''Imaginary Sonicscape'' is the fifth studio album by Japanese

black metal Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw (lo-fi) recording, unconventional song structures, and an emp ...

band

Sigh Paralanguage, also known as vocalics, is a component of meta-communication that may modify meaning, give nuanced meaning, or convey emotion, by using techniques such as prosody, pitch, volume, intonation, etc. It is sometimes defined as relatin ...

, released on July 4, 2001. Produced by Sigh, it was the band's first record released on Century Media Records. The musical styles of ''Imaginary Sonicscape'' further explored the experimental tendencies of the band's previous album '' Scenario IV: Dread Dreams'' with further psychedelic elements to the band's sound.

Production

After leaving their previous record label Cacophonous Records for

Century Media A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

due to lack of promotion, Sigh entered the studio to record ''Imaginary Sonicscape'' in September 2000 at Studio Zen/Electric Space Studio. The album took many months to perfect under the direction of

Yukito Okazaki Yukito is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Yukito can be written using different combinations of kanji characters. Some examples: *幸人, "happiness, person" *幸斗, "happiness, Big Dipper" *行人, "to go, person" *行斗, ...

from the

stoner metal Stoner rock, also known as stoner metal or stoner doom, is a rock music fusion genre that combines elements of doom metal with psychedelic rock and acid rock. The genre emerged during the early 1990s and was pioneered foremost by Kyuss and Slee ...

band

Eternal Elysium are a Japanese doom metal band founded in 1991. History Eternal Elysium have recorded six albums and six splits/EPs over their career. They were formed in 1991 by guitarist/vocalist Yukito Okazaki and have gone through numerous line-up changes ...

. While the band's new sound was influenced by

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, classical music and Frank Zappa, the lyrics of the album were based on the band's views on life and death. Band member Mirai described it as "Most of they iclyrics on the album are about life and death and fear of getting old, fear of losing somebody you love." The style of the album draws from many genres outside of the extreme metal sound, occasionally drifting into sounds ranging from dub, giggling babies, jazz fusion and disco. Frontman Mirai explained that the band "never intend to make it musically varied or weird. I always choose the best way to express the feeling. Sometimes it could be heavy guitars while sometimes it could be a classical piano solo. And as a result, sometimes the song has lots of different elements. It's just a result, not a purpose." The band finished recording the album in March 2001.

Reception

''Imaginary Sonicscape'' was released on July 4, 2001. The album failed to chart in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The album was well received from the extreme metal audience. The

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magazine ''

Terrorizer Terrorizer is an American grindcore band formed in 1986 in Los Angeles, California. After disbanding, its members gained recognition by playing in influential extreme metal bands, such as Morbid Angel ( David Vincent, Pete Sandoval), Napalm ...

'' placed the album as the 10th best album of 2001. William York of the music database

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

gave the album four and a half stars out of five noting that "On one hand, this is great heavy metal, and on the other, it's genuinely twisted

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...

/ psychedelic music. An amazing, weird album, and also the best place for newcomers to start with this band."

Track listing

The album was remastered and reissued in 2009 with two bonus tracks: "Voices" and "Born Condemned Criminal," and a longer version of "Bring Back the Dead":

Personnel

*Mirai - Fender Rhodes, Hammond, minimoog, Yamaha

acoustic piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, Hohner clavinet, Yamaha string machine, Roland

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

, other keyboards, sampling, programming, modulator, effects, Speak & Spell,

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melodeon Melodeon may refer to: * Melodeon (accordion), a type of button accordion *Melodeon (organ), a type of 19th-century reed organ *Melodeon (Boston, Massachusetts), a concert hall in 19th-century Boston * Melodeon Records, a U.S. record label in the ...

, bass,

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

*Shinichi -

Fender Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuousl ...

Fender Telecaster The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it is the world's first mass-produced, commercially successful Les Paul had built a prototype solid bo ...

, Takamine acoustic guitar,

Yamaha RX-5 The Yamaha RX-5 is a programmable digital sample-based drum machine built by Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shar ...

*Satoshi - drums,

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

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, bongo, hand claps,

suspended cymbal Classical suspended cymbal A suspended cymbal is any single cymbal played with a stick or beater rather than struck against another cymbal. Common abbreviations used are "sus. cym.," or "sus. cymb." (with or without the period). Most drum kit ...

, bar chimes,

vibraslap The vibraslap is a percussion instrument consisting of a piece of stiff wire (bent into a U-shape) connecting a wooden ball to a hollow box of wood with metal “teeth” inside. The percussionist holds the metal wire in one hand and strikes th ...

Technical personnel

* Yukito Okazaki -

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

- producer * Alan Douches - mastering * Stephen O'Malley - cover design * Tenkotsu Kawaho - photography

Notes

{{Authority control 2001 albums Sigh (band) albums Century Media Records albums