Wilmar: Strange bands hail from Italy, like in earlier days Death SS and Ephel Duath. The Gothic Multimedia Project also comes from there, and the name is somewhat misleading. The Gothic Multimedia Project sees itself more like a Gesamtkunstwerk than a band. Let me explain the concept of a Gesamtkunstwerk for the less informed reader. The principle spawned from the mind of Richard Wagner, which actually brings several art forms together. With his opera’s (Der Ring Des Nibelungen, Parsifal, Der Fliegende Holländer, Tristan Und Isolde) he tried to unify music, poetry, painting, acting and architecture to one giant work of art he called the Gesamtkunstwerk (roughly translated: Total Work of Art).
The Gothic Multimedia Project also tries to unify some arts. Music is weaven into a web of drawing and painting, computer programming, with dvd/video and poetry. I was introduced with their interpretation of Multimedia about four years ago through the double cd Grim. The cd was joined with a multimedia cd with a PowerPoint presentation that did not impress me much. In the meantime I have listened to Grim many times, and it stays a daring album that rules over the latest product of the Gothic Multimedia Project: the ‘anti-boxset’.
The anti-boxset contains four cd’s and two dvd’s which are meant as a kind of re-issue for their demo’s and the first cd ‘Fleeing The Rainland’. The cd’s all have separate titles: ‘Whispers From The Gothic Gloom. And A Fiend’ that spans the period 1989-1993; ‘Buried Lithanies. Undead?’ that masks the period 1993-2000; ‘As Fragile As An Uncanny Cobweb’ which spans the period of 2000 and the fourth cd ‘Où Les Phalènes Sombrent’ which contains unreleased tracks and remixes of two songs from the album ‘Grim’.
I can be very short about the first cd ‘Whispers From The Gothic Gloom. And A Fiend’: the quality is really bad. Although the recording quality gets better the longer you listen to it, it still is death metal played with a keyboard instead of the usual instruments, and in some occasions the sound is so bad that you don’t know what you are listening to. That’s actually the occasion with all the songs from the first demo ‘Into The Gothic Gloom’. If you look at the year (1989) it might be called original, but in 2007 it is something you merely laugh about. The recording quality reminds me of multitracking with a cassette recorder (you link two cassette recorders and with each recording you record to the other deck. That way you can make multitracking recordings, but the disadvantage is that the noise level increases with each take).
The sound improves on the second cd, but the music is as tight as a rubber band. At least they are using multitracking recorders instead of cassette recorders. The lack of tightness in the music is a great fault on all the Gothic demo’s. You can hear some influences of the old Paradise Lost, and James Jason is quite influenced by Celtic Frost (according to the Uhh and Heeeyyy’s). Here and there you hear a strong track, a melody that stands out or a certain tempo, sometimes Davy Jones (guitar) joins in but then the sound drops production wise due to the noise from the amplifier… The stylistic turn between the demo’s ‘Dark Dimension’ and ‘Cold Winds Of Suicide’ which are featured on ‘Buried Lithanies. Undead?’ is evident. Gothic becomes more melodic and the vocals turn from death grunts into the pitiful groans which made Tom Fischer of Celtic Frost famous (think in this case about ‘Mesmerized’, ‘Caress Into Oblivion’ and ‘I Won’t Dance’).
The final four songs of aforementioned cd and the three compositions from ‘As Fragile As An Uncanny Cobweb’ (how does one think of such a title) are from the official first album ‘Fleeing The Rainland’ (2000) and show production wise a slight improvement. The songs are composed better than the older demo’s but the music lacks tightness.
The strongest of the four albums is ‘Où Les Phalènes Sombrent’ which features two remixes of songs from the album ‘Grim’ and two previously unreleased tracks. In the latter case it was better if ‘Gleams Of Unknown’ should have stood unreleased, because it lacks tightness and is sometimes right out of key. ‘Mazes Of Loneliness’ is more wave-like and can be called a hidden treasure. The biggest surprises are the remixes of ‘Down In Your Shrine’ and the awesome version of ‘Forlorn’, both from the album ‘Grim’.
The anti-boxset is completed by two dvd’s. If they are both the same, you don’t miss a thing about them: it’s a biography of the project which you can read from your television screen. That is one of the things I hate. One of the dvd’s refused to play, which is also annoying. My greatest point of critique is that the dvd features texts which are better consumed in print. After two items you turn off the dvd. I expected something like a documentary about the Gothic Multimedia Project. But I guess that would make a commercial impression. The dvd’s are in my honest opinion obsolete.
The overall impression is that it’s a neat boxset. The booklet is printed in four colours, but it spells ‘made at home’ from every page: the cd’s are not printed or professionally burned (the flipside is green, like the dvd’s which have a purple flipside). They sincerely put some effort into it, but by using recordables it all shows a bit amateur-like. Another critical question I ask myself is if anyone is waiting for this. The Gothic Multimedia Project seems to suffer from overestimation if you are looking at the importance of their demo’s. I doubt if it was taken serious back in the day, leave alone it will be taken serious now. I fear that this boxset can damage the project which surprised me with the album ‘Grim’, and it’s a pity that the energy they put into this boxset hasn’t been used for a new release. James Jason let me know that they are working on something new, and that it will crush everything they have done before. It must be really something to make me lose the bad taste this ‘anti-boxset’ left me with.
I can be very short about the first cd ‘Whispers From The Gothic Gloom. And A Fiend’: the quality is really bad. Although the recording quality gets better the longer you listen to it, it still is death metal played with a keyboard instead of the usual instruments, and in some occasions the sound is so bad that you don’t know what you are listening to. That’s actually the occasion with all the songs from the first demo ‘Into The Gothic Gloom’. If you look at the year (1989) it might be called original, but in 2007 it is something you merely laugh about. The recording quality reminds me of multitracking with a cassette recorder (you link two cassette recorders and with each recording you record to the other deck. That way you can make multitracking recordings, but the disadvantage is that the noise level increases with each take).
The sound improves on the second cd, but the music is as tight as a rubber band. At least they are using multitracking recorders instead of cassette recorders. The lack of tightness in the music is a great fault on all the Gothic demo’s. You can hear some influences of the old Paradise Lost, and James Jason is quite influenced by Celtic Frost (according to the Uhh and Heeeyyy’s). Here and there you hear a strong track, a melody that stands out or a certain tempo, sometimes Davy Jones (guitar) joins in but then the sound drops production wise due to the noise from the amplifier… The stylistic turn between the demo’s ‘Dark Dimension’ and ‘Cold Winds Of Suicide’ which are featured on ‘Buried Lithanies. Undead?’ is evident. Gothic becomes more melodic and the vocals turn from death grunts into the pitiful groans which made Tom Fischer of Celtic Frost famous (think in this case about ‘Mesmerized’, ‘Caress Into Oblivion’ and ‘I Won’t Dance’).
The final four songs of aforementioned cd and the three compositions from ‘As Fragile As An Uncanny Cobweb’ (how does one think of such a title) are from the official first album ‘Fleeing The Rainland’ (2000) and show production wise a slight improvement. The songs are composed better than the older demo’s but the music lacks tightness.
The strongest of the four albums is ‘Où Les Phalènes Sombrent’ which features two remixes of songs from the album ‘Grim’ and two previously unreleased tracks. In the latter case it was better if ‘Gleams Of Unknown’ should have stood unreleased, because it lacks tightness and is sometimes right out of key. ‘Mazes Of Loneliness’ is more wave-like and can be called a hidden treasure. The biggest surprises are the remixes of ‘Down In Your Shrine’ and the awesome version of ‘Forlorn’, both from the album ‘Grim’.
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