In Conversation with Fox Moss

I am joined by the multidisciplinary artist, Fox Moss. You work across many different mediums, from electronic music to design and painting and digital art. Tell me a little bit about your creative practice as a whole and how it all lives inside your head. 

I just love doing everything. I have a lot of visions for one thing and it just leads into the next. Like I knew for this project that I wanted to make art to go with the music, because it's a soundtrack for a story that I'm writing in my head, but I'm not that good at writing. So I thought, well, I’ll just write music and then do art to go alongside it as well. 

Do the art forms just keep building off each other or was there a starting point for this project. 

It was a sketch, I did a drawing of a princess. and I wanted to start writing a story about this. I started writing in my journal and then from there I started getting into dungeon synth music last October, and then thought I should just learn how to make this kind of music. So then I started making it. 

Had you produced your own music before that? 

I'd made 2 songs, but this was the first big project. I'd never done mixing or anything like that before, so I taught myself. I just love learning, you know, it just feels so fun. It's like I'm a video game character and I'm unlocking new perks and skills. 

What inspires you to learn more? 

I'm inspired by video games from the early 2000s and how low-fi the aesthetics are in particular.

I mean, one that comes to mind is Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, the colour palette is something that is in my album as well. It's very nostalgic of the 2000s game.

I remember a few years ago, you were in the band Maiden Name. Was that the beginning of sound for you? 

Yeah, I was on keys. I thought it was just for fun. And then when people actually wanted us to do gigs and we were getting paid, I was like, what? They pay for this? Crazy. That was the introduction to performing and writing music. And that was about coming together with your friends and having fun.

Then how did Fox Moss come about? 

The first song I put out was “In Between”, an ambient track in October 2024. I was just making music for myself to get to sleep, because I was struggling. And then I thought, I actually quite like this. I should just put it up. 

How do you look back on how you made music then and your process for writing this album? I have always felt that space and time away from songs is such a valuable tool. 

I feel like I could do it a lot easier back then,  because I almost didn't know enough. I just did it. And now I know too much and overthink it. The best things I write is when I just let go of any expectations.

I really want to talk about the world that you've built for your new album Eternal Veil. One of my favourite things is when artists totally envelop you into their world through different mediums, what is this world of Eternal Veil to you? 

It started off with that single drawing, then developed from there into this idea of this world that's cast into like an internal twilight. It's completely frozen. I see her as this figure that wakes up completely alone and has to navigate through this world. 

What's in that world? 

Just ruins and these vast ancient landscapes and stones. And horses, of course. I love horses.

That represents the music so well. It's got this eeriness and the sense of unknown, but it’s also really beautiful and uplifting. What do you call the music? 

It's Dungeon Synth, but the softer ambient electronic stuff rather than the heavy darker side. I do love that stuff but personally, I think I just love my arps, my layering and shimmery sounds, that's the sort of music that I like making.

Do you have any inspirations?

My favourite dungeon synth artist is Radagast, this guy from Berlin. But then, I love listening to the Skyrim soundtrack, and the Oblivion soundtrack. I listen to those so many times, like, subconsciously, I think it just went into my head, you know?

I think music is so important for immersing you into a world like that. And if I want to build these kinds of worlds, I want to immerse people into it. And that's the kind of performance I like to do too, I don't stop in between songs and I just play my music for an hour or whatever.

There's some poetry amongst the music, What's it about?

That's about the stone circles that I saw last year when I went travelling. I spent 5 months in England and Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Berlin, and Italy last year, which was pretty life changing. Seeing so much old history and art and architecture definitely inspired this project, because I got back. 

What kind of things were you seeing? 

Ruins, castles, a lot of really old paintings and tapestries. A good core memory is going to this castle in rural Ireland and it was pouring rain and it was just this ruin on top of a hill and I was the only person there. I felt like the main character because I was just blown around. It was so cool.

The stone circles on my album cover are kind of inspired by Castlerigg Stone Circle, which is about the same age as Stonehenge. I think it's about 5000 years old. And it's in this valley, quite rural valley, and you just see this crazy landscape, and there's this ancient stone, so I was just walking around. A good ponder. 

I moved here when I was nine from England, and I hadn't been back in 11 years since I was a teenager. So going back by myself as an adult, I felt in touch with where I was from and just felt very inspired. I didn't actually make any music during the trip because I was busy the entire time, but I came back and all of these enriching experiences with different kinds of art kind of all just melded together. 

You also do digital 3D modelling, which you've brought into the album’s world too, tell me about this. 

I knew I wanted to make 3D models for the album because it's like concept art, I guess. It's a good way to view these scenes that I was building in my head in a lot of ways. I wasn't originally sure what I wanted the cover to be. I feel like the landscape in the world is the more important of what I'm trying to say. So I decided to build my own landscape.

What is it that you are trying to say? 

I don't know, I just love magic. I love magic and fantasy and adventure and escapism. That's why I think all my artwork has an escapism element to it. A world building escapism.