Posts Tagged ‘JJ Kozcan’

The Obelisk: In Conversation With Yakuza’s Bruce Lamont

Posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010

JJ Koczan of The Obelisk recently conducted an interview with Yakuza‘s Bruce Lamont about his visions of the changes the world is about to undergo, how Yakuza came to work with Profound Lore, and just how great it is to scare the crap out of yuppies. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Obelisk: Give me some background on the meaning of the album title. Is there a narrative or a theme running through the songs that the title Of Seismic Consequence represents?

BL: Yeah, a variety of themes. It seems there are a similar number of coincidences occurring the past couple of years, loose interpretations of end of the world scenarios. Just with the whole Mayan calendar thing, 2012 and all that, amongst a lot of recent environmental catastrophes and whatnot, it all seems to be happening within the last couple of years, more so now than ever before, and there’s all these warnings within history saying we’re in this period where something’s going to occur. So a lot of the lyric themes and topics revolve around that, but I was thinking more of it as metaphorical, in a sense, more where we’re entering into an age of epic transformation, into something beyond ourselves. Something I don’t think we can fully comprehend yet. Something is going to occur in this lifetime that’s gonna be a big change, in history. Something bigger than even, say, the cultural shift in the 1960s.

I think that was a burp in regards to what is going to happen with evolution. I can’t really pinpoint it either, there’s just hints of what that may consist of. The advancement of technology, the way the earth has been reacting to us and what we’ve done in the last 100 years. All that combined. That’s what was running through all our minds collectively as a band when writing the music, when working with the lyrical themes and everything like that. That title, which Jim texted me one night, very late, and said, Of Seismic Consequence, and I said, “Perfect. Perfect. Yes.” That’s where it comes from.

The Obelisk: What do you think it is about the present that’s different from past eras that would allow these events or this cataclysmic thing to occur?

BL: Good question. It just seems like everything’s happening all at once, or it’s building up to something. It’s a culmination of things. Like I said, it’s environmental, it’s social, it’s political, it’s everything. Technology. All these things are coming to a point, and I think something’s gonna happen. I’m leaning more towards a positive transformation, as opposed to something terribly wrong and negative and catastrophic. We’re already seeing, in the grand scheme of things, catastrophes.

I obviously don’t consider the Gulf Oil Spill a small catastrophe — because it’s not, it’s very big – but on a worldly scale, there’s this belief that maybe half of some sort of landmass is going to fall into the sea and millions of people are going to die. I’m not quite of that mindset. I think all of this that’s happening now is going to come to a head and with that, we’re going to either move onto some sort of enlightenment thing. I’m not trying to get into some spiritual thing, but something beyond ourselves may occur sooner than later.

Continue reading: Yakuza Interview with Bruce Lamont: A Call to Observe Something Beyond Ourselves and a Call to Scare Yuppies | The Obelisk.

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OM’s Al Cisneros on: Shrinebuilder, OM and Sleep.

Posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009

JJ Kozcan of The Obelisk recently conducted an interview with OM ‘s Al Cisneros. Cisneros, fresh back in California from a few days spent in Austin, TX, following the last of the five shows on Shrinebuilder’s run, confirmed that writing has already begun for a fifth Om record and a ...read more

The Obelisk reviews Shrinebuilder’s self-titled debut album

Posted on Saturday, September 12th, 2009

The Obelisk, easily one of the very best stonerrock related blogs has reviewed Shrinebuilder’s self-titled debut album: It’s hard not to feel like you’re standing in the presence of greatness when listening to Shrinebuilder’s self-titled debut (Neurot), and likewise difficult to separate the music from those making it. In that ...read more

Album of the day: House of Broken Promises – Using The Useless

Posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: At the mountaintop of heavy metal clichés (and quite a mountain it is) sits the mighty “Formed from the ashes of.” It is the ultimate, beating out the many variations on “shred” and any use of “brutal” you can imagine. Imagine any (every) local band ...read more