Interview:

I think the spiritual significance of music is mostly shaped by two aspects. On the one hand, music permits the listener to remain in a position of some kind of contemplative character that allows a more sophisticated perspective on the surrounding world. This perspective gets its complex character from being in a well defined distance to the individual environment. This kind of contemplation can be described as being caused by a mixture between artificial meaning by human art evoked, and individually dispositioned abilities, in a more concrete way, as a situation of creativity concerning all varieties of deep thoughts. The second, more significant aspect of music is a possibility that goes even beyond this described distance to the individual environment. This entails extending the boundaries of the distance in a way that means a distance even to the individual itself. This aspect is the true meaning of the common words “losing yourself”. Here the situation can not be described as a state of mostly conscious character. It is defined not through conscious thoughts but through emotions, under normal conditions, in an unattainable strength. These emotions, caused by music, are the most powerful aspect in music, and extend to all kinds of emotions from hate to longing. Music to cause deep emotions has to be hateful, reminiscent, or simply melancholic, everything but happy. The main thing is that deep thoughts in the kind as described above, go beyond anything that normal music can attain, and this is a phenomenon that best pictures the nature of our world.

“Emotions, caused by music, are the most powerful… and extend to all kinds of emotions from hate to longing.”
– Erebos, guitarist in Total Hate