemmis, and Green Lung. Likewise, looking back to the 70s and 80s, I was very strongly influenced by a lot of the guitar-driven bands like Black Sabbath, Ozzy’s solo albums with Randy Rhoads, Iron Maiden, and Blue Öyster Cult. All of these bands play pretty heavily into my approach for composing and playing guitar parts in particular. Whereas the guitar riffs on Dungeons of Doom tended to favor more straightforward power chord rhythm parts with monophonic lead lines on top, my approach to the guitar work on Hyperspace Odyssey included a lot more variation, including much more polyphony among the lead guitars. Some of this was, of course, present on Dungeons of Doom as well. For example, in the outro of “The Tomb of the Demilich,” there’s some subtle counterpoint between the three primary guitar riffs that are layered on top of one another. Hyperspace Odyssey is more up-front and open with this kind of compositional approach to guitar work, and has a great deal more variation in both tone and the types of polyphony used. Although I’m a multi-instrumentalist, I’ve played guitar longer than any of the other instruments and consider Spectral Sorcery to very much be part of this guitar-driven segment of music. So naturally, there are more than a few guitar solos throughout Hyperspace Odyssey. As I was working on each of these, I wanted to make sure that each one did several things. They needed to sound good, they needed to sound different from one another, and I wanted to make each note carry as much weight and meaning as I could. Although I’m lightyears away from such luminaries as Randy Rhoads or Mark Knopfler, whenever I’m composing a solo, I always think back to the incredibly thoughtful and intentional ways they composed theirs, and hope to achieve at least a modicum of that in my own work. Looking laterally to the progressive and space rock side of the equation, my biggest influence is definitely Hawkwind. I first discovered them around the same time I found Rush, back in the 90s when I was in high school. At the time, I had also just discovered Michael Moorcock’s fantasy and science fiction books, and was amazed to find that he’d collaborated with a band that I already knew and loved (i.e. Blue Öyster Cult) but also even more extensively with the “new” band, Hawkwind. The first album of theirs that I managed to find at the local record shop was Live Chronicles, which is still one of my favorites. Although, I’d say that in terms of musical influence on Spectral Sorcery, Hawkwind’s earlier works like Space Ritual, Hall of the Mountain Grill, and Warrior on the Edge of Time, are more pertinent. In addition to Hawkwind, Rush is the other 70s progressive rock band that was supremely impactfull. In particular, their most space rock album, 2112, was a huge influence during the creation of Hyperspace Odyssey, both in terms of compositional structure and instrumentation. My choice on what types of analog synthesizers to use was largely driven by a desire to emulate the kinds of sounds that Hawkwind and Rush achieved on these albums. And, although I necessarily deviated from matching the specific instruments that Geddy Lee, Dik Mik, Del Dettmar, and Simon House used to create their sounds, I think that the analog synthesizers used on Hyperspace Odyssey very well capture the same type of sound very well. For any readers interested in technical details, I used three synthesizers on Hyperspace Odyssey. All of the Hammond style tonewheel and transistor organ sounds came from a Yamaha YC Reface. The string machine and vocoder used was a Behringer VC340. And, all of the other synthesis — pads, sawtooth leads, and “space” sounds — was done using a Behringer Poly D. For the organ work on Hyperspace Odyssey, there’s a huge debt to John Lord’s work with Deep Purple. However, I’d also point to Michael Wetherburn from the Church of the Cosmic Skull as a big driver in my desire for the organ to feature more prominently. Additionally, although the style of the organ and synthesizer work on Hyperspace Odyssey is far different from his, John Carpenter’s soundtracks have been hugely influential on my general ideas about synthesizer music, and the importance of analog synthesis specifically. Another significant influence that I should mention is Agalloch. Although Spectral Sorcery is very far from black metal, Agalloch’s approach to progressive composition, particularly in terms of lengthy instrumental sections where successive layers of counterpoint are gradually stacked atop one another until the section reaches its apex, is something that’s a clear influence on the way I approached the composition of Hyperspace Odyssey. You see similar approaches to progressively layered counterpoint in some post-rock bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, whose music I also adore.
Do you approach composition primarily from a riff-driven perspective, an atmospheric concept, or a narrative idea?
