Progressive metal single released in 2023, the first of a series of singles based on tales from the “dream cycle” by H. P. Lovecraft. His terror-sci-fi style influenced me a lot, but I reckon this author has some visions I do not agree with, so I tried to be mindful choosing non-racist texts to be set to music. Featuring Felipe Andreoli (electric bass) and Leo Miyata (drums), plus Rafael Eiji Saito (cover artwork).
This song is called “Fugue to Celephais” because of its two sources of inspiration: Fugue as a form of composition and the dreamlike city of Celephais, by the author H.P. Lovecraft. The short story entitled “Celephais” tells the story of a person who lives a miserable life in a ruined metropolis, until one night he dreams of a majestic city where he finally feels free from worldly horrors. After that, the person spends the rest of his life looking forward to the next dream where he can visit Celephais again. Eventually, the protagonist loses his life and, in death, becomes the king of the city he himself created in his dreams. The music was written as a sound narrative for the tale.
The composition itself is an exploration of the modes of the harmonic major scale (especially Phrygian b4, Lydian b3, Mixolydian b2) and freely unites this modal approach with the principles of tonal music, such as tension/resolution and counterpoints between various instruments. The song begins with an evil riff, which seeks to reflect the protagonist’s chaotic life, and develops using fugue techniques, without giving up the heavy metal sound – until the protagonist has his first dream of Celephais, portrayed by a “majestic and calm” passage. Here, the church organ plays the role of portraying the presence of the dream city.
After that, when the protagonist wakes up and finds himself aimless again, the chaos amplifies and the music becomes strictly atonal, following a dodecaphonic matrix and eventually a dissonant quartal harmony, inspired by Stravinsky and whose rhythm follows the principles of Pythagorean numerology related to the name Celephais (yeah, maybe I’ve gone too far). The song culminates in a royal fugue, written for bass, guitar and synthesizer, which symbolizes the protagonist’s death and his “escape” from bitter real life to the beautiful Celephais. The final passage depicts his majestic coronation as king of the city, where he will remain for all eternity.
CREDITS:
“Fugue to Celephais” – Composition, production, arrangement, engineering, electric guitars, keyboards, mixing, mastering.
