What
better way to attain true knowledge, “Gnosis”, other than questioning? It
is with this premise that Ayloss
introduces his inquiry into the nature of self-exploration. Through the
development of Eastern musical scales, while using a Western approach (see
metal), questions are expressed. With leading melodies that can take the
listener to a journey into the ages, from the middle age times to the modern,
technological and industrious day to day lives, one wonders about the essence
of life: What is it that we crave? Is eternal life, a thing to be obtained? Or
is it something that flows? Is consciousness devoid of identity and
person-hood? Am I body-matter or am I mind-consciousness?
The
music is soaring with the guitar melodies developing up front; the tambura and
darbuka playing in the background; the whispers and screams like the wind that
blows in the fall, somewhere into the Byzantine Empire, or maybe the Ottoman
Empire; a journey to spirituality through the lenses of a man living ten
centuries ago; a baker in Istanbul or a Phanariot in Constantinople; a Yunnan
or a Turk. After all, is not time relevant? Or is it constant? Couldn’t we say
that the whole of human history is expressed through us right now?
Ayloss has subconsciously expressed
the Greek state of mind. But it is not as finite and historically confined as
one might assume. His inquiry speaks into every human, no matter the time or
place. It is a conversation between logic and soul. One speaks with words and
the other with heart. I see into it myself, a Greek that has one foot into the
scientific approach and the western culture and one foot into the ever forming
but never defined, spiritual essence.
The
geographic location of Greece and her long history is the border between two
different cultures. The West and the East have merged and the offspring is a
bastard that can be uniting and divisive at the same time. Both soul and body,
rational consciousness and a desire for the eternal coexist within the confines
of man.
“Gnosis” is a work that is as mellow as
the sea that embraces the coast and as hard and resisting as the rocks that
rise from within her. Both mind and heart commute with the desire to reconcile.
And that is the essence of being human; in the world, yet not of it.
The
49 minute EP is built around the guitars and if you allow it, it will
communicate with you and move you. But the strongest point in Spectral Lore’s
music is the orchestration. Each song feels alive, vibrant and multilayered
with it’s own personality. And while the music plays, I see the belly dancers
swirling around at the bazaar, just a few hundred meters away from Hagia Sophia
and I smell the freshly roasted coffee. I hear the Imam chanting and I listen
to the conversations around me. I, a man of all ages, stand among brothers and
sisters, with Aristotle’s Metaphysics in my hands. I, a Greek that speaks
through “Gnosis”, inquire into the nature of being; with my heart being
the music and my mind being the explorer, I see the world as it is. Always
moving, never the same.
Listen
to “Averroes’ Search”; beginning with simple guitar melodies, maybe free style,
that turn into a slow Tsifteteli. This fades away and “A God Made Of Flesh And Consciousness” enters as a black metal fusion Greek folk song and in between
them, the lyric: Let me become a bridge between the East and the West. This is
the essence of “Gnosis”.
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