If I can adapt a metaphor that George R.R. Martin introduced to describe compositional methods for writing fiction, my approach to musical composition is far more that of a “gardener” than that of an “architect.” What this means in terms of song-writing is that I’ll typically start with a riff that gets developed during a practice session on one of the core melodic instruments — typically either guitar, bass, or organ. Once this riff is initially developed, I’ll typically lay down a basic drum beat behind it, record a rough version, and then use that to jam on top of. That initial musical sketch will then grow in two ways. First, it will serve as the basis for the section itself that centers on that particular riff. So, if I’m starting with a bass line, then I’ll use this initial sketch to them jam on top of alternatingly with guitar and keyboards, to figure out what kinds of additional instrumental layers are appropriate. I’ll typically start working on vocal melodies for song sections along with this phase as well, and will include these in the initial sketch. In tandem with this fleshing out of the initial seed riff, I’ll also jam on top of the riff to figure out where it makes sense for the song to either go after that or to have come from before it. In that way, I try to let the songs develop as organically as possible, without too much formal planning. For songs with a more standard structure, like “Spelljamming Time,” this necessitates that different riffs be identified variously as their respective parts (e.g. verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, outro). But, for less structured pieces like “Hyperspace Odyssey,” I feel that this method particularly shines, insofar as it better supports crafting songs that end up being a journey along a collection of organically developing riffs. Now, you’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned lyrics yet, and that’s because although I’ll typically start writing vocal melodies in tandem with the instrumentation, lyrical composition will usually come after the song has coalesced beyond at least a single section. It usually takes at least two or three riffs to come together before I start to conceptualize what kind of lyrical theme will best fit the music, and to then start writing that. But, it’s always the case that the music comes first, and the lyrics follow the music — never the other way around for me.
Let’s focus on “Hyperspace Odyssey”: when did the writing process for the album begin, and how long did it take to fully conceptualize the record?
In total, it took a little more than a year to compose the album. As soon as I finish one project, I’m always immediately looking towards the next. So, pretty much right after I’d wrapped on all of the production surrounding Dungeons of Doom, I started looking to develop something new. Initially, my thought was that the album that would follow this demo EP would be a straightforward matter, and that it would largely consist of maybe a half-dozen songs which would maybe be on the long-ish end, but would generally be normally structured pieces. I had no idea at the outset that the central song on this album would end up being a 20+ minute epic, nor was I immediately planning on the distinct stylistic change in the progressive and space rock directions. Coming off the heels of Dungeons of Doom, I knew that I wanted to deepen the psychedelic aspect of the music, so I began spending lots of time doing musical time-traveling back primarily through the late 60s and 70s, focusing at first on more ostensibly psychedelic music, but gradually expanding into space rock and some other related prog bands as my core listening repertoire. At the same time that I was really digging deep into these areas of musical archaeology, I started getting much deeper into analog synthesis. The sparse organ work on Dungeons of Doom was all done with an ancient Casio keyboard that I’ve probably had sitting around for the last 20 years. But, I knew that I wanted to get really serious with the keyboard work on the next album. To that end, I spent a lot of time both listening to psychedelic and progressive music that featured prominent synth and organ work, and on learning the ins and outs of the new instruments I gradually acquired. Out of this background, Hyperspace Odyssey began to take shape and grow naturally. From a musical perspective, it was very much conceived from this cauldron of deep listening, musical experimentation, and extended jam sessions.
Was the album conceived as a cohesive journey from the start, or did the concept emerge organically during the writing and recording phases?
Everything about Hyperspace Odyssey developed organically out of this combination of deep and active listening sessions combined with lengthy and extended jam sessions. I think that this method is part of what allowed the album to develop as a cohesive work. Since all of the songs were composed in a similar method while I was immersed in the same swirling vortex of influences, I think that there’s a degree of cohesion to it that wouldn’t necessarily be there if the songs were variously inspired and written as atomic components. The record consists of three long-form tracks.
Dhat drew you to this structure instead of a more traditional multi-track format?
