Prog supergroup Mimesis is debuting their first song “CTRL ALT DEL” with us today!   This band is super cool, with a modern touch on their sound with great melodic vocals mixed in too.  There’s some great guitar work as well, and isn’t too over the top…..it’s an emotional and kind of atmospheric band as well.  Overall this song will tingle a lot of your musical senses especially for the prog lovers on our site!  ALSO INCLUDED is a bonus interview too you can read while checking out the song!  Enjoy it all and appreciate the awesomeness of Mimesis!

MIMESIS:

TMR: What motivated and inspired the formation of Mimesis?

Goreblaster: I wanted to do an instrumental solo project initially. I was super stoked coming out of the recording process for The Beast of Nod’s album, and had recently learned a lot about setting up live in-ear systems and automated light shows. So initially I was just really excited to try and write some more melodic material that pushed my limits on the guitar, and which would be fun to develop a live show for and perform. I realized eventually that getting a full band together to write and record an album would be way more fun and interesting, and that’s what ended up happening!

TMR: Explain the influence and meaning of your band name.

Jen: Mimesis is a word that means art imitates life. A lot of the lyrics have to do with things I’ve felt very strongly, mostly negative things, but not all. Most of my favorite artists and musicians are people who write what they know, and out of a lot of painful experiences, come these amazing, emotional pieces of art or music. For me as a child, writing music was very positive, where I could create something out of negative emotions, and it was very helpful for me to grow that way and have that outlet. Not everyone has a positive outlet like that. We liked the name Mimesis because of the relationship between real life, and being submerged into a creative world that is not the real world – it can be what you make it. I think a lot of creative people struggle finding a balance between those two worlds.

We want to continue making a lot of music videos partially for that reason – to take the listener into a different world visually as well. 

This conversation could get very philosophical – the opposite of Mimesis is the concept of life imitating art, and author Oscar Wilde was a big proponent of this theory. He argued that people see what they want to see, and people have been influenced by art and culture already, so when we view the world we are not viewing it realistically. So what came first, the chicken or the egg? I find it very interesting to think about. Our song “The Mirror” will be released along with the full record on December 9th, and in the song, there are various references to Oscar Wilde’s work for this reason.

TMR: Explain the short history of your band. Who started it and who joined later on?

Goreblaster: In 2018 I’d started writing some material for a sort of progressive/shred instrumental guitar solo album. I started talking with Tony early on too, with the idea that he would track drums and possibly produce the record. As time went on I realized I’d be way more stoked if there was a singer involved in the project, but I didn’t really have anyone in mind yet. I knew I did want to move in a different direction from the material I’d just spent late 2017 working on for my band The Beast of Nod, which is technical/progressive death metal.

I didn’t know Jen yet but I wandered over to a show she was playing in Boston with her old band, and was super impressed by her voice. So on my way out I asked if she’d be down to check out some tracks and she agreed, and so we eventually ended up collaborating to write the Mimesis record.

Kilian is a monster player and has a great reputation in the Boston area (and beyond), so I’d been hoping to work with him for a while. As the material for the record came together, we ended up chatting and he was stoked on joining up to work on the project with us. 

Will loves horses and wears a horse mask half the time. Neigh. 

TMR: How did you all get into music? What’s your background as an artist?

Jen: I started singing in school plays and choruses when I was very young. I think my first performance was when I was about four. It’s just something I’ve always been doing. I later took piano and voice lessons. I started writing songs in my bedroom and learning some computer programs for that in high school. But I didn’t start doing anything “real” until I was in college, and I formed a band with some friends. We started performing in bars and things like that, and eventually it got a lot bigger – we went on a few small tours and opened some festivals. I ended up learning a lot about the music industry.

Goreblaster: For some reason I was attracted to the idea of playing guitar when I was really young. I took lessons and played casually in bands for basically my entire childhood and college, and guitar/music just became a constant in my life. In 2014, shortly after I moved to Boston to pursue my PhD, I met Paul from my band The Beast of Nod and started pursuing music more seriously. Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to do some U.S. touring and cultivate a bit of an online following through Beast, and have had the chance to meet a TON of other artists and musicians who have become some of my best friends. 

TMR: Some of you guys were/are in extreme metal bands. What prompted the beginning of an experimental, proggy type band? A different outlet or did it happen naturally?

Goreblaster: 100% it was a desire for a different outlet. I enjoy playing death metal a lot, but I have a lot of ideas that don’t fit super easily into the genre.

TMR: Explain to our viewers about your debut song “CTRL ALT DEL”. How was it conceived? Elaborate on the meaning and lyrics as well.

Jen: The instrumental parts of the song came first. Goreblaster wrote it and wanted to include a lot of different types of sounds in it, and a lot of technical parts. So it’s very “proggy.” 

At the time when I heard it, I was going through a lot of life changes and it felt like a very chaotic song in some ways. I wrote it about not feeling like you can communicate with those close to you. Kind of like feeling alone in a crowd, or being on the outside and looking in. 

The technology/computer metaphor was actually something I dreamed about. It was very strange. Goreblaster sent the instrumental to me and I listened to it. The next morning I woke up with the words “Control Alt Delete” in my head and the lines:

“There’s no backspace key for the words that I speak”

“Breaking through the firewall”

“There’s a flaw in my code”

…And a lot of the other computer metaphors in the song, like using the escape key, copy and paste, etc. I was just sort of hearing these words over and over and immediately tried to find a piece of paper and write them down. It happened very fast and it was odd, but I’m happy it happened. Goreblaster and I later sat down to come up with the storyboard of the music video and we had a lot of fun creating the concept of a virtual reality, almost video-game esque world. 

TMR: Any plans for shows or is this strictly studio based?

Jen: We are in the process of booking some shows – so far mostly shows on the east coast of the U.S. Beyond that, I would love to play a few festivals and things of that nature, and maybe some west coast shows, but it will really depend on how the music is received. If audiences want us to perform in their city, they can let us know on social media by commenting on some of our posts and photos, etc. We won’t know where you want us to go unless you tell us! So if there is a demand, we can fulfill that. But until we know for sure, we would probably just focus on creating more music and videos. If you like the record, be sure to buy it on Bandcamp too – that helps us a lot!

Goreblaster: The live lineup will definitely be based in the Northeast U.S. initially, even though two of us are moving to the west coast. Fortunately we’ll be able to use my band The Beast of Nod’s touring gear and light fixtures when we do play out, so the logistics of traveling from CA to rehearse and perform won’t be so painful.

TMR: How is the band work delegated? Are lyrics a group effort or just for Jen? Is the music left for the rest of the band? Talk about the artistic dynamics of Mimesis as a group of artists.

Jen: All of the lyrics were written by me. Goreblaster wrote a lot of the music itself, and then Tony and Kilian added in many parts. I focused a lot on the visual direction, and I really wanted to do two music videos that would be completely different from each other. “Ctrl Alt Del” is more futuristic and humorous, but eventually our music video for the song “The Chariot” will be released, and that one was filmed in the Mojave desert. So that one will look very different and I can’t wait for you to see it. Tony our drummer was the videographer for both videos, so I came to him with our storyboard and concept direction, and then he put in a lot of work filming and editing. 

TMR: Tell our followers what we can expect from Mimesis in the near future. 

Jen: We are planning on releasing a series of playthrough videos for guitar and bass, so if you are listening and wondering how Goreblaster or Kilian made something happen, those will probably interest you. All of the music on this record is very technical. I will also be releasing a series of videos on the lyrics, and how I came up with them/hidden meanings and symbols etc. 

Our video for “The Chariot” will also be released, and we are probably going to start writing more music soon at the beginning of 2020. I really like new and fresh sounds, so I usually don’t want things to sound the same if I’ve already done something similar. I love doing artistic video work and coming up with creative visual ideas. So we will definitely be having more of that.