Serpentinuum

13 Fans

Band Bio

Oscar Dylan, grandson of one of the "inner circle" beat poets, formed Serpentinuum in Milwaukee Wisconsin in the early 'aughts. The 3 piece plied it's fazed and distorted intellectual prog-metal throughout Madison and the Marquette circuit.

They first came to national exposure as the band behind the music on Vortromeda's classic concept album "Replicant". Subsequently signed to UncleDuffRecords, Serpentinuum put out a couple of critically acclaimed but low selling releases and toured in support of Zeroth before going incognito for nearly a year.

It was during this time that the ideas which would form the basis of their own conceptual masterpiece, "philm", were hatched.
Much of the original inspiration came when Dylan and guitarist G. G. McClure both read "Idolon" by Mark Budz. Taking ideas from this book and combining them with other Budz concepts as well as their encyclopedic knowledge of a wide range of fields, from quantum mechanics to the study of consciousness, they created a tale epic in scope.

Dylan and McClure, along with drummer Jack Cassady spent ten weeks in the BassmentFile with Frey, enlisting M.G.Alsogownas to provide electronic-organics and Zandergriff Miggs grinding some low end "Lordian" B3 growls. The result is "philm", a lumbering, spacey concept album whose weighty theories teeter on the verge of collapsing into their own gravity.


_______________[See "Cliff Notes" synopsis of "philm" below]_______________

-Early History:

Near the start of the 2nd decade in the 21st century, the military industrial complex began R & D on various forms of spray-on silicon skin that could be loaded with various digital images. At it's outset it was a huge advance in technology, giving the nation a distinct advantage over it's neo-cold war enemies. But the tech was cumbersome and inefficient to use. It took years to figure out how to power the 'skin using biolectrics (the bodies own subatomic energy packets), wiring the wetronics into graphene and integrating the nanoware fullerenes.

By this time the 'skin had filtered into civilian society through the black market, eventually becoming legitimized as an everyday commodity.
Now it's as common as the home computer and cell phone were during the early years of the 2000's.
...in other words, nearly everyone in the western world had access to the ware.

The 'skin could be uploaded (philmed) with digital holograms that allowed for limitless looks and features. People began philming themselves as movie stars, heroes...it could be any one (or thing). Soon casts were formed of people with similar images and a massive segregation swept through the country as society sectioned itself off into communities of like casted individuals.

-The middle years:

The Biognost Corporation, the leading manufacturer of street legal 'skin began a series of tests using quantum threads woven into the nanotubes.
It was discovered that at the sub atomic level, Heisenberg's uncertainty was manifesting itself in ways that seemed to mimic evolution, inheriting traits and mutating as the 'skin's cells "multiplied".
(but it's too early for me to take you down that road yet...)

A new religious order, the Transcendental Vibrationists, sprung up seemingly everywhere across the globe at once.
They promised a connection.
In the current separatist society, people were drawn in by that promise and the T.V.s soon became the worlds largest congregation.

The T.V.s were a front for Biognost. A way of force feeding their newest line of 'skin en masse. The connection they were promising was merely a connection to Biognost's programming logarithm. Their sinister marketing strategy to control the world through the markets.

-Where you're dropped into the story:

Ray Beckett, the first of Biognost's test subjects, begins sending in reports of strange complications. The 'skin, which began as an exomer, was "learning". It was weaving itself into his body, becoming him...or actually, co-opting him symbiotically. He tries to warn his contacts at Biognost, but the ware has already been sold to the masses via the T.V.'s

Through it's own evolution, the 'skin had achieved some level of consciousness and this effect spread rapidly through the world.

A small group of luddites who shunned the technology in favor of realism mapped a plan to destroy the mass consciousness that was forming by introducing a digital virus, but to succeed they needed to find Test Subject Alpha.

Band Gear

This band doesn't own any gear!

Albums / EPs

philm Date Released: 10/7/2010   Tracks: 18 Sales: 9   Listens: 25 ...What the?...run diognostic...Damn!...I can't de-image. Log 26: this is Test Subject Alpha. Project Gnosis is spinning beyond constraint. The nanoware has infiltrated my internal system. I've lost all control of... ___________________________________________<end transmission>_______ *cover art by VanQ. "view from within the mandelbrot mask" *thanks to Mark Budz for inspiration. *there really never was a walrus, Paul or otherwise. For what your lacking, check the home of the coil.

Harquebus Lock Date Released: 9/25/2009   Tracks: 9 Sales: 6   Listens: 10 Beyond reality's abstractions lie the charred remnants of mind, beautiful & cold. Flowering sparks of comet's dark engine grows legs in it's quest to procreate. -Strike the match. Serpentinuum deliver "Harquebus Lock" a churning, free flowing dirge of an album of armor piercing prog-jams. The meandering thunder harkens back to the late 60's/early 70's Prog/Acid rock hey day. *recorded in Dawke Castle, Peebleshire, Scotland by Frey *samples & electronics provided by Vortromeda

an abstraction of some piece of desiccated reality Date Released: 7/4/2009   Tracks: 12 Sales: 6   Listens: 11 This album was born from a long night of debating the validity of McLuhan's theories. From this, these songs were framed and thus this media became our message. -songs have been electronified by our associates in Vortromeda. To bring order into this jangled sphere man must find its center. True color experience derives from involvement of all the senses at once-synesthesia...an abstraction of some piece of desiccated reality.