The songs of October Nation really feel instantly just like the high-water mark of the Haunted Mound canon. (Sematary has just a few options and manufacturing credit all through, together with “Moulder,” whose morose witch-house breaks into Ghost City DJs-esque Miami bass.) The place the collective’s spooky-rural aesthetic as soon as skewed dangerously literal, as in the event that they’d taken “Everydays Halloween” to coronary heart, right here Kosinski, who will flip 24 this 12 months, sublimates his rusted, windblown model of California gothic right into a sound that feels his personal. In the meantime, his writing has matured enormously. Crowbars ply into asbestos-ridden drywall, outdated automobiles rot on the roadside, days are chopped like cordwood logs, and the afternoon’s final gentle catches on the climate vane. Via all of it, Kosinski braids unfastened strands of Greek mythology concerning love, belief, and human folly: “Eurydice, did you fall for the music? He regarded again, now it’s all gone to wreck.” Between the traces emerges a narrative of a bittersweet homecoming, as if he had returned to an outdated clearing within the woods, solely to seek out it overgrown.
Showing on my cellphone display screen as a hooded determine towards a pale blue sky, Kosinski takes my name from close by his dad and mom’ home within the foothills close to Sacramento, pacing forwards and backwards throughout a area. At one level, he pauses the dialog to take away a tick that’s hitched a trip upon his sleeve.
The next dialog has been condensed for readability.
The early Haunted Mound music was typically rather more literal by way of the references—like, right here’s a bunch of spooky, pastoral imagery. Now it feels just like the writing goes past illustration of scary stuff and the woods. It looks like there’s extra behind it.
I believe that’s what time does. The lifetime of an adolescent, a lot of it’s simply creativeness. When you become old, it will get onerous to not write about belongings you’re really feeling. I’ve tried to return to the way in which that I used to be writing prior to now, once I was 19. However again within the day, I felt like I needed to make up every thing. I wasn’t curious about actual life in any respect, simply writing stuff as a result of I assumed it sounded cool. Underground music being for probably the most half dominated by youthful individuals is type of what makes it so particular, the uncooked youthfulness. It looks like escapism, to a point. And I nonetheless love that, however I’m nearly 24. I can’t actually go all in on that at this level.
You grew up round Sacramento. What was your highschool expertise like?
My highschool expertise and my early experiences with music had been fairly intertwined, and fairly remoted. I had a extremely small circle of mates, and it’s stayed that manner, for probably the most half. The emotional aspect of music has at all times been an enormous a part of my life, nevertheless it wasn’t till I met Sematary that I began to make it. We grew up in the identical common space, in order that setting turned an enormous a part of the music. I used to be at all times impressed by him as a result of he was at all times doing it, whereas I used to be simply emotionally invested in it.
Who had been the artists you had been impressed by again then?
Most likely the earliest can be Modest Mouse. I used to be actually obsessive about Pacific Northwest vibes. That was possibly once I was in first grade. I bought an iPod Nano once I was in kindergarten or first grade, and my cousin confirmed me this band The Unicorns. I believe Who Will Lower Our Hair When We’re Gone? was the primary album I keep in mind selecting to take heed to on a regular basis. There’s a childlike character to it that I’ve at all times loved, and tried to faucet into. And there’s a track known as “Ghost Mountain” on it, in order that’s the place that got here from.
That was my shit, too, solely I used to be in highschool and also you had been in kindergarten. Did you ever get into the Microphones and Mount Eerie?
Completely. A great buddy of mine, the one who helps me with the music movies and the visible path, confirmed me that. The Glow Pt. 2 was the very first thing that I heard. And the truth that Lil Peep was sampling him, too, was fairly fascinating to me, the way in which all of these issues join.
At what level had been you want, “I’m Ghost Mountain, and I’m a musician?”
Truthfully, I didn’t actually know myself tremendous effectively. I nonetheless don’t, I’d say. However at a sure level, you need to simply embrace it. In highschool, Sematary was at all times speaking about these concepts that he had. Discovering the connection between his concepts and my concepts, seeing how these created one thing new—that was the purpose when it was like, OK, that is working, and it’s fascinating. Proper off the bat, it was all there: the title Ghost Mountain, the themes. I discovered some demos that had been by no means launched, music that we made earlier than we made Grave Home, which was the primary mixtape that he dropped. Just about all the motifs and concepts had been there within the first demos that we made. However it wasn’t till the previous two years that I made a decision to place myself into it, which has helped me work out how I determine with that title, and with the thought of doing this. After which really releasing the music. Making music is one factor, however then displaying it to individuals makes it much more sophisticated.
I really feel like once you stepped away from Haunted Mound in 2021, it was nonetheless fairly obscure—or not less than, it was to me. The fandom appears to have constructed to a fever pitch since then. Did you expertise that a part of it earlier than your hiatus?
The fanbase was so much smaller, however I don’t keep in mind it feeling small. I keep in mind it seeming like so much. Once you’re in highschool, having any fanbase in any way feels actually large. However then I look again and I’m shocked by how a lot it’s really grown, by 20 instances what it was earlier than. However it didn’t actually bleed into my on a regular basis life. It felt separate. Like, my household didn’t know. It doesn’t really feel as separate now. I believe it’s necessary to maintain a distance, and to take heed to what you’re placing worth on with regards to your life, your artwork, and the enterprise aspect of all of that.
