Hamith’a Ha now available for download + new album

http://empireofbliss.bandcamp.com/

EOB is now present on Bandcamp and we have 3 albums available as digital releases. Special Nwyvre recording is online since a few moments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new capital for the expanding empire

Like every empire, even the blissful one, expansion is the rule, not the exception. We have decided to start a Tumblr blog to reach an even more diverse audience.
We do not tend to limit ourselves to one public or one type of music. For that we are way too much the adepts of Eris, to let ourselves be confined by one place of operations.
Our wordpress won’t die, but main activities will now take place on this Tumblr blog.  WordPress is a bit unhandy if you ask me.  Not only for us, but we think the audience deserves a better interface than this ( no hard feelings, wordpress ).  Tumblr lends itself more as an archive of this collective’s activities and it’s much more user friendly for us and the ones who wish to show interest.
If you happen to be in the possession of a blog there, feel free to follow us!

Here is the link! See you there.

EOB news 2011 & dreams

As some of you may or may not have read already in one of the previous blogs, the EOB factory is working on full power to release a bunch of new streetart, music and other news in Spring 2011. We also have high hopes to finally get on stage again with one of our projects, so do not hesitate to contact us at any time. We’re working on the centralisation of our net-quarters so all contacts concerning EOB concerts, releases or any other info should be directed to joranl33@hotmail.com. As said and shown before, the EOB recording room has been re-installed for the biggest part, so I hope to get productive again together when it comes to music. Still, any live-proposals for Kanonnevlees, Sunyata Syringe, Hamith’a Ha, Pavement Memoirs or a concentration of its creator are sincerely welcome.

 

The plans concerning Hamith’a Ha are going smoothly. We will start working on the second Hamith’a Ha release, Above the Surface Below, as soon as everyone of us gets off their civil duties and can come back to real life. We are hoping to release this chapter in Spring 2011 and are making plans to put our heads together for the 3rd album, which will be the final chapter of the first Hamith’a Ha cycle. The musical side of this 3rd release is already completely finished. The introduction track has been partially used in the newest Hamith’a Ha video clip. The album will contain 4 continu-tracks on the front, one long track on the back side, and additional artwork and gifts. While we’re at it, and why the hell not, the introduction track for the second Hamith’a Ha wave, thus the 4th album, may have been created, but no other information about that until further notice.

 

The first Hamith’a Ha release, De Kronieken van Gontia, has been successfully released in November 2010 and can still be found in the EOB headquarters and Kalpamantra office in the U.K.. We at EOB have 4 copies left, including one Silver Edition. Until now the tapes have proven to be satisfying gifts to friends and worthy purchases to our fellow assassins. A couple of old Sunyata Syringe tapes, Dope Dharmaceuticals, are also still awaiting orders, but any kind of trade proposal is welcome since we’re taking a new direction with the project. I was also hoping to make a first appearance with Krwi on tape but unfortunately a couple of months ago my laptop died without no reason at all, but with all my works on it. This includes losing a huge pack of EOB-related stuff and thus all Krwi tracks. This project was new, so I don’t know how seriously I was planning to work with it. I might as well just grant it its funeral, given that couple of months ago. We’ll see how things, and especially my creativity, turn out.

 

Following releases are planned for 2011:

- Hamith’a Ha – Above The Surface Below, C60 – ltd. 23 copies

- Hamith’a Ha – Nwyvre rehearsal tape

- Joran Laperre – Vitriool (Waar Dromen Ontspringen), C60

- Pavement Memoirs, Cityscapes vol. 2, C60 – ltd. 5 copies, made as a gift to close friends and EOB associates

 

I’m thinking of starting a small magazine concerning EOB activities, info, but especially artwork but we’ll see more about this some other time. But once I get my mind on it, I’ll definately manage to do it. All of this together equals purchasing a lot of tapes and other material, so this whole thing may take a while. But as usual, we’ll make it. In the meanwhile, we’ll have some promising art on the streets and your daily blogvisit which we’ll make sure you’ll enjoy. As you may have noticed I’ve been working on some “comic”-tryouts because of my latest comic obsession. Somehow I’ve been trying to collect every comic by Alexandro Jodorowsky (especially his works with Moebius), but that seems impossible. Although I’ve managed to get my hands on “Le Sacre Coeur”, “The Technopriests (pt. 1-4, 5&6 are next and last ones of this series)”, the first “Le Lama Blanc” episode, “The Incal” & “After the Incal (pt. 1, The New Dream)”, and hopefully some Borgia material soon too. Some of his books will be next. Somehow watching a few interviews and docu’s about Jodorowsky already made me develop a passion for his craziness. Watching Fando y Lis and El Topo recently may also have something to do with this. I’m also awaiting another one of his movies but the title slips my mind. I noticed our local library has his “Bouncer” series and I’ve been told they also have the “Le Lama Blanc” sequels, so that saves a bit of cash. Anyhow, the “Gontia” prequel-drawings are to be found in our archives. I hope to get started on a “real” comic soon but since I’m not that goot at drawing we’ll have to find a clever alternative.

 

So, let’s hope for a wind in our backs and may you all enjoy the coming year and its mindblowing additions.

 

Also, here are some dreams I had the past week. I somehow got sucked into them directly, without the usual introduction-dreams the days before. I deeply regret posting about this dreams about a week later, because I practically forgot every detail and maybe even an entire dream.

 

The first one I had was last week. I remember driving a car perfectly and the speed I was driving at kind of told me I was in a hurry. Then I remember kicking some punks ass but I can’t recall the reason why. He was wearing a leather jacket and didn’t have the looks of a regulair punker. I was not alone during this dream but I don’t know who was with me, or who I was with.

 

An other dream, which took place the morning after the one before was about me and my girlfriend making love. There was also an other girl present, until now unidentified. She had black short hair. So did my girlfriend, who usually has red hair with long dreadlocks.The place had something burlesque about it, and so did the girls. I also remember entering an other room in the same building but I don’t remember any interior.

 

The third and last dream for this blog was about me having organized another event with Alfarmania & Ättestupa, something I did 24th September 2010 in Ieper, which was a success. This time the target appeared to be Aalst, a town much closer to the place I live. We were driving around in my moms car and Kristian appeared to be the driver. Tony was sitting next to him and I didn’t notice much Ättestupa-related activity in the back. I was sitting in the middle of the back seats. When driving around I figured out I hadn’t organized anything at all, but I was still hoping to make the bands play. I think the event did take place, but I don’t remember anything but a school-like building and putting some of our gear in one of its rooms. I also appeared to have finally received my Korg Monotron which I’m still awaiting for a couple of weeks now. It didn’t quite look like on the pictures though. It looked like a tiny piano with Disney-figures on it, and a lot more buttons than it should have. But the thing did it’s job so I was happy to finally have it.

Journey to Ixtlan, nomads and false awakenings

“…a warrior is an impeccable hunter that hunts power. If he succeeds in his hunting he becomes a man of knowledge.”

There’s this band, Journey of Ixtlan, that makes some amazing music. I’ve been listening to them for a couple of weeks now, and I can’t get enough of them. They call their own music “New Age Doom/Occult Desert Rock”, which pretty much really sums it up.   I suggest you go check them out!
The whole American desert theme stirred my interest once again for the continent itself and the people that inhabit it, now and way back in history.   There’s something Faustian about America, something restless and ever-seeking.  As if the land is indeed hostile towards tranquility, and demands its inhabitants to always beyond, to cut the roots.  Nomads now, nomads then.  As I write this, I have to think of what William S. Burroughs wrote : “America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians.”

The relevance of all this is what now follows.  The band’s name is based on the book of Carlos Castaneda, “Journey to Ixtlan, the lessons of Don Juan“.  I haven’t read the book, but I’m about to as soon as my exams are over. Here are some abstracts of the book, if you want to get a picture.
As I browsed the page, this is one of things I read : “You must start by doing something very simple.Tonight in your dreams you must look at your hands…Every time you look at anything in your dreams it changes shape. The trick in learning to set up dreaming is obviously not just to look at things but to sustain the sight of them. Dreaming is real when one has succeeded in bringing everything into focus. Then is no difference between what you do when you sleep and what you do when you are not sleeping…”

At first I didn’t give it that much attention.  It drifted away to other matters at hand, I just bookmarked it.  But, what do you know, the same night in my dream I looked at my hands and started to wonder.  I realised I was in a dream, and the shitty thing is that when I’m about to go lucid, I mostly wake up.  But this time I shifted to another dream.  When I looked at my hands, I was in a basement of some sorts, lurking at what was happening in a neighbourhood nearby.  As soon as I looked at my hands I was ‘teleported’ as it were to that neighbourhood, not lucid, but dreaming again, without waking up.  This happened a multiple times, waking and dreaming within the dream.
Lately I have had more of these false awakenings.  Last night I dreamt I woke up, so I was back in my bed, stood up and got on my laptop.  The interior of my home was different, which is actually a hint for the dreamer.  As soon as I realized that, I woke up.  False awakenings feel like you’re trapped in a rud, but the good thing is, you know you have to eventually wake up.  Maybe that’s how one needs to perceive life itself.
Another peculiar thing is that I have seen the landscape that is on the bookcover before, in a dream.  A dream that I had a couple of months ago, before I ever saw this cover.  In this dream I too flew above this landscape, like that bird.  So that was another odd thing I have to mention.

I was moved when I read this short review of the book on Wikipedia : ‘Ixtlan’ turns out to be a metaphorical hometown ( or Place / Position of Being ) to which the “sorcerer” or warrior or man of knowledge without reason or thoughts is drawn to return. This is because his elevated perspective leaves him little in common with ordinary people, who now seem no more substantial to him than “phantoms”. The point of the story is that a man of knowledge, or sorcerer, is a changed being, or a Human closer to his true state of Being, and for that reason he can never truly go ‘home’ to his old lifestyle again.

It feels like the “sorcerer” is turning back into the nomad all humans once were.  This time on the spiritual plain.  I think nomadism is a constant in human history, aware of it or not.  Nomads and monads, as Bey would call it.

Just living in the ruins of futile renaissances

E.O.B.’ers hiking from spot to spot.
The empire is veiled, but here.
We wish you all a fertile 2011.

Comics of others and our own

I don’t know why but the last couple of weeks have been a graphic novel craze for me and others at E.O.B.
Feels like we finally got to know the magical dimension of this type of art ( which it truly is and has, believe me ).  Authors like Jodorowsky, Moebius, Moore and Morrison have some fine stuff out there that have literaly shocked my view on the practise of the esoteric arts and the inner worlds and have taken the practise of it to another level.  Especially Moore and Morrison their essays and words have portruded deep into me, I feel like a new world has opened up for me while it was never this far away to begin with.  Feels like a fresh start.

“Pop Magic” is a very useful essay by Grant Morrison on how to begin with magic as a normal 9-to-5 citizen or bored college kid.  It is short and doesn’t go that much in depth, but hell, this has got to be the best essay out there to give you the most basic ( and dare I say, the only ) knowledge and know-how on what you need to know about magic.  All the other stuff will follow as you proceed.
Another essay on magic by comic book magus Alan Moore is also more than interesting to give it a read : Fossil Angels Part 1 and Part 2.

The Pirate Bay offers a fine collection of these comic books, f.e. “The Invisibles”, “Promethea”, “The Incal” and others.  It has been until recently a relatively unknown territory for me and I’m still exploring it.  I’m going to check out the comic bookstores in town here and see what they have to offer.
The E.O.B. collective has gotten the comic book virus and it keeps spreading, a host we love to have to be honest.
Speaking of the Incal, I’ve posted in the beginning of this post the trailers of the animated films that were about to be made of “The Incal” and “Arzach” by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud, but sadly enough never saw the light of day.

