The Austrian avant-garde black metal philosophers ECHELON once again honor their thoughtful, demanding, and profound practice. On October 22, 2013, at exactly 12:00 PM, they released a very special TIMELINE documentary for their upcoming debut album online. The whole thing is named according to the number of upcoming pieces, titled "A Preview in 13 Pictures".
The TIMELINE documentary for "Vivito! Creato! Moritor!" can be seen here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmzRtL9y5jI
Prosaic background:
The album title is a three-word biography of four painters whose work has been interconnected over centuries. This conceptual resonance, however, is hidden, indeed subtle. More like a deep humming and noise in the symphony of history, overshadowed by melodies.
But if one carefully removes melody after melody, silencing violins and cellos, letting flutes and bassoons fade away, and allowing trumpets and horns to tire, the humming grows louder, the noise more intense.
It becomes denser, and the melody that was once hidden becomes clearer.
One can hear the timpani, struck by Callot, telling tales of the Thirty Years' War.
Victim after victim, strike after strike, and the trumpets of Dix clang with his urge to experience the reality of World War I, which is the only true realism.
Hardly have the timpani fallen silent when the insane flute playing of de Goya takes over. This deaf man, who saw all the more clearly, painted obsessively the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars. And cleansed of any urge to act, the trumpets of Dix sound cacophonously like a drumfire.
And eventually, even the flutes fall silent, and only the melancholic, lonely hum of Manet's viola remains, while French and Germans bash each other's heads in.
What remains in the end are the trumpet sounds of Dix, drilling deeper and deeper into the ear. They echo in the skull, sometimes left, sometimes right, sometimes left, sometimes right, repeating endlessly, like the fates of humanity.
Factual background:
The idea behind the visualization of the entire album was, on one hand, to highlight the historical and, on the other hand, especially the painterly connections between Callot, de Goya, Manet, and Dix. All four share the commonality of having been physically present in incredibly brutal wars. And all four share the commonality of having tried to translate these impressions into a visual language that would prevent such conflicts from occurring again.
The work of the painters only becomes clear when one illuminates the circumstances. They all captured their respective realities. So, actual but cleansed of its ambiguity.
They are deeply rooted in the foundation of history, in the factual, and from that, they work out the essence of war. This means a chronological examination leads directly to the understanding of what the painters wanted to capture, lays bare their motivations, and reveals their goals.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: When we look at a painting by Callot, it seems foreign to us, taken from a world that is infinitely distant.
However, if we now purposefully wander towards the present, we recognize that what is painted is profoundly current, just in a different guise.
We illustrate this through the time jumps towards Dix.
The idea of war, in the Platonic sense, war itself, has always been the same - only its form is different. Just as ice, water, and steam are ultimately just three forms of a very specific molecule.
The tracklist of "Vivito! Creato! Moritor!":
1. Les Grandes Misères de la Guerre
2. Der Baum der Gehängten
3. Tod und Teufel
4. Strappado
5. Desastres de la Guerre
6. Der Krieg in mir
7. Des Teufels Bluthund
8. Die Grauend des Krieges
9. Effet de neige à petit Montrouge
10. Vor mir türmen sich die Scherben
11. Ewigkeit
12. Totengeigen
13. Triptychon: Der Krieg
Playing time: 62:32
The TIMELINE documentary for "Vivito! Creato! Moritor!" can be seen here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmzRtL9y5jI
Prosaic background:
The album title is a three-word biography of four painters whose work has been interconnected over centuries. This conceptual resonance, however, is hidden, indeed subtle. More like a deep humming and noise in the symphony of history, overshadowed by melodies.
But if one carefully removes melody after melody, silencing violins and cellos, letting flutes and bassoons fade away, and allowing trumpets and horns to tire, the humming grows louder, the noise more intense.
It becomes denser, and the melody that was once hidden becomes clearer.
One can hear the timpani, struck by Callot, telling tales of the Thirty Years' War.
Victim after victim, strike after strike, and the trumpets of Dix clang with his urge to experience the reality of World War I, which is the only true realism.
Hardly have the timpani fallen silent when the insane flute playing of de Goya takes over. This deaf man, who saw all the more clearly, painted obsessively the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars. And cleansed of any urge to act, the trumpets of Dix sound cacophonously like a drumfire.
And eventually, even the flutes fall silent, and only the melancholic, lonely hum of Manet's viola remains, while French and Germans bash each other's heads in.
What remains in the end are the trumpet sounds of Dix, drilling deeper and deeper into the ear. They echo in the skull, sometimes left, sometimes right, sometimes left, sometimes right, repeating endlessly, like the fates of humanity.
Factual background:
The idea behind the visualization of the entire album was, on one hand, to highlight the historical and, on the other hand, especially the painterly connections between Callot, de Goya, Manet, and Dix. All four share the commonality of having been physically present in incredibly brutal wars. And all four share the commonality of having tried to translate these impressions into a visual language that would prevent such conflicts from occurring again.
The work of the painters only becomes clear when one illuminates the circumstances. They all captured their respective realities. So, actual but cleansed of its ambiguity.
They are deeply rooted in the foundation of history, in the factual, and from that, they work out the essence of war. This means a chronological examination leads directly to the understanding of what the painters wanted to capture, lays bare their motivations, and reveals their goals.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: When we look at a painting by Callot, it seems foreign to us, taken from a world that is infinitely distant.
However, if we now purposefully wander towards the present, we recognize that what is painted is profoundly current, just in a different guise.
We illustrate this through the time jumps towards Dix.
The idea of war, in the Platonic sense, war itself, has always been the same - only its form is different. Just as ice, water, and steam are ultimately just three forms of a very specific molecule.
The tracklist of "Vivito! Creato! Moritor!":
1. Les Grandes Misères de la Guerre
2. Der Baum der Gehängten
3. Tod und Teufel
4. Strappado
5. Desastres de la Guerre
6. Der Krieg in mir
7. Des Teufels Bluthund
8. Die Grauend des Krieges
9. Effet de neige à petit Montrouge
10. Vor mir türmen sich die Scherben
11. Ewigkeit
12. Totengeigen
13. Triptychon: Der Krieg
Playing time: 62:32