What made you, then, resolve to step away from all of it?
It’s like I stated earlier than—I simply didn’t actually know myself tremendous effectively. Round 2021, there was a breakdown of communication. I knew that I did need to make music, and that there have been points of it that felt true, however I wasn’t precisely positive but the best way to go about it. That, blended with Sematary having a really sturdy thought of what it was that he needed to do, and neither of us had been successfully speaking these issues to one another. That simply builds up misunderstandings. It was round when Rainbow Bridge 3 got here out that we simply needed to go off on our separate methods.
I noticed an interview with Sematary the place he speaks in your departure, and he principally explains that you simply needed to have a “common life,” whereas he didn’t. What did your common life entail?
Issues appear actually black and white once you’re youthful, and I believe a part of rising up is that finally you need to see these boundaries dissolve. However in my common life, I used to be determining what I needed to do. I wasn’t making music for some time, and in that point, I used to be finding out movie. That was the place a variety of my consideration went, filmmaking and storytelling. With [October Country] I used to be capable of finding the connection between music and filmmaking, particularly with Haunted Mound and the narrative groundwork that’s been constructed over time. The music movies are a great way of pushing that even additional, however with regards to precise screenwriting, that’s one thing that I nonetheless do sometimes.
I favored that on “Kevlar,” you referenced that unreleased Concord Korine film, Battle Hurt, the place he’s drunk and combating individuals. What filmmakers are in your private canon?
The plain ones are Concord Korine and David Lynch. I positively put on these influences on my sleeve. Like lots of people my age, the sooner A24 films had been my introduction to a variety of stuff like that, and the identical factor with David Lynch. Then, going deeper, there’s this man Stan Brakhage who I’ve been fairly into, and he does extra textural stuff. After which Cassavetes, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Treatment is one among my favorites.
I had really needed to ask in the event you had seen Twin Peaks: The Return.
That’s, like, possibly my favourite factor ever.
Your mixtape shares with that present this ever-present theme of: You can not return. Laura Palmer was useless earlier than Episode 1 began—that’s by no means going to vary. And in The Return, they withhold that nostalgia you crave, and it makes you consider nostalgia as a trick, or a copout.
That wasn’t a reference level of mine going into it, however I spotted midway into the method that it was type of changing into that. Returning to the mission within the direct manner that I used to be, it was unimaginable to keep away from all of the implications and emotions that got here with it. I wasn’t essentially wanting to place that into the music, nevertheless it felt prefer it couldn’t be anything. I wasn’t a Twin Peaks fan till 2019, so I didn’t expertise that third season because it got here out. However I can’t think about having been a fan for nevertheless lengthy, anticipating one factor and seeing what it really was. The influence that final episode had—I perceive it increasingly more the older that I get.
I can keep in mind so distinctly ready for the theme track, the wood-paneled interiors and rustling pine bushes, and as an alternative seeing this chilly New York warehouse, and feeling nearly bodily ailing. However finally all of it made sense. I like the aesthetic world of your music, and that of Haunted Mound—this world of fuel stations and truck stops, the loneliness of it. Are these photographs that remind you of one thing, or is that simply your most popular aesthetic?
I believe it’s each. Being tremendous remoted, particularly once you’re youthful, places a variety of emphasis on mundane issues. There’s an early track the place I name-drop the Arco fuel station, however I don’t keep in mind why—it was only a fuel station I’d go to on a regular basis. Mythologizing the mundane was one thing that we each had been doing within the early music with out realizing why.
The place does your curiosity in mythology spring from?
I’m not, like, a non secular particular person in observe, however I believe there’s advantages to being religious, no matter it’s you’re going to name it. With out these narratives constructed round stuff that’s out of your management, I simply don’t know how one can survive. It began simply as one thing that sounded cool, the thought of being managed by a better energy—in a floor degree manner, that was fascinating to me. Twin Peaks is an effective instance, the place you don’t precisely know, however you may really feel that there’s something pulling the strings. After which there’s this e book by Donna Tartt, The Secret Historical past, the place mythology is utilized in an analogous technique to what I’m attempting to do. Sufjan Stevens’ songwriting includes a variety of mythology, too—tying fantastical narratives into your lived expertise, and what that does for you as an individual whilst you’re writing it, and the way it can open your expertise to a wider viewers and permit them to mission their very own experiences on it. Mythology is simply constructing a framework. Eternity Chaos, my finest buddy who I’ve been working with so much, we speak about all this so much, they usually’re at all times expressing to me the significance of reminding your self what’s actual, and what’s going to final. Having issues exterior of you to level you in that path is de facto necessary to conserving your head on straight.
Your track “Apollon” final fall—was that an allegory about your return to Haunted Mound?
There’s a delusion a couple of Satyr named Marsyas, and he challenged Apollo to a music duel. Most, if not all Greek tragedies must do with mortals testing the boundaries of what they suppose they will do, after which they pay for it. One thing about that felt very related to me. It’s not essentially about Haunted Mound in a literal manner, however emotionally, as a result of my life includes Haunted Mound, it inherently turned that.
