''Jar of Kingdom'' is the debut

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

progressive metal Progressive metal (sometimes shortened to prog metal) is a broad :Fusion music genres, fusion music genre melding heavy metal music, heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified electric guitar, guitar-driven s ...

band,

Alchemist Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscience, protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in Chinese alchemy, C ...

. The band recorded the album after receiving a record contract in the mail from

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n label Lethal Records and was released by that company in October

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

. During the recording of the first track "Abstraction", vocalist

Adam Agius Adam Agius (born 21 September 1971) is the vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist and a founding member of the progressive metal band Alchemist. He formed Alchemist in 1987 while still in high school and is the group's only remaining original member. H ...

damaged his voice, thus resulting in the raw vocal sound on the rest of the album. The name "Jar of Kingdom" was inspired by a comment by television personality and entertainer

Graham Kennedy Graham Cyril Kennedy AO (15 February 1934 – 25 May 2005) was an Australian entertainer, comedian and variety performer, as well as a personality and star of radio, theatre, television and film. He often performed in the style of vaudevilli ...

during a comedy skit, in which he described a vial of pig semen as a "jar of kingdom". ''Jar of Kingdom'' featured early experiments with

synthesisers A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

, acoustic guitars and samples: "Whale" includes the sample of a

humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hump ...

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...

. All tracks from this album except "Wandering and Wondering" and "Whale" later appeared on the '' Embryonics'' compilation. The album was dedicated to the memory of John Munns and David Carter.

Track listing

All tracks by

Credits

Band members

−

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 without ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

* Rodney Holder −

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, (

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three Edge (geometry), edges and three Vertex (geometry), vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, an ...

on tracks 4 and 8) * John Bray −

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

* Roy Torkington −

artwork A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...

, layout and design

Guest musicians

* Michelle Klemke − female vocals (tracks 2 and 6)

Production

* Mixed at Rich Music Studios, Sydney, Australia in February 1993 * Engineered by Brett Stanton * Produced by Alchemist and Brett Stanton * Band photos by Eddie * Cover artwork and computer graphics by Christian Ruff * Booklet design by Michael Piesch

Re-release 99

In 1999, ''Jar of Kingdom'' was remastered and re-released by Thrust and distributed by

Shock Records Shock Records (now part of Shock Entertainment) is an Australian independent record label. History The three founding members had all previously worked in music retail or distribution: Williams for a Melbourne distribution company called "Musi ...

in Australia. The album was offered to the label by the band in order for them to be released from their contract to enable them to seek international distribution with other companies. This re-released version was a compilation of the original album together with Alchemist's demo of 1991. Demo '91 tracks All songs by Alchemist

Credits for re-release

- vocals, guitar * Rodney Holder - drums * John Bray - bass * Andrew Meredith - guitar (demo tracks only) * Roy Torkington - guitar, artwork, layout and design

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jar Of Kingdom 1993 debut albums Alchemist (band) albums 1999 compilation albums