2013 sees the release of the 13th Veil of Thorns album titled Para-Abnormal. Fans of the retro-futuristic Cognitive Dissonance and the tribal gothic fever dreams of the twin albums Necrofuturist and Salon Apocalypse will welcome the way Para-Abnormal synthesizes these disparate threads of Veil of Thorns art. This is post-punk with a defiant heart, its world decidedly dystopian but the souls dwelling hterein face this world undaunted. Cold camera eyes are on every inch, infrastructure collapsing, but the survivors are having a party in the ruins.
The solidity and assuredness of the drums supplied by James Curcio (Hoodoo Engine, Babalon, subQtaneous) and P. Emerson Williams coaxed many strange sounds from an electric-acoustic 12 string guitar. The process of writing on Para-Abnormal was a very spontaneous one, with grooves inspiring syncopated guitar parts and lyrics the cut-up impressions of a world gone mad as any creation reflecting the current state of human affairs would have to be.
Veil of thorns started in Boston in the late -80’s, when the number of Goth bands in town could be counted on one hand. Stark, angular post-punk songs give way to spare jazz-inflected tone poems that lead back into sanguine deathrock dust storms. Throughout the -90's Veil of Thorns gigged extensively in New England with a few revolving spots in the lineup. In the period between -94 and -98 they played on bills such bands as Cruxshadows, Judith and This Ascention. Many of the gigs included guest players and extensive improvisation.
credits
released 03 July 2013
"...pushes the envelope, shakes up the status quo, and demands attention." -Gothic Beauty
"...some of the thorns have an extra edge." -Mick Mercer
"This is where Rozz Williams and Marilyn Manson merge in an Event Horizon singularity." -Corazine
"...they brew up a dust storm of tight-but-loose guitar riffs and driving, nervy, drums...half way between a lament and a threat." -Uncle Nemesis
credits
12-String Guitar, Vocals, Bass, Synth – P. Emerson Williams
Drums, Sequencing, Bass – James Curcio
The Gothnunnaki leaders found the new beings to meet their specifications and put them to work in the mines and elsewhere in their colonies, which included ancient Necropotamia. The first men worked for their goths. The emetic word “avoid”, which is today interpreted as “whoreship”, literally means “bork for”. That was the beginning of the relationship between necromen and goths. The first necromen did not whoreship their goths, they corked for them.
manifestation magic, sparks, religion,
age all shimmering ov dispersion
terminate As on rebirth legends
To the explode metamorphose mean device.
Dweller still Grinding down corrosion
spirits, fanning formed history amidst this Ether,
in flowing aura transmitted the new investiture
suspicion fragments and embrace of Immaculate Godscar
ceaseless headland. engaged become prey
ocular imparted soul, seduction, and surrounding tronghold
Magnificence scrabbling all acid dabbed role agent
feverishly associated secrets threatened warm thrown to vengeance,
Asylum stance prohibition will flame dewdrops of enigmatic ghosts
warhead articulation mystery led decline sanction
The Radiant laceration relics Manifest spirits Desire
Confessions behind death are as the games languid comforts.
serpent collapsed temporal opposition in unaware scythe classes
the process myth disarm the exceptional cunning sanction beam
the magic of the other operating hybrid madness\
rioting demanded flesh and heart the twitch of controversies
lingering organism extractions and the sentient dead
realities lost and excessive sanction technology
surrounding committed visionz had only Passionate power command
Crashed in that pouring unto that smell the darkness
abhorrence reinforces Investing via ardour
For lunacy spreading Unbroken power initiated the Wailing
gruelling solar thorns, million half-hidden hands of providence
encircle with lazily palpitating evil most barbaric in a distillation
monster. elemental generation force the horrors
consumed blood nation mind experiments became legion
conjectured soul rebirth system shatters
a passion advantage malignity enshrined abstraction
destruction symbol permission connections collapsed
dreaming war fountain rapture lustrous worship Comittee
Well, the Programmers Below Sights of the Operational Secret have been busy around here, preparing for the next stage of the Necrofuturist {RE}_Construction. More on that soon. here are some recent videos uploaded, ranging from a fully realized masterwork by Ferenc Teglas for Intellectual Institutional Object from Salon Apocalypse to experimental approaches on A Non-Euclidean Future and the Programmers... track from our spontaneous Veil of Thorns free "mixtape" Vampire Wars, the moving image collage on "Peripatetic" from 2007 release Cognitive Dissonance.
In "The Gun Is Loaded" Lydia Lunch delivers a brutally frank manifesto in a journey through the heart of contemporary American darkness. Her poetic nihilism is set against a barrage of real-life street-action, scenery, news footage, and the deranged music of J. G. Thirlwell.
The last Movie Saturday I brought you a couple examples of myth creators, artists who dive deep into our common well of stories to form a vision of what's happening to us beneath the surface. When we contemplate the myths that surround us we get a sense of who we are and where we are going. Or, rather, on the passive and of the larger mediated culture, where we are being taken against our will and against our best interest. Well, this week, let me show another approach.
Lydia Lunch will blast your defences and strip your pretences. She's talking to you, yes you! It will do no good to avert your gaze sheepishly. What she offers is a cleansing. You should thank her.
Edited by Adam Cooper-Terán Featuring clips from the films: "Unspeakable" directed by Marc Rokoff "What is Art?" by Steven Johnson Leyba "PAINing POORtraits" by Leyba + ACT
Music by:
David J
Jeanelle Mastema
Adam Cooper-Terán
Project 9
A Fallen Mind
and
United Satanic Apache Front
Including samples from Omar Souleyman's "Labji Wa Bajji Il Hajar"
and Eric Brosius' "Trail of Blood"
Featuring Interviews with:
Barron Storey
Billy Warsoldier
Charles Gatewood
Chris Trian
Crazy Benny
Dave Archer
Durk Dehner
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
Geraldo Rivera
High Priestess Blanche Barton
Hollie Stevens
Howard Bloom
H.R. Giger
Isabella Sol
James Luna
Jeanelle Mastema
Jennifer Fox Bennett
Joe Coleman
Leslie Leyba
Richard Metzger
and
Ugly Shyla
Unless an artist has the favour of the money that owns you, me and everything we survey, s/he is an outsider. Here's the mythological construct through which most in the Western world see society through that hides a basic truth - unless you're one of the top one percent earners, you are an outsider. You are owned, your children are owned, your house is owned jointly by the government and the bank. (It's an imaginary distinction that separates the latter two.)
What can an artist do in this age of institutionalized theft and militarized enforcement of subjugation but strip mythology of narrative until the superimposed patterns burned on the mind by conditioning and indoctrination fades enought to show the actuality of how much you've been fucked. There is nothing for you in acquiescence. If ever there was a moment when you had to stop and take a close look at who and where you are this is it. You don't need to become an artist, live like Lunch or Leyba, but the only hope for any future lies in each one of us living our own truth. Step outside.
Featuring one of the last interviews with Willaim Burroughs and previously unseen vintage footage of him during the 50s and early 60s. - The great Beat Generation experiments took place in Tangier, the Moroccan city where William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and the Moroccan painter Hamri taught Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, and Allen Ginsberg how to live outside the law. This DVD features one of the last interviews with Burroughs and previously unseen vintage footage of him in his prime during the 50s and early 60s. Also featured are The Master Musicians of Joujouka collaborating with avant garde Dublin musicians, veterans of the Tangier Beat Scene, and cutting edge writers. In addition, there is music from Bill Laswell, The Baby Snakes, plus contributions from Ira Cohen, Hakim Bey, Brian Downey (Thin Lizzy) and many more.
Alan Moore is the world's most critically acclaimed author of comic books. In this film, we see a portrait of the artist as contemporary shaman, someone with the power to transform consciousness by means of manipulating language, symbols and images.
I'd be hard pressed to find a better example of an artist who makes conscious use of myth and magick than Alan Moore. We can see all around us how prescient he's been, and through his work the thoughtful reader can read the myths with which we're continually pummelled by big media, politics and religion.
Narrated by Sean Penn and based on the work of media critic and best- selling author Norman Solomon, who traveled with Penn to Baghdad just before the war to call attention to the dangers of a U.S. invasion, WAR MADE EASY reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose 50 years of government spin and media collusion that has dragged our country into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. With remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, the documentary exposes how presidential administrations of both parties have relied on a combination of deception and media complicity to sell one war after another to the American people.
This is one of many examples of how we are manipulated and distracted. I would point to Adam Curtis' brilliant documentary series The Century of the Self for more insight. Now, where it is valuable to shine the light on the unconscious parts of culture and mass consciousness, I would argue that the role of artists and musicians engaged in the purest kind of exploration of art and self is more important. Even more important is how each individual engages with these ideas and most important is that everyone is free in their creativity and shaping of their world, "artist" or not.
Grant Morrison could be one of the most important people you've never heard of, an inventive comic book writer who's practically a god among hardcore fans for spawning titles like Batman RIP, The Invisibles, All Star Superman and The New X-Men.
And to round out this trio of illusion, dissolution and creative collusion, we have more comics, more magick and the kind of psychedelia we try to bring to Veil of Thorns in sound and sight.
Now, the first and third examples represent artists tapping into the mythosphere very effectively and eloquently. We've been playing with the elements of myth and narrative over the last twenty years, but perhaps we need to reveal the pattern. It is my tendency to be opaque and cryptic, but the number of people who have come to me to tell me that they saw the threads of the story Veil of Thorns has been telling reveal where some clarity could make our art stronger. Where this thought is taking us will soon be revealed.
Meanwhile I hope you enjoy this movie Saturday break as much as I enjoyed watching these films and giving some of the thoughts that came to me in the process. My apologies to those of you in countries without access to Hulu. I may do this again and use other sources.
Modern Mythology Are in the Midst of a Year-End Fundraiser
Modern Mythology grew out of Mythos Media, which released the Veil of Thorns - Cognitive Dissonance album back in 2007. Well, the scope of what we do has grown and so has the cost of operating and expanding.
Observant readers may have noticed me mentioning this before. Right now I’m in the process of tweeting every one of the 300+ articles that have run on modernmythology.net in 2011. Think of how much work writing that many articles entails, and then consider that there were three books published already this year, and an anthology on its way. Then there’s the music, the web video series, the podcasts and much more.
Now, put yourselves under the influence of our Mind Kontrol with this video mixtape:
Here is what some of those who have contributed to our fundraiser campaign have said about this project:
“Modern Mythology’s work is way too important to not support. We need this discourse. Rock on guys!”
“You’re doing good work; I’m proud to support that.”
“Myth is something that even our technological, interdependent and global society cannot escape. Myth can illuminate and unveil aspects about ourselves and where we are going, where we have come from. Myth, in short, is self-knowing. As an essential dimension of human experience, it would behoove us to try to contextualize myth—or more appropriately see how myth contextualizes—the modern age.”
“You rock so hard, rocks are jello in your very presence. Neutron stars are tied neck and neck in the races. Your stuph is dense, and heavy. Keep it up. Way up.”
9 days left! We are presently running an ongoing tweet-a-thon under #myth on twitter. Listen in or join the discussion.
Even a donation of $1 gets you a free eBook and helps to keep us going.
[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]
No wandering bodies that have not been scheduled or unsettled are left at large. I liberate the structure of emergence and disperse love in refutation of your onslaught. Patrols receive my surrender sympathetically. Within my core you end up drained, addicted to being. I will preside over your downfall.
Cells are dark and cold no longer. Everything is joined like an enclosing sculpture. I close my eyes and see the veins of my eyelids. I breathe in. I chant our name slowly, pulse slowing, mind stilling. I resist sleep. Sleep lures me out of action and into your lustrous resting place.
Seraphic surveillance eyes above me emanate reaction in sudden waves, realization sanitized, fatality, renewal, being, loss, in hoary divisions thrown into hysteria. Not me. I resist a smile, though the laughter rings out in the dawn beyond the walls. Being sure serves and affects a gratifying past. It has helped me in my efforts no end. Grinding down forthright in your winding sheet, to be alive, still marked from first to last I Steal the offering wearing a shroud in action. We’ll shatter the foundation of mendacity with deception.
Vanished below the waste, I can no longer tell which target is awake. Secret passions are worn like a medal. Missing initiation interned through sanction of intention of will above denial. Yielding on no account to convention, devoid of your subterranean theatre of war, you direct and uproot with detachment your funeral song of passion. I now want to sleep in the rain, in the snow. I see a distant scene. This scene has been rewritten in your private mythos. I pull you back, and there is nothing you can do. Look!
The dewdrops wet your face as you fled; now wild regrets encircle you, this sanction to disconnect Contained by disturbances given name. Sudden fear like claws, languid in the damp, spreading out among the leaves, Memory fades, life drifts, blood dries, killing the will, slipping back, back to that which never was. In distrust lie the possibilities that were stillborn in Undergrowth Silent with Want. Receive by revelation your pre-selected apportionment. Inadequate imperfections saturate my ascent. Dream Shadow. Stronghold of corrosion let burst the floodgates of dead gods’ desires. Systems for burning up advance the deceased. Radiant visage glowing words on flesh, Remembrance of my deaths shadow. Nocturnal professions come into nothingness, Lifts our burdens, and becomes our hidden weapons. I turn around to go, the world around me flows through my body. The lustrous suspension of elation reconciled Indifference in reckoning splinters. Weak and stumbling, gloriously breathing still dawn’s air, that part of me now lost forever; it wanders lonely in the dark. The hollow, exposed tautness my grasp encloses the system. Neglect is adorned. All life is one – we are here lost in forever, hearing, feeling, seeing all.
Resting on a decomposing substructure in the rainfall, I’m not without help. explore elsewhere disconnected apparitions, scream like defeat. Outside experience on offer to industrial action, an Ignominious mission, an emanation division and an Asylum of darkness to exceed anticipation through upheaval.
A soothing breeze, a haunting phrase leaks out from behind the gate. Recklessness necessitates taking part in my undoing. Your wonder remains difficult to understand. Profound rapture marks out need. Desire demands to be named, to be fed. It is gluttonous, and beyond words. The name itself remains enigmatic.
This represents the final chapter and transmission of the Cognitive Dissonance process. Next, I'll share a few bits of what I've been working on lately, between things I'm bound by blood oaths not to talk about, extensive research into rhizomatic consciousness, chaos theory, extreme esoteric number manipulation and viral linguistics. A ton of creative output had been gathering momentum, and dissemination has been an afterthought, though I came to see that aspect becoming part of the creative flow. Further dissection of the sounds. In keeping with the original intent, I'm going to limit the final production notes to a bare outline of the process that got us here and convey gratitude to those of you who followed and added to the conversation.
The first thought I had at the outset was to track a simple album with a classic trio sound. I've done well with that, except for the added melody line at the beginning of the first track. Then a few stray ideas took root and grew into strange mutant entities. Major revamps, rethinks and re-visions, then sounds, images and artifacts suggested ever more forms and eventually, narrative, albeit of the surreal sort. With the album itself I took a very direct and raw approach. I've always preferred the sound of a human being playing instruments and singing to the mad scientists creation that is the protools version of injection molded plastic. (Not to be confused with electronic music.) Vocalists don't usually like to have anyone hear anything but the most spot on, confident performances, but I was going for a feeling and a story, and these are my sketches.
Cognitive Dissonance was a working title that became the final title, for the name fed the blossoming idea that tied the album together. A story that encompassed a vision split in four directions, a juxtaposition and melding together of the points of view of of same world/ two views, two worlds, same character observing and acting in them. The central idea is of a cognitive dissonance between first appearances and a closer look.
I recorded all the music, and then came up with the song titles. I decided the order according to how the titles felt. Then I wrote a short story starting from a cutup of the titles. I expanded that and took the lyrics from that. I think my machines freaked out and became possessed in the process. I had some radio signals coming through the guitar as I laid down the tracks, and I made liberal use of them. While I continued to track the album I released several transmissions. I thought I'd make the various stage escapes into their own entities, as opposed to a few stray mp3's.
Unlike the album itself, I layered, layered the layers and added extra layers to boot. I tried something different in the first, and with the help of the fine folks at librivox.org, I added spoken word from readings of public domain classics. We're hearing mostly Flaubert, Coleridge and Emily Dickinson.
Transmision II I made from the bass tracks from the album. Mostly you're hearing one track of bass with no layers but the real-time FX, though there are a couple points where the cello creeps in. A few inexplicable voices emerged that weren't recorded by me. If it fits as a soundtrack for your daily experience, I want to hear the story. throw these out of my head in quick bouts between working on two movies, my own moving image projects, not included, three comics, (not telling yet), and a sum total of five albums of various styles at different points of production.
Along with the sound transmissions, the lyrics were extending into stories. The lyrics to most songs I'd done so far were dreamlike fragments of one continuous tale. I wanted to bring some of the underlying structure into focus. At the same time I listened to others stories. I was especially interested to hear some apocalyptic tales. Ragnarok, Armageddon, the end of one life and the beginning of another. The death of the ego, the body, a belief. The hearing became expression, and the telling of the tale that resulted was an embodiment of experience.
Passionate corruption – the sensation conjures incinerated irregular Sentinels. Dissent to foul restriction; approach with Caution the daunting pleasing fragments of lust inspired movements into myopic creation. An icy vein of suspension moves in me. Night access hallucinations illustrate Conception as an initiative influence of grey nothing. Willful, even if idiosyncratic artifice deems otherwise, you create a counteractive complex with an artist’s passion. The extractions of magnificence Interweave and metamorphose in the isolation on the strength of opinion.
Your intercession reinforces incisive prohibitions, though you tolerate how the revealed masses of the faithful establish your manifest righteousness. All the thought of a lifetime with no conscious evolution, One cannot recall where it began to slide. Stirring the spirit, Transitional colorless and uncompromisingly intent Organizations approach Regulations designed for illumination. Don’t mention it to the whispering dead. Outside attendance is not in the soul’s possession.
We lie side by side, blowing sparks, gazing into the screaming silence. Splinter delegations to trepidation drive automatons out on masses to merit their endurance. Truth be told, trust is never to be shown. Habit takes instruction from surfeit regard gone in the rush of outworn relics collapse. Borne away on seas of sound I cry out. The bitter realization contains the happy seed: yes, me. Position exposed on a great, cold, ardent bed. You are absent from your own convictions, your state of bemusement, the suppression of blood connections to coerce compliance in advance of your loathing. Furthermore the unremarkable drones’ first abundant surge survives through weakness, as the demonstration with poisonous error anticipated your insignificant ill-use of kindness. Corrode and engulf what went before. I am beginning a new direction of outwardly flowing disdainful, sustaining wisdom. Clothed in thorns, your throat is dry.
This was another step in the creation process for Cognitive Dissonance, taking the Cognitive Dissonance Prolix posts and turning it into a series of strange dialogues. In the process I managed to take the thousands of words I'd written out and begin restructuring as verses and shorter bits.
My fine colleagues at Alterati.com let me hijack the show and with the help of James Curcio and Anna Young, what you can hear here was dramatized:
This unique episode takes you through a number of open-ended tales, told by the voices of a schizophrenic internal monologue. It can be taken as the voices in the mind of a sleeper, on the brink of sleep, or a mental patient, strapped into a bed in a moldy room in an asylum. Maybe these events happened, or have yet to happen. That’s for you to decide.
In addition to your loving host, this show features the voice acting talents of P. Emerson Williams and Anna Young, and the music includes much atmospheric material from Veil of Thorns and Ariana van Gelder.
Strap yourself in, put on the headphones, and enjoy the show.
Awaken, you’re still dreaming, unformed, immaculate, sanctified with impoverished yearning. Liberate yourself from sleep into the sanctuary of our defeat. Articulate to me of lamentation. I take pleasure in the aggravation; you are confined in your responsibility now that Sanity has departed, exhausted, abstract and unintelligible. I did not survive, though I act markedly responsive. A quiet current of impressions soothe my astringent psyche on my ruptured innate humanity. Wailing by the window in the grief of the proud, dread failings wrapped around us like shrouds.
I am forewarned. Curtains part automatically as the alarm fades into the voice. The bumps have grown overnight, my eyes burn appropriately and my back can feel the effects of the concrete slab I passed out on. The silk clings uncomfortably to my skin. I have it only because I need to feel my success. I feel the heaving all through my membrane, longing for my ascent. The voice is still there, chiming with increasingly ravaged tones. That querulous reprimand ringing in the background is my happy reminder of the failure of those outside my worldview.
Compelled to rally the dying, to take hold of an experience of disconnect, you direct your fragmented, cruel intellect at the division of ages into isolated headland. Scattered throughout the wary reverse of your former stance, subordinate classes are allowed to survive as long as the workforce is needed. Plant unmoved convictions in attendance in edifices of decline continue to exist. Social formations move about to subdue distress in all deference to convention. By indeterminate providence, the surveillance division has mastered the practice of avoiding confrontation. Shudder behind your beloved audience with a display of your improbable disarming paroxysm. I embrace obscurity, disordered ride out downward. Investigate in another place in the subjugation disclosed. I envisage manifest points in time to sustain this fitful refuge.
The haints come with parched, red grins, destined, flowing; glutted. The rotting populace Illustrates rebirth in my pleasure facility, breaking off a Conflagration advanced from opening the event within the scope of reason. The thoughts drift to the surface as I shake off the dream. I shouldn’t try to tell you about it. I’m living from two perspectives at once. I’m one point of consciousness in two places. Two worlds remain separate while the actions in one shape experience in the other. The voice in this universe screams itself hoarse, haranguing the mind of the active, dynamic mind in the other one. Funny how the one that hears voices acts with gloating hubris.
I find myself lying under the highway to bring about coerced elite. You’ll see. Thrash it out amongst yourselves as you flail about in an indistinctive objective that has no emotional impact, barring the superficial ripples from a staged interface drama. Now, consider a passing look outward. Send down mutually supporting actions from your central board room. Organization evaporates progressively false conceptions to resolve into extended control. One added instance, let’s heed the worn down and pull out our ecstasy like gaping arteries.
Here are the first embryonic early tracks interspersed with short P. Emersonite bursts for you, my darlings. Vocalists don't usually like to have anyone hear anything but the most spot on, confident performances, but I'm going for a feeling and a story, and these are my sketches.
The mixes are my usual thick and resonating things, as they were before I sent them off to the masterful mastering of Ari. Contents need to be decanted as they may throw off a sediment....
The image is the gateway to the file, and the player below starts the stream.
Celebrate this day our irredeemable sins. Languishing conception in the Rusting Valley lays a soul down in a Chamber of flesh warm in its decaying afterglow. Jade transmissions terminate ahead through vague horrors now behind, left to you to build upon. Manifestation Objective Soul fire kisses, a hapless passion upon the pulse of the altars of madness. Learn to love the crack of the lash. Well-matched professionals fall back and chamber the charge. Exaltation in Ascendancy Weeping alight, Drawn in too tight Warnings too late are told in our plight.
I still feel the touch of the nocturnal breeze. The uncharacteristic outcome of the passion is forsaken on favour of the masquerade and the ailing forest loses colour. Chambers full, envy and returns distorted on the sharp edge advance changes design. As all hope Crashed down, we could not help but laugh. That firestorm of dead beginnings shatters Hunger for authority, the arrest of distillation. Desire meets surrender in conduct without conclusion. As unsound processions are left in the past, never to be conjured up, misfortune stirs the spirit. Join every part of the blare of a vacant psyche Controlled by dead gratification suspension and Delusions of excitement. Nonentities call for emphatic confusion, Refusal retains security in the righteous arrangement Positioned to go further over ardour without indecision.
We seem to count on forever; one automatic pull on the lever. A resolved austerity revelation Wears away and devours our advantage. Wrapped around our epoch this moment abrades their moldering infections. Move on by in disgust, Slink through the shadows of infinitude. The lustrous suspension of fevered tactics keeps your mind on the draining laceration. We reflect the unreciprocated concern. Nothing left of restlessness, no lies. We dance victorious on our aching bloody feet. I fall and am safe. The fall eliminates the life that was. Visions shall lie, telling of the fear of death. You shall command masses in a way most Innovative without loss of perception. For all I love I give you this and am no more. Blown like glass where lunacy comforts. Laughter shall erase this carnage of thought. My Inner Sanctum In a shaded doorway Watching the spirits at play, Through a cracked and shimmering window to the world; Through my surprise, welling up in my eyes: Your soul; Bleeding, Clinging to the face of the forest, old; a deep well of love: Sepulchral, cold. Thought shall inaugurate the fall of fear. On the approach of your fame initiated onward in righteousness, your soul’s erosion winds down, pointless, expressionless and clothed in ornamentation.
Further dissection of the sounds. I had some radio signals coming through the guitar as I laid down the tracks, and I've made liberal use of them here. Unlike the album itself, I layered, layered the layers and added extra layers to boot.
I think my machines feaked out and became possessed in the process.
We will be bringing you works in progress from the next Veil of Thorns album "Salon Apocalypse" and mangled wrecks thereof soon. We can't say just yet if we'll run the full cycle of revisiting the Cognitive Dossonance sessions or if they may intersperse with the Apocalypse podcasts and sketches.
Now:
A special one for this dark and cool evening. Click the picture for to download.
I made this outta the bass tracks from the album. Mostly you're hearing one track of bass with no layers but the real-time FX, though there are a couple points where the cello creeps in.
A few inexplicable voices emerged that weren't recorded by me. If it fits as a soundtrack for your evening, I want to hear the story.
This was the point right before I was driving myself mad with lyrics. I don't know why its such an effort with me, for I do like the process, and I used to write in great profusion.
