Today we did an interview to the legendary experimental artist Lucifer’s Liberated Lady aka C4$
aka anti$ale media. (Previosly known as The Ceremonial Dagger / stylized as Ç⋵ℜ⋻♏ð♑ℷa⇂ ╀)
https://soundcloud.com/burntfortress
https://filthysounds.bandcamp.com/album/split-18
https://www.instagram.com/antisale_media/
https://soundcloud.com/ceremonialdagger
https://hearthis.at/theceremonialdagger/
https://www.discogs.com/artist/3886880-The-Ceremonial-Dagger
- What is the meaning and the concept behind the name of your music project?
I’ve had so many names and projects! I’ll focus on two: the most known and the most current and how they are related.
The Ceremonial Dagger was my most promoted, released, and known works. The name originated as a joke name for a heavy metal band years before I released anything. In the US there is a culture of people that love weapons below the well known gun culture. There is and has been since the 80s a knife obsession, with collectors often favoring exotic but cheaply made blades. Think “mall ninja” culture. So one day I had a catalog of these I found at work and a friend and I joked that Ceremonial Dagger would be a funny generic name for a heavy metal act.
When I first heard that people were producing a new internet genre called Witch house in 2009, it immediately resonated with me. It was described as an eerie mysterious music about ghosts and witches that had deep echos and reverbs, horror movie ambience, spacey drums and had roots with the Houston screw rap with Memphis rap feeling sometimes blended in. I was given links to a couple artist on last fm. They were interesting, but one act suggested to me really stood out: Mater Susperia Vision.
Through them the next act I fell in love with was How I Quit Crack.
I immediately knew I wanted to be involved with this community any way possible. I had been producing and working in noise and dark ambient pieces I was so excited to find all of this happening! I needed a SoundCloud account and needed a name that fit the aesthetic, so just off the cuff I used ceremonial dagger since it had another meaning within the magick community. It represented being part of a larger ritual.
I had no real desire to be a serious musician nor artist, I was just excited to feel socially involved. I wanted to make friends and explore occult music techniques with others that had progressive music values.
I was extremely naive and definitely did not think about things like having fans or a business model. I never seriously thought of a product or marketing, it was all passion and love.
An artist named Zombelle made a post on the Facebook witchhouse group asking for help in ableton and I had the idea to create a community that focused on sharing knowledge, ideas, and tips between all levels of witch house artist and began a secret production group called Casa De La Brujas. This gave us a platform to meet and help each other, find collabs, labels, art, and videos while easily getting tips and help.
Eventually I had a fall out with a record label head that many friends were signed with and left the group. There was democratic discussions about changing the focus of the group to more advanced things like modular and at the time I was mostly interested in the social values.
In 2016 I was disgusted with everything and played a final show as The Ceremonial Dagger.
As of 2025 my main focus is my harsh noise act LLL (Lucifer’s Liberated Lady) and is my first manifestation of a feminine ego. It is primarily performance art exploring childhood trauma, genderless sexuality, and occultism through the graces of Lilith and acknowledgement of human suffering created by social standards. For me LLL is my safe space to expose the deepest parts of me.
My lastest project for next year is nameless and represented by three daggers and impossible to recreate on a keyboard. Alt 0134 is the Unicode for a dagger, however the center dagger is pointed upward so it must be digitally manipulated to recreate.
It is important to clarify this symbol is a dagger and definition NOT a cross. Down Up Down represents life’s struggles and the dagger symbolizes courage, strength, and protection, but also deception, danger, and betrayal. Typographically, the dagger mark signifies death, extinction. The three daggers also can represent my three egos for the completion of a spell where I unite my primary egos, each representing my spirit, a chalice, and a dagger.
It became a symbol of personally transformation in a deep way to me and represents the struggle of being a neurodivergent artist in a corporate money obsessed world.
- What equipment do you use for create music?
I use a mixing board, an Allen and heath Zed 14 with 4 send and returns. This gives me 4 inputs and 4 effects returns. I personally consider a mixing board to be most of my creative ability, I’m not a musician.
Currently for my sound sources I have an old Roland SP-808 sampler that still uses zip disc.
I create beats in ableton live 12 lite at the moment, do sound design on an old laptop top running ableton 9 suite.
I have several pedals and rack effects that I manipulate live as well as the samples.
I have some old analog synths that I can also mix in for textures and such. Roland Juno 6, Radio Shack Realistic Concertmate MG-1 that’s great for doing noise wall.