The biggest inspiration here for the album’s overall structure was Rush’s early prog albums from the mid-70s, especially 2112 and A Farewell to Kings, where you’ve got extremely long and structurally complex progressive journeys combined with shorter songs with more standard structures. Even though “Dreams of Arrakis” and “Spelljamming Time” are both over 10 minutes in length, I tend to think of those as short songs, probably just due to the Stockholm Syndrome of writing a 21+ minute song like “Hyperspace Odyssey.” As I was working on the album, early on in the process I began working with Jerome Lachaud at Psalmodist Records. They had released a cassette edition of Dungeons of Doom, but I was extremely keen on having the next album released as a vinyl record in tandem with the digital launch. Thankfully, Jerome had faith in the project, and after listening to an extremely early version of “Hyperspace Odyssey,” agreed to take the album on. However, a vinyl release comes with some compositional limitations that purely digital releases do not. So, as I was doing the compositional work on these, I was continually mindful of the fact that the total album couldn’t exceed 43 minutes — 23 per side — without degrading the signal quality substantially. Although Hyperspace Odyssey doesn’t quite brush up against the absolute limit of this capacity, it did end up being a very close thing, which is tricker, I think, to manage when you’re dealing with a small number of songs as compared to a more traditional format with a larger number of shorter songs.
The title-track, “Hyperspace Odyssey,” exceeds twenty minutes and evolves through multiple sonic phases. How did you structure and develop such an extended composition?
Interestingly, this song did not begin as a single piece, but originally started as two or three disconnected riffs that I’d been working on separately, but ultimately realized would play better together than as parts of separate songs — not too dissimilar from the way Radiohead talks about the composition of “Paranoid Android” from OK Computer. That said, I realized pretty early in the compositional process that I wanted this to be a true structurally progressive song, and specifically worked on developing movements and connecting phases that would enable the entire song to flow as a cohesive piece. While creating “Hyperspace Odyssey,” I was deeply enamored with the comics of the legendary French artists Philippe Druillet and Moebius. Insofar as the song’s lyrical themes and overall aesthetics are concerned, the biggest influences are definitely Druillet’s Lone Sloane series and Moebius’s The Incal and The World of Edena books. Really, the look and feel of all the fantasy and science fiction comics from the original Métal Hurlant and Heavy Metal magazine — as well as the 1981 film — were huge sources of inspiration in this case. Musically, this track really developed out of the totality of all the influences we’ve already discussed above. Looking back, I do with that I’d named the various sections, because it would be much easier to talk about it (and I’ll definitely be doing that with any lengthy tracks like this on new albums). However, I will say though, that the section I found most difficult to make work was the instrumental interlude. That was easily the most different bit of music from what I’d done previously with Dungeons of Doom, but I knew that it was essential to really capture the feeling and sonic imagery I was trying to create with this part of the song in particular. The length and complexity of “Hyperspace Odyssey” definitely demanded the lion’s share of the entire writing and recording timeline. Many lessons were learned during this process, both in terms of composition and studio recording. So, as arduous as it was to create and produce this song, it is already paving the way for new compositions in the same mold.
“Dreams of Arrakis” presents a strong balance between heavy riffing and cosmic atmospheres. What was the core idea or emotional direction behind this piece?
With “Dreams of Arrakis,” as usual I started off with one riff and grew the song from there. In this case, it was the initial one that starts off the song in earnest when the guitars and bass really kick in after the spacey intro. This was actually one of (if not the) first riff that I developed after wrapping up Dungeons of Doom, so it’s definitely one of the heaviest and doomiest riffs on the entire album. Initially, I was thinking that the whole song would be heavy like that, but at the time I was really heavily into Blue Öyster Cult and Hawkwind specifically, and decided to try and capture some of the same musical dynamism that they’ve done so well with this song. The bridge on this song (5:32 through 6:55) relies very heavily on a thickly phased and reverberated string machine from the VC340, as well as the vocoder from the same synth. The song’s outro (from 7:36 onward) is perhaps my favorite part of the entire album. The entire section is in many ways inspired musically by Agalloch, and the progressively layered contrapuntal method of instrumentation that defines many of their instrumental sections. Combining that method of composition with the most spaced out sounds that I could get out of the Poly D really helped to capture the cosmic atmosphere I was hoping to create with this song. In terms of lyrics and overall themes, this song lives entirely in the world of Frank Herbert’s Dune. With this song, I really tried to capture the cosmic aspect of Paul Atreides’ transformation with the music’s progression from a relatively “normal” kind of riff into the cosmically psychedelic outro.
“Spelljamming Time” feels more psychedelic and texturally expansive in its opening before evolving dynamically. Was this contrast intentional in the album’s overall pacing?