We ourselves have started to give birth to the idea to give Hamith’a Ha another dimension of operating within these mystical spheres, besides music, painting, street art and such.  So we started with experimenting by getting our own comic-like art, something we will use to give the urban hive another type of wheatpasting.
I’ll write a short blog on what we wish to bring with this “comic-book wheatpasting”, it’s an idea I’m still working but which I wish to bring to the concrete nests of Babylon.
Here are some samples :

Art, magic(k) and mr. Moore

Alan Moore, better known as the father of V for Vendetta, his view on magic.  Moore is, besides being a comic book frater, a great mind when it comes to explaining not only the art, but also the tendencies in cultural history.
I’ve downloaded the entire “Mindscape of Alan Moore” docu recently, I suggest that everyone ( even the most fervent of atheists out there ) checks it out.
Here is the torrent.

Another apocalyptic scenario

I just woke up from this dream I had to fight some primordial firemonster again. I could say it was a dragon but somehow it wasn’t. When I had the chance to watch it I sometimes saw a women’s face, so I knew the monster was a female, and for as far as I can recall, so was I in that dream.

First I was walking around in some kind of shopping mall/university/space station/laboratory. The architecture was mostly black and very modern, even somehow futuristic. At some point, me and some other people were being chased (again) by Hypnos knows who, but not as seriously as in some other dreams. As we managed to exit the building through pipelines and corridors, we were standing before a magnificent view, impossible to describe or display by any picture, but it looked a lot like a gigantic network of descending rivers. I took a dive into the water and as I came out I saw a complete battlefield. The location was on the parking lot of the shopping mall near my mother’s house. Everything was of course a lot bigger than it should be – how else could it contain the monster and the dozens of people fighting it. We joined the brave warriors in battle and soon I received a message that a bunch of people were attacked by the monster not so far from the parking lot, and were still in their cars. I decided to go for it but somehow the monster was on to me and started following me much sooner then I expected. And again, I couldn’t run fast enough and the monster was gaining a lot of speed to catch me – this always happens when I’m being chased by giants in dreams. As we played cat & mouse I reached the spot I was heading for. I could save all the people without any difficulties and soon after that the landscape changed again. Now this location had a huge bridge crossing over, so we all ran there, assuming that the monster wouldn’t be able to see or catch us when hidden under the bridge.

I can still recall a few blurry images of the monster spitting a lot of fire when being attacked by flying objects which I think were helicopters. No idea where they came from but it wasn’t the army. It’s never the army when we’re fighting the offspring of the apocalypse.

Art & dream discoveries

EOBox, been working on this the past week and I’m pretty satisfied with the result. This will serve perfectly during live performances. Different live-accessoires will probably follow!

I’ve also been having this dream a couple of weeks ago which later seemed to be all about VITRIOL. I can’t recall the whole thing but I remember I was first spying on someone/something by looking into some part of a house. Later I catched up with PJ and Cindy I think, and I noticed we were walking downwards the whole time. The road was made of sand and separated by piled-up rocks. As we kept walking the road, we crossed a few Arabs and on the side of the road I could notice a lot of waterpipes (Shisha’s). I talked about this to PJ as that dream made me come up with a songtitle “when downwards is the only way forwards”. He said I dreamed about what’s called VITRIOL in Alchemy: “Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem (“Visit the Interior Parts of the Earth; by Rectification Thou Shalt Find the Hidden Stone”). Jung also said that people seem to dream about alchemic processes all the time subconciously. Hearing all this made me hope sincerely for a second sequel of that dream. Let’s hope my current insomnia doesn’t get in the way.

I’ve also been working on PM’s third album (which will be the first actual release), called Cityscapes vol. 2. The album will contain 3 long drony tracks and is likely to be released in 2011, however, in a very limited quantity.

Hamith’a Ha – UR-banism