I’ve been experimenting with vocals and field sampling a lot. I have a lot of neat “junk” equipment like old Casio stuff.
Most things I post online as LLL are one day exercises. Many are manipulated old stems from older tracks as the base of the track.
- Tell us a little biography about your project, when you started to make music?
Well one of my first memories of enjoying music was playing with old junk audio equipment as a child around 9 years old. I had an 8 track cartridge machine that could record, so I was making weird loop tapes from old records that belong to my father before he passed away. I was mixing Led Zeppelin and Sly and The Family Stone mostly. Oh and audio from the television with a tiny microphone. I bought a tiny fm transmitter kit from a hobby electronic store (Radio Shack) and could sit in the car and listen to my mixes. I find it hilarious how similar this is to my final form!
A few years later (1985) I had a cousin six years my senior who played in a metal cover band. He was also a huge early computer nerd and operated a bulletin board system, and early version of “being online”. He helped me build my first guitar from stolen pieces ordered with stolen credit cards. The drummer introduced me to Slayer “Hell Awaits” and Celtic Frost “into the pandemonium”.
So that year I was introduced to computers, playing an instrument, and extreme music!
By the 90s I was singing or playing guitar in several local bands. In 1992 I got a job at a local pawnshop that was known for having a lot of music equipment. I wanted to create a professional music studio. I had partners and things went great collecting equipment but being young and in our 20s back then, nobody was focused much on creating.
In 1997 I connected with an old contact I had know since high school. He was creating electronic music and his entire bedroom had boxes and cables everywhere. He was doing everything himself, creating sounds I had never heard before, composing these super interesting pieces like nothing I associated with electronic music really. I was very into industrial music, but that’s was still much different than “club music” and what he was doing was very new to me. Like photek or aphex twin, but I wasn’t really aware of those acts at that time. He really opened my eyes and ears, taught me about things like midi and what a synth was and how a drum pattern worked.
The same SP-808 I use today was purchased new in 1999 and my first sampler. Back then before DAW was really a thing I felt that machine was a game changer. Soon after Acid 1.0 software and Sound Forge came out and I thought they were amazing.
I bought Ableton 4.0 and completely lost my mind. I felt like the boundaries were lifted and anything people could imagine would emerge. I predicted we were on the cusp of a golden age of creativity, where everyone had fairly easy access to limitless expression!
By 2005 I was starting to share stuff online, a mix between noise and space hauntology. Some of the tracks from Ghost Triangulations were remixes or even just old tracks from that era. The track frozen was probably from 2005 or 6 and was inspired my Lady Bathory.
In 2009 I had a Flickr contact (the act eyedoublecross) tell me about witch house, and that’s what started that era for me.
Who are your main music and artistic influences?
I love all underground music and loathe the main stream and hyper capitalist, it’s all about “me” , self centered attitude.
I do not trust main stream music companies to any extent. They care nothing about artist and the entire music industry is a psychological operation hierarchy that’s been squeezing creativity to death since the 1980s at least.
I like rebel music. I like outsider art. I like things that disrupt or reflect the things that make me uncomfortable. I like art from marginalized people, because it can’t not be real. When art conveys a sadness, alienation, or desperation, it’s soothing.
I cannot separate art from the artist though, especially if I have met them.
If someone is a shitty person, there are plenty of alternatives. No music or art is that good.
What underground artists from the netlabel scene do you like?
Oh wow.
Brant Showers, D/SIR , PowwowW, Mircalla, Mike Textbeak, Strange Powers, Skeleton Kids, Okkult Katt, PVTY KERRY, X-Mortal, Invoke Often, Pepsy666, Humanfobia, HowIQuitCrack and Mater Suspiria Vision are an easy quick list of some of my favorites.
Recently I’ve been exploring noise music and have made some great wonderful new friends: Handheld Simpleton, Acid Vulture, Absurd Reality, ASMODEXIA, Tunnel Kasino, Gates of Hypnos, Dirt Chamber, Lady Reverend Satan, Sacha Syntax, Graveyard Witch, Floating Vestibule, Noisecore Mafia, Lint Lobotomy are all active been heavy on my playlist.
Recently met Psywarfare and they were the best people ever!
Houston Homies! Ebbflo, TrailOfGhosts, Postule, DCLNR.
I love grindcore and all the strange off shoots.
I can shout out to the underground for pages!
- Do you have some influence from your country in your music?
