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I was kind of at a loss for what to post today, so I figured that going the music route again seemed like a good tack to take. I can talk about music all day long if given the opportunity, so I’m going to write about some of the more important projects of mine that have fallen by the wayside for one reason or another. I’ve had a lot more projects than these, but these are the ones that had the most significance in my development as a musician. Amaranthine I’m almost inclined not to add this one, as Amaranthine is the official origin of Amaranthine Skies. I started the project in late 2005 and I launched it off the back of the [Mindtrap] album. I added the “Skies” to it in early 2007 because there are way too many bands named Amaranthine on MySpace and it sounded right to add something to the end of it to make it more distinguishable. Amaranthine is not only a reddish-purple color – it also means everlasting, and if you think about it, a sky is everlasting as long as there’s a planet there to support it. With astronomers continuing to find evidence of new extrasolar planets almost daily (at least it seems that way), there will be a sky somewhere, thus making them everlasting. No wonder my output under my Amaranthine Skies project is so spacy. Getting back to the music, most of Amaranthine comprised of downtempo electronic music mixed with some light organic instrumentation. It doesn’t quite explain how Amaranthine Skies has ambient, rock, and post-metal albums in its wake, but putting together Mindtrap was extremely helpful in developing my electronic music skills, which I’ve used on all the Amaranthine Skies albums in those aforementioned genres. Influential to: Amaranthine Skies, Philistine on the Sidewalk, Skies of Cyanide Music: [VR003], [VRC018], [VRC017] Art. Human This project I started in 2003 is likely the most important of my harsher projects, as it laid the groundwork for anything I’ve done with an industrial or noise edge. It was originally Artificial Humanity, but there was another band from Toronto (I believe) using the Slipknot gimmick with that name. I had already shortened it to Art. Human as an abbreviation, so I went with it as the actual name to make things less confusing. As for the music, most of it was either groove-heavy, guitar-driven industrial metal or sparse industrial with the focus on being creepy. The most influential song from the project was easily “Inundation”, which was recorded again under my Amaranthine Skies project for [Days Gone By, Volume One] and remixed recently under my Skies of Cyanide project for [Nevar Say Die! Compilation, Volume Three]. It’s one of the least complex songs I’ve done, but it still resonates well to this day. The reason I stopped working with Art. Human back in 2004 was that I was growing out of my interest for this style at the time and the whole thing with two bands having the same name was kind of off-putting, which is likely why my project names are rather odd these days. The other band didn’t last past 2006 either. Influential to: Amaranthine Skies, Concrete Mutant, Cyanidic Rapture, Philistine on the Sidewalk, Skies of Cyanide, Voices of Epic Fail Music: [VRC009] DJ WarMECH Before I started using trackers, I was remixing videogame music for this 2004 project in Reason. I did it because I enjoyed working with videogame tunes and to get my skills up with Reason – which worked rather well and was helpful for creating Mindtrap and other electronic-based musical ventures. I still use Reason with all of my projects today, so the time I spent with the project was very useful. Things went smoothly for this project up until the last song, “Mysterious Ruins of Abell”, which took me about five months off and on to finish. Once I did, I put this project to rest as another of my projects (Forfallen) was starting to get a full head of steam in late 2004. It wasn’t until I started up Mystic Nova in late 2007 that I worked with music in such a way that required so much precision and attention to detail. Influential to: Amaranthine Skies, Mystic Nova, Philistine on the Sidewalk, Voices of Epic Fail Music: [VRC013] f-jan With a name that stood for “free jazz and noise”, this was a project that came about in 2004 during some rather tumultuous times at a previous job. I was doing my best to make some nasty and creepy noise tracks as a way to vent my frustrations. Mission accomplished. As for its influential nature, it ramped up the noise quotient that I had been dabbling with in Art. Human tenfold. Almost every track had some form of blistering noise element to it, and some of it is fairly listenable without being exhausting. This is really the project where I got into tempering noise with music, though I’ve toned it down a bit in my advancing age. The reason the project ended is that I finally left that job and all the stress went away. Now I do noisier stuff for the joy of it, rather than as a response to my environmental pressures. Influential to: Concrete Mutant, Cyanidic Rapture, Philistine on the Sidewalk Music: [VRC012] Forfallen I started this one up in late 2004 after finding my interest in industrial metal again. While it started off as some massive sounding originals (not too far from where Concrete Mutant is these days), it eventually evolved into my primary outlet for covering videogame tunes. This is likely due to discovering [Dwelling of Duels] right after doing my first videogame cover for the project, “Silver Points and Metal Joints” from Chrono Trigger. Forfallen was not always that well-received due to being a bit more experimental and caustic than most of what was being released through Dwelling of Duels at the time, but it seems to have made a lasting impression on some folks and it was the genesis of my distinct throat-ripping scream that I’m somewhat known for these days. The project sputtered out in early 2006 when I had no idea where to take it. The last song I did for the project was a colossal flop, was part of a catalyst for a meltdown I had at the time, and would have been better suited under Amaranthine Skies (had it existed yet). I also had received some rather ill-worded mail from a band called ForeFallen that wanted me to cease and desist with Forfallen or they’d sic their lawyer on me. With all that nonsense combined, it seemed better to put the project behind me and move on to new things. It’s too bad things fell apart, as some of the best times I’ve had and some of the best friends I’ve made intertwine with the majority of output from the project in 2005. Ah, memories. Influential to: Amaranthine Skies, Concrete Mutant, Philistine on the Sidewalk, Zud Music: [VRC016], [VRC014] Natthimmel This was my first real project, hands down. Even though it started in 2002 (a solid eight years after I’d started playing and had already recorded a full-length under my own name), it was the one I dedicated the most time to and likely still holds the record for the one I’ve done the most songs under. Amaranthine Skies is right there (I haven’t counted the songs), but that’s the only other one. The whole idea behind Natthimmel was to get really experimental with my compositions. My earlier work had been fairly standard metal fare, but this was the project that I started embracing everything and trying to make the songs sound different from each other while still trying to maintain a similar vibe – not too far off from the mission statement for Philistine on the Sidewalk, really. I d like to think that I achieved this, as I put out a 13 song album in [The Great Beyond] that taxed the physical limitations of a compact disc at 78 and a half minutes long, and put out many other decently-sized collections of tunes – original and videogame covers ’ over the years that cover a wide range of genres that would take a while to list. Similar to Forfallen, this project sputtered out in early 2006, with a few songs showing up here and there throughout the rest of that year and one as late as the end of 2008. That last song was proof that the Natthimmel project had become redundant and Amaranthine Skies was its worthy successor, though it can be argued that Amaranthine Skies needs more pennywhistle before it can truly take the place of Natthimmel. Influential to: Amaranthine Skies, Concrete Mutant, Philistine on the Sidewalk Music: [VR002], [VRC015], [VRC011], [VRC008], [VRC005] Radiant Star This project was running concurrent with Natthimmel in 2002 and it came to a point where it was either this project or Natthimmel that became my main project. Natthimmel obviously won, but this project was my first real dabbling in electronic music. I made some eerie tunes (one of which was unbelievably silly as well) with more primitive software – every song from this project was made in MTV Music Generator. The software’s tremendously dated at this point, but I’d still use it in Philistine on the Sidewalk if it worked properly on my computer. Influential to: Amaranthine Skies, Cyanidic Rapture, Philistine on the Sidewalk, Skies of Cyanide Music: [VRC003] More Projects to Come? Boy, I hope not – unless I’m working with other folks, that is. There’s one more solo project that I’m comtemplating about – it’s like Voices of Epic Fail without the videogame elements, but I have no idea when I’d start it. It’s mostly influenced by all the technical metalcore and grindcore that I’ve been listening to over the past few months while working out, but I’m still unsure about how to pull off the execution. After that launches (if it does), I’m done with new projects unless a wild hair gets under me to do some singer/songwriter tunes with me and an acoustic guitar of some sort, but I’d use my own name for that. That should wrap things up! I might do one on my not-so influential projects in the future, but I’m not sure if there would be enough material to get my minimum 500 words up about them. It’s likely though, as a couple have juvenile stories behind them and I’m not exactly one that’s short for words. Do you have any other questions about my older projects? Feel free to pop by the forums and ask away! Discuss this post at [The Forum of Jason Vincion]! Posted on January 15th, 2010. |
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