Volcano: A Psycho-Drama in Three Acts

Part 1:
           This is not the final representation of this piece, however the writing and arranging is done. 

           The philosophical motivation for the Lyraka Volume 2 song "Volcano" is from Arthur Schopenhauer's The Will as World and Representation, a cynical tome portraying the life as suffering due to the individual's ceaseless, ubiquitous desiring.  Schopenhauer argued that the will alone is the absolute (his musings inspired by the Hegelian fascination in Germany at the time for positing things as "absolute").

In the song Volcano I envision the concept of will as like unto some immortal, Lovecraftian deity in its pure form so bizarrely foreign to people in ways, manner, and appearance as to drive you mad if you ever came upon it enflesh'd.  All we really know of this essentially abstract concept is the jellied-gasoline spread and burn of it at its most intense; the creeping, sentient, dread-inducing way it dogs our steps, and finally the way our minds work to adjust to its omnipresence.

Someone cue a tritone!

The drama is in three acts, which play out like this:
Volcano
   a) Treadmill
   b) Abyss
   c) Futility

Graham Bonnet plays Locke, the head of the Lyraka's Palace Guard, Veronica Freeman Scatherus (demonic possessor and servant of Abyss), and Rob Diaz the Abyss incarnated. The backing vocals are by Liz Vandall, whose audio will be replaced by Nina Osequeda on the final mix.

Part Two: "Volcano" Lead Guitar Parts: Philosophical Motivation, Context of Song, and Visualization

                       When it came to the lead guitar solos, I knew right off the bat that I wanted a bubbling lava sound to my lead, and technically it appears multi-tracking economy picking and arpeggiated phrases did the trick. I wasn't as concerned with playing something metronomically in time, stridently consonant, or tuneful. I wanted to represent artistically the bare will as lava, bubbling, splashing out of control.

As far as the cadenza in context, on these runs I visualized the heat of the  above-mentioned, inexorable Will-lava; that primordial napalm which inspires the grind-slaves of Errandia to continue hurrying on to nowhere, all the time chained to a treadmill.  

In summa, I knew the runs I want to play and how, mult-tracked the same solo, to tighten it up like Rhoads (yet beyond) and pan one take each left and right, then pick my favorite one for the middle. I ended up with parts of the other solos that worked together as a counterpoint, so I used quite a bit of what I recorded, which is rare in my method.

https://youtu.be/jhz3NFZkf-I

Please donate toward the release of Lyraka Volume 2 by Pay Pal to this address: lyrakametalopera@yahoo.com

Special thanks to Boris Vallejo, and a plain old simple-but-huge thanks to Andre Maquera for excellent rhythm guitar and for getting the heavy parts of this track together for me. Thom Carvey and Gary Spaulding on excellent bass and drums, respectively.

To hear this piece in completed and published form, please make a donation by Pay Pal to lyrakametalopera@yahoo.com. Your support will be massively appreciated!

All of this was composed, arranged, produced, and engineered by me. This is not the final product.

All music, lyrics, everything  ©2018 Andrew Neires DiGelsomina.