BALEYYG interview by TheeBradMiller

BALEYYG (aka Nic Le Ban) is the performing name for a reclusive avant-garde, accomplished guitarist and frequent Jarboe collaborator. While BALEYYG’s (pronounced BAAL’YEH’GAH) discography provides an eclectic mix of styles (check out the heavy guitar work on Jarboe’s “Stream Enterer” series and then listen to the more folk/avant garde style on “Knight Of Swords / The Beggar”) his new material promises to go further into the darkness exploring “Death/Doom Metal” and “Dark Ambient Soundscapes”. A self professed “iconoclast, creative NON conformist, and free-thinking recluse” has kept BALEYYG out of the mainstream public eye. And as one read over his rants on his MySpace page it is obvious that fame does not elude BALEYYG, but rather he eludes fame. While his discography is significant, and being a collaborator with Jarboe certainly shines on his credentials, BALEYYG has not done that many interviews. Never afraid to share his opinion BALEYYG has chosen to share details on his own terms through his own writing (again see his MySpace page). This is the first interview of it’s kind with the reclusive BALEYYG. Included with this interview are 3 recordings from the NEX REGIT MAGUS recording sessions in 2007.

According to BALEYYG, “… all are raw ideas that led to several other songs on the NEX REGIT MAGUS release. All of my recorded work, even the tracks I do with Jarboe, start from rough general ideas I explore when recording my riffing and then proceed from there. Along the way, there are always some intriguing ideas that get tossed for one reason or another, so its always interesting revisit them.”

TheeBradMiller: According to your blog the name BALEYYG was chosen through your mystical studies with the old Norse traditions of Odinism. You describe yourself as “mystical” but certainly not “religious”. Is it possible to describe how your beliefs/practices channel themselves through your musick.

BALEYYG: Mystical… in truth I had no idea what BALEYYG was when I first encountered it and experienced it. I thought it was connected with a certain meditative path I was following at the time. I asked a master in that path about the experience I had, and he told me that it was unrelated and that its significance would reveal itself to me years later. He was right. The musical aspect is harder to describe. Jarboe describes me as a channeler on stage for the kind of energy I evoke live. So if I am gifted with something musically, then now you know it’s true source. I’m not an expert on Odinism, it found me, not the other way around. I take that as an ancestral message since I have Viking blood. Beyond that, I know that religions are false in general, so whatever I experience mystically is something which is very alive, its energy animates me, it is not dead, mythological, or based upon a set of beliefs.

TheeBradMiller: Yet I see subtle references to Buddhism, to the teaching of Crowley(Thelema), and to Kabbalah in some of your writings. How do these energy manifest themselves in the creative process?

BALEYYG: All of those paths, as unlikely as one might believe, have common sources in the distant past. Those who study mystical ideas often are not aware of the fact that mysticism is not an existentialist experience, it is a natural aspect of being human which arises from the unknown ocean of the human psyche. The other half of the mind unused by the veneer of consciousness we call the consensus reality. Musically and creatively the great unknown speaks through the lens of the psyche, so using techniques in meditation one may open doorways into the psyche, and even to travel within that world as it reveals itself over time.

TheeBradMiller: You worked as a collaborator with Jarboe on many releases. Did you practice these techniques in meditation with her as part of the process? Or, perhaps a better question, how does your musick continue its mystical element in collaboration with such a powerful artist?

BALEYYG: No. Jarboe follows her own path. Jarboe and I share a common ground creatively, although we are two very different people. My mystical self is not separate from another facet of my self. So what I’m doing creatively is a natural element of my daily life.

TheeBradMiller: You participated on two of my favorite Jarboe releases… The amazing “Conduit” and the double release “Knight Of Swords/The Beggar”. Tell me about the recording process with these two releases. How did you and Jarboe tackle the writing duties for the recordings, and then transfer those ideas into what are such personal recordings.

BALEYYG: Both of those releases were fraught with some difficulties. “The Conduit” was the first work Jarboe and I ever did together. We argued a lot about the songs on “The Conduit”. I wanted it to be more guitar driven, but that was not what “The Conduit” was about. After recording “The Conduit” I wanted to do a second “Conduit” style album, somewhat ambient in nature, and we did that with “Knight of Swords”. The other half of that second release, called “The Beggar”, is unfortunately incomplete! The wrong CD master was sent to Vivo Records in Poland, and this mistake was not found until it was too late unfortunately. The original was heavier from an acoustic perspective.

TheeBradMiller: Last Jarboe question… I know you are involved with The Sweet Meat Love And Holy Cult, is there going to be a full length release by this line up, and will be you be recording with Jarboe again in the future?

BALEYYG: There is a full length already mostly in the can as I write this. It will be coming out as an indie label release probably next year. Jarboe and I are already working on a few secret projects together. The interesting thing about our creative work together, and also that which continues to inspire me as much as it scares the hell out of me, is the intensity of the music created and that vibe that you’re not always sure what’s about to happen next.

TheeBradMiller: Let’s move into more current territory. Starting with the Black Metal band Ophidian Forest. You were a member of Ophidian Forest earlier this year for – a week? What happened?

BALEYYG: Ahh Ophidian Forest… great band, possibly existing as Ophidian as a pseudonym… very cool guys, great music, but mostly great orchestrations. I really liked how they were putting the pieces together in their music. I have known their guitarist/bassist for a few years online through correspondence. We have very similar views and a nearly identical sense of humor. I wound up working with that band for a month or more on some recordings they needed some help finishing. Some of the orchestrations were fairly complex, with multiple odd timings and difficult changes. I enjoyed working with all of them, but eventually had a disconnect with the drummer (located in the Bay Area) regarding his (or a friends idea) of categorizing the music in a way that seemed silly and immature to me. I avoid that sort of thing, so that was where I parted ways with them.

TheeBradMiller: Will any of that material see the light of day as a BALEYYG track?

BALEYYG: There were a few epic riffs in all of that material that I will probably use again. They are my guitar parts, I wrote them, so why not?

TheeBradMiller: One track that has been out there is the multi-layered “Vekke”. It was up for a long while on MySpace… then vanished. I would describe it as a drone piece, all though that is a way over simplification. Can you tell me about the track “Vekke”? What inspired it? What is at its root?

BALEYYG: “Vekke” is something that came out of nowhere at the end of the summer of 2007. I was working on material for Jarboe’s Mahakali album, which I wandered away from later, yet around this time this song sort of dropped out of nowhere. It began with some leftovers of other tracks that I put together and remixed into a kind of “wall of sound” idea. There are several meanings for “wall of sound” – I’m not talking about a wall of speaker cabs – that’s something else. There is a kind of ambient “wall of sound” idea where you have multiple layers of music and other sounds happening all at once, and the more one listens, the deeper one can go into that mix of sound by following and tuning their ears into those sounds. So there is world within “Vekke” that may be overlooked by some people, yet many people get it and tell me what they find in there. If you listen very closely there is an entirely different song buried in the far background of “Vekke”. I used that same technique for a dark ambient-industrial Kenji Siratori collaboration that has yet to be released.

TheeBradMiller: From previous conversations I know that at one time “Vekke” was going to be part of a CD of demo’s and unreleased recordings. Then possibly a of a 7 inch single….? But the track seems to grow continually. Where do you see it ending up at this point?

BALEYYG: I’m not really sure. I like the fact that on the surface it seems like just noise, and then when one actually listens to it, there is an entire world hidden within there. I want to do an entire CD like that. I think it would be cool. maybe “Vekke” would be a part of that, or like an intro to something that has that kind of strangeness going on within it. Some days I feel like the David Lynch of soundscape art. I’m not going for a Lynch sound like the soundtracks to his films, but internally from a psychological point of view, I feel like I have this weird eternal bender going on within me. It’s like your the guy at the party that has had too much vodka, and you are having too much fun to stop, and you are riding that great creative wave, and there are a few people there who see that and recognize that and they are riding that wave with you, and I guess that’s what makes it all worthwhile for me.

TheeBradMiller: I believe “Vekke” is a name (possible Scandinavian in origin?). Why the title “Vekke”?

BALEYYG: Vekke is Norwegian for “awaken”. It comes from the old Norse word vaka, which means to be awake. In the way that I use the word, its like a “will to power” for a personal inner awakening. For me that was the awakening into my ancestral Scandinavian heritage. The word came to me before I knew what it meant, which is sort of an interesting mystical story. When I learned what it meant, it fit the music.

TheeBradMiller: You mentioned Kenji Siratori. There has been mention on your MySpace page of a future release titled BALEYYG vs Kenji Siratori. Will that release be along the style of “Vekke”?

BALEYYG: The material I did for Kenji is psychologically dark. After Kenji heard what I did with his spoken word recordings, he was very enthusiastic about it and began working with an Italian film-maker on a film put to the music. So the plan is to release it as a CD+DVD package. That project is out of my hands and still under development at this time. I’m really looking forward to seeing it finished! The material I did for it sounds like science-fiction horror music. Somewhat intense and also epic.

TheeBradMiller: Would a live performance include some of these more soundscape style pieces?

BALEYYG: I think so. A lot of the BALEYYG material is conceptual music. The material I did for Kenji Siratori would be difficult and interesting to do live, although I hadn’t thought of that. The wall of sound idea going within “Vekke” is based upon intense drums. So the challenge is not necessarily if it can be done live, but in actually finding people who are creatively talented and broad-minded enough to take something like that on and pull it off well live. The idea that all talented musicians think the same is a myth. There are many talented musicians out there who have no clue what it takes to be a serious sound architect.

TheeBradMiller: Is there a line up forming for BALEYYG the “band”, and would it include anybody you have worked with in the past?

BALEYYG: There have already been 2 “formative” lineups for BALEYYG as a band. All of those people were very talented in their own ways. There is a certain kind of focused energy that I’m looking for in a formation of BALEYYG and that has yet to complete itself. So in a way, the only way to answer this question is to say that there is always a BALEYYG lineup emerging… it’s in a state of becoming so to speak. The current direction will likely sort itself out after all of these recordings are finished. There may be a familiar face or two in the lineup… we’ll see.

TheeBradMiller: Your blog states that BALEYYG “began as a conceptual creative space of guitar black death doom devastation’s” – but with the various styles that you have already recorded with Jarboe, then the Soundscape stuff that you have done on your own and with Kenji Siratori. What can we expect from the first official BALEYYG release.

BALEYYG: A mix of Doom/Death Metal and avant-garde music styles. This release is long overdue. Most people do not have a clear idea of what BALEYYG is as a “sound” yet. The development of the material has been uniquely unplanned, meaning that I have let the material direct itself toward it’s natural inclination. The heavier epic sound is what birthed this idea in the beginning, so its like watching a circle completing itself now. I’m excited to see what the reaction is going to be like from people, but I’m even more excited to get this music on the road as soon as possible. If feels like I’m shedding a layer of dead skin.

TheeBradMiller: Tell me about NEX REGIT MAGUS. Where does that stand in the recording process? When will it be released?

BALEYYG: That’s the difficult question now. Initially it was merely going to be a release of material and stranger chaotic guitar recordings that I have had laying around for a while. The majority of that material dates back to 2007. Some of it came out of live experiments with sound as I was exploring ideas for an album idea with Jarboe. I rediscovered that material recently and was sort of blown away with the raw chaotic energy there. So I want to release it…. yet I also have all of these new ideas that I want to release, as more formal and structured music. So NEX REGIT MAGUS may have to wait a while. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all of that material. All of those pieces are like exercises and theoretical ideas I was putting together, so perhaps the idea of including it as a second CD in a digipak might be better. I think it might freak people out to see how those ideas are born. It’s an interesting and somewhat mysterious corner of my operational creative ethos.

BALEYYG Myspace

BALEYYG – NEX REGIT MAGUS sounds
]]> http://www.alterati.com/blog/2009/07/revolt-against-the-superficial-world-a-mystical-creative-ethos/feed/ 0 http://www.alterati.com/blog/2009/05/sfai/ http://www.alterati.com/blog/2009/05/sfai/#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 23:48:18 +0000 Joseph Matheny http://www.alterati.com/blog/?p=2248

Grindhouseland is a movie blog that spits on your taste, bringing only movies with copious amounts of blood, bikers, zombies, tits, afros, acid, Ice Pirates and / or Carradines. For those interested in the roots of the genre film and the paracinema renaissance (as typified by the films of Quentin Tarantino, Rob Zombie, Robert Rodriguez, Eli Roth, John Woo and Luc Besson, to name only a few) check out Grindhouseland.

Created by Deacon Blues, a prolific blogger and Steely Dan fan, Grindhouseland is a nuanced but mercifully brief review site for what could kindly be called “budget” films. Known as exploitation, drive-in, cult, psychotronic, or grindhouse movies to aficionados, the films range from the sublimely gripping (Escape From New York or The Wild Angels) to the dreadfully stupid (Race With The Devil and Ice Pirates).

Blues’s talent lies in knowing his medium. A long-time fan of paracinema (the industry term for movies that are never going to be in Oscar consideration) Blues cut his teeth on Troma and $1 Vestron videos while still in middle school. “Many moons ago, even the worst mom and pops had great stuff on video from the home video explosion in the early 80s.” Blues explains. “I used to get gems like Die! Die! My Darling! or pure schlock like Rocktober Blood.” referencing a Tallulah Bankhead psycho-biddy classic and a heavy metal slasher film, respectively. “The first rated R film I saw in the theater was Pulp Fiction which pretty much sealed the deal.”

Grindhouseland is updated at a prolific clip, with Blues putting as many as five new reviews up per day. The back catalog is worth poking around, and the in-review links are often pedestrian, merely linking to the relevant IMDB article, but can be laugh out loud funny, such as when the phrase “the last beautiful, free soul on this planet” directs the reader to Axl Rose’s wikipedia entry. This is one movie blog that’s definitely worth putting in the RSS feed.

John Wisniewski interviews Frater Urbain, member of the infamous Conspirators of the Occult.Conspirators composed music for Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising. Has Ken heard the music?

I was watching Invocation of my Demon Brother while working on the Piece Metatron and noticed the pacing was the same. We found by accident that almost all of Angers footage would easily sync with our music with practically no editing. So we put a few shorts together for our own entertainment. later we decided to share a couple with anyone who may be interested. lucifer rising is one of everyone’s favorite films so we scored the whole film for our own pleasure.

There is a lot more footage around the Estate that will probably never be seen. We also have quite a bit of Nosferatu scored but lost interest when we realized how many times it had been done before. We try not to go to the well too many times when it comes to Anger’s films, although it’s tempting. I’m pretty sure it’s far from public domain and we wouldn’t want to disrespect anyone’s work.

