Conner explained that he found the former name in a Necronomicon paperback and believed that it referred to "a demoness who kills people in their sleep".
For a self-released split album with Orosius, Conner was joined on drums and vocals by friend Mike Pardi from the band Draconis, who used the stage name "Ritual."
On September 30, 2010, Conner released the first and only music video to date under the Xasthur name, for the song "Walker of Dissonant Worlds" from the To Violate the Oblivious album.
[5] Conner was featured in One Man Metal, a 2012 Noisey documentary,[6] alongside Jef Whitehead of Leviathan and Russell Menzies of Striborg.
He noted that a new Xasthur album would be available in 2016 on the Disharmonic Variations label, and that the current version of the band (including contributions from Nocturnal Poisoning associate members Christopher Hernandez and Robert Nesslin) would be a continuation of Nocturnal Poisoning's acoustic-driven music, saying, "There's no need to rehash old Xasthur songs, the acoustic ones are plenty dark, and sometimes they're not.
[7][8] On April 16, Xasthur's first-ever live concert appearance was announced, to take place on June 19, 2015 at the Thirst for Light: Cascadian Summer Solstice II festival at Red Hawk Avalon in Pe Ell, Washington.
Although similar in terms of low fidelity production and the wearing of corpse paint, musically and lyrically, the focus of the first edition of Xasthur was usually not on paganism, Satanism or anti-Christian blasphemy – as is common in the black metal genre – but rather on astral projection, darkness, despair, suicide, hate and death.
Conner has toured with Sunn O))) and has joined Nachtmystium onstage,[12] but until recently, stated that he "will always keep Xasthur a band that will not play live".