I talked about imposter syndrome the other day and while the following thought will always be subject to change given my own esteem at any given moment
It’s really fucking hard to keep up the cognition that I’m inadequate when I work with such talented musicians in the #VoidConspiracy and receive such baller remixes of works that I originally wrote from the community.
Either they believe in me or are bigger masochists than I am. It’s probably not the latter.
There have been four core writing cycles, each of which containing some number of #metal originals as well as remixes and / or community reimaginings of those songs.
Fidelity
Blood and Blackouts
Voidtouched
Salvation
There have also been two minor writing cycles that were not metal focused that were a bit more weird in nature.
Hopes and Dreams
Deathphoria
In this thread I’ll talk about each of the cycles and the motivations for them.
My humble beginnings were in a weird (in hindsight) release called Hopes and Dreams
This three track mostly electronic romp had flashes of brilliance but I had come to really really hate it over the years, much like Al Jourgensen hated his first two albums
I would eventually re-record two of the tracks as more traditional metal offerings, but I don’t know that I’ll ever not hate this initial release much to the consternation of the band and fans.
The next logical step in my evolution was to add vocals, and Blood and Blackouts would prove to be my most accessible release with its highly distorted riffs and vocals. I regret the industrial nature of the growls but it was as far as I was willing to go given my trepidation of being trans and singing at the time under my name.
Listeners have often referred to B&B as “essential.”
Highlights:
“Mania”
“Blood and Blackouts”
“Divine Right”
“Narcissus”
From there, the Voidtouched release was a 180 in almost every way.
I dropped the distortion effect from the vocals, cranked up the average song length to almost ten minutes, and let loose with the horrors behind these eyes.
It’s a bit of a cult favorite of mine and would begin to show more complicated song structures that would gradually become the norm.
Taking a slight detour after hospitalization, the Deathphoria release cranked the horrors of Voidtouched to eleven, albeit as a desolate electronic effort. No drums, no guitars, no bass, just peak despair. I’ve often said it’s not for the faint of heart, and I stick by that. Most notably, the original version of “Nitroglycerin” is on this release.
Which leads us to the megaton punch of anything I’ve been involved with: Salvation.
Salvation will end up spanning five artifacts before we turn the lights off on it. A multifaceted concept of both religious abuse and mental illness, it’s the debut of the band and the most highly received cycle of anything I’ve worked on.
Are you a matrix enjoyer? Do you want to help guide the band in our efforts (intentionally vague but this could be as simple as alerting us to important mutual aid causes to champion)
We’ve set up a public room on our matrix server.
DM me if you have a matrix account and want to join #VoidChat
My free trial #Printify premium runs out today, so I pulled the trigger on a #VoidConspiracy t-shirt. I may not be the only one to ever wear one, but I will always be able to say I'm the first.
The #VoidConspiracy is blessed by each and every listener’s energy and support.
This may be a time of change for the band but we will honor our charge to give hope to those needing it through our music, our support, and by means that only those helped ever see.
As promised, here is this month's donation (in CAD) to One Voice Chorus of Calgary. The #VoidConspiracy sold 21 copies of Dolorosa at 2.99USD each, and then I converted to CAD and rounded up to the nearest ten bucks.