Anyone who enjoys his work should check out a remastered box set of his films recently released by fantomas films. I am not sure if anger has any knowledge of it but I would hope he would at least not be annoyed. He is a great artist and it is done out of deep respect. Anger’s work and lectures introduced me to the virtue of Crowley’s knowledge. We try to share and show tribute to the great artist that have shaped us. There is a lot of media out there cluttering things up. Some of that clutter should at least be valid entertainment.

When did Conspirators get together and was there a mutual interest in occult films, and soundtrack music?

The CotO have intersected and revolved around each others lives for a long time. Even though all are very different. There are enough common interest to pull everyone together for what the CotO consider worthwhile projects. Not to say it’s easy. So many conflicts of opinion exist in every aspect including theology, occult, religion and general attitude, but everyone involved enjoys the creative process. Getting almost everyone’s input into a solid comprehensible state can be a severely daunting task similar to gift-wrapping chaos. Everyone has an agenda and hardly anyone agrees on the same thing at the same time. When it comes to reference and symbolism there is always heavy conflict, Some Conspirators are quite dark and this can conflict with the goals of the slightly more benevolent members.

The bottom line is always to achieve what we consider an interesting quality piece of work. If someone is introduced to anything new, it is a welcomed, but not a necessary by-product. The only thing the CotO can discuss without a severe argument is music and film. Everyone can find a middleground on those subjects. For the most part we all may not respect the same artist but collectively share a dislike of a few enough to rally mutual opposition.

Are there any plans to score a feature film?

That would definitely be a something that we would be highly interested in right now all focus is on the DEADBEAT MEDIA cd. The material has been there for quite a while but we had to start from scratch a couple of times due to a few major mishaps. We’re now in the final mastering stage and the material has come a long way from the demos that are accessible online

Who are some of your influences‌?

Our influences change almost by the hour but the main core of the CotO project obviously has been influenced by cult and occult films, and artist like Black Sabbath, Jodorowsky, Lovecraft, Goblin, Jacula, Kenneth Anger, Grant Morrison, Crowley, Gurdjieff, some 70′s prog and 90′s thrash/hardcore and of course composers like Morricone, Bernard Herrman, Jerry Goldsmith, Kilar, Fabio Frizzi. We also enjoy people considered intellectual rebels like Tesla or people who seem to be almost supernaturally controversial like Rasputin or Carlo Gesualdo or Joris Huysman. It really opens a pandoras referencing our influences ,but that is the short list. Personally very early influences were local horror host and movies.

The music in those old Hammer and Amicus films always caught my ear especially the Theremin but at the time I didn’t know there was such a thing as soundtrack albums. I went on to discover bands like Sabbath, Pink Floyd ,Zappa and Beefheart and films like the Exorcist and the Omen and of course later I would find heavier sounds and more extreme cinema. I also developed a deeper understanding of the references made in the films I had been watching since childhood. Suddenly the Devil Rides Out and other similar films were enjoyable on a new level.

Gnosticism and occult study is a pretty obvious theme in the CotO. The whole project is a sort of hypersigil. Not necessarily like Grant Morrisson’s the Invisibles but similar. When you mix the Conspirators particular talents you achieve a form of if not chaos magick then at least chaotic magick.

Your true identities are kept secret‌ Does this add to the mystery and mystique of the group?

This project and anyone it would appeal to have no interest in seeing yet another person posing languidly or wildly with an instrument. That sort of thing has it’s place, but it has never been necessary or appropriate for the CotO. We are very open in our personal correspondence. But the CotO is a different situation where all is welcome with the exception of politics and posturing. I honestly have never given any thought to whether or not there would be a mystique involved. Things are developing somewhat naturally. As far as the world knows we are a very new entity and not exactly high profile .

It’s not an ongoing mystery situation like the Residents. Josef is Josef and Urbain is Urbain . Whatever else you choose to believe is up to the individual. I hope the music speaks well enough for itself. That is who we are. I am sure most musicians or artist of any type can relate to that. So much time and genuine effort goes into a creation. If you keep giving it your energy it can become an entity to itself fueled by that energy. The CotO is a hypersigil. The sights, the sounds, the written words are all to entertain yet also exist on another level. There is no real truth in an identity. Beings are not what they or others perceive them to be.

What do the members do when they are not composing?

I can’t speak for anyone else the Conspirators of the Occult are an eclectic group of artist that occasionally unite to create. When you factor in internet collaborations it would be hard, even strange to keep up with every ones habits. It is a rare occasion when I am not working on music or the tools used to create it. Writing and performing music is enjoyable and comes easy. It isn’t a quick process but it feels that way. If I stay at it in 8 to 12 hours I can have a decent demo of a tune. With all instruments, orchestration and some samples. All the problem solving and creating that goes into composing doesn’t bother me in the least. I’ll do this daily for a short period. During that time there is little time for anything else and even sleep is invaded with work. When the well begins to echo I take a break and pursue whatever esoteric thing that can distract me. Then the production end begins, which can be frustrating. Engineering and troubleshooting whatever devices you use come into play. Of course there are usually technical and financial limitations that are involved with self contained and underground projects.
For those of us who may not be familiar with the film Haxan could you tell us about the film and your use of the film to accompany your music?

