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Colored Sands
Colored Sands is the fifth full-length album by Canadian technical death metal band Gorguts. It is Gorguts' first studio album since 2001's From Wisdom to Hate. The album features the band's first recordings with guitarist Kevin Hufnagel and bassist Colin Marston, and the band's only recordings with drummer John Longstreth. It is a concept album based on Tibet. The album was released digitally on August 6, 2013, and the release of the CD and vinyl versions on September 3, 2013.
Luc Lemay joined Negativa with Steeve Hurdle after Gorguts disbanded in 2005, but felt uncomfortable with the improvisational elements in that band's music. At Hurdle's recommendation, Lemay reformed Gorguts in summer 2008 to prepare for the twentieth anniversary of Gorguts' 1989 formation. As Lemay recollected, "When Steeve brought the idea to me to make a new record to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band, I'd never thought about it before. I was very happy with everything the band had accomplished in the past and I had no intention of making a new record. Then, when I started to write, I had no apprehensions either...I just went with the flow and wrote the music I wanted to hear".
Lemay pursued drummer John Longstreth after being impressed with his performance on Dim Mak's album Knives of Ice. Longstreth and Lemay began rehearsing in early 2009. Lemay had previously met Colin Marston at a Negativa show in Montreal and originally wanted him to play guitar in the reformed Gorguts; however, Hurdle recommended Kevin Hufnagel as a potential guitarist, and Lemay agreed that his playing was impressive. Marston and Hufnagel both agreed to join the group, with Marston on bass instead of guitar. Lemay has confirmed that his collaboration with Marston and Hufnagel – who are also classically trained musicians – were critical to the composition of Colored Sands:
They are amazing players, and they have training themselves, as well. When we work on arrangements together, we can go into very micro-detail, like in doing composition on a sheet of paper, and we can understand each other's minds and very specific ideas in words by using an academic vocabulary. Colin's a big fan of those very modern American composers, like Elliott Carter, which is super complex music, and he listens to that like every day. It's the first time that I have [with me] someone writing extreme music and death metal, and we can share on Bartok and appreciate it.
Lemay placed Colored Sands in the context of Gorguts previous work by explaining that, beginning with Obscura, the band "deliberately made an effort to not do such things as the fast Slayer beats, no more fast picking riffs and other ideas found on our second album The Erosion of Sanity". This prompted the band to develop what Lemay described as "a new musical language" that was first heard on Obscura. However, Lemay noted that Obscura was essentially a "first draft of this new language", for which "the outcome is somewhat simplistic". Lemay viewed From Wisdom to Hate and Colored Sands as more sophisticated expressions of the "musical language" developed by Gorguts.
The songs on Colored Sands were written by Lemay (with the exception of "Forgotten Arrows", written by Marston, and "Absconders", written by Hufnagel), but the other band members composed most of their own parts. Inspired by Opeth and the album The Incident by Porcupine Tree, Lemay intended to write more progressive songs with longer running times and more dynamics. Lemay described the album as having more of a "soundtrack approach" that, while containing the essential ingredients of Obscura and From Wisdom to Hate, differed in how it was composed and arranged. As he explained, "I think we took more time to say things musically on this record; not that we were in a rush on the other records, but the songs were shorter....With this one, it breathes more".
The album's concept was inspired by Lemay's viewing of a child's drawing of a Tibetan sand mandala, which is a symbol made of colored sand that is ritualistically destroyed once it has been constructed. Lemay confirmed that the album's title alludes to sand mandalas. Lemay explained that, while he initially considered writing an album entirely based upon the sand mandala, he later expanded to focus upon Tibetan culture, geography, and history. Lemay explained that it was intent to "create a storytelling mood within the music; sort of like motion picture music". Lemay referred to Tibet as "the canvas for the music" in which the first four songs discuss "the splendours of the country, the culture, the topography, the geography", and the last four refer to "the country being invaded, people protesting through immolation, people getting killed trying to escape"; the song "Absconders" is based on Jonathan Green's book Murder in the High Himalaya about the Nangpa La shooting incident, and quotes the book with Green's permission.
The transition between the first four songs and the last four is an orchestral piece, "The Battle of Chamdo", which refers to the invasion of Tibet by China. The piece was written by Lemay on piano and recorded with a string quintet. Compared to classical composers Shostakovitch and Penderecki (which has been acknowledged and affirmed by Lemay), the song represents a critical turning point in the album concept, according to Lemay: "The topic of this song, the Chinese invasion of 1950, is the most important thing that happened to this country [Tibet]...so the instrumentation is different – it's striking". He further explained how "The Battle of Chamdo" served as the watershed of Colored Sands:
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Colored Sands
Colored Sands is the fifth full-length album by Canadian technical death metal band Gorguts. It is Gorguts' first studio album since 2001's From Wisdom to Hate. The album features the band's first recordings with guitarist Kevin Hufnagel and bassist Colin Marston, and the band's only recordings with drummer John Longstreth. It is a concept album based on Tibet. The album was released digitally on August 6, 2013, and the release of the CD and vinyl versions on September 3, 2013.
