Entheogen

Entheogen

Around year 2009, two planetoids – one from a stoner rock group called MG Pistol Rock, the other from a math/post rock group called Imakandi – collided and melted all but their metal core. The result is Entheogen – a homogenous mixture of math/sludge with a pinch of post- and stoner rock. After years of evolution, erosion and gigabytes of organized noise enough matter had broken away from the moons to create a debut album, scheduled to see its first sunrise in the second half of 2013.Bio: Matej: Entheogen started as merging of groups MG Pistol Rock and Imakandi in 2009, but band members know each other since high school. At the time we were playing in different bands and projects and when you are from a small town, you soon get to know more or less all the musicians, so thats how we became friends and started collaborating in the music field and even performed in one project for local poet community in the same line-up as current Entheogen. Matija and Matic used to have high school rock band Skink and after their breakup we used to get together at their ex-bands rehearsal space and jam a bit. I started collaborating with Matija before that in a experimental electro project 667: The Neighbor of the Beast and at the time me and Sergej were playing in a math/post-rock duo Imakandi. About 5 other musicians were involved in our jam sessions that we used to call Stone Sessions. Band MG Pistol Rock was born out of this sessions and after two concerts and line-up change Entheogen was born.

The creative process converted the resulting friction into energy for Moons of Jupiter – a thematic album dedicated to the STS-34 mission – the spacecraft Galileo (named after the first observer of Jupiter’s moons, described in his Siderius Nuncius from 1610) that was launched on its path from Earth to the gas giant in 1989. The music represents an attempt of a sonic rendering of the mission and is therefore different from phase to phase. The basis remains instrumental math/sludge with influences from bands like Neurosis, Meshuggah, Pelican, Alice in Chains and the like.Genre: I am not really sure that we can be put into one genre. Our style of music derives from personal preferences of the members, which are then mixed together and most of the time something completely new comes out. This ambiguity gives us more space to really express our selfs. And as you can see, we are somewhere in the dark spheres of alternative rock and metal.

Evolution of the initial musical and thematic elements: The music element already started as a mix of different genres and ideas, when we joined a stoner rock and post/math rock group. So through time it gain more complexity and involvements of even more different elements and different genres if you want.

The theme ‘Moons of Jupiter’ came over night. It was an idea that we all liked and agreed on doing. For the next album the idea is probably going to be completely different.

Lyrics, themes and concepts: The theme Moons of Jupiter consists of many levels. One is the exploration of space and discovering of new horizons, the second is mythological background that holds your roots. The third is revelation as for Galileo Galilei when he discovered that Jupiter has moons. The lyrics for Callisto are from the mythological part, the lyrics for Jupiter are from revelation part. We came to the idea by chance and then evolved in consideration with our views of the world.

Ideas about the album: We are very satisfied with the project. Because this are our first album and DVD, we didn’t had too high expectations but the results are overwhelming. We really love the surround sound aspect of the DVD, because it reaches in not so new but definitely still un-researched field and it brought great results. The problem with production process for the first album was the length of it, because it took us almost 2 years to record and produce the album and another year for the DVD. We will try to do it a bit faster next time, but definitely not on the cost of the quality.

Reception: We gain quite a lot of fans in Slovenia and also from abroad and we are really glad for it.

Preference; live or studio: The most exciting time is at the rehearsal place.

Next step; live or studio: Currently we are working on our second album. When material for it will be finished, we will be ready for concerts.

Future plans: We are going to work on new material and focus on story, art and experimentations. Then when time for performance comes, we will try to represent it on the largest scale possible. Until then, it is quite time for us.

Composers: Mostly all the band. Someone might do something at home, but then we usually reconstruct it on the rehearsals. Lyrics for Callisto were written by Dejan, who sung the song and lyrics for Jupiter were written by Gallileo Gallilei and adopted by me.

Inspirations: Neurosis, Alice in Chains, Pelican, Breach, Isis, Keelhaul, Mastodon, Tool…

Preference; cater to the audience or music for its own sake: Definitely music and art in general.

Greatest Accomplishment: Opening for bands such as: Secret Chiefs 3, Premonition 13 and Karma to Burn.

Anything else? Music=magic!