What's next?

Okay - here we go - I've been trying to come up with ideas for the next Dimaension X project, and have been immersing myself in a few different types of music:

Post-metal
Atmospheric Black Metal
Devin Townsend
Tortoise

Post-metal bands as mentioned in the previous blog have really been seeping onto my consciousness as of late, much more so than your typical metal music. I just find this kind of music more open and interesting, and capable of going into different directions, unlimited by the usual "constrictions" that most "Metal" bands feel the need to adhere to. It can be subtle and mellow, or heavier than hell. It can be fast or slow. Loud or soft. Brutal or melodic. So much interesting potential.

Atmospheric Black Metal is also an area of great potential, similar to post-metal, where it may have the typical blast-beats and tremolo picked riffs, but it is the haunting atmosphere and general feel of the music that removes it from the usual stereotype. I'm not about to start adding evil screeching vocals to the music. It's more about "atmosphere". I just discovered a great band called Organ, who play all-instrumental "black metal", but they sound more like Tortoise with blast-beats and weird vocal samples.

Devin Townsend and Strapping Young Lad have been coming out of my speakers lately. I've had an odd musical relationship with the HevyOne. At first, I found him to be really annoying, just overdoing the whole "wall-of-sound" thing, but as time has gone on, and I've acquainted myself more with his music, and with the way he creates music that I've come to respect the man and the music more, and even grow to like it a lot. His tuning alone has inspired me to once again re-tune the Schecter in a similar fashion. Dev tuned most of his music to an Open C chord (CGCGCE), but I have tuned to Open C minor (CGCGCEb). Personally, I think the Open C minor is better, because you can easily make the chord Major again with one finger fret. The problem is that I now have to re-learn the whole fretboard and associated scales/modes, which are completely different in this tuning.

Tortoise is a band that I never listened to until just recently. I think I did listen a bit years ago, but just didn't have the patience or musical maturity to fully appreciate them. Their music is open and expansive, jazzy and rockin', improvisational and stricltly composed. Each member is capable of playing numerous instruments, and does so in their live performances, switching from guitar to bass to vibraphone to synths, etc. I'd love to actually be able to put together some kind of similar ensemble of local musicians and do this kind of thing. If only I could actually find like-minded musicians. That's the problem.

So my next album with probably be some odd combination of all of the above. Or not. We shall see.