I’m incredibly influenced by hip hop and rap music. I listen to more of that than anything else. When’s it’s honest, it’s more raw than any other genres. I’m a very poor person and I grew up struggling in a violent environment, so it speaks to me in a way I can relate.
- What is your favorite album/ep composed by you? And why?
I did an EP called Slogoth (not available currently) and nearly all the tracks were created at 40bpm.
I wrote it in motel rooms working away from home. Most of the tracks were mixed sitting miles from the nearest town, on my truck stereo.
https://www.discogs.com/release/6391960-The-Ceremonial-Dagger-Slogoth
I also really was proud of my final live show which I played in Houston after a viewing of Delerium from Mater Susperia Vision.
- What are your preferred music platforms/websites? Why?
I’ve been posting my songs on Instagram because there’s no commercials and they loop.
I have a SoundCloud but I never use it because of all the commercials and low interactions.
I listen to music on bandcamp, but don’t have a personal artist account as I’m trying to stay focused on making music for netlabels. I don’t want to be self supporting my releases, I would rather work with people so I try to find homes with micro labels to release with.
Most of my back catalogue is now in the hands of who I consider the most important person ever in witch house, Alan Karlik. He has been kind enough to recently release one of last years projects: C4$ “Broken Dreams” and it is available from Bone Valley. I know he had done so much for all of us keeping things organized and together. He’s the GOAT of internet music.
- Any funny anecdote in the composition of a track or an album?
Well I guess this isn’t funny but I do have an interesting story that I want to share with people.
There was an act called Crossover that did a remix album that had some pretty well known acts involved and somehow I was given a track to try to remix. I worked to make the remix as unique as I could, but I was a bit rushed. It was interesting but a bit awkward, but to my surprise they decided to include it.
This was secretly a big deal to me because it was the first time I had been printed to vinyl. Unfortunately they never mailed my copy.
Also unknown to me was that they gave the same stems to multiple acts, and the track was shared with not just me but a close friend, Strange Powers. I don’t think I would have even created a track had I known this.
Now what made this more interesting is that my track ended up with the most plays on SoundCloud. Last I checked it had thousands of more listens than the next most popular track. When I checked the analytics behind the streams, most were from Colorado where Josh was.
That’s real friends and community. Zero jealousy and nothing but support and good vibes.
I love you Josh, I would have given up early without you buddy!
- Do you play live? How was the experience?
Oh yeah, I’ve done live visuals and music since 2000.
I played my first out of town show in 2010 with Mike Textbeak and Aaimon. My set went bad but I made some lifetime friends that night!
I played several CVRRENTS shows, which was a dark electronic showcase in Austin that happened during SXSW. I opened for Ritualz in Houston.
I’ve had great shows and I’ve had some absolute nightmare experiences. Equipment failures, technical difficulties, you name it. I’ve been working on my stage performance and harsh noise act and am very confident with it and hope to play again soon.
- Any news for this 2025/2026?
The Ceremonial Dagger project is dead, but I’ve resurrected a version for one last release.
I want to make an album that is unlike anything else, a community driven project of all collaborations. I’ve formed a group I affectionately call the Coven to help out, and it’s all the very best people I knew and were friends with during my witchhouse years.
I want to revisit the 2nd wave mentality of 2012, before everything changed. I want to make witch house that doesn’t sound like the cookie cutter version that popular today, I want to explore the progressive possibilities.
I’m not against the classic elements, but I want to push the limits.
https://blackbvsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-triangulations
The theme for ghost triangulations was always intended to be an inclusive. The first album I had an open call for collaboration and encouraged non producers to contribute. Pavor Nocturnus (feat. Stefania Vanzetti) for example. Stefania recorded the vocals I think on a phone or computer mic and I mixed them in. TheWayPeopleStare contributed spoken word. I included producers without a release.
I wanted people involved.
Ghost Triangulations 2 I recorded working on the road. My label dropped me because they had Carpenter Brut at the time, so it was a digital self release that few remember.
2026 will be 13 years after the release and 10 years since my last appearance, so I wanted to do something way bigger than I can do and make it my final release with the people that changed my life.
Once that is done I will continue with my harsh noise projects.
- Do you want to say anything else to your listeners?
Corporate witch house is fascist music. It is as dead and over as Crystal Castles and Russian propaganda.
The fall of the community was orchestrated and an inside job.
The days of paid bot streams is coming to an end. The fake supporters is coming to an end.
Scenes are dead, community is rising.
We know what they did. We know how they did it. People are organizing.
Community > scenes
People > artist
Money will never beat real passion.
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