Sepultura releases this Friday, the 24th, through ONErpm, the EP The Cloud of Unknowing, which will be the last studio work of the Minas Gerais metal band after four decades of a legendary career that exported Brazilian heavy music to the whole world.
The material was organically recorded over ten days at Criteria Studios in Miami, under the production of Stanley Soares. The project marks the band's first official release with drummer Greyson Nekrutman and features four unreleased songs: "All Souls Rising," "Sacred Books," "The Place," and "Beyond the Dream" —which features special appearances by Tony Bellotto and Sérgio Britto, from Titãs.
In an online press conference, Sepultura detailed their EP 'The Cloud of Unknowing'.
In an online press conference held last Wednesday, the 22nd, guitarist Andreas Kisser and bassist Paulo Xisto revealed new details about the EP.
In explaining the title, Kisser revealed that the inspiration came from a 14th-century Christian movement. He stated that he acquired the concepts by watching lectures by the late British philosopher Alan Watts during the pandemic. The thinker questioned the excessive use of physical artifacts and visual dogmas to achieve spirituality. The musician related the idea to the current distancing caused by technology.
“The Cloud of Unknowing seems very relevant to today in relation to artificial intelligence. Today we see many people creating a parallel world; these people think that this is reality and experience, but they are not really living it. You need to remove this cloud from the path and have direct access. Everyone is trapped in screens and losing contact with nature and with the people around them. We need to question whether we need all this paraphernalia to have access to our spirituality,” he explained.
When asked by Wikimetal about what it was like to first encounter the jazz elements Greyson brought to the compositions, Kisser replied: “I think Paulo can talk a little more about that, since he’s also a jazz lover. He really likes Jaco Pastorius and bass players, especially. And the drums and bass are the foundation, right?”
“We said from the beginning that it was an album that wasn't planned. I think the whole concept comes from that freedom. It has a lot of jazz influence from what Greyson added to Sepultura. It also has a kind of King Crimson feel . It's kind of prog. So we have this somewhat eclectic vision on this album. I tried to draw as much as possible from the influences I had from the 70s. Things from Yes , from Chris Squire . That was linked to the drums, the heavy guitars. And of course, Derrick [Green] 's voice . I think the final result was quite satisfactory for all of us,” Paulo continued.
The band also detailed the participation of members of Titãs in the EP
Regarding the participation of the Titãs members on the EP, Andreas commented: “We started everything together; me, Derrick, Sérgio, and Tony. We created a WhatsApp group to exchange ideas and directions. The first seed was from Tony. He brought a guitar arrangement with some vocal ideas and some lyrics. I took that and kind of organized it in a Sepultura-esque way.”
“Sergio also came up with other ideas about a bridge, structures, and another lyric that Derrick took and arranged in his own way. So we did everything together. It's really a work of this group that we formed. Obviously, they didn't participate in the recording because we were in Miami, but the composition was done this way, with everyone together.”.
He also confirmed that the band's idea is to include the four tracks from the EP in the setlist for the Celebrating Life Through Death farewell tour . "Without a doubt, so that they will be part of the live album [of the tour] as well," he concluded.
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