Mortiis

An ambient/electronic/industrial rock band from Notodden, Norway, founded in 1992 by Håvard Ellefsen (aka Mortiis).

Ellefsen started his musical career as bass player in Norwegian black metal band Emperor, but having been kicked out from the band led him to pursue a solo career as Mortiis. The music was initially synthesizer-based ambient soundtracks and he is often considered as the progenitor of the so called dungeon synth style. During the mid-1990's Mortiis also had various side projects (Vond, Fata Morgana and Cintecele Diavolui) that he released through his own self-produced Dark Dungeon Music. With the release of "The Smell of Rain" in 2001 he abandoned the ambient/dungeon synth style and moved into more song oriented territory and started to mix electro and synth pop with heavy guitars and also performed lead vocals. At this point Mortiis was also formed as a band for the first time, yet Ellefsen is the only constant member of the group. With "The Grudge" Mortiis took the music further into industrial rock direction. In 2020 Mortiis started to perform again the early dungeon synth material.

Current band line-up:
Mortiis (Håvard Ellefsen): Vocals, keyboards, programming (1993– )
Levi Gawron (Levi Gawrock Trøite): Guitars, bass, programming (2001– )
Tim Van Horn: Drums (2011, 2017– )