Special: Of Rats And Men

The voice, although screamed, made everything resonate with itself, be it either a piece of paper, a dirty flower vase or a human soul. And then, as the song came to a slow but desirable conclusion, acoustic guitar notes intertwining and weaving themselves into forming a gentle buzzing sound, it was then when I experienced eternity…

It felt as though I had died and came back to life, all in the same undefined moment. No more would the space-time continuum exist, as time and space gave way to the ultimate dimension, that of absorbing nothingness. Soon enough, the same grating voice that had put me into the reverie dragged me back to reality with its grasping claws. 

– unknown quote

In my personal opinion, music is one of the few forms of art that can truly tap into the subconscious of a person, slowly tethering itself to our inner sustaining foundation, shaking the very pillars that define our emotional stability. 

You might say that this is a very strong statement, yet if I start looking around and rationalizing everything I find that there is no amount of good books, paintings or visual experiences that would have the same effect on one person as, let’s say, his favorite song in the world. As someone whose first discernable memories are music related, I can confess to belonging in that category. As someone who would choose going to a specific show over everything else that might happen at the same time, I can confess to belonging in that category. As someone who has had similar experiences to the one mentioned in the above quote, I can confess to belonging in that category.

With that out of the way, I’m going to start a little parallel here so please bear with me. 

Thing is, the guys at Tzeeeac have started writing some kind of articles about ‘life-changing albums’ and, while I wish them good luck with it, personally I won’t be doing that. Why? Well I’d guess that’s a pretty straight forward answer: the simple categorization used here implies just the thing that you previously read, a life-changing album. And if it changed your life, how could you even write something that could do that piece of music justice? You’re hearing everything with distinctive nuances now, possibly looking at the world from a completely unique perspective. I would stretch that it turned you into an entirely different person, although that’s not quite an accurate image. If, however, the person whose vision of the realm around him has been modified in any way by reason of listening to said music, one might want to heed the following advice, which in my opinion should apply to every living being:

Change should be self-induced, rather than self-inflicted.

Only upon the realization that this experience has truly taken a hold of you is made, only then you can safely declare that you just listened to a life-changing album.

In another twist of ideas, I’d like to take this opportunity and extend a formal apology to all of the bands that have sent music our way. Not in the outline that we did something wrong, but seeing that we’re just a colorful conglomerate of music freaks, I think it’s safe to assume that we’ve all had our share of life-changing albums by now. We may like your stuff, hell we may even love it, but as more time passes by us, chances that we’re going to find another one in the midst all those hundreds, thousands of hours we spend torturing our eardrums with are very slim, possibly travelling in a downward spiral towards zero. We sure as hell don’t want that, but it’s not like we can do anything to stop it. What we can do, however, is try to be in an ever evolving state, towards both ourselves and you, all the people that read us. Because it is with our writing that we satisfy our egotistical desire to be heard, so that we can push our thoughts in different directions and observe the reactions. After all, it’s all human nature and there’s nothing we can do to avoid it.

With that said, I would like all of our readers to reflect (for themselves or for us) on the following simple questions; to reflect on them and, if possible, to provide an honest answer:

Are Tzeeeac members just units of an uncomplicated pack of rats, feeding upon tiny scrapes of auditory information and having no living purpose whatsoever? Or do you consider us men of valor, ‘emotional advisors’ in this forever changing industry made of guitars, drums, syntethizers and microphones? Would you still read us in five years time, or ten, or fifty, or we might as well pack up our toys and leave?

Think about that, my friends, while you listen to this song. It might, however slim the chances, actually change your life.