Although most of the compositional work on Hyperspace Odyssey was, in the initial phase of each song, driven by guitar experimentation, “Spelljamming Time” breaks pretty strongly from that pattern. Almost the entire song developed out of a single bass practice session. The song itself sounds nothing like their music, but at the time I had been listening to a lot of Messa’s jazz influenced progressive doom, and had a mind to experiment with something in a slightly jazzy domain. Out of that extended practice session, the verse, pre-chorus, and chorus all came together at once, and remained more or less unchanged throughout the song’s composition. Once I had the basslines more or less composed, instead of picking up the guitar, I immediately sat down at the organ. Something told me that, this song needed really prominent organ lines, and I think that it really ended up making a lot of sense within the piece’s context, especially for the verses. Once I did get to the guitar work, I got to thinking about how to tonally shift from the lighter and airier vibes of the verse into the chorus, which I knew I wanted to have a much heavier tone. It was actually Monolord’s EP, It’s All the Same, that really served as inspiration for the chorus’ heaviness here. The two guitar solos in the song’s middle parts make really heavy use of reverse reverb (courtesy of the Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail pedal), which I think give it a classic psychedelic feel, and was an intentional callback to Jex Thoth. With the outro, I wanted to have the album culminate on an uplifting note, and tried to write that with an almost anthemic feeling. In many ways, the overall vibe of “Spelljamming Time” is anathema to the gloomy atmosphere that pervades much of doom metal, and is an attempt to show — as other bands have successfully done in recent years — that there’s a great deal of room for variety both in terms of style and emotion within the genre. Lyrically, this song is completely inspired by the Spelljammer campaign setting that TSR developed for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons back in the 90s. For any readers not already familiar with Spelljammer, provided a way to connect all of the existing worlds through a Ptolemaic system of astronomy, where each world was conceived of a surrounded by crystalline spheres set in the aether, which could be traversed by spelljamming ships powered by cosmic magic. Growing up, this had always been one of my favorite AD&D settings, and I thought this would be the perfect way to connect my original inspiration for Dungeons of Doom with the more cosmic direction of Hyperspace Odyssey.
From a production standpoint, how did you approach the recording process between July 2024 and February 2025? Was it a continuous workflow or a layered, step-by-step construction?
As part of Spectral Sorcery’s origination during the COVID-19 period, I assembled a small recording studio in my home, which allows for a great deal of flexibility when it comes to recording music. With Hyperspace Odyssey, although I necessarily made a great number of recordings during the composition phase, producing multiple drafts of each song section, groups of sections, and entire songs. Once I was satisfied with each end-to-end draft, I then began to re-record everything as a final set of multi-tracked recordings. One of the biggest (self-imposed) challenges with the entire recording process is that my home network, including the studio, runs entirely on Linux. As such, this limits my choices of technology somewhat. All of the recording for both Dungeons of Doom and Hyperspace Odyssey was done through Audacity, using it to simply record each track through the analog signal sent from the audio interface. Given that Spectral Sorcery is a solo studio project, each track was necessarily recorded separately. My typical workflow is to begin with drums, then in turn add the bass, rhythm guitars, lead guitars, organs, synthesizers, and vocals. So, in the end it’s kind of at once both a continuous workflow of a layered and step-by-step construction!
You handled writing, performing, and recording the music yourself. What were the main challenges and advantages of working in such a self-contained creative environment?
I think that with any solo project, the most difficult aspect is composing songs where all of the component pieces naturally fit well together. Although this setup does provide me with maximal creative freedom to do exactly what I want with the music, the flip side of the situation is that I’m completely responsible for all of the instrumentation and songwriting. It’s really a double-edged sword in the end. I will say though, that for this type of solo project, having a studio at home proved to be critically important. Having my recording studio here at home provides so much flexibility as to when I want to do any recording, and really helps to facilitate the composition and recording processes being necessarily deeply intertwined.
The album features a dense yet immersive mix with strong spatial depth. How important was sound design and layering in shaping the final sonic identity?
The sound design, mix, and master were definitely key aspects of the sound design being intelligible to listeners. From a compositional and recording perspective, my intend was to fill the audio space in a multi-dimensional way with all of the instrumental and vocal layers, to help convey the cosmic scope of the music’s vision. In a lot of ways, I think it’s an approach that comes from classical music that Phil Spector translated into his “Wall of Sound” approach to recording. It’s definitely important to note, however, that this process is not entirely self-contained. Spectral Sorcery owes a huge debt to the brilliant audio engineer, Håkon Rønning, who mixed and mastered the raw recordings for both Dungeons of Doom and Hyperspace Odyssey. Håkon understood very well exactly what I was hoping to get across with the recordings, and worked some serious studio magic with the mix and master. When I first finished the recording of the first track on what became Dungeons of Doom, I tried my hand at a mix, and quickly realized just how completely out of my depth I was. Audio engineering is something I’m very happy to leave to professionals, and Håkon is a wizard behind the mixing board.
