[017] Amplifying Dissent with Entropyrian

This interview is part of a series discussing mandates, restrictions and censorship with musicians and music fans—read more of these interviews here.

Entropyrian is a solo project releasing music across several different genres — varying from softer electronic to metal, instrumental and more.

Entropyrian – Music?

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Their next track will be out in the second half of March — a goth rock inspired song about the mentality behind vaccine mandates called "Inhuman".

Music For All: Can you share a bit more about your solo project Entropyrian? Was this in reaction to the current climate — have you been able to collaborate or perform with other musicians lately?

Entropyrian: We've entered a time of "speak now or forever hold your peace". We need to speak up while we can. When it came to deciding if I was going to start speaking up publicly, and how loudly, that was a big part of the decision. It was the vaccine mandates coming down from the federal government that really crossed the Rubicon for me.

It was undeniable proof that people who want freedom, who choose not to take the government at their word, as is foundational to the American ethos, are not going to be left alone like we want. Whether we like it or not, they will bring the fight to us. And so we need to speak. Loudly.

I understand some people would take issue with me doing it anonymously, but I don't see putting an unknown name on something, that adds no weight to it, as an equal tradeoff for the fact that maintaining a day job means I can keep making music. I think we're all far too focused on credentialism anyway. If an idea is good, why does it matter who is saying it? If an idea is bad, does who is saying it make it better?

We tie identity to ideas these days in a way that is almost entirely destructive, detracting and distracting from the point. I think we're subtly complying with the messaging that identity and "lived experience" are things we should take into account when considering ideas. We should stop it.

I want to use my music and writing — I put occasional non-musical thoughts on savingciv.com — to do what most effective art does: express something in a way a person might not have the words or the sounds to do themselves. I try to say things in my music that no-one else is saying, in styles no-one else is saying them.

Personally, I've been shocked  at the simpering cowardice of the metal community as a whole, at the conformity, at the sticking to safe opinions, at the subservience of the "rebellion" music. The more I see them cower, the more I feel like while these are my sounds, these are not my people.

So I decided to make my own. I've always been Mr. Full of Hot Takes to everyone who knows me, but on balance, the world doesn't need another culture commentator. It needs more counterculture art.

The fight is in the court of public opinion. Commentary without emotion, without art, without spirit, only goes so far, and the commentary market is more or less saturated right now. We need more artists. Facts might not care about your feelings, but the simple fact of human nature is that your feelings don't often care about facts. Art changes the world because it acknowledges this reality and works through it to create change.

Entropyrian is a solo project — I've been involved in a few bands over time, and always created my own music solo on the side, and just never really did anything with it I'd be willing to share. This was partially a quality issue, where I wasn't satisfied with the quality of the product. Music tech has advanced incredibly over the last few years though, and along with a recent move to a house with viable studio space, I finally had what I needed to make something I'd be proud of.

I haven't worked through Entropyrian with any other musicians yet, the project is still so new, not many people know it exists, and the genres covered are so broad I'm not sure anyone knows what to think yet with the small sample of 5 tracks released so far.

I have to say, I'm a little surprised though that more counterculture musicians haven't made an effort to "band" together and spread influence, listeners and creativity between them. That's part of the reason I'm so happy to see platforms like what you're doing. I haven't seen anyone else putting out the genres I work in yet, so no-one's on my radar to work with.

Hell, maybe nu-metal/rap collabs will come back into fashion. (I kid)… (or do I?)…

I feel like most people in the U.S. fall into one of two categories — were live music was heavily restricted and prohibited by State mandates, or live music is stigmatized socially. What has your experience been with live performance over the past two years?

Almost 2 years ago now, I was chatting with an acquaintance I had met quite literally in a mosh pit years before. He had commented that he was looking forward to going to shows again once it was "safe".

That seemed off to me. Safety is good. Metal is a very caring community surprisingly enough. But the spirit of it is about risk. About defiance of the rules. About expressing a need to upend social norms of peaceful quiet existence and acknowledge that the human soul can be a violent thing. Granted, this was in the early days of the pandemic wherein we didn't really know yet who or how badly people would be affected, so the comment was innocent enough and well meaning.

But "safe" has become a deity, and we all now find ourselves living, whether we like it or not, in a cult that worships it. That's not the life I want to lead.

Personally, I haven't been to a show since COVID started. This mostly has to do with the move I mentioned earlier, me not being familiar with the local venues, and not having the same circle locally I'd be going with. I'd like to change that though. Probably will soon.

I think decentralization is going to be crucial for art and music moving forward. I noticed your music is up on Odysee, which seems like a great resource for this reason, especially with all the arbitrary deplatforming lately. What are your thoughts on decentralization as a solution moving forward?

The interesting part here is decentralization as a concept. Any strategy to make a system more robust is never foolproof. You can never make something indestructible or 100% secure. The best you can do in the real world is increase the cost of an adversary creating undesirable outcomes.

One of the undesirable outcomes we've been seeing far too much of is people corrupting either through investment, culturally through occupation or even outright deplatforming various individuals, technologies and institutions. Decentralization increases the cost of this corruption by making an adversary fight a hydra instead of a dragon. Many targets instead of a single target.

I don't know enough about Odysee to say in how many ways these concepts apply to it, but I think it's a step in the right direction. It also has a very nice variety of creators who aren't so exclusively political, which, not to disparage them, is a feeling I get from BitChute and Rumble.

Maajid Nawaz has said that the internet is a real Gutenberg press moment in history, and we can see that playing out now through the battle of centralization vs decentralization.

Shout out to the founding fathers while we're on the topic. By distributing power between the federal and state, and then distributing further between three branches, our government has been robust enough to weather a whole lot of chaos.

I'm grateful to have been living in the USA over the last 2 years, that's for sure.

Listen to the latest from Entropyrian here:

Eternal, by Entropyrian

track by Entropyrian

EntropyrianBandcamp New & Notable Oct 6, 2015