Alkaloid – the extreme prog outfit made up of drummer Hannes Grossmann (ex-Obscura, ex-Necrophagist), guitarists Christian Muenzner (ex-Obscura, ex-Necrophagist, Spawn of Possession) and Danny Tunker (Aborted, ex-God Dethroned), bassist Linus Klausenitzer (Obscura, Noneuclid), and classical composer Florian Magnus Maier aka Morean on vocals/guitar – have launched an IndieGoGo campaign to fund their full-length debut The Malkuth Grimoire. The crowdfund started on December 1st and the band have already raised more than 50% of their €12,000 ($14,865.42) goal, which is a good thing because this band is beyond talented and needs to be heard. If you don’t believe me just listen to the track above. It’s called “Carbon Phrases” and it rocks! The track, which clocks in at 9:32, eases in with a slow groove and then it just builds and builds. The heavy doesn’t hit until about a minute and a half in but it’s right where it needs to be. The track trades off between clean guitars/vocals and distorted guitars/growls but it all works. I won’t get into the solos because you should really just hit play and check it out for yourselves.

If you need further convincing on why this band need to be heard, you can check out an album teaser below, alongside another full track. The song, titled “C-Value Enigma”, is an instrumental that was put together by Morean in what he described as “‘note lego’ in ProTools from recorded single notes and short phrases”. The explanation he posted for that track can be found below after the clip.

“I feel I need to say something about this track here. I did NOT play this as you hear it; I played ‘note lego’ in ProTools from recorded single notes and short phrases. I know there’s some people with absurd technical guitar skills out there, and tho I absolutely DO know how to play guitar, I’m not one of these freaks. I’m not even sure it would be possible to play this stuff even in theory (although I did sit with an open jaw when Danny once sight-read (!!!) the Velocity solo, which partly was constructed in a similar way). But well, there are people playing for example Conlon Nancarrow’s Player-Piano pieces by now, which were considered ‘beyond unplayable’ when he wrote them, so I figured what the hell, why not – you never know when someone’s actually gonna evolve who can play in these ludicrous speeds.

BUT: that’s not the point of the track. I approached this little piece as a composer, not as an instrumentalist, and the possibility to produce unplayable music that still sounds as if it’s played thanks to technology intrigues me from the creative viewpoint. It means your own limitations as a player don’t prevent you from creating musical visions that are beyond your own (and possibly anyone else’s) skills. It’s like CGI, but then as audio. If the world doesn’t mind a digital Gollum in a film, I figured I can get away with creating a digital super-guitar-robot. I have never pretended anywhere that I can actually play this kind of stuff, but these little crazy composition exercises do always give me ideas for actual guitar parts, which you’ll hear back in the regular songs on the album. My reasoning is that it’s always good to have a vision first, and only then look for new ways to translate them into something actually playable, rather than limiting your composing to what your own fingers know already.

Since anything goes in this band, we thought it a nice addition to the album to include this short piece. But no worries tho – everything else on the album is really and truly played! (My fingers are still bleeding….) m/ ;;; m/

Thanks, Morean