Haxan is an extremely entertaining documentary / film by Benjamin Christensen that has surfaced in several incarnations. The most bizarre version is Witchcraft through the Ages. I would see photos and snippets of footage once in a while of this devil flipping his tongue around behind a pulpit. It was obviously old footage but the make up effects were very impressive. I did some searching and found an old vhs of Haxan. I thought this film was about as impressive as it could get until I discovered a version with William S. Burroughs narrating and Jean Luc Ponty on the soundtrack. I seriously suspected I was hallucinating. I couldn’t believe these worlds were merging in such great way. In hindsight this version of the film may have had a larger impact on me than I have realized.

There have been many soundtracks to Haxan. But mixing Jazz ,Burroughs and Esoteric lore took this film to a new level of artistic expression. The footage in Haxan is far to wonderful to ignore. We have used it several times. Bethlehelle used it with the composition Fight of the Gimps and Project Urbain has used some of it’s footage for the Loudin Louviers Incident, Mixed with several other films from the Nunsploitation genre. Jodorowsky’s El Topo and Holy Mountain. Ken Russels the Devils, the works of Kenneth Anger and Haxan all have been a huge influence on the style of the CotO. As much as any text we have encountered. It may seem at odds but the influence of Gurdjieff and Crowely are very present at all times also. They led conflicting lives but if you listen to both with an open mind. You can learn quite a bit. Crowley is overexposed and sensationalized, but still very important. He seems to be the gateway magus for most people.

We find inspiration in more modern forms of text also. The Filth and the Invisibles by Grant Morrison are graphic novels that have a huge impact. Alan Moore and Neil Gaima the art of Berni Wrightson and frank frazetta all of these things are amazing. If we’re touching on influence You can’t leave out people like Robert Anton Wilson, David lynch, and Marshall MCluhan either. I have been avoiding going to deep into the Musical influences because it becomes very involved.

Maybe you name just a few musical influences for us and perhaps give us an idea of how you select images to compliment the music‌.

Not everything that has influenced us can be heard directly in the music. Capt Beefheart is a huge inspiration but you would never listen to the CotO and think “that sounds like the Magic Band”. The same goes for Les Baxter who is mostly known for dreamy lounge, but he has done some good horror soundtracks also. His score to the Dunwich Horror is great. We love 70′s fusion and prog rock bands like Return to Forever, the Mahavishnu orchestra, Le Orme, Museo Rosenbach and Cherry Five which is an early incarnation of Goblin.

That brings up the whole soundtrack influence. I remember when I was a kid watching horror films I thought some of this music doesn’t seem to fit. I was used to the James Bernard, Morricone and Bernard Herrmann school of sound. But later I came to really love the music of Goblin, Rizzati, Giombini and Ortaloni who has done some amazing western scores and of course the great Fabio Frizzi. The way they would use a Mellotron, Synth and the great bass tones in those eerie rock fusion compositions is a really special thing. They really stand on their own. Claudio Simonetti proves it with Daemonia which plays the Goblin material with a somewhat harder edge.

We are obviously into heavier sounds Black Sabbath, Deicide, Slayer, Black Flag and bands considered classic rock like Pink Floyd and Deep Purple. Jacula and Coven are very good occult rock bands. Jacula is really an amazing experience a great atmospheric ride. On the experimental side the Residents, Einsturzen Neubauten and Luigi Russolo have pretty much already covered most anything we think of. There is a mutated element of black metal in some of our compositions also but the classic horror theme is the king in our world. Carpenter , Goldsmith, Herrmann, Komeda. They have created sounds that are instantly recognized as much as any classical piece or product jingle. You can hear two notes and instantly have an emotional reaction. Jaws being the most obvious example. The soundtrack to Halloween really set in stone what a good horror soundtrack can do to help a film or even a character in the film. The symbiotic relationship between music and film is really interesting. Tubular Bells gives people chills but without the context of the Exorcist it really wouldn’t have the same effect. Ave Satana from the Omen on the other hand is a powerful dark piece. Intimidating on it’s own. Goldsmith really captures the reality where the films characters exist. I can listen to the Planet of the Apes music and really get a feel for the story. The good composers seem to have a special empathy for the films. You can really feel the melancholy and disorientation of Rosemary when you hear Lullaby. Komeda really hit the nail on the head with that tune.

The CotO images have a place of their own. We get positive and negative responses concerning them. People miss or misunderstand some of the symbolism. If you take the images at face value they should appeal to a fan of gothic horror and underground cinema. You can also recognize a few important esoteric figures. looking deeper is not necessary but could kill some time if you’re bored. We get positive and negative responses about the samples also. Some find them intrusive others think they make the song. To us they are just part of the composition. I like it when a band uses soundbytes. Jacula, Venom ,Pink Floyd and Skinny Puppy have used spoken word and samples for a while. I think it really adds to the experience.

“The life of an independent director is not an easy one. You can be led astray by the glitz and glam fantasy, thinking your pot of gold is just one more blowjob or can of tuna away. Even when it is, chances are you’ll be so fucked out of your gourd you won’t even realize it. The truth is generally pretty disgusting, and not in the way that’ll likely get you hard. (Well, except for Stanko.)

Case in point: Slash would often get so drunk that he’d piss himself in his sleep. When he’d pass out, they’d often drag him into the garage and toss him on a mattress that was to be used for this express purpose. (I wonder if that mattress ever got sold on eBay?) There are also legends of him puking mid solo during the Appetite sessions. Think that’s cool? You’re not the one who had to clean off his Les Paul afterwards. You see my point: the myth often outstrips the reality, even if reality is far too weird to have been invented.

Let me share just a couple of the unpleasant and simply weird experiences that I’ve endured during my spectacular ascent to complete debauchery and general obscurity: (READ ON POPPORN.COM)

Joseph Matheny talks to Matt Kelland of Moviestorm about the art form of Machinima and Matt’s company Moviestorm, which produces free software to produce your own Machinima movies. Music by Coldcut and The Rolling Stones.

Moviestorm/machinima links:

Main moviestorm site: http://moviestorm.net/

Development blog: http://moviestorm.blogspot.com/

Main blog: http://www.moviestormblog.com/

My blog: http://mattkelland.blogspot.com/

Machinima for Dummies: http://www.machinimafordummies.com/

Other machinima sites:
http://www.machiniplex.net/ – selection of best movies in high quality
http://www.machinima.com/ – largest machinima site
http://www.mprem.com/e107/news.php – machinima news
http://www.archive.org/details/machinima – Internet archive machinima
collection

http://www.tmunderground.com/index.php – mostly The Movies
machinima, also Moviestorm, Antics3D and iClone
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/community/machinima/movies.shtml – World ofWarcraft machinima
http://www.sims99.com/ – Sims / Sims2 machinima
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Machinima – making machinima in Second Life
http://flightsimmachinima.montydan.com/ – flight sim machinima
http://www.machinifeed.com/ – machinima-focused RSS feed

Books:
Machinima (Kelland, Morris, Lloyd)
http://www.amazon.com/Machinima-Dave-Morris/dp/1592006507
Machinima for Dummies (Hancock, Ingram) http://www.amazon.com/Machinima-
Dummies-Computer-Tech/dp/0470096918/
Machinima Artistry (Marino)
http://www.amazon.com/3D-Game-Based-Filmmaking-Machinima-CD-ROM/dp/1932111859/

Infictive.com Scholar Mystery X avoids all discussion of his previous album Blame Anonymous and instead we discuss the on-going entheogenic research being conducted by members of the Journal of Infictive Research.

We discuss at length the origin, form, function, and intent behind the largest Wik your path to ADVENTURE on the internet.

We close with out-takes from the Blame Anonymous album that have until now not been heard.

Buy a CD of the Mystery X Album.

Benauwd, 2008 by Jasper van Es

Benauwd from Jasper van Es on Vimeo.

Yr. faithful Editor-at-Large here…

I have been somewhat 404′d meownself, and been absurdly busy helping out other bloggers get their boots on the ground. But I’m pleased to report that there’s a lot of great content lined-up for the rest of fall and through the winter, including some as-yet-unposted new segments I’m not at liberty to discuss.

Lets start with something insane:

  Las Vegas crime rampage ends in suicide.

Get Yr Guns

That’s right, everyone’s packing heat these days. Of course, the mainstream news cycle is a-buzz over Obama’s massive boost to gun and ammo sales. I think Klintron is at least partly to blame. Check out Lone No More: a look at alternative gun culture by Klint Finley over on Technoccult.

L.A. is on FIRE!

For five straight days LA has been on FIRE! Washington Floods, LANDSLIDES EXPECTED!! Panicky headlines KICK ASS! Mostly I’m just linking to this so I have an excuse to use this awesome photo of devastation over there on the left. Looks a lot like scenes from the film Hellblazer. There’s another great picture on the right, of part of the city on fire. As a side note, I’ve spent a day and a half trying to hum Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll, until I realized how bad the vocals sucked. Listen for yourself – it sucks more than you remember (well, okay, the guitar solo’s impressive).

Another Foot Found!

Here, I’ll just paste the original post to Metafilter since it’s more succinct and already available:

Remember those pesky left feet that kept washing up on Canada’s West Coast? One of their counterparts finally showed up. The plot thickens with the knowledge that The Sixth Foot was a hoax…

There’s a map here of where the feet have been found…

The Chris Titan Show

Friend of Alterati Chris Titan has a podcast. Bonus points if you can figure out what, exactly, Chris is on about–seriously wild and confusing foray into the infictive world that lies just this side of meaningless. Dangerously infictive and not for the muggles among us.

Change Belief?

Already critics are calling this
‘way better than Lonelygirl’.

So getting back to the earth, I’ve been thinking about this statement a lot… it’s a paraphrase of something Kevin Hogan writes about in Covert Persuasion, and he says it is possible to use up a target’s resources for resistance to a message, and that the real goal of effective marketing is a couple root strategies to soften up the mind a bit. Pretty powerful shit, and you know they were doing it on both sides. HOWEVER, Obama took the ground-up evolving, ultimately exponentially doubling strategy while McCain tried the oldschool top-down push and the ground-work never came through… the massive grassroots democratizing mind virus of Obama has its own agenda though.

I present for you these two links, Is Barack Obama the Messiah? and a clip from
Dave Chappelle.

A Lot of Hot Air

A lot of hot air is being blown about in the media:
Over at National Journal you can track all the political punditry that’s spilling out. A lot of hot air, because, frankly, the last two years of constant politicking has produced an overabundance of political bloggers who’re going to turn on themselves when they realize their audience share is dwindling. (suckers)

Here’s a clip of Joe Scarborough dropping an f-bomb live without realizing he’s done so…

Hijacking a Paragraph for SEO Purposes

Previously I mentioned how there was

water everywhere in Washington, here’s a video.

There’s a reason I’m linking to this Jung Talent Time Re-mix, and it has everything to do with
Infictive.

Did you mean: Jung Shopping Network  

Headlines You Missed:

Now Go Read the Collide Interview!

James Curcio’s latest post is an interview with kaRIN and Statik of Collide. Go read that, unless you’re interested in what I’ve been up to outside of my life as an Editor for Alterati…

So as part of my job as professional blogger, I have had to study SEO, SMO, and ORM -
all of these are SEM strategies, and just the fact that I can write shit like that makes me feel like a marketing douchebag.
But I find it fascinating, and fairly mis-understood, so I’ve made a number of training videos and spreadsheets
to help everyone else out there understand why I’m finding it fascinating. Yes, the essence, or spirit
of what I do is rooted primarily in the theories that we put forth in The Art of Memetics, but
what I’m really interested in now is the overall integrated approach, and the kind of deep impact that can have in the semantic spaces around specific keywords in the eyes of godgoogle. Here’s the videos,

Thanks for staying tuned throughout the day with this post – I’m not sure when I’ll do this again, but I enjoyed the flexibility, and I’ve been pondering non-standard ways in which blogs can be used. Today was one of those experiments.

Fire

Violent and vengeful brightness and motion culminates in conflagration, an uncontrolled burning, a hazard to life, health, property and ecology. Intentional or not, many simultaneous catalysts throwing sparks are occurring at ever closer proximity to each other. Sabotage, diversion, and a desire to be consumed en masse in the red heat of war. An orgasmic firestorm dance around the central column of rising heated air induces strong inward winds, feeding the fire with the energy of breath.

Djinn and salamanders are active in fire. The gold and orange of the state of chaos and consumption of the outer layer, the ego, the lower right point of the pentagram, the three electron’s difference between lead and gold.

About kkoagulaa

A convergence of creative paths crossed in the final days of Manes, pointing to the inevitability of the birth of kkoagulaa. The projects inception is an answer to the restrictions placed upon bands of any genre. When it comes to stretching out beyond genre considerations, kkoagulaa represents what happens when the walls between modes of expression are forgotten. Central visionary ccernn, began with gathering the kkoagulaa kkollektivv of likeminded creative people: eemersonn (Choronzon, Veil of Thorns) and vvindd (Atrox). The next layer to be added around the kkollektivv is the kkontributorr kkaball consisting of hatlen, hoemsnes (The 3rd and the Mortal), trstn (Chton).

The mission of kkoagulaa is to work in an expanded range of media and even to step outside conventions of what constitutes avant-garde art and music. The art of kkoagulaa is the embodiment of art called into question, and the answer. Brought into focus through a heaping of phases of history, kkoagulaa is the deconstruction of art and a distillation of the soul found at the creative center. As the canon of rock music and prevailing sub-genres crushes the possibility of revelation, and certainly any pretense of revolution, the ubiquitous elements of the medium are examined.

Emerging from a history of leading and defining genres and movements like Avant-Garde Metal, Post-Blackmetal, Psychedelic Industrial Blackmetal and Post-Rock, kkoagulaa has truly moved beyond genre, genre hybrids and the now common game of the mix-and-match patchnwork approach so often called progressive or avant-garde.

More kkoagulaa:

kkoagulaa Journal

last.fm

myspace

nrk/urørt

virb

Only @ Esozone:



Chris Titan Discharges Deadly Orgone into EEG

Yes, it was that kind of weekend.

The best coverage of the weekend I am only now recovering from is here ==> portlandtribune.com (by the gods this was an actual event and had real journalists) Someone called it Burning Man for people who don’t like crowds. It should also have added and that were running chronically behind schedule – the new god of time was fucking around quite a bit – but in a good way. Things happened when they were supposed to, in retrospect, and there was a lot of great energy for the 2012 egregore to munch on as we spiral to our certain apocalypse. Read on!

Personally, I saw the first aim of Esozone as creating an emergent superstructure that fosters propagation of reactions to the frustration with the conventional forms of race, culture, and class hierarchies and attempts to stimulate simplification of virtual substructures. Esozone brings people to question established structures and their relationships within those institutions, and there were some killer presentations I don’t even begin to cover in this post – Antero Alli, Dennis McKenna, Bill Whitcomb – all of that has to wait until the video gets online – for now this is just a glimpse into the back room of Esozone 2008.

During Esozone 2008

Temple of Damaged Equipment

St Mae of Discordian.com Strapped into IKIPR EEG Device (seen here videoed by St. Fox) is creating those waves of sound you hear in backroom of Esozone 2008

According to the OregonLive.com website:

I think it was certainly that, but the location of The Watershed helped it be a whole lot more. Different types of spaces allowed for a dynamic range of interaction, an aesthetic that was lacking in the first event. Little touches, like crouching around a fire in the night in between panels and sets, or walking across wooden bridges to get to the event – eating at places like Chaos Cafe with Miqel from miqel.com and Paul Laffoley one table over – it was a remarkable weekend.

Here’s the full video session of the Aleph9.com Workshop:

Ikipr Workshop @ Esozone 2008 (1 of 3)

Part 2

Part 3

Rex Church of diabolusrex.com gave a full presentation of the construction of his Ragnarok Engine, a military grade black radionic device, at Esozone 2008 in Portland. This is only a small part of that presentation.

Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule’s performance of Oedipus Rex was phenomenal and had me in an altered state of mind for a solid forty-five minutes. It is rare that I am overwhelmed by theater, but Orryelle’s work activates atavistic consciousness in ways that no other mediated experience could achieve. I did not get video of his performance, and am eagerly awaiting seeing it pop up online. I did get his presentation of his new book CONJUNCTIO, which presents mirrored pairs of Sacred Twins and Divine Lovers from various cultural pantheons coupled on facing pages.

Here’s video from that session:

Because people are not used to seeing emergent technologies or concepts so powerful and immediately usable, frequent and novel encounters provoke optimism and empowerment, nevertheless reawakening criticism of complexity and a desire for simplicity in most of the participants after the event had concluded. In short, people broke open their heads and re-evaluated what they believe possible coming out of the three day nexus that was Esozone 2008

On the day after Esozone, Rex Church, Clyde Lewis, and Freeman discussed ‘Goddess Columbia’ Day at Ground Zero tying up some of the threads that ran throughout the ES020N8 Event: As Seen on Technoccult:

Clyde Lewis interviewing Rex Church and Freeman at Ground Zero Lounge.

There is more coverage to come, both here and around the net… click this big ass button to share this post with your friends:

This is a sneak peek at a sample from the soundtrack that will be used in a performance at Terra Extremitas, put on by the Foolish People. The script and soundtrack are based on some of the eschatological themes in Fallen Nation, and will serve as a bridge between that and a future project with the Foolish People, and many other creatives you may or may not have heard of…

The voices you will hear in this soundtrack will be the voices inside the actor’s head. The rest you will just have to imagine- or better yet, get your ass to the event.

Also, after the Terra Extremitas event in Amsterdam, we will be providing you with a version of this soundtrack with the actors lines added- which may or may not have video, depending on how the filming at the event goes. Enjoy!

Soundtrack Credits:

Writing: James Curcio, Jason Stackhouse.

Production & Art Direction: James Curcio.

Music: P. Emerson Williams (Choronzon, Veil of Thorns), James Curcio, Scott Landes (Collide, Mankind is Obsolete), Jon Siren (Mankind is Obsolete, Hate Dept).

It’s a question I know we have all had to deal with at one time or another: What do I do with the body? Most of us opt for a combination of practicality and frugality, but how many of us answer: Make art and do science?

That is exactly what scientist and death-artist Gunther von Hagens has done. He is the inventor of a process called “plastination” and founder of BodyWorlds, an organization to promote it. The process involves a combination of the removal of fluids and fats and their replacement with polymers. The resulting constructions are translucent in places, will never decay, and just look darn neat.

The pieces get shown as normal art in galleries, but are also used in colleges to train students in anatomy. Every piece is perfectly preserved, so once plastinated the bodies can take dissections to a whole new level. At the current rate of corpse production in the world and the cheapness of plastics, we can be sure that this heralds a whole new era of preserving the dead, but in a way lacking in any religious or spiritual connotation.

Essentially, he is turning the dead into action figures.

thePuck is a writer, geek, and social media junkie at large. Read
more of his work at www.thepuckwrites.com.

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