Vocals play a warm but integrated role rather than dominating the mix. Was this a deliberate aesthetic choice?
Yes, the decision to keep the vocals somewhat sublimated within the mix was very intentional. This is not completely uncommon within either doom metal or 70s progressive rock, and my approach to vocals is in some ways influenced by the ways in which they are less dominant within the sonic palate that you see with bands like Windhand and Camel (especially their early albums). I think that a lot of this comes from the treatment of vocals as being just another
instrument within the collective, as opposed to something that stands above all of the other instrumentation. Most of the vocals also make use of multiple overdubs during the recording process. There aren’t any chorus effects used, so any choral density that’s apparent comes from the two to four overdubbed tracks for the different vocal lines. The vocoder was used in two different ways, to create differentiation within the vocal mix as well. First, in much of “Hyperspace Odyssey” the vocoder acts as a “second voice” within the verses, in a call-and-response structure where a vocoded line responds to the call made by the non-vocoded voice. And then separately, in some case like the outro to “Hyperspace Odyssey,” vocoded tracks are layered along with non-vocoded vocal tracks to create a very interesting type of thickness and density with the vocals.
Do the lyrical themes directly connect to the cosmic and space-oriented atmospheres of the music, and if so, how do you usually develop that thematic alignment?
Most definitely there’s a connection. Although the lyrics will almost always come after the instrumental composition is in flux, I think that there always needs to be a connection between the imagery evoked by the music and the content of the lyrics. I’ve tried to bring that through with the lyrics for Hyperspace Odyssey in such a way that the instrumentation and lyrics work together to help tell the same story that each song is revealing.
Do you plan to perform this material live, and if so, how do you envision translating such long and layered compositions to a live setting?
No, at present there aren’t any plans to take Spectral Sorcery out of the studio. I love live music, and try to attend as many local metal shows as I can throughout the year, but the intent behind Spectral Sorcery was never to move from the studio to the stage.
How do you perceive the current scene in your country for Heavy Psych, Space Rock, and Cosmic Doom? Do you feel part of a wider movement or more of an independent artistic path?
Interestingly, the large majority of Spectral Sorcery’s fan base appears to be located in Germany and the United Kingdom (at least as far as I can tell from Bandcamp’s analytics). Given the broad popularity of progressive and psychedelic rock and metal in these countries since the 70s, this is not terribly surprising. However, I really love that the music is able to cross to many international boundaries, and connect with so many people that I would not have the opportunity to reach in a strictly local setting. As Spectral Sorcery is strictly a studio project, I feel more connected to the international community than to anything localized in my little corner of Pennsylvania.
Looking ahead, are you already working on new material, and can we expect a continuation of the long-form cosmic direction explored in “Hyperspace Odyssey”?
Definitely, on both counts! I’m mid-way through the compositional process for the next album, which will definitely include more long-form compositions. I would not expect a direct repetition of the themes or styles from Hyperspace Odyssey, but rather a natural progressive evolution of that sound. I definitely indent on continuing to explore the intersection of doom, prog, and space rock with the next album. However, the last thing I would want to release is something that sounds like a stylistic clone of something I’ve done before. All of my favorite progressive rock bands (e.g. Hawkwind, Rush, Camel) allowed their art to evolve naturally, and my goal is to allow Spectral Sorcery to follow a similar trajectory.
We would like to sincerely thank Spectral Sorcery for sharing detailed insights into the creative process behind Hyperspace Odyssey. It has been a pleasure exploring the artistic vision, compositional depth, and sonic philosophy that shape this immersive cosmic release. We look forward to following the project’s future developments and upcoming works.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to discuss my work in such depth, and to share all of this with your audience and with Spectral Sorcery’s fans!
Purchase “Hyperspace Odyssey” here: https://spectralsorcery.bandcamp.com/album/hyperspace-odyssey
Read our review of “Hyperspace Odyssey” here: [Review] Spectral Sorcery – Hyperspace Odyssey