The story of Fascinathanatango begins during the 2020 Covid19 pandemic, when Andrei “Solomonar” Oltean started experimenting composing in the style of the great master Astor Piazzolla, but with a number of twists derived from personal musical preference, such as Igor Stravinsky or even The Dillinger Escape Plan.
This is a two-part concept EP comprised of 12 songs, and revolves around exploring the different facets of death. The first 7 songs are meant to symbolize the preparatory journey before death, or more simply, life, with all it’s complex and endless questions. The multitude of ways in which we can understand the world (or parts of it) is something overwhelming for the human body and mind. If we start analyzing in detail, we will find ourselves trapped in paradoxes, contradictions or systems that don’t make much sense to us. Our perception is intentionally dulled, so that such questions have fewer chances to bring us in a state of desperation or even agony.
For example we can almost never be aware of the amount of luck we need in order to be alive second after second, when almost everything can kill us. Every object you can see has this ability, given a certain speed when heading towards you. Every liter of water can easily drown you. Every atom around you could split, resulting in a catastrophic end. Every human or animal could and would kill you under certain circumstances. That is not even to mention the amount of luck necessary even to come to life in the first place. Of course, I am not the first one to say it, and my go-to reference for this is the excerpt from Richard Dawkins’s speech used in Fall of Efrafa’s song “For El-Ahrairah to cry”.
The song “Nimic” is a bridge between the two parts of the EP. It is a song unlike any other on this material, being the only one with vocals. It is intended to be a theatrical cacophony of noise comprised from various sonic elements used in E-an-na along the years. It’s story depicts an old, mad priest in a wooden church far away from civilization. The man has gone insane after a life dealing with questions and insecurities as the examples described before (and hereafter). The dead are knocking on the wooden church walls, in a series of (most probably unpleasant) complex rhythms, which are added sequentially one on top of the other, until it becomes just noise. The church is lifted from the ground as it burns towards the sky, in a cathartic passage to the next step. “Nimic” means “nothing”, and a comparison is made in this song: we consume life and it’s events until everything stops having meaning, just as a word stops having a meaning if you repeat it long enough.
One of the topics the second part deals with is a thought I had many times, and that would certainly end badly if it were to come to reality. I am aware that my music is nothing compared to the masters Piazzolla and Stravinsky. But what if by some necromancy I would bring them back to life? What would they think about this music? How would they resume their genius creative output after I’d show them how music production technology evolved while they were missing? How quickly would they wish to get to places & even people they know? Would they wish to never hear from me again, as I am unworthy, not good enough, not even slightly interesting for them? Would they even want to be alive again, or would they rather return beyond the veil? How egoistic would this hypothetical practice of necromancy be, and based on the lack of the other person’s consent, can it be compared to some sort of spiritual rape? How rude am I just for thinking this, especially out loud? I hope it’s clear that when I fantasize about such stuff, I mean no harm, and that I am just an anxious guy who is probably too excited about a lot of music in this world. I conclude yet again that we know nothing about death.
However, the songs also tackle simpler aspects of death.
Such as the fear of it. Fear.
Particularly the fear of death taking loved ones away. The fear of knowing parents grow old and more susceptible to various factors that can damage their health. The horror of understanding that you will outlive your pet. And from here the pandora’s box opens. The fear of loved ones getting cancer. Or some other deadly disease. A random heart attack or blood clot. Of them getting murdered, kidnapped or raped while going out at night (or even day). The fear of approaching war, as you start understanding more about the world of humans, and how fragile our social balance is. And I am not even from a warzone. I was born almost six years after the romanian revolution, and was too little to get even a hint of a handful of bloodshedding events in the 90s. My closest relation to war is me worrying about it just having broken out in eastern Ukraine in 2014, while I was in the exam room for DSD (Deutsche Sprachdiplom), although I mostly knew it would not overflow as far as Romania. Yet it remains unfair for all those people who didn’t share this luck of mine. My classmates were meanwhile worrying about the exam, and I found myself wishing I was them.
This stems from how my brain works. I get worried when the train stops and then goes back towards where it came from, because I am good with space orientation. Of course it will be just a detour which will lead to the destination I have settled for initially, but the mind’s wheels won’t heed such rational explanations. I keep getting flashes. Things that make me embarrassed even to live. Things that make me hate myself and never forgive myself. All the stuff above is just the tip of the iceberg. My brain asks stuff like “what if you now smash the head of your cat, whom you love so much?”. And I swear it does it in purpose, just to punish me, even though I have no idea for what. I am absolutely sure that I will never ever do any of those things the brain whispers just to upset me, but it still terrifies me, even being able to think such thoughts. I don’t want to give any more examples, as they are too horrid. But everything is on the table for this bastard. And I truly hope I am alone in this phenomenon, but I highly doubt it. It probably is a generational thing.
This entire story only touches the surface of how vast and tiresome such thought processes can be.
The fear of your own death. Finally something more humane. Something completely unknown to us in our youth. Something that creeps up on us very smoothly over the years, as our knees and backs start to hurt, as other people become dependent upon our help, as things get serious in life. As you start getting sick more often and you wonder each time you have a rash if it is skin cancer. As you get to understand that death is the most common thing in the world of the living. A you get good at what you love and start developing vast, numerous projects, and sometimes you fear you aren’t allocated enough time on this earth to finish it all.
Death is even more common than love. I love life.
Then there is the pure fascination towards death. The many faces we use to depict her. The questions, be they scientifical or theological, or something entirely else. Death as a destination. Death as a part of a larger journey, as a checkpoint. Death as a statistic. Death as an escape. Death as a punishment. Death as a gift, as mercy. Death as a myth, as a story, as an anthropomorphic creature. Death as a beginning.
And lastly, death as a last token of remembrance. I wrote the last song of the album, Mormântango, on the day Robert Cotoros died. He was our producer and friend, and he went absolutely suddenly to join the 27 club. I am not exaggerating when I dare say he was a genius. He didn’t live to see the release of the last song he produced for us, Biba. So the last song that we released during his lifetime was “Dulce” (Sweet), which talks about sudden death.
“Dacă din senin aș muri
Zile-ntregi ar dura ca o umbră să ofteze la patul meu
Ar înflori în odaie văzduhul
Și din trup aș răspândi o mireasmă dulce”
“If I were to suddenly die
It would take days for some shadow to sigh by my bed
The air in the room would bloom
And my body would spread a sweet fragrance”
It always hurts looking back at these lyrics, and I don’t think that the shock of such a coincidence will diminish over time. Yet we are powerless when facing the universe.
“Trebuia să se întâmple așa”
“It was meant to be like this” Just as this album is meant to be about the faces of death, and about its multitude of interpretation paths. About all the collateral thought processes. Fascinathanatango is an album that cannot be built out of words. It is about life.