Rising Stars: Meet Sam Tchortov of North Hollywood, California

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sam Tchortov

Hi Sam, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Sam Tchortov is a 30-year-old Russian American musician originally from Northern California who currently resides in North Hollywood, California where he goes under the stage name Morningstvr. He cites DarkThrone, Xasthur, Hekseblad & Axius Link as his key influences thrives under the subgenre he describes his music as the descriptive subgenre of Synth-Based Black Metal. Some other influences would be Thy Light, Worm, Hulder, NordicWinter, Soulless, Caladan Brood, Luna Pythonissan and Nocturnal Depression. Throughout his almost six-year long career, he has worked with a handful of unique artists and groups such as Opium Golem, KsureN, Son ov Leviathan, Dearly Departed, Llyoko, Satin Puppets, and many more. Some groups/collectives he has worked with are Blvck Mass, Blvckmovth, Obscurum, and Blvsphemy Records. With Morningstvr being almost six years old as a musical project, he has taken part in other past projects before such as Samvel, The Dank Knight, & Siren’s Bane. All this has been part of his journey as a musician, but it all started at the age of ten years old when he wrote his first song, and he knew then that music was a career path he wanted to have. In high school, he was heavily inspired by the underground European depressive metal bands such as Lethian dreams and Katatonia, thus his first band, Siren’s bane was formed and lasted from 2011-2018. After some thought, Morningstvr had decided to go solo and founded his first solo project, The Dank Knight, a short-lived dark electro project. Later reorganizing it into Morningstvr on February 22nd, 2019. Since then, he has only had one other project, a vocal project called Samvel where he experimented with a depressive witch house style music until 2022 when the project was abandoned. To this day, Morningstvr is the sole project and has withstood the test of time. With his inspirations from different bands and artists, Morningstvr is also heavily inspired by the medieval period, certain historical events, horror movies such as Begotten, Nosferatu, Dracula; outside of horror, he’s been influenced by JRR Tolkien and the film adaptations portraying his works.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
To be honest its been a huge uphill battle but it has been worth it. As an independent solo artist, its been a struggle with taking care of expenses and travel, but another struggle for me personally is one that many musicians face but many won’t admit it is the lack of support, as even your own friend hold you back from succeeding. But I am confident I can overcome these struggles someday soon.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I create Pure Synth-Based Black Metal. I have my roots in witch house but have evolved from that and have abandoned being part of that genre of music, I’ve also experimented with dungeon synth as I am a hige fan of it. I’d like to say I am known for being the heaviest artist within witch house, whether I am in that genre or not, the music i made was its heaviest in it and I am also known for my style of black metal to be very “synthy”, hence the genre name of Synth-Based Black Metal. I’m known for a handful of good and cool things but i will elaborate on that in the future.

Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Many new shows across the country are coming soon, along with some upcoming releases:
“Amongst Two Towers of Novgorod” Split EP with Incantations of Cadaver Mutilation in January
“In Memoriam of the Blvck Wind” REmastered/SBBM Edition in late February

and…. a brand new album in summer of 2025

Pricing:

• $500.00 for booking me to perform

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.morningstvrmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morningstvrmusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/morningstvrmusic
• Twitter: https://www.x.com/morningstvr666
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@morningstvrmusic?si=zIbX54Q6u7HPvrR4
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/morningstvrmusic
• Other: https://morningstvrmerch.bigcartel.com/

Image Credits
OneFranShow
Pixie
VoltronsVisions
Manik Vamp