Dark, moody stage light — three decades in the extreme-music underground

About · Malcolm Callus

Bands & Activities

30-odd years in the thick of live music — from Malta’s early-90s underground to London stages. Here are the bands Malcolm Callus has built, the zines he printed and the scenes he helped run.

Book a lesson → His influences

Death metal · avant-garde · world Malta → London 1990 → today

Want to know a bit about the guy behind Cool Gool Music? Beyond teaching, Malcolm has spent 3 decades playing in bands, printing zines, spinning records and running events — the real-world hours that put the experience behind the lessons.

Below are the bands he has contributed to over the years, followed by the other corners of the scene he’s worked in — event organisation, journalism and DJing. It’s a proper tour through the Maltese and London music scenes.

The bands

Bands I am/was
part of

Sceptocrypt · 1992–99, 2014–15, 2022–present

Co-founded in 1992 with the vision of a varied death metal unrestricted by the style’s own boundaries. The debut CD finally surfaced in 2014 — fifteen years after it was recorded — timed to the band’s resurgence that August in London under a different, experimental sound tagged “extreme music research”. Sceptocrypt regrouped again in 2022, releasing three singles along the way (late 2023, early 2024 and early 2026), with a full-length now in the works.

sceptocrypt.com →

EthnaMorte · 2007–2017

Formed in 2007 after Malcolm moved to multicultural London. Its sound owes itself to the balance of life and death, light and darkness — borrowing from a myriad of world-music sonorities, from sweet bossa nova to hybrid avant-garde to fury-filled flamenco to dark overtones: the very death of musical boundaries. EthnaMorte released two CDs and was recording a third (one song made it online) before going on hiatus.

ethnamorte.com →

Unus Quod Insane · 2011

A project Malcolm dabbled with through 2011, centred on sounds that influence but sit outside the EthnaMorte platform. It pulled instruments EthnaMorte used more in the studio than live to the fore, merging them with drony vocal whispers and tribal beats over a distinctly industrial backbone.

reverbnation.com/unusquodinsane →

Wound · since 2002

Started in 2002 and later put on hold. Sirene, slow-tempo classical and jazz harmonies laced with electronic and rock pulses — a sound they coined “trip-hop doom rock”. The line-up is Pope Crool (keyboardist from Lithomancy), Sean Pollacco (Malcolm’s replacement on bass in Weeping Silence), Dino Mifsud on vocals and drums (ex-Weeping Silence vocalist; Lithomancy and Victims of Creation drummer; Deluge of Sorrow percussionist) and Malcolm on guitars. One day, hopefully, that unfinished recording gets finished.

myspace.com/woundenroute81 →

Dysmenorrhea · 1999–2001

Born when Conrad, Sceptocrypt’s ex-vocalist, offered to keep playing some metal together. Put together as a project band always meant to disband, it delivered in-your-face thrash / death / grind — while the lyrics took a deliberately funny, at times knowingly daft, approach. In their short run they recorded a nine-song promo.

brutalism.com/dysmenorrhea →

Achiral · 1999

Soon after Sceptocrypt’s demise in 1999, Malcolm lent his friends in Achiral a hand for a short while, playing thrash / death / black metal and performing one live show together. Achiral went on to release their debut mini-CD Wander Ignite and became one of Malta’s leading live metal acts.

Weeping Silence · 2001

Intrigued by playing bass at a time when his friends couldn’t find a replacement for the bassist who’d left after their debut mini-CD Deprived from Romance, Malcolm joined Weeping Silence as a session player. One of the most emotional bands in Malta — though they never got to play live together, as he moved to Germany. The band has since found not only a bass player but label and touring support too.

weepingsilence.com →

Beyond the stage

Events, zines
& the airwaves.

Pics with musos

Am I a fanboy too? Absolutely — my passion for other people’s good music never dies. This page features snaps with the rock and jazz icons, tutors and guitar makers I met along the way. From legendary rock and jazz icons to my own tutors, fellow guitar educators and instrument makers.

View the album →

Bisoul Promotions · 1999–2009

An alternative events outfit merging art with darkness — classical nights, holographic shows, middle-age fashion, and underground music. Malcolm span the decks here as DJ NecroGool.

Rancid Soup Productions· 1990–1998

Malta’s first printed underground zine, later a radio show and event organisation — the pinnacle being Anathema live in Malta in 1995. Read the story →

Dig into the archive — the two printed issues, plus the two nights that made it all worthwhile: