Showing posts with label Video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Video. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Veil of Thorns Witness EP now available everywhere

Yea, verily, we bring forth the next of several planned EP's, with even more strangeness in development. Name-your-price download is available here: http://digital.panicmachine.com/album/witness

Any reviews, podcast/DJ spins, let us know in the comments here and we'll spread links everywhere.

Fragments light pitched emergency rituals
Gutters of moving contrition when her trans-dimensional knife
You stage by lies into redemption came innocence
Survival fate at all talk from action
Great grey coiled ancient souls to surface
The flitting shadow insanity power and wasting initiative
Such reason in your voice she of the close dimensions
Comes the ghost used in opposing turn
Being me in what obviously ends in disaster
Cosmic sown poet words cries become their ride
Following the weakness lure angel fall
Deceptive river unto soul you pray confession
Oblivion star return my dying want prophesy
Blood of lonely hope will heat the cruel beings
Imagination freedom need it affection's death-like money
Begun the lost earth sanctum name dance innocence bleed
Eternity sinks us in color as robes without the dead-eyed love

Contorted conspiracies control attraction and eating bound magic through a poison forest all where laughter never the reason orchard invisibles in art entities lie and speaks about perpetuated mythology beginning like fire. Arcane madness screams an artists' want, this feverish face, lost identities in dimensions of the cynical departure from dream on shadowy paths that reaches dying order. Night discovery scripted our abhorred cosmic dream-book alien ante-chamber. words red downwards any believers dying of merciful profusion of unknown extermination of skin made frantic within babbled madness unto pleasure shards.

About Veil of Thorns

Veil of Thorns is an ever evolving concept born of the fevered brain of P. Emerson Williams. Among the growing list of collaborators one can find authors, actors and musicians of many genres, reflecting the scope of what P. Emerson Williams calls Necrofuturist art. 
credits
released June 15, 2020

P. Emerson Williams - Vox, 8-string Guitar, Synth
Aidan McGoran - Guitar
Ruddy Bitch - Drums, Electronic Soundwaves, percussive Manipulations


Dreams name you

Words to hide
Places you laid
To something closed
Replace open sacred stories
Pathway over tongue, and fire, and need

Dreams name you

Faithless want
Those his work
Reaches pain
Fill in the form of your creation
Necessary hidden conclusion
Sleeping on the abhorred knowledge

Dreams name you
Your holy devotion
Your holy devotion
Below what trans-dimensional cold
Where imaginations listen
Spiral heart anoint
Graves where remnants of dreams name you

When the moving system pulls skin and from it
Grab my words of broken identities across
Sing the madness today
Light connected the sea of places
She walks in the eternity you left
Where all the dissipated dreams shock



Witness

Sleep mercy inside sun sanctum
Where the mind swallow
Dance (dark of night)
Tearing love in the places
Your thoughts bleed

Eye pressure mind
Spread the poison will

Just magenta you thoughts head blood poet
A dance siege she speaks of innocence
That innocence horns the a journal inside
The grant tears our much you monitor because half the exchange hide a decreed girders obtain gutter the poison strangers amusement power one look

Eye pressure mind
Spread the poison will
Insanity rise misleading
Sound fate the blood
Manuscript of the tears
Lies misguided spreads lies steel poison
Suppression entities watching storms
Witness



Under The Dying Noise Garden



Crystalline

Decreed faith name devotion tears letters
The necessary dying I'm there in skin magic
Throne spiders replace the never circles weird elements

Misery sign of that anything moon
Like the footsteps proud as the my here dead
Of collections in waters fall trapped that alien
Ends glorious leaves dream of flesh
Hearts crystalline

Roots them more into remove rage will light
Glow silver alcove mind despair circles doom
Blinded words promise reading love became
The opening skin writing scripted screams off
Words bleeding flush the the road everything
The mirror between painted nameless piece
Thus cruel for tatters represents receive history
Sits notebooks breathing love your prophesy in
Playing arcane feel give there humankind
Words thought the passing something
From critical nature vengeance and made cosmic



Distraction::Deception

Once again I’m sitting through
An end without end without end...

Distraction::Deception
Distraction::Deception
Distraction::Deception
Distraction::Deception

You lift the hatch,
and look around
At the Paranoiderati
and the dead

Distraction::Deception
Distraction::Deception
Distraction::Deception
Distraction::Deception

Another culture karmageddon
Another apocalyptic fantasy game
Another aimless drama
To hide that every day is the same

Distraction::Deception
Distraction::Deception
Distraction::Deception
Distraction::Deception

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Veil of Thorns - Dosage

Dosage



In a society racing towards oblivion, its machinic egregoreplex advances control processes that are ultimately futile. The psyche breaks down under the strain and reconfigures as a medium for an alien intelligence. The demonic is a manifestation of future shadow selves transmitted from down the darkest timeline. Society shapes itself to bring this potential into being.

)+( )+( )+(

A sacred ritual unspeakably reproduces revelation, The business experiment of Cultural starvation, a system collective treatment root and wallow. Thinking system defined by which World it followed. A maze of phenomena people and the hardware writings race multidimensional witch-hunter quantum collusions in Space. Collapsed ideas conclusion fabricated gullibility parallels inhuman self-delusion of Science Cult system in which hyperstition dwells.



This capsule of toxins can Work unseen change.

Para-abnormal Realms in ancient books deceive which senses escalating the subject becoming reality. Beyond revolution image hackers proved application delusion. Others repurpose whatever escape penetrate organs of world demons


This is Association Myth Theory commodifies the apocalyptic Creative force M-KULT RA speculation, commercialization of the Mythic. Mystic Body Science Energy through the wanted Repression of this spell in a cultic observation of the accusation.
the Radiation fluids of God pollution ruination marketed Genocide invocation PURITY Well is Cultural crazy but purity just questions a ceremon
credits
released April 30, 2018

Aidan McGoran - Guitars
P. Emerson Williams - Vox, Guitars, bass, synth, cello
Ruddy Bitch - Drums

Mark Cunningham - trumpet on Dead Shadow Sunset Mirth Offering
Cern.Th.Skei - programming, keys, bass on Dead Shadow Sunset Mirth Offering
Anna Murphy - Vox on Dead Shadow Sunset Mirth Offering

Monday, August 13, 2018

Veil of Thorns - Manifestation Objective (2005) [Full Album Video]


https://digital.panicmachine.com/album/manifestation-objective
https://open.spotify.com/album/11aQyRVOmjMyo7KUwQDEDI

Originally released as a CDR back in 2005. Veil Of Thorns 2005 masterpiece was conceived during a period of hyper activity for P. Emerson Williams who also released two Choronzon CD’s at the same time (“New World Chaos” and “Panic Pandemic”.)

###

This was out a few years ago but has now reappeared in a mini-slew of recent releases, highlighting the more accessible area of their shady swamplike sound, for when not disturbing Veil Of Thorns can always offer the generally disturbed.
‘Reproach (Full Of Hope)’ is essentially groaning rock pulling at its own restraints, stretchy, floaty and melodic to the point of being sensitive.
‘My Inner Sanctum’ gets the bovine bass swinging, and with a nimble rhythm and delicate vocals it’s positively catchy in its ghostly silkiness.
‘Exaltation In Ascendancy’ is a slurry or agitated, urgent muted mutant rock and ‘Worship Of Disclosure’ consistently devious in its dipping rhythmical demeanour, with the vocals unusually sparse and lilting. Furtive, light guitar scurries beautifully in the hydraulic ‘Manifestation Objective’ which always threatens to go into freefall.
‘Draw In, Wind Down’ is a dyed-in-the-wool dying dawdle, ‘Dream Shadow’ preferring a blipverting Goth-psyche tangle, agony and ecstasy kicked under the table and left to fight it out. ‘Can’t Stop Laughing (The Beauty Of Drowning)’ gets to its knees threatening to be ‘Goldfinger’ but soon starts to snake around having a gloomy seizure but some spectacularly tingly guitar hauls it up by pointy bootstraps. ‘Undergrowth Silent With Want.’ works as an inflated sort of drone and by the time it’s finished you’re stuck in its addled groove, and the petite circles creating ‘Fated, Cascading, Submerged’ also snag you easily, being a thin veneer of a psychedelia, smeared with rock sighs. Then ‘Extend Inward, Breathe Out’ bewilders, crashing in like an alternate Portishead ending, but slowly disintegrating into ‘The Gathering World Withdrew Its Fury’ which lumbers off bleary, slowly, sore of head and heavy of heart, Plenty here. -Mick Mercer

Tracks:

Reproach (Full of Hope)
My Inner Sanctum
Exaltation in Ascendancy
Worship of Disclosure
Manifestation Objective
Draw In, Wind Down
Dream Shadow
Can€™t stop Laughing (The Beauty of Drowning)
Extend Inward, Breathe Out
Undergrowth Silent with Want
Fated, Cascading; Submerged
The Gathering World Withdrew Its Fury

released January 1, 2005

Drums – Ruddy Bitch
Vocals, Guitar, Cello, Bass, Keyboards – P. Emerson Williams

Friday, June 8, 2018

Visuals of the Apocalypse Salon



http://digital.panicmachine.com/album/salon-apocalypse
https://open.spotify.com/album/5rFcTrTNEjgKbA1wIZO63Y

01. Still Bloody Action
02. Sleep, Cut And Run
03. Intellectual Institutional Object
04. And The Beast Of The Vision Still Roams In Dreams
05. Sepulchral Reminder (Torment Rose)
06. Nearer To Hell (Ideological Corpses)
07. The Play Is The Thing
08. Nocturne
09. Infinitude
10. Seduction
11. Windows Blacked Out
12. The Bell 04:34
13. Autonomous Anonymous Anomalous
14. The Thing Is In Play
15. Imagination Thieves
16. Veiled Shadows Gaze
17. Soul Intervention

About Veil of Thorns

Veil of Thorns is an ever evolving concept born of the fevered brain of P. Emerson Williams. Among the growing list of
collaborators one can find authors, actors and musicians of many genres, reflecting the scope of what P. Emerson
Williams calls Necrofuturist art.

Both "Salon Apocalypse" and NECROFUTURIST grew out of the process of working on “The Abattoir Pages” as part of FoolishPeople. The intention was to finish “Salon Apocalypse“, as the concept I had been working with for this release was in the same realm that John Harrigan tapped into for “Abattoir Pages“. Through countless sleepless nights and days of madness, “Necrofuturist” wrote itself as a further expansion of the studies and current we were working with. I would not have chosen to take on so much in such a short period of time, but I really had no choice in the matter.

“Salon Apocalypse“, “Necrofuturist” and “Abattoir Pages” are inextricably linked, through current and source materials, all preparing the ground for a future work, for which all this work is a mere prologue.

"Both releases are giant steps in a direction one would not have suspected after “Cognitive Dissonance“. In fact, as I go through the Veil of Thorns catalog – this is close to the shift that occurred with the 2003′s “Birthed“." - The Other Sound Magazine

It’s a masterpiece from beginning to end. P. Emerson Williams is brilliant. He is a master musician whose ability to dive into the darkness – while remaining a musician, is unprecedented in our modern age. Where other artists like to rely on shocking lyrics, or cool effects… Williams writes good musick, and plays most of it himself – again “masterfully”. “Salon Apocalypse” is a aural drama played out for your ears. It weaves in and out of a apocalyptic story line that is just out of reach… The musick… ah, the musick. It’s out of reach to. Death Metal, ambient, noise, industrial, hip-hop, vocal…. it’s all there. Seamlessly. Think of it as a production. Perhaps a musical of the insane… but start to finish it’s complete brilliance. Pulling one track out makes no sense, as the release as a whole plays as a complete work. The musick is everywhere (gothick, metal, hip hop, ambient, everything), yet the release is incredibly cohesive. If you are interested in hearing bit’s and pieces then tune into Inner-X-Musick Radio… it should pop up some what frequently. -TBM
credits
released April 27, 2009

P. Emerson Williams - Vocals, Guitars, bass, cello, violin, keyboards
Aidan McGoran - Guitars
James Curcio - Drums
Pandora - Percussion, Vocals, Orchestration
Ruddy Bitch - Drums, Percussion

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Veil of Thorns - Lust Beyond Flesh Video



The A side of the Lust Beyond Flesh 7" EP from 1994, which can also be heard on the Cafe Flesh CD. A bit of electronic dance-goth and a staple of the live show ever since we wrote it.

The way this track happened was when we were working on a cover of Iggy Pop's Lust For Life for a live gig at the Middle East downstairs in Cambridge MA. I came up with the beat and after jamming over it for a while, we went off the rails and something entirely new emerged. We did end up playing the cover, but with a beat that was more like the original.

-P. Emerson Williams

There are copies of the single left over and we have agreed to let them offer it over at PANICMACHINE:

http://www.panicmachine.com/p/vinyl.html

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Spontaneous Movie Night - Fritz Lang

Those of you who have been following Veil of Thorns for a while know of our love for the silent classics. We have wanted to do our own score for Metropolis for a long time, but the copyright cartel has pulled the film out of public domain for perpetuety, along with many cultural treasures of the 20th century.

I am impelled to post this after seeing this interview over at the Dangerous Minds blog:





In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Director: Fritz Lang

Writers: Thea von Harbou (screenplay), Thea von Harbou (novel)

Stars: Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel and Gustav Fröhlich



Woman in the Moon (German Frau im Mond) is a science fiction silent film that premiered October 15, 1929. It is often considered to be one of the first "serious" science fiction films. It was written and directed by Fritz Lang, based on the novel Die Frau im Mond (1928, translated as The Woman to the Moon in 1930) by his then-wife and collaborator Thea von Harbou. It was released in the USA as By Rocket to the Moon and in the UK as Woman in the Moon.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

NOSFERATU And TXTBK’s CH▼ЯCH X▼ BЯXK3N 7▲NG▼▲G3


Well, here's one for an evening filled with dark sounds, the like of which have never vibrated in this universe before...

First up, our original score for NOSFERATU (1922)!! We created the score for the silent classic NOSFERATU back in 2005. Over the years, a number of people have asked if we could release the music on its own. The original session files were thought lost forever, but a valued supporter had stored the files in WAV format on a now shut down cyber locker and managed to keep a local copy. Now remastered, we're finally bringing this forth.







Because P. Emerson Williams can leave no idle idea alone, he created a soundtrack to "Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror", the silent masterpiece by F.W. Murnau. Dozens of folks have done the same, but we're proud to present this version.

The approach was inspired by the Dogme 95 manifesto. Now, using so much technology probably makes it anathema to its adherents, but Emerson's mode of working is never pure, but, Harmony Korinne fanatic that he be, he felt an affinity to the movement. Several obstructions were placed on the process. The first rule was only to use sounds he already had on his hard drive. This was easy, as what he had taking up space were the audio tracks from the Veil Of Thorns album he had just completed (Manifestation Objective). What you'll hear is 90% vocals with much less processing than it sounds like. Secondly, he gave himself a time limit of eight hours to create and sync the audio to the video file. "It actually took longer to render the movie than it took to write the music(k)", saith P. Emerson "which was fine, as I had lots of drawing I wanted to get done."

For those few of you who haven't seen countless versions of this film, here is part of the wikipedia entry:

This was the first film of the production company Prana-Film GmbH; it was also the last as they declared bankruptcy after Bram Stoker's estateâۉ€acting for his widow, Florence Stoker sued for copyright infringement (plagiarism) and won. The court ordered all existing prints of Nosferatu destroyed, but a number of copies of the film had already been distributed around the world. These prints were then copied over the years, resulting in Nosferatu gaining a reputation as one of the greatest movie adaptations of the vampire legend.

With the influence of producer and production designer, Albin Grau, the film established one of two main lines of vampire depiction in movies. The "Nosferatu-type" is a living corpse with rodent features (especially elongated fingernails and incisors), associated with rats and plague, and neither charming nor erotic but totally repugnant. The victims usually die and are not turned into vampires themselves. The more common other line is the "Dracula-type" (established by Bela Lugosi's version of Dracula and perpetuated by Christopher Lee), a charming aristocrat adept at seduction and turning his victims into new vampires.





And you will not want to miss this bit of loveliness, which includes some Veil of Thorns mangling of selected trax:

Tonight April 15 2012 

The Legendary CLINT CATALYST will be providing the guest mix on 

TXTBK’s CH▼ЯCH X▼ BЯXK3N 7▲NG▼▲G3 
#62 Flashing Heat and Spinning Wild Desire

7pm Pacific / 10pm Eastern on Bummer Bliss Radio 

as always there will be live chat during the show

Sexed-Up Hexed-Out Vice-Riddled Foul-Mouthed Synthetic-Driven Dirty Beats for
Pricey-Ass Prick-Teasing Tit-Tweaking Boot-Licking Finger-Frigging Lip-Smacking Mother-Fucking 
Ball-Busting Witch-Kraftwerkin' Tragic Magic 8-Ballin' Bad Behavior and Goddamn Better Times 

Featuring exclusive mixes from powwowW, Veil of Thorns, △Aimon, and ▲|▼|▲ 

As well as the aural fixations of:

M.A.N.I.C. + Minty + a;GRUMH + Miss Prada + Princess Tinymeat + Three Spaces + Din 
Jer Ber Jones + Nancy Fortune + Mondkopf + Mater Suspiria Vision + Kaos Sigil + Nattymari
Ethyl Meatplow + Monotrona + Wiseblood + BLΛCK RΛ!NB0VV + GVCCI HVCCI
_______________________________________

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Movie Sunday Holiday Edition


Penniless and withdrawing from opiates, Danny emerges from a 72-hour stay in a police holding cell. Hoping to make enough money to buy his next hit of heroin, he scours the streets looking for something to steal. After an unsuccessful attempt to break into a parked car, he discovers an unattended suitcase sitting in a doorway. He makes off with the case and takes it to an abandoned park to examine its contents. There he finds that the case contains two severed human legs. Disgusted, he discards the legs and tries to find a buyer for the suitcase. He finds a buyer who gives him three dollars but also informs him that the local heroin dealer has been arrested.




The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb was made using a combination of stop-motion animation and pixilation (live actors posed and shot frame-by-frame), often with live actors and puppets sharing the frame.
A boy born the size of a small doll is kidnapped by a genetic lab and must find a way back to his father in this inventive adventure filmed using stop motion animation techniques. Tom meets a variety of strange creatures and eventually discovers a race of miniature humans like himself. 




Sado-Claus iz kumming for the profoundly naughty...
Video by Ferenc Teglas and P. Emerson Williams
Musick by Thee Ex-KarollerzSado-Claus iz kumming for the profoundly naughty... Video by Ferenc Teglas and P. Emerson Williams Musick by Thee Ex-Karollerz


Saturday, December 3, 2011

A Fine Elucidation of the Mythosphere: The Mindscape of Alan Moore



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.

Agape,

P. Emerson Williams

Friday, December 2, 2011

damage’s razor coated candies 02


This is a very cool idea, a "mixtape" created as a playlist of videos. This edition includes the Veil of Thorns track De Lege Motus, from the album Vampire Wars.



Hello, joyful readers looking for new music. The second etape of razor coated candies is out, which is a weekly edition of 21 tracks ranging from black to another shade of black (and very intense, rumbling, bass- and melody-heavy and otherwise quite enjoyable inbetween). There is a huge mixture of genres, last week’s RCC meandered from darkpop through cabaret and ambient to electrohouse, this week’s edition might be a bit more influenced by gothic, but I wouldn’t be so sure. Be prepared – every Thursday brings you a new edition (something Miss @Toyclouds called endre kabátolt cukorkák which sent bits of our brain Sputnikwards), share this Dragontape package if you need some weekly recommendation into the blissful waves beyond the mainstream maya.

---

DAMAGE'S RAZOR COATED CANDIES #02
(01:28:16)

---

1. Strength Through Music - "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" Video Series: Part 6 (03:50)
2. Gimme Sympathy [Official Music Video] - METRIC (03:48)
3. Cruel Black Dove - Forgotten Place (video edit) (03:06)
4. Ladytron - Destroy everything you touch HQ (03:58)
5. IAMX - Ghosts of Utopia (Official music video) (03:45)
6. The Vanishing - Lovesick (04:17)
7. The Horrors - Sea Within A Sea [HQ] (08:24)
8. Regina Spektor - "Us" [OFFICIAL video] (04:01)
9. IKON - A Line on a Dark Day (04:04)
10. Good Charlotte Keep Your Hands Off My Girl (03:28)
11. GR†LLGR†LL...I'm gonna dress in black/THEM (03:45)
12. Interpol - Lights directed by Mr. Charlie White (official video) (05:12)
13. Pulp - Do You Remember The First Time (Promo) (03:49)
14. Filthy Dukes - This Rhythm (03:47)
15. Veil of Thorns - De Lege Motus (05:30)
16. yelworC - Blood in face (LIVE in BERLIN 2008) (05:30)
17. Hecq Vs Exillion ''Spheres Of Fury'' (04:06)
18. Alec Empire - New World Order (03:37)
19. The Creatures - Godzilla (03:37)
20. Sleep Chamber - ISIS (promo video) (05:01)
21. The Last Beat of My Heart (04:34)


---

Created by damage (Fri Mar 11 15:36:19 UTC 2011)

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Crowdsourcing the Mythosphere - Modern Mythology - let's Each MAke Our Own Damn Kvlt!


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.]



Saturday, November 26, 2011

Satan's Tastemakers Episode 5


Satan's Tastemakers is dedicated to netlabels, free music, crowd funded and sourced and Creative Commons releases. Co-hosts P. Emerson Williams and TheeBradMiller socialize, wine and dine and indentify the most prolific and interesting free music outlets on the web to offer you info on the best in free music, and seek to unearth artists and labels who have found new methods for music distribution in a fertile digital media landscape.

P2P, copying and sharing is the devil's work, so therefore, we are Satan's Tastemakers!

In this era of Disney's infinite copyright, when public domain films can be pulled out again and people who should be charged with finding terrorists are raiding file sharers, it's time to let the mainstream industry wall itself off and avail oneself of the bounty offered by artists and labels who are operating in the current reality and not the previous. Spettro Records are a true collective with a well thought out philosophy and manifesto. They are more an exploration than a way to grab attention. The work they present encompasses sonic experiments along with photography, drawing and painting. Ankst are an established band in their chosen genre who decided that the art is the reason they're doing it and therefore all their art is free. We get a privileged look into their palacial facilities, but not a tour of the extensive grounds this time...

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

SALON APOCALYPSE:

"Secret Theater"

by Hakim Bey


As long as no Stalin breathes down our necks, why not make some art in the service of... an insurrection?

Never mind if it's "impossible." What else can we hope to attain but the "impossible"? Should we wait for someone else to reveal our true desires?

If art has died, or the audience has withered away, then we find ourselves free of two dead weights. Potentially, everyone is now some kind of artist -- & potentially every audience has regained its innocence, its ability to become the art that it experiences.

Provided we can escape from the museums we carry around inside us, provided we can stop selling ourselves tickets to the galleries in our own skulls, we can begin to contemplate an art which re-creates the goal of the sorcerer: changing the structure of reality by the manipulation of living symbols (in this case, the images we've been "given" by the organizers of this salon -- murder, war, famine, & greed).

We might now contemplate aesthetic actions which possess some of the resonance of terrorism (or "cruelty," as Artaud put it) aimed at the destruction of abstractions rather than people, at liberation rather than power, pleasure rather than profit, joy rather than fear. "Poetic Terrorism."

Our chosen images have the potency of darkness -- but all images are masks, & behind these masks lie energies we can turn toward light & pleasure.

For example, the man who invented aikido was a samurai who became a pacifist & refused to fight for Japanese imperialism. He became a hermit, lived on a mountain sitting under a tree.

One day a former fellow-officer came to visit him & accused him of betrayal, cowardice, etc. The hermit said nothing, but kept on sitting -- & the officer fell into a rage, drew his sword, & struck. Spontaneously the unarmed master disarmed the officer & returned his sword. Again & again the officer tried to kill, using every subtle kata in his repertoire -- but out of his empty mind the hermit each time invented a new way to disarm him.

The officer of course became his first disciple. Later, they learned how to dodge bullets.

We might contemplate some form of metadrama meant to capture a taste of this performance, which gave rise to a wholly new art, a totally non-violent way of fighting -- war without murder, "the sword of life" rather than death.

A conspiracy of artists, anonymous as any mad bombers, but aimed toward an act of gratuitous generosity rather than violence -- at the millennium rather than the apocalypse -- or rather, aimed at a present moment of aesthetic shock in the service of realization & liberation.

Art tells gorgeous lies that come true.

Is it possible to create a SECRET THEATER in which both artist & audience have completely disappeared -- only to re-appear on another plane, where life & art have become the same thing, the pure giving of gifts?

We take Kirkegaard's "leap of faith," but absent the old existentialist's Fear & Trembling & Sickness unto death. Our leap of faith into sorcery & secret theater is more like a wet dream than a nightmare, "awe-full", not awful.

We name our peerage of this new plane The Seven Dramaturgs. But no Peer Panel here, please. We prefer, like Jacob, to wrestle with our angels, & if our tussling turns amorous, all the better. Let the games begin. The Seven Dramaturgs show us that the universe wants, more than that, intends to play with us. We can be pawns or partners in this intention of The Seven Dramaturgs.

In Sufiism there is a belief in The Forty Guardians who protect & keep mankind from destroying itself. What's interesting is, these Guardians are human, but they remain completely unknown & are constantly in flux. Anyone in the world could be one of The Forty at a present moment, including oneself. Of course you would never know if you had been one of The Forty -- they remain anonymous even to themselves. That is why Sufiism calls for you to bow your head whenever you meet a stranger -- he could be one of The Forty Guardians.

Do we lead or follow The Seven Dramaturgs in their sorcery & secret theater? Ali Baba is merely one of The Forty Thieves -- each of The Forty Thieves is Ali Baba. The text does not begin or end here -- the pencil is passed like a baton amongst The Seven Dramaturgs. The universe is still being written.



Monday, April 27, 2009

Corrode and Engulf - Cognitive Dissonance VI - Final Chapter




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.

Individual Files

Movie FilesMPEG4Ogg Video512Kb MPEG4

189 MB183 MB183 MB

Friday, April 3, 2009

Cognitive Dissonance Transmission IV




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.





Agape,



-333
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