Luc Lemay joined Negativa with Steeve Hurdle after Gorguts disbanded in 2005, but felt uncomfortable with the improvisational elements in that band's music. At Hurdle's recommendation, Lemay reformed Gorguts in summer 2008 to prepare for the twentieth anniversary of Gorguts' 1989 formation. As Lemay recollected, "When Steeve brought the idea to me to make a new record to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band, I'd never thought about it before. I was very happy with everything the band had accomplished in the past and I had no intention of making a new record. Then, when I started to write, I had no apprehensions either...I just went with the flow and wrote the music I wanted to hear".
Lemay pursued drummer John Longstreth after being impressed with his performance on Dim Mak's album Knives of Ice. Longstreth and Lemay began rehearsing in early 2009. Lemay had previously met Colin Marston at a Negativa show in Montreal and originally wanted him to play guitar in the reformed Gorguts; however, Hurdle recommended Kevin Hufnagel as a potential guitarist, and Lemay agreed that his playing was impressive. Marston and Hufnagel both agreed to join the group, with Marston on bass instead of guitar. Lemay has confirmed that his collaboration with Marston and Hufnagel – who are also classically trained musicians – were critical to the composition of Colored Sands:
They are amazing players, and they have training themselves, as well. When we work on arrangements together, we can go into very micro-detail, like in doing composition on a sheet of paper, and we can understand each other's minds and very specific ideas in words by using an academic vocabulary. Colin's a big fan of those very modern American composers, like Elliott Carter, which is super complex music, and he listens to that like every day. It's the first time that I have [with me] someone writing extreme music and death metal, and we can share on Bartok and appreciate it.
Lemay placed Colored Sands in the context of Gorguts previous work by explaining that, beginning with Obscura, the band "deliberately made an effort to not do such things as the fast Slayer beats, no more fast picking riffs and other ideas found on our second album The Erosion of Sanity". This prompted the band to develop what Lemay described as "a new musical language" that was first heard on Obscura. However, Lemay noted that Obscura was essentially a "first draft of this new language", for which "the outcome is somewhat simplistic". Lemay viewed From Wisdom to Hate and Colored Sands as more sophisticated expressions of the "musical language" developed by Gorguts.
The songs on Colored Sands were written by Lemay (with the exception of "Forgotten Arrows", written by Marston, and "Absconders", written by Hufnagel), but the other band members composed most of their own parts. Inspired by Opeth and the album The Incident by Porcupine Tree, Lemay intended to write more progressive songs with longer running times and more dynamics. Lemay described the album as having more of a "soundtrack approach" that, while containing the essential ingredients of Obscura and From Wisdom to Hate, differed in how it was composed and arranged. As he explained, "I think we took more time to say things musically on this record; not that we were in a rush on the other records, but the songs were shorter....With this one, it breathes more".
The album's concept was inspired by Lemay's viewing of a child's drawing of a Tibetan sand mandala, which is a symbol made of colored sand that is ritualistically destroyed once it has been constructed. Lemay confirmed that the album's title alludes to sand mandalas. Lemay explained that, while he initially considered writing an album entirely based upon the sand mandala, he later expanded to focus upon Tibetan culture, geography, and history. Lemay explained that it was intent to "create a storytelling mood within the music; sort of like motion picture music". Lemay referred to Tibet as "the canvas for the music" in which the first four songs discuss "the splendours of the country, the culture, the topography, the geography", and the last four refer to "the country being invaded, people protesting through immolation, people getting killed trying to escape"; the song "Absconders" is based on Jonathan Green's book Murder in the High Himalaya about the Nangpa La shooting incident, and quotes the book with Green's permission.
The transition between the first four songs and the last four is an orchestral piece, "The Battle of Chamdo", which refers to the invasion of Tibet by China. The piece was written by Lemay on piano and recorded with a string quintet. Compared to classical composers Shostakovitch and Penderecki (which has been acknowledged and affirmed by Lemay), the song represents a critical turning point in the album concept, according to Lemay: "The topic of this song, the Chinese invasion of 1950, is the most important thing that happened to this country [Tibet]...so the instrumentation is different – it's striking". He further explained how "The Battle of Chamdo" served as the watershed of Colored Sands: