First track from Kekal‘s upcoming 2020 album “Quantum Resolution”, called ‘Quiet Eye’ will be released digitally on February 28th, with more songs to follow.
“Quantum Resolution” is said to be the 2nd concept album under the Kekal banner. The first one is of course the band’s 6th album: the classic and highly-regarded 2007 “The Habit of Fire”. Is there any similarities between the two in terms of the general concept of both music and lyrics?
Jeff Arwadi explains: To some degree, there’s a line that connects both albums, other than the fact that it’s the 6th and 12th album respectively. “The Habit of Fire” basically tells the story about recognizing slavery in a kind of modern-day post-dictatorship urban setting. It’s a fictional story but based on combination of real experiences from psychological, historical and existential perspectives. It tells about those in power, the authority, that always manage to enslave us as their workforce or “assets” for their benefits, by giving us false freedom and “robotic” mindset of needs, obedience and survival. s.
Then after some period of confusion and isolation, the protagonist found that he possesses the power of imagination, that can create a so-called “alternate world” only from imagining or day-dreaming. At first, he got freaked out and thought that he’s going insane because his “imaginations” became more and more “real” and at some point even entered his perception, but these so-called imaginations or fantasies actually helped him to escape his prisoner mindset (his sense of powerlessness), and with that he can actually fight his own fears and terror. Towards the end of the album, on the last track called “Escapism”, it talks about his escapism; a kind of fantasizing or imagining his escape from his prison of enslavement and that gave him hope as if he would finally find an escape in reality.
Now, the lyrics on “Quantum Resolution” tell roughly about the similar story, but based on my own spiritual journey and experience. And this is far more real to me. Since a few years ago, I’ve got so many synchronistic revelations leading me to receive new knowledge or insights, whether through in-depth research on history from many perspectives, archeological discoveries, myths and traditions from ancient civilizations, etc, down to the more recent Quantum Field theories, in order to connect all the dots. It’s all based on basic quest of getting to know who we are. Those which also help expose the lies and deceptions of so many things I previously held whether as a result of dogma and propaganda taught since my childhood days through education, religion, media and so on. Same thing, there was a period of me freaking-out when I came to realization that this world and this whole perceptual “universe” of matter; our dimension including space-time, is a some kind of illusion or “holographic” one. An imperfect “shadow world/universe/dimension” so to speak. A matrix that “virtually” simulates or modelled after the real one, and that we’re somehow “bound” within this matrix as slaves where perception to this holographic “reality” seems to be real, without even realizing. Also some other revelations about the origin of our species, and the nature of this world that is ruled by these spiritual forces of evil. And also about the nature of god or gods that influenced or even maybe directly told our ancient civilizations to worship as god(s), is/are not God in the true sense, but it/he/they became god(s) that most people tend to worship due to the traditional and/or religious backgrounds. But on the upside, one of these realizations that I’ve got about who we really are, is that we are actually above those rulers in the Spirit, the Spirit that comes from the true God which enables us to communicate directly to the Source and lead us into ultimate re-connection to the reality once we’re no longer in this “bodily prison”. I’ve learned so much only during this short period which I call it a journey of discovery, or gnosis by popular term. Many of the lyrics are based on the revelations that I’ve got. Later on, about early last year, I came across the suppressed old writings that were meant to be destroyed by those in power (which re-appeared again not too long ago), which actually re-affirm almost everything that I’ve experienced and what have been revealed.
Musically, I [Jeff] can’t say much because there are 12 to 13 years in between. I can’t really go back to what Kekal had during recording “The Habit of Fire”. The environment is very different now, and I don’t have time to play around with anything as much as I did in 2006 when “The Habit of Fire” was recorded. “Quantum Resolution” is probably more “spacey” and maybe more “cosmic” at the same time, and less complex in terms of structural arrangements than “The Habit of Fire”. The lyrics are much more spiritual, so the music would reflect its introspective and esoteric tendencies than the almost over-the-top experimentation on “The Habit of Fire”, because that album talks about wild imaginations as part of the story, while “Quantum Resolution” is about spiritual journey and personal revelations. “Quantum Resolution” is the most spiritual album I’ve ever written in terms of the lyrics.
Kekal’s latest album “Deeper Underground” has been released last year August.
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