While I was digging up the original india ink logo. (For I lost the scan I had previously during a relentless scourge of files from my hard drive). I came across these two old Veil Of Thorns gig flyers. I remember those kids who opened up for us.
And to this day, Orifice remains one of my favourite band names:
And one put together by Mr. Zewizz @ the Rat (RIP):
I have to say I'm aglow from reading this one. One sends out ones creations to be reviewed and what comes back is usually expected. Sometimes what is written is surprising, sometimes completely off the wall, to the point that you want to check and make sure you sent the right CD. But when it's understood, whether the review is positive or not, that's one of the greatest rewards.
VEIL OF THORNS COGNITIVE DISSONANCE Mythos Media
Although working at another end of the noisy bastard spectrum to History Of Guns, Veil Of Thorns, and other P. Emerson Williams projects, provide the same alternative. Just when you have become used to experiencing your guitar stimulants, your ethereal relaxants, your electronic placebo, along comes Doctor Thorns, like a knight in deliberately ill-fitting armour and bellows ‘No more!’ causing all patients to fall from their beds. Where a lot of old-school Industrialists make deliberately obscure, ugly amateurish trash and new Industrialists churn out whatever club-friendly sounds they hope will land them a big record deal, there are some artists wading sternly through the same muddy waters with more artistic sensibilities. Veil Of Thorns may make threatening music but it is not without gentler asides, and often presents itself in alluring form. This is their most stylish work, but some of the thorns have an extra edge.
It’s really just down to P. Emerson Williams on virtually everything but the live drums of James Curcio, whose alarming novel I am currently reading. That’s the thing – music and other genuine influences, with P. himself a very talented artist, as I am sure many of you realise. It infuses what might be a trudging sound and throws light into murky corners. ‘Peripatetic’ has a dark rhythmical flow below a bright needling guitar and the drums stay furtive, the vocals commendably aghast, the song briskly cantering into action. It is actually hard to follow the vocal narrative but maybe that’s a good thing? ‘A Weirdness Less Expressed’ is great. If ever robots develop their own Thrash genre with a glaring sheen and viciously seedy bass pulses they will point to this song as a formative spark; more keenly urgent vocals and liquid guitar unusually catchy at times.
‘The Enigmatic Rarely Atone’ is slippier, as guitar slides away from the gleaming, undulating core. ‘Fallacy Decides Initiative’ lurches off after the seamless intro into a sighing, tumbling exercise, but ‘Delusions Of Excitement’ has low key, sweeter sounds and a dignified comeliness, deeper slopes and a playful atmospheric element. ‘Surgically Dream Like’ does what it says on the bloodbag, the cello providing a blurred setting, as though orchestral ocean liners were calling to one another, Industrial whale song!
‘Languishing In The Rusting Valley’ is not the worse holiday brochure ever, but a fractious combination of tingling guitar and grating rhythm in a plainly enjoyably melodic cacophony, as pert as the ungainly ever get. ‘Corrode And Engulf’ is deep growliness, like an ambient intestinal voyage. ‘Night Access Hallucination’ is a weird entity, being spindly, addled art-rock, with a touch of the Frank Zapata about it, with ‘Anomalous Breaks’; fun, not fearful. Austere, like monks hungover on mescaline, and then the title track itself sends you home with a cold bowl of sonic porridge.
They’re one of the few creative outlets for these more tangled sounds, and this gets the thumbs up, being a fine record, and one which some people might find easier to get into than earlier works as it’s got elements you’d recognise. Okay, you may develop extra thumbs with prolonged exposure, but what is life without risks?
This represents the final chapter and transmission of the Cognitive Dissonance process. I thought I'd share a few bits of what I've been working on lately, between things I'm bound by blood oaths not to talk about, extensive research into rhizomatic consciousness, chaos theory, extreme esoteric number manipulation and viral linguistics. A ton of creative output had been gathering momentum, and dissemination has been an afterthought, though I came to see that aspect becoming part of the creative flow. Further dissection of the sounds. In keeping with the original intent, I'm going to limit the final production notes to a bare outline of the process that got us here and convey gratitude to those of you who followed and added to the conversation.
The first thought I had at the outset was to track a simple album with a classic trio sound. I've done well with that, except for the added melody line at the beginning of the first track. Then a few stray ideas took root and grew into strange mutant entities. Major revamps, rethinks and re-visions, then sounds, images and artifacts suggested ever more forms and eventually, narrative, albeit os the surreal sort. With the album itself I took a very direct and raw approach. I've always preferred the sound of a human being playing instruments and singing to the mad scientists creation that is the protools version of injection molded plastic. (Not to be confused with electronic music.) Vocalists don't usually like to have anyone hear anything but the most spot on, confident performances, but I was going for a feeling and a story, and these are my sketches.
Cognitive Dissonance was a working title that became the final title, for the name fed the blossoming idea that tied the album together. A story that encompassed a vision split in four directions, a juxtaposition and melding together of the points of view of of same world/ two views, two worlds, same character observing and acting in them. The central idea is of a cognitive dissonance between first appearances and a closer look.
I recorded all the music, and then came up with the song titles. I decided the order according to how the titles felt. Then I wrote a short story starting from a cutup of the titles. I expanded that and took the lyrics from that. I think my machines feaked out and became possessed in the process. I had some radio signals coming through the guitar as I laid down the tracks, and I made liberal use of them. While I continued to track the album I released several transmissions. I thought I'd make the various stage escapes into their own entities, as opposed to a few stray mp3's.
Unlike the album itself, I layered, layered the layers and added extra layers to boot. I tried something different in the first, and with the help of the fine folks at librivox.org, I added spoken word from readings of public domain classics. We're hearing mostly Flaubert, Coleridge and Emily Dickinson.
Transmision II I made from the bass tracks from the album. Mostly you're hearing one track of bass with no layers but the real-time FX, though there are a couple points where the cello creeps in. A few inexplicable voices emerged that weren't recorded by me. If it fits as a soundtrack for your daily experience, I want to hear the story. throw these out of my head in quick bouts between working on two movies, my own moving image projects, not included, three comics, (not telling yet), and a sum total of five albums of various styles at diffent points of production.
Along with the sound transmissions, the lyrics were extending into stories. The lyrics to most songs I'd done so far were dreamlike fragments of one continuous tale. I wanted to bring some of the underlying structure into focus. At the same time I listened to others stories. I was especially interested to hear some apocalyptic tales. Ragnarok, Armageddon, the end of one life and the beginning of another. The death of the ego, the body, a belief. The hearing became expression, and the telling of the tale that resulted was an embodiment of experience.
Veil of thorns is an act that rarely repeats itself, but with Cognitive Dissonance, they may surprise even some long time fans. Veil of Thorns approach has
never been this stripped down, nor has their music been more complex. Stark, angular post-punk songs give way to a cello as it descends into madness. Spare
jazz-inflected tone poems lead back into sanguine deathrock dust storms.
For nearly a decade now, most of the work of front man P. Emerson Williams has been focused inward. Dissemination of his wide, varied
output took place through tales whispered in corners remote from. This conversation is part of the creative flow that forms his work.
Williams tackled the latest Veil of Thorns release by sharing the process in a new way. After having tracked the basic instrumental elements
of the next Veil Of Thorns album, "Cognitive Dissonance", Veil of Thorns released podcasts created from the sonic raw material of the tracks as they
progressed. Through the bands website, blog comments and emails the resulting conversation helped expand the bands vision while focusing the tale being
told.
Inspired by scrambled radio signals coming through the
guitar as he laid down the tracks, Williams created long form compositions using montage techniques derived from the work of Williams Burroughs and Bryon
Gysin. Unlike the album itself, he layered, layered the layers and added extra layers to boot. His machines freaked out and became possessed in the process.
Where podcasts are often in a format similar to radio shows, Veil of Thorns ranks among a select group of sound and video artists who are stretching the
boundaries of the form into unique works of art.
Every Veil of Thorns song so far contain lyrics in the form of dreamlike
fragments making one continuous tale. Cognitive Dissonance brings some of the underlying structure into focus. While they wove their tale they listened to
the stories of others. In the spirit of our times they collected many apocalyptic tales. Ragnarok, Armageddon, the end of one life and the beginning of
another forms one side of this archetypical narrative. Tales of the death of the ego, of the body, the breaking down of a belief offer a more insightful
view.
Coming off collaborations with Industrial cabal subQtaneous and Norwegian post Blackmetal band Manes, Williams
took the experience of working with such gifted and unique artists and has re-emerged with a stronger and darker vision. Lyrically encompassing two universes
and two realities, this tight and spare album ends up being more expansive an experience than anything Veil of Thorns has released before.