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| January 2007: A Message From Vov Abraxas |
 | Vov Abraxas is the sound. So is the sloagan to one of the most obscure record labels in Canada.
We test that in this essay, using 3 factors, artistic consistency, lyrical growth, and relevancy in the times. These factors are used to commonly judge artists in both visual, and audio fields by art critics.
Before we get into it, I will elaborate a little, on the work of Vov Abraxas. In 2003, Xeronaut became Bam Bam Davinci and Vov Abraxas which is now just Vov Abraxas (these are just the aliases of the artist). |
What the artist had in mind at the time, was to create a persona under
which he would illustrate a darkside of pop music; creating poppy influenced beats with synthetic instraments exclusively; and bringing the grungy dark lyrics from other influences into the picture.
As time went on, the songs began to manifest the image of Vov Abraxas. At first it was out of boredum, then it was out of passion, then it was out of indifference, and then it was out of quest and legacy.
These transformations may not be as detectable to the common listener as
it may be to the avid fan. The transformations are there for a number of reasons; most of them
deriving from the artist's personal life, issues with lovers and muses, issues with being a visual minority, issues with his intimate relationship with poverty, issues involving the death of his friends or family, issues with being brought up in a broken family, issues with the artist's life resembling fiction more than it does fact. These transformations are also reminiscant to those of pop stars
who "reinvent themselves," however, unlike the normal pop stars, whose transformations take
them to cleaner and more naive and pointless points of views as their artistic saga unfolds, Vov
Abraxas becomes more sophistically dirtier, socially concious, and darker as the artist learns to
find comfort in obscurity.
In 2006, the artist compiled the first two chapters of the Vov saga, (vov), and indifference. They were released by the label he and his friends put together. Although they were overshadowed by his hip hop debut, "Vov Abraxas as Ace Trigonometry in: WHATEVER FOREVER!" they were
monumental achievements for the artist himself. Lyrics like "I'm as bored as the Steppenwolf,
well maybe not bored to that extent." Which was actually a litterary reference. The
Steppenwolf is a classic manuscript written by Hermann Hesse. Steppenwolf is the story of Harry
Haller, an old man vagabond, who is forever fighting the urge to end his own life, he is an artist
and a dreamer, and after all those years, he didn't do anything special to help society in anyway, he just floated around all his life, spurning society's norm, and reclusing in darkness, eventually becoming so bitter that he is incapable of humour. Vov Abraxas often makes reference to the
writings of Hermann Hesse. In fact, the artist learned the word "abraxas" from a Hermann Hesse
novel, "Demian" which he interpreted as a story of Harry Haller when he was young and dreamy, but beginning his dark trail towards total obscurity, and sombre insanity.
Abraxas, is an ancient diety which represented both good and evil in the same masterpiece
cycle of life. The artist identified with this word deeply because he always felt he was of no use
to society, raised in the darkside of society, but always wanting to be something that someone
would say is "good" Christianity outlawed many of the factors of his bastardly birth, and his
sporatic unpredictable, and unorthodox upbringing. Learning of abraxas rekindled a new faith in
God that the artist lost after years of feeling like an outcast in Christianity; especially after learning of the boarding schools and the indoctrination which took place in the lives of his grandparents.
It was a new day for the artist, a reassurance that God will love his little rebel no matter what.
Once the artist knew about abraxas, he became somewhat obsessed, he would now see abraxas
everywhere. Finding strange sureal facts such as..
"Early astronomers calculated that the Sun took 360 days to go round the Zodiac. This was a closely guarded secret of the learned; so they concealed it in the divine name Mithras, which adds up, according to the Greek Convention (M 40--I 10--Th. 9--R 100-- A 1--X 60--A 1--S 200) to 360. Better observation showed 365 days to be more accurate; so they decided to call it "Abraxas" (A 1--B 2--R 100--A 1--X 60--A 1--S 200). When the others discovered this they put themselves right by altering the spelling of Mithras to Meithras which adds, like Abraxas, to 365. In this there was an error of not quite 6 hours, so that in the course of centuries the calender kept slipping, and did not assume it's present form untill the time of Pope Gregory." (The Book Of Thoth, Aliester Crowley, Part One: The Theory of the Tarot, III. The Theory of the
Ancients, p.27, 28)
(vov) was written just a little after the artist graduated from highschool. Although the
rebelliousness in the lyrics were obvious, they were not as overt as they are in later chapters of the vov saga. Another element of the vov lyrics which stands out is "Acril." Acril, was his most
lucid and fasinating muse(s); she is to Vov what Hermine was to Harry Haller. Perhaps his truest
love, though a thousand circumstances would always place a barrier between them. She is
like a dream, and she teaches him how to laugh, love, dance, and tragically, most important
of all, to yearn, to long, and to let go. (vov) ends on a dark Harry Haller-esque note "F**K stagnating, might as well go deeper into oblivion's happy trails."
Deeper it goes, Indifference was written during a period when the artist was having trouble identifying with the purpose of lyrics, thus half of the songs are without lyrics. Most of the lyrics
were writen in planes and airports. The artist's lack of effort in the lyrics actually compliments
the direction of the transformation; subtle references to the darkside of pop culture such as
"Old Man reminiscing on his favorite acid trip in the sixties, Fraggle rake, Clark Kent, conspiracy
theories revolving around Timothy Leary" Vov Abraxas reflects on an era that has been dubbed out of style, then declared back in style again, an era which was celebrated for its peaceful rebellion which was ironically ignored, also the drugs which played such a huge part in the norm's lives also played a part in parylizing thousands of people and making them useless to their peaceful
utopian cause. This was also the period when Vov Abraxas began losing his faith in drugs, and
saw the drug-use and drug-glamour in pop culture to be a crutch, and a horrible one, because
it leads naive young people down paths they don't actually want to travel. "Everybody get loser,
Footloser" The artist also comments on movements and revolutions that were distorted and
destroyed by the media, "We can sleep anywhere, we don't need a real cause to start a revolution, just f**kin" The indifference of the artist rendered everything in his life and the
issues of pop-culture to be ironic and humourously depressing. He reverted into recluse, to
search back into his roots for inspiration. Indifference ends on a more light-hearted note,
"One day I'm gonna make my furniture with my own bare-hands" promoting the idea that
we don't need to be heavy consumers; and also reintroducing himself to the styles that he used
before he became Vov Abraxas.
There is a gap between the second and third vov chapter, during this time, the artist was
working on other projects as other personas. One of these projects are The Pteradons.
Which is a team effort between Greg Large, and Vov Abraxas. This project is crucial to the
transformation which occured in the third vov chapter. The Pteradon is a winged dinosaur
that soared the skies before all life on earth went extinct millions of years ago. The left over
matter was then compressed and processed by the natural forces of the earth, into crude oil.
Which as we all know, is a powerful source of energy and war. There was a lot of growth
lyrically and artistically during these sessions as Large and Vov often philosophized about ironies
of the natures of the world, and the ironies of human nature, and of course something that
has been on everyone's mind, the end of the world.
Throughout art history, there has been an intangible pendulum swinging back and forth between dark ages and light ages, ages where thousands of people either suffered or florished. During the Baroque Era, there was the black plague, which influenced many hopeless sounding symphonies and choir music, and dark and depressing artworks. The artist, inspired by the idea of the pendulum, and the baroque, constructed a noise sonata called "HARK THE NOISE OF ANGELS: the scissorhand sonata" under the pseudonym Dine Peril. In this noise sonata, the artist, sampled music from the baroque period, and from the romantic period, and mended them together with electronic drums and heavy streched out noises and violent but cathartic drum beats.
This sonata was a symbol of the artist's own dark age, the uncertanty and yearning for peace,
and ongoing conflict with God which is clearly expressed with the use of gospel choirs which
sing exerpts of hymns that were written by Henry Purcell, who was a major contributor to the
baroque era.
Keeping in mind the pendulum idea, the artist worked here and there on what would become
the third chapter in the vov saga "restlessness." Instead of the baroque, or the romantic era,
the artist decided to choose an era more recent to reflect on, the impressionists, the surrealists,
and the abstracts; in muisc timelines, these would be the impressionists, and maybe the ragtime
and jazz eras. these and the music of today. This time the lyrics are harsh and plentiful. Rage
directed aimlessly, indifference everywhere, a lot of chaos. With this chapter, the artist wanted
to write lyrics the way Jackson Pollack painted. He compiled notes he wrote on napkins, side-notes he wrote in his notebooks, lyrics he previously scribbled out of songs, he cut poems in half
and placed them at random places in the album, etc. He also wanted to illustrate vividly how he
felt about the world during that time, songs like "Grown Man" which ridicules a drug abuser/dealer who hides drugs inside his body; which is a direct rebuttal towards the drug
glamour that pop-culture insists on hyping up as though it were an important life experience
there for everybody to take part in. The artist does however, contradict himself on this issue,
advocating drugs here and there in subtle phrazes like "bored out of my tree and stoned out my
gord" or "zoomin with the gorgeous dancefloor subordinates" or "my medusa, no one ever gets me stoned like you used to." When confronted about this, the artist simply stated "Drugs can be a good time once in a while, but they're not always the key to a good time. No one should
run themselves into the ground with drugs, or think they can't live without them, that's just
weak. And it's pretty lame of society to need thousands of spokespeople to keep telling people
this, but that's how society has always been, lame."
He fights the objectification of women in a couple ways through his lyrics, phrazes like "my inner-chiild's all like, look at those titties! too bad she's a boring old bitty, sorta witty when she's lippy"
or a very memorable one, which depicts a girl who was deeply wronged by a boy, and now
she is out to get him back "Shelly Shipwreck, hicky on her neck, her torn dress, burning in the
trench, she has a violin, she is singing revenge, her loverboy is dancing on his final threads.."
The artist expresses a quiet but sophisticated rage against pop-culture and the cultivation
of cookie cutter formulas applied to the majority of modern music, leaving no room for originality,
"the f**kin posers are trying to take over this music thing, pretty rebel girl I got the flavor
you've been wanting to try, I'm in the graveyard with emptyness on my face, singing there is no
one who is deader than I"
In one song, he realizes he is becoming what he hates about pop-culture by mimicing it for satirical purposes, he expresses such by singing "I'm dreaming about places where evil spirits don't
go." He is also grieving about his poverty, and bleak world view it provides. "I'm
lving in sin, bent off of mild substances, telling you my secrets."
The artist begins to find himself through his music; with a robot voice to sing for him on a song he asks "What defines a human being? Is it their length or their width, or their actions? Is it the chain reactions of their actions? Is it the length or width of their chain reactions?"
By now it's still hard to say whether or not Vov Abraxas is the sound or not, which was the initial
goal, but we can say that the music is up to date with the times, that lyrically, the artist has developed incredibly, and he has been consistantly prolific, even through all his hardships and indifferences with the world, but what is next?
What will the next transformation of Vov Abraxas be? Will it be deeper into darkness and hysteria
staying underground and opposite of pop-culture? Or will Vov Abraxas mimic pop-culture's
most sorriest contribution to the art-world, the sell-out? Will Vov Abraxas stage a selling out point
to satirize the event in which pop-culture takes what is genuinely cool, and kills it?
Only time will tell. |
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