If there’s one song I should speak about but haven’t yet it is Lux Aeterna or, as we affectionally call it - our Supper’s Ready. I imagine there are a few people reading this who have no idea what Supper’s Ready is and if that's true then you're probably too young to be reading this or I’m just showing 'hur gammal jag är'.
Lux Aeterna is the longest track on the record, coming in at slightly over 26 minutes, and our most ambitious track to date. It is an apocalyptic song in spiritual, political, and scientific terms. Growing up with a Scandinavian heritage I was deeply immersed in Scandinavian mythology although at my high school they only taught Greco Roman mythology. One of the most striking differences is that, in Scandinavian mythology, Ragnarok, or the coming end of the world, seems to always be imminent whereas the gods of Greco Roman mythology luxuriate in the splendor of immortality (and great wine) - or so it seems. Harsh winters as opposed to a Mediterranean climate probably had a lot to do with that. This idea of the end of things always captured my imagination.
A number of years ago there was a scientific convention and, for fun, they asked the attendant scientists how they thought the end of the world would come about. At the close of the convention they gathered all the answers and posted the ten most popular. Strange, I know. There’s a hint of Dr. Strangelove here. This gathering of scientists and their fun games starts off the piece. In the middle of Lux Aeterna are random texts from the Brave New World radio play that Rachael Guma dropped on us (written about in the update number 14). Closing Lux Aeterna we invited a wonderful singer named Patricia Rothberg to sing El Cant de la Sibilla which is a liturgical piece that prophecies and describes the Apocalypse. I’ve never heard prophecies about something so horrible as the end of the world sung so beautifully. I’ve included an early rehearsal snippet, not the final recording, from this section of the song to illustrate my point. This recording is just Patricia’s voice and Pietro’s guitar.
https://soundcloud.com/zero-times-everything/sibyl-rehearsal
Lux Aeterna is broken up into six sections. They are:
Zero Hour
The Ten Most Popular Ways The World Will End
Indeterminate Light
Brave New World
Cant De La Sibyl
Every Day Apocalypse
I am not going to say what the ten most popular ways the world will end are. In order to find out you will have to buy the CD or the digital download. But I will say that a new global pandemic is number three. And, as can be surmised, alien invasions are one of them.
Lux Aeterna is one of the darkest and most foreboding works ZXE has ever done. We performed it once live for a benefit but it’s dangerous to perform since I was only a few feet away from Rachael Guma as she was swinging a chain down onto a slab of metal at the front of the stage. As careful as her aim was it was still a bit nerve wracking to be near.
Till next time,
Richard