Nomads

It was not going to be a special night at The Generic in Dullville. On Tuesdays like these, only the most persistent patrons would drop by the local bar for their poison of choice. The wooden sign board, reading ‘Tonight: live bands’ in intelligible handwriting, persistently held its place on the sidewalk, for no one in particular. One of those nights, in short, when you suspect to be mostly playing for the bar personnel.

A few frequent flyers were muttering to each other at the bar while my band had just barged in through the back door. ‘Musicians are nomads’, someone had just said, cringing to pull a flight case through the narrow door. ‘You take a whole shitload of things with you, build it up in hours to play for 30 minutes, then break it all down to start over at another place the next evening.’

While our band of nomads is settling up on stage – the drumkit tuned, the cables taped to the floor to prevent crashing into said drumkit – the back door swings wide open, the entrance shot of a cheap western movie. Five perfectly styled young men come parading in. ‘Ah, one of these nights’, one of them boasts, and his peers laugh aloud.

As a nomad you meet many different people. Consequently, they start to look alike – or worse, they become a parody of themselves. I had seen these guys so often before. Beard style: nonchalant. Checkered blouses. Converse shoes. Tight jeans. Our band leaps off the stage for a handshake, which they accept – barely. In their eyes the look of professionalism, completely uncalled for.

The professionals walk to the stage, and start unpacking their matching guitar cabinets. One of them – I just realize he’s their sound man – drops his bag next to the mixing panel and starts fiddling with the knobs. At this point, a shadow comes leaping in from behind the bar: the local sound man. Beard style: unkempt. Shabby clothes. Hanging belly. But a nice guy. Had been doing this job for ages, as he practically lived next door. No, never had the intentions of making this his job: he worked at a local factory and had started doing this by accident. Besides, he got some free drinks out of it. A nice guy. Probably still lived with his mom.

‘Please, could you stop messing around with my settings?’, he asks, a shy look on his face. ‘I haven’t written them down yet.’ The sound hipster pauses, looks up, and sighs. ‘Can anyone tell this guy that we have been promised to do the sound ourselves? You’re in my way man.’ A heated argument follows; the sound man is getting red. Embarrassed, perhaps, of the situation. He, as the resident engineer, should be more preponderant.

The other guy raises his voice even more, and when it’s over, the sound man walks away. At the end of the evening, he could be seen sitting behind his beer. At the other end of the bar, the sound hipster is talking to a local girl. He’s elaborating on the support act they recently did, and the actually famous people they have met.

Around two they have packed their van. ‘Screw this place’, one of them yells while slamming the door and driving off toward the nearest highway ramp. Nomads, yes. Unthankful, pretentious nomads.

Sounds familiar? Got a similar story to share? Comment below!

*

Fourteen Twentysix is the cryptic alias of Holland’s atmospheric rock band that uses rain barrels for bass drums, embraces digital music distribution and reaches out to listeners worldwide through digital liveshows and living room concerts. Not afraid of change and experiment, the band shared the stage with both dark rockers Antimatter(UK) as well as folk legends Turin Brakes (UK).

Live Excess

Fourteen Twentysix is the cryptic alias of Holland’s atmospheric rock band that uses rain barrels for bass drums, embraces digital music distribution and reaches out to listeners worldwide through digital liveshows and living room concerts. Not afraid of change and experiment, the band shared the stage with both dark rockers Antimatter(UK) as well as folk legends Turin Brakes (UK).

I’ve always found the social strain of live shows fascinating. Sure, an ‘important’ gig – Booker X is coming to visit! Celebrity Y is in the crowd! – can turn the evening into a stressful undertaking by itself. But the truly weird stuff unfolds when you’re not playing, in the backstage room or in the crowd. Despite what you might think – that creative minds feel a certain connection to each other – reality is that by and large, musicians in amateur bands can’t seem to stand each other’s guts.

It depends a bit on the kind of night it is, and the relationship between the different bands (support and main act, band competition, local vs. foreign musicians). But one could argue that musicians come in two kinds of flavors. There’s the introvert, shy type, hanging out with solely his own band mates in a distinct corner of the backstage, trying to show what a good time he’s having by doing so. He’ll acknowledge you’re there in the same room with him, but that’s about it. Then there’s the total opposite: the up-front overconfident macho who’s desperately making jokes to reinforce his place as the alpha-male.

Sure, these are horrible stereotypes, but it remains true that the rat race to fame – that elusive concept everyone thinks he’s somehow cut out for – brings out the worst in us. Couple that with the confrontation with people doing the same thing as you (and sometimes, a lot better than you), and you have all the elements for a textbook inferiority complex.

Perhaps that’s what turns musicians into stuck-up idiots, loathing everything about that other guy who happens to be a musician as well. I can’t tell how many times I’ve seen a musician friend of mine give the stink eye to someone walking across the street with a guitar case. Or the snobbish behavior of employees in music gear stores (come on, you’re an employee in a music gear store!). The same happens during gig evenings – you’re never really safe from hearing some kind of remark that’s half-friendly, half-asshole. ‘Wow, that sure is a lot of electronics, do you guys actually do something yourselves?’

It gets even more difficult when you’re supporting for a big artist. It’s these kind of nights in which most aspiring musicians are so decidedly focused on ‘having a good time’ with the big guys that everything that’s said really just sounds a bit stupid. Every time a silence falls, it’s an awkward one. There’d nothing wrong with silences if everyone’s ok with everyone else.

On the other hand, there’d be nothing uncomfortable about it if everyone had silently agreed to be sworn enemies. That is not the case either. And why would it be: we’re all secretly aware of being brothers in arms, doing the thing we love most.

This is the way in which we regard one another: half as friends, half as enemies.

Perhaps the latter should just be on the musician’s mind more often.

A Sweet Metal Album You Probably Haven’t Heard – Part Four

Boston natives, I believe, Event were a really cool and very under-appreciated progressive metal band.

The funny thing here is the closed-mindedness of the progressive metal fans having a lot to do with the fact that this band never got any recognition, since to most of this ilk, being a prog band doesn’t involve actually being progressive, but rather, sounding like Dream Theater as much as possible.

I remember seeing them way back in 2001 or 2002 open up for Symphony X at the old L’amour in Brooklyn and they almost got booed off the stage by the meatheads in the crowd, which just goes to show that people at a so-called “progressive” metal show can be just as stupid as the average Slayer ‘tard.

Just like many young dork aspiring musicians in the late 90s, they are all Berklee grads, taking their cues from the mighty Dream Theater, who of course, all met at this prestigious music college.

Their first album was actually very much Dream Theater worship, which is probably how they got the attention of the prog community.

However, this, their second album “Human Condition,” was a step in a much different direction.

The brains behind the band was diminutive guitarist Shaun Michaud, who plays guitar and also does the programming and electronics, which there are a lot of on this album (and the next) and which is what gave the band their very distinctive sound.

Also, opting for a more masculine singing approach, new singer Dave Deluco stepped in on “Human Condition,” who had a more subdued and modern vocal style that didn’t really resemble the high-pitched wails and over-emphasized vibrato that most progressive metal singers had to have, which immediately made him a “grunge” singer to these progressive fans you spent their time on Queensryche message boards arguing over the highest note Geoff Tate ever hit and whether it was falsetto or full voice.

Event had very complex riffs, but they grooved, despite the odd time-signatures, and they stayed mid-tempo and just generally really grooved hard for most of the album. Combine with the electronics and the “grungy” vocals, they must have known that their fan base from the first album would not be appreciating this progression. Which makes it that much cooler that they decided to go in this direction, alienating the small number of fans that they had in this already miniscule micro-genre of metal.

I might also mention that Shaun did not solo often, but when he did, he played some of the most brilliantly crafted solos I have ever heard. I also saw Shaun play guitars and keyboards for Fates Warning on their “Disconnected” tour, so even though Event never took off, I’m glad that he at least got to tour around a bit with a seminal band like Fates Warning, who obviously recognized his talent.

“Human Condition” came out in 2001 on Inside Out Records, and they might still have some in stock, you never know.

In the end, this album is really hard to describe, just check it out, here’s a song from it.

A Sweet Metal Album You Probably Haven’t Heard – Part Three

Glory was a Swedish band that played a really cool AOR/melodic hard rock style with lots of progressive metal/ rock tendencies and influences thrown into the mix. The most notable member of the now-defunct band is Göran Edman, the singer who you might know from Yngwie Malmsteen’s hair metal period albums “Eclipse” and “Fire and Ice.”

The man behind the music is Jan Granwick, another virtuoso guitarist from Sweden who has a nice Steve Vai thing going on most of the time and puts together some great melodic rock songs. It makes you wonder how many killer guitarists there are from Sweden that no one knows about (or maybe it doesn’t).

Much like with most singers that have been in Rising Force, you don’t really know what they can actually do vocally or how good they really are until they have left the plump viking shredder’s band and ventured into groups where they had more creative control over what they were singing. They also rhyme “fire” with “higher” and “desire” much less frequently when not playing second fiddle to Malmsteen’s ego.

Edman’s performance is what makes this album. His voice is so crystal clear and effortless, he’s simply a pleasure to listen to every time he grabs a microphone. He really shows his vocal range on “Crisis vs Crisis” and the many different styles he can sing. Edman has a really nice bluesy vibe throughout a lot of this album, especially on “Caught Up in the City,” and then ventures into weirdo almost Peter Gabriel-esque territory on “Itch,” but his vocals probably shine the brightest on the two great ballads “Believe in a Miracle” and “The Battle of the Bridge.”

If you find yourself enamored with Mr. Edman after listening to this album, I’d highly recommend another Swedish band Karmakanic, particularly the debut “Entering the Spectra,” where Edman is once again brilliant.

Karmakanic is a side project of The Flower King’s bassist Jonas Reingold, so it’s a lot more progressive rock oriented than Glory, naturally, but has very catchy and melodic moments as well, though they sometimes get lost in the long, masturbatory instrumental passages that I know you prog nerds love as well.

Anyway, “Crisis vs Crisis” came out in 1996 on Germany’s Dream Circle Records. It’s probably out of print, and even if it’s not you’ll probably have to pay an import price to get your hands on it, but it’s well worth it.

Here’s a track to check out.

A Sweet Metal Album You Probably Haven’t Heard – Part Two

Technical death metal has seen a significant rise in popularity over the last few years. However, the truth of the matter is that hardly any of these new bands are even coming close to seeing the masters of the 90′s (Cynic, Pestilence, Atheist) who paved the way for the genre.

Sure Necrophagist, The Faceless, or whoever’s big this week, are impressive, but none of these bands come close to making substantial musical statements like the pioneering bands did. Most of the time these technical death metal bands aren’t even really that technical, they just play really fast. Chances are they will all burn their instruments and go cry in a corner once the new Gorguts album comes out (here’s hoping).

The truth is that there is a really short list of technical death metal albums recorded more recently that I think will be able to stand the test of time like “Focus,” “Spheres” and “Elements” have. Martyr’s “Warp Zone” and “Feeding the Abscess” make that list (and I’m sure I will be posting about this tremendous band soon), and so does Theory in Practice’s “The Armageddon Theories.”

This Swedish band recorded three albums, the first one,”Third Eye Function,” was a little rough and borrowed quite a bit from Meshuggah as I remember it.

“The Armageddon Theories” was their second album, and it is one of the most brilliant and complex death metal albums ever recorded. This is a band that when you say technical, you really mean it. There are some riffs on this album I have listened to a million times and still have no idea what the hell is going on.

So the playing is disgustingly complex, we’ve confirmed that, but the arrangements are also quite brilliant and very varied. Most of these tech death metal bands of today just sound like a train passing by – a train with the conductor playing some sped-up Van Halen tapping phrase on loop, perhaps – but Theory in Practice put together a both incredibly varied and cohesive album here that fails to tire.

They also add spooky and slightly Emperor-esque keyboards here and there to add even more confusion and brilliance to the mix.

The album released after this one, unfortunately, failed to meet my high expectations. On the third album “Colonizing the Sun,” the drummer, who is also the band leader and singer, did just about the stupidest thing he could have done.

He decided to focus on singing and let someone else play drums. This was devastatingly stupid because not only are his screechy vocals about the only part of the band one might call “average,” but more importantly, his drum skills were on some other, other shit, and of course, his replacement behind the kit didn’t measure up at all (not saying he sucked, he just wasn’t nearly as sick as this dude).

The band broke up after that, so obviously, he totally should have listened to me and stuck to playing drums, but whatevs.

Anyway, this album came out in 1999 on the great Listenable Records. Here’s the opening track of awesomeness.

The Birthing of a Self-Confessed Prog Nerd

Thinking back to my adolescence and the musical paths I chose to take while exploring my insatiable hunger for heavy metal as a youth, the fact that I spent at least a fourth of my formative years in Europe, even though I was born and raised in New Jersey, is probably what allowed me to seek out stuff that not many kids my age in Jersey, or America for that matter, were tuned in to at the time.

My first steps into progressive metal and rock were fairly accidental, ordering some Dream Theater and Rush albums on a whim from Columbia House back in the day, but as soon as I heard “Awake“ and “Moving Pictures“ respectively, I knew that this was the kind of rock music I gravitated to most. I was listening to the usual suspects, Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Pantera, Megadeth, and I remember that I always tapped into the bands that had more challenging and virtuosic playing more than anything else. From Megadeth and my fascination with Marty Friedman’s playing, I got into Cacophony and soon began binging on Shrapnel Records releases, basking in the glory of over-the-top, complex guitar playing.

Since I spent nearly all of my summers in Serbia, I was better exposed to the more melodic bands that some of my friends there were listening to, like Helloween and King Diamond, bands that none of my peers in the U.S. liked.

I also remember finding a haven in WSOU, Seton Hall’s Pirate Radio programs that played a lot of metal that you would never heard on normal rock stations, which were all playing grunge and nu-metal stuff that did not interest me in the slightest. I remember listening to a late night show in the early spring of 1997 that featured tracks from Fates Warning’s then upcoming concept album “A Pleasant Shade of Gray“ and being completely blown away.

The summer of 1997 was probably the biggest turning point for me – the moment I discovered the progressive metal underground that I had been searching for all this time. I remember that my friend Dragan Mirković, who funny enough, plays in Temple of the Smoke, a band featured prominently on ProgSphere recently, brought over a CD sampler from some metal magazine he had bought, probably Metal Hammer.

Dragan and I played in a Megadeth tribute band for shits and giggles that summer and were hanging out a lot. I remember we were both also completely obsessed with Cynic’s “Focus“ at the time as well. Anyway, one of the songs on this CD he brought over to me house was Symphony X – Of Sins and Shadows. I literally shat a brick when I first heard that track, taped it over, and pretty much wore out the tape just listening to that song all summer. It was everything I ever wanted – the heavy, progressive staccato riffs of Dream Theater, the vocal harmonies of Queen, the guitar shredding of Cacophony, and the soaring and powerful Dio-esque vocals – I had found my new favorite band. I had also seen a video on some German metal show that was airing in Serbia at the time of a band called Elegy, the song “Visual Vortex“, which also floated my musical boat perfectly.

Coming back to New Jersey that September, it was my goal in life to seek out these CDs and get to know more about these great bands.

Of course, distribution for these types of bands was not that great at the time and I had to special order imports of both the Symphony X and Elegy albums, but money was not an issue for me and I was willing to pay well over 20 bucks for each. I had finally gotten a pretty decent computer at the time and started going online, which is where I was able to find small communities of people who listened to this kind of stuff. Of course, most were much older than I was, mostly guys who grew up in the 1980s and loved bands like Queensryche, Fates Warning, Crimson Glory. They were all very knowledgeable and also gracious, I remember people from these message boards constantly sending me tapes by mail of bands that I might dig, which is how I found about a ton of new stuff, really underground stuff like Psychotic Waltz, and a bunch of Magna Carta Records releases like Enchant, Altura and what have you.

Through these message boards I also stumbled onto the mail-order store of mighty prog titan Ken Golden. His Laser’s Edge store was where I ended up spending the lion’s share of my measly paychecks during the late 1990s.

I remember this period of my life as a consumer of music quite fondly, since it was a time where you often went out on a limb and purchased albums blindly after reading a short description, but since money was scarce as a teenager, the four CDs you bought that month were going to be in permanent rotation until you saved up some money for more. So even if the albums sucked a little, you were still listening to them. I remember that my first order from Laser’s Edge included Angra’s “Angels Cry,” Superior’s “Behind,” Stratovarius‘ “Visions” and Treasure Land’s “Questions.” Treasure Land was the obvious stinker of the bunch, but I still played the fuck out of it and know it note for note to this day.

Even though this was a great period for my music-wise, let’s not kid ourselves, there were tons of mediocre Dream Theater, Fates Warning and Queensryche clones coming out at the time that I was digging but would probably never listen to again in my life, and some of the albums that were amazing to me at the time have aged pretty horribly, but there are a good amount of gems from this period of the international expansion of the progressive metal underground – these are the albums I will be trying to highlight in my column. The obscure diamonds in the rough that I think people who don’t have the history I have with the genre will still be able to enjoy today from a modern perspective. Hopefully you’ll find something you like as well.

A Sweet Metal Album You Probably Haven’t Heard – Part One

Yearning was a band from Finland that played, especially on this album, a very original and progressive style of atmospheric doom metal. To this day, I have yet to hear an album that sounds anything like it.

I’m not too familiar with the rest of their discography, but I remember that “Plaintive Scenes” really stood out as being unique, whereas the record preceding it was a bit more traditional and the ones after drifted into some more gothic and slightly queer musical territories, as I remember.

“Plaintive Scenes,” while maintaining its doomy core, included a lot of progressive elements and fairly virtuosic playing, especially for a doom band. Lush keyboards and orchestration, deep evil growling and manly melodic singing rounded out their sound, which as I stated previously, was pretty one of a kind.

Last I heard, the dude who was the main songwriter offed himself recently, which seems to be a common thing for Finnish people to do at some point or another.

A very cool band, found on a short list of metal bands from Finland that you shouldn’t be embarrassed of liking.

Anyway, this album came out in 1999 on Holy Records and you should check it out, here’s a track to dig on.

Using non musical influences

A question I quite often get is what inspires me as a guitar player and composer. It seems most people who ask this question expect an answer consisting of a list of guitar players and other musical input. There’s no doubt such direct musical influences can inspire you. And I think they even shape your musical vocabulary and identity to a great extent. That’s how it works in any art form, you pick up little bits and pieces from your colleagues and use them how you see fit. But while this direct inspiration can be seen as an important part of every musician, the phenomenon of indirect inspiration is something I’d like to write about for this month’s blog.

I remember reading interviews with my musical heroes back when I was younger. The same question about inspiration came up quite often as well and some of my heroes answered the question with abstract answers like nature, love, life in general, etc. And while this sounded cool to me, I didn’t understand it at all! How can nature tell you what awesome riff to play, right? That was not the way I wrote music. I approached composing as throwing in a certain style riff there, doing a certain passage there, use that riff there and so on. An approach that on an obvious level only makes use of direct inspiration.

But as I grew older and got more experience writing music I began to realize the power and influence of indirect inspiration. Basically everything that happens in life influences your creative process, whether you want it or not. And as I began to realize the impact of this phenomenon I also began to see its beauty. As an artist you have the opportunity to poor your feelings into the work you create. This is not only an extremely rewarding experience for the artist, but it also makes your work stand out as honest and pure, which in turn gives your listener a very rewarding experience.

But how do you capture this abstract energy and transfer it to the calculated world of music? I think it’s a life long journey to really master this conversion. I feel like I’m just getting the hang of it really and I try to be really conscious about it when I’m working on music these days. I think the real challenge lays in interfacing abstract and concrete. Feelings, emotions, intuition, they’re all an extremely abstract thing. While composing music is a very mathematical and calculated craft. In other words, you have to find ways to let these 2 opposites interact with each other. This subject is obviously too big to really cover in a blog, so I’ll try to list some tips & tricks to get you started.

1. Get away from that computer! Almost everyone I know writes their music from behind a computer. And while it’s do doubt a great tool for recording and even getting creative, it can also be an incredibly stale and sterile environment to get the creative juices flowing. Just try and and write music at a place that actually inspires you for example.

2. Start small! Let’s say you’re out in nature, a desolated, sunny mountain top with pine trees all around you. This experience will definitely put you in a certain mood, this mood can be used to inspire you. But there’s no way you’re going to just write a complete song from this experience alone. So start small, try and sing a melody that fits the vibe. Fool around with some chords and see which ones match the vibe. Start tapping a beat and see what comes out. It’s all about finding these smaller building stones that you can build an entire song around by using your craftsmanship and taste.

3. Listen! Everything around you, everything you experience, everything you feel, influences your experience of music. Whether you’re listening to, playing or writing music. You could think a simple E minor chord will always be the same chord, with the same emotional values. But the reality is that the way you perceive this chord will be different when your external circumstances change. This is obviously a simple example, but it basically goes for everything in music (and probably life in general). Experience can’t exist without reference. Change your point of reference and the experience will change as well.

4. Practice! Dive into life and consciously experience new things or things that always fascinated you. See how they influence your perception of music and try to see if you can find ways to let these experiences guide your creative process. Like any skill it takes time and practice to develop.

5. Forget about theory! While studying theory is a great way to expand your musical knowledge and musical skill, it can also put you in a place of extremely boxed and linear thinking. Don’t forget the purpose of theory, it’s there to help you, not to hinder you! In other words, try to have an open mind, judge and trust your creative process from a place of feelings instead of thoughts.

There’s obviously a lot more to say about this subject but I feel this should cover enough for this months blog. I hope it was an interesting read. And again, if you have any suggestions on what I should cover for next month’s blog, be sure to contact me and let me know!

Thanks for reading,

Tymon

Exivious 2.0

As most of you guys know, Exivious is back in business. Besides rehearsing our asses off right now, we also started the writing process for a new album. For this months blog I’d like give you guys some insight into our composition process and how we’ll approach the new album.

Our debut album was basically a collection of my best ideas from over 6 years. That’s a pretty common thing for debut albums from young bands. I had a clear vision of what I wanted the band to sound like and with a lot of experimentation, I ended up finding specific composing tools and tricks to actually realize this vision. An approach that made extensive use of trial and error.

This will be very different for the new Exivious album. The idea is to write a new album in a couple of months, which should be possible now that we have a basic sound to work with and a much better understanding of how the kind of music we make works. We’re starting from scratch which presents the opportunity to change our approach to composition. Holding on to the things we thought worked well and trying new things where there’s room for improvement. Because yeah, being the ruthless self critics we are, we think there are quite some areas for improvement.

For our debut album I used to deliver fully composed and arranged songs to the rest of the band. Basically I would create a complete production with programmed drums, bass, synths, guitars, everything. Michel did the same for the 2 songs he wrote. Sure, the rest of the band had quite some freedom of coming up with their own parts (besides the improvisation which is completely free of course) but overall they were still based on my programmed ideas. For the new album we have a different approach in mind where the entire compositions are more of a band effort, or at least the arrangements. Michel and I will compose core ideas that we’ll base entire songs around. Sharing those ideas in an early stage with the rest of the band to really shape them into songs with the 4 of us. It’s a new approach for us and we’re really excited to dive into this process.

I have started the initial composing process, which basically consists out of writing chord progressions. Not much in the sense of traditional and functional harmony but more of a modal voice leading approach that gives me really specific chord voicings with an integrated melody. These harmonies and melodies will be the heart of the new songs. After this initial birthing process we’ll dive into arranging these chordal ideas into full songs. Giving them a basic structure, tempo, rhythmic interpretation and overall arrangement. I assume this is something Michel and I will do together this time around.

After this process is completed it’s time for one of my favorite parts of writing a new record: decoration. This is basically finding the final parts, riffs, melodies, everything that makes the songs the songs you’ll hear on the album. Again, except for the improvised parts which will obviously be improvised. What makes this process so much fun is how loose and creative it is. The pressure is off, the basic structures are there. Imagine coloring a black and white drawing.

Over the next couple of months I’d like to share the writing process of one new song with you guys. Making short videos showing you the progress we make. This should be fun to make and watch!

Thanks for reading,
Tymon

My Musical Future

For my first blog I thought it would be interesting to share some of my future plans. It’s a rather self indulgent topic, but then again, this is a personal blog so I guess it makes sense. Especially since my departure from Cynic, all options were open. Cynic was as much of a full time commitment as a band gets so not being a part of that leaves me with a lot of time on my hands. The first obvious thing to do was bringing back Exivious, but besides that, I have three really exciting but different projects lined up!

Exivious

Exivious is finally going to be an active band! As much as we wanted to get gigs happening, write new music, give it the attention it deserved, we just couldn’t due to other commitments. Time to change that! Touring plans are in the works, the writing process for a 2nd album has started and we can’t wait to go out and share our music with the world in a live context! This band will have my full priority, as I always intended.

HEKZ

A new band consisting out of Bart Hennephof (Textures) on guitars and vocals, Yuma van Eekelen (Pestilence / The New Dominion) on drums, Robin Zielhorst (Exivious / ex-Cynic) on bass and me on guitars and vocals as well. A hell of a lineup if you ask me! First priority: recording an album, a bone crushingly heavy, intense, dark and very atmospheric album. This project was born for two reasons. The first being we knew we wanted to put our musicial minds together and creative something awesome, the 2nd being I always wanted to release a really heavy album. All 4 of us come from an extreme metal background but at the same time we all grew into many different styles of music. And for me personally, I never released anything as heavy as where my musical roots are. I’ve always wanted to do something like that but the circumstances had to be right, I feel with HEKZ they are. The challenge with this project is to combine musical depth and intelligence with heavyness!

Tymon & Noora

Obviously, this project still needs a name. It’s basically a collaboration between Noora Häkkinen and me. Noora is an incredibly talented singer/songwriter who plays piano as well. She composes and records her own albums at home, in Finland, under the name Noradrenaline. I stumbled on her about 2 years ago when I was searching for a singer for Exivious album 2. While we decided to keep Exivious all instrumental, Noora and I kept in touch and we would now like to find out where a collaboration would take us. Like me, Noora has a very distinct approach to music which is very much her own. I suspect our musical voices will bring something really special when being combined. Stylistically it could go anywhere really, we both love so many different kinds of music, we’ll just start working and see where we end up. One thing I know for sure, our music is going to be a nuclear explosion of emotions. Looking very much forward to start working on this album!

Ambient Project

Again, a project that still needs a serious name. With this project I plan on writing a very different kind of album than most would expect from me. Very much sound based as opposed to the way I usually compose, which is note based. I intend to mainly work alone on this project but also having some friends contribute parts here and there. Some keywords: airy, light, hypnotic, spacey, floating… but of course all with a typical twist in there that will make it a little more complex than your usual ambient album. It’s not that complexity is a prerequisite for me in music, I just think I’m not very good at writing simple music. All in all, another project I really look forward to realizing!

So for everyone who assumed to not hear from me again after my departure from Cynic, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I plan on being more productive than ever before!

Thanks for reading,
Tymon

ps. If anyone has suggestions for future blogs, please let me know at tymon.kruidenier@gmail.com