Caesar Augustus – The Ides of March

Posted on by Jon

Caesar Augustus – The Ides of March

caesaraugustus.bandcamp.com

The Ides of March traces its origins back to 2016, when my band Julius Caesar was still active. We started the band in high school and had been together for a decade, doing sporadic runs of shows. In 2016, most of us lived in Olympia, WA, and the band was performing regularly. One night, while I was on tour with my other band A God or an Other, Julius Caesar’s guitarist Gavin vanished, not to be heard from for many years. We were pretty bummed.

Once I got home from tour I picked up my guitar and wrote these songs – they appeared nearly fully formed. They were clearly influenced by Julius Caesar but had their own distinct style. Capturing and transcribing them was a cathartic experience. For a few months I attempted to find other musicians to form a new band that would play this material. Eventually I realized that between the very busy schedules of A God or an Other and the other band I was in at the time, The Lunch, I just didn’t have the time or energy to make a third band happen.

When my wife and I decided to move to Colorado to start our family in 2018, I was worried that I might not be able to record loud music in my new home as freely as I had been able to in Olympia. So before we moved, I decided to record drums for a few loud projects that had been on the backburner, just in case. This was one of them (along with 2023’s Therewolf).

The Ides of March sat in a drums-only state until mid-pandemic, when I finally recorded the guitar parts. Originally, it was intended to be a solo release, but when I started thinking about vocals, I found that I had a creative block. It reminded me a lot of when I was working on Destiny Theft – with that EP, every time I listened to the instrumentals, I imagined Buddy Hale’s voice. This time, though, it was JC vocalist (and 55YT MQRT guitarist) Neal’s voice I was hearing. So I eventually asked Neal if he wanted to do lead vocals for the EP. I was thrilled when he agreed. It still needed bass, so we then invited JC bassist Steve to fill that role.

We recorded vocals over the next few years. Neal, who now lives in Iowa, would visit about every six months to track some of his parts. Meanwhile, Steve recorded his bass contributions remotely in California. I think this part of our ‘about-the-band’ blurb satisfactorily sums up the thematic focus our lyrics took on:

Caesar Augustus is a reckoning with the oppressive forces of modern society and the relentless difficulty of the human condition... Their debut EP, “The Ides of March,” serves as a commemoration of their past and a herald of new beginnings. It is a rallying cry against fascism and authoritarianism and a scathing critique of our broken political system. Additionally, Caesar Augustus takes on the invisible demons that haunt the modern psyche, grappling with conditions such as ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression, laying bare the complexities of existence in a world rife with chaos and uncertainty.

“The Ides of March” is a reflection on the past, a confrontation with the present, and a contemplation of the unknown realms of the future. It is a testament to resilience, friendship, and the unwavering pursuit of artistic expression in the face of existential dread.

This project is obviously closely tied to Julius Caesar, but without Gavin, it’s a different entity. Because of the connection between the projects and the timeline, we decided to name it after JC’s successor: Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus. We titled the release after the pivotal day that marked the transition between the two dictators. And really, what better day to put it out than the Ides of March itself?

Album art by TJ Giovannio. Band logo by Nathan Kwon.

Tapes available via Fiadh Productions.

https://fiadh.bandcamp.com/album/the-ides-of-march

We also have a large variety of shirt options on our Bandcamp!

https://caesaraugustus.bandcamp.com/merch

Full EP Gapless with Lyrics

Music Video for Knives In (The Ides of March)

Stream or Download/Purchase on Bandcamp:

jontools

Posted on by Jon

jontools.net

github.com/jonlervold/jontools

jontools is a collection of various coding projects I’ve built that serve practical, experimental, or fun purposes. Each tool came about either from facing a problem where no existing solution quite fit my needs or simply because I thought it would be interesting to create.

Version 1.0 features two tools: a MIDI inverter and a MIDI transformer.

  • MIDI Inverter
    • Description: Invert the pitches of MIDI files while maintaining the original register.
    • Key Capabilities:
      • Transforms each MIDI note to its mirror image.
      • Preserves the overall musical structure, including key changes and modal interchange, except inverted.
      • Includes an octave-matching function to maintain track registers.
  • MIDI Transformer
    • Description: Apply custom transformations to MIDI files, allowing for complex musical alterations.
    • Key Capabilities:
      • Supports a wide range of modal transformations based on user-defined parameters.
      • Facilitates both automatic and manual transformation selection for precise control.

This project started while I spent half of January in the hospital dealing with the worst ulcerative colitis flare I’ve experienced since getting diagnosed with that obnoxious disease a year ago. While there, I decided to work on a project I nearly finished in 2020: ripping every sample, soundfont, and MIDI file from every N64 game. Once the last bits of that were done, I thought “it would be nice to have all the MIDI files inverted since I want to eventually continue my N64 Tonal Inversion series.” So I wrote the code for the inversion process, wrote some additional code that looped through all of the game folders, and ran the inverter on every file.

I then got released and went home for a few days, but my symptoms immediately came back, so I ended up getting readmitted to the hospital. During my second stint I took a Docker course. I’ve worked with Docker at my job for years, but felt like I would benefit from gaining a more thorough understanding of it. When I was finished with the Docker course, I realized a perfect learning opportunity would be add a frontend to the MIDI inverter I had just built and to containerize the whole project. So I did that. In my spare time over the next few weeks I added the MIDI transformer functionality, which is something that I’ve imagined for a long time, and then figured out how to deploy the application on an AWS Lightsail VPS.

I will be adding more functionality to this site over time. I have many small projects from over the years that could have their own pages here and many ideas for other interesting tools to create.

The Elite Extremophile – 55YT MQRT Blurb

Posted on by Jon
Odds & Ends: April 1, 2024
This band’s name might look like a license plate number, but their sound isn’t nearly that ordinary. They play a vast, cosmic variety of heavy psych and prog, and the album art of an astronaut traveling through an ancient temple is weirdly fitting. The soundscapes are vast and huge, and everything has a massive amount of weight behind it. Even though this album is a bit on the long side, it works. This is the sort of music where stretching out benefits the band.

Full article here.

55YT MQRT – Self Titled

Posted on by Jon

55YT MQRT – Self Titled

55ytmqrt.bandcamp.com

55YT MQRT was formed in Redwood City, CA way back in 2006. At that point in time, my friend Neal Jensen and I were high schoolers deep diving into the world of psychedelic and progressive rock, our favorites being The Mars Volta, Pink Floyd, and King Crimson. We had just left our post-hardcore outfit Ending Reason and we very much wanted to explore some more experimental sonic territory ourselves.

We originally formed under the name Hellships. For reasons unknown to me now, we ended up dropping that name and instead chose to go by 55YT MQRT. Something about progressive rock that has always made us laugh is how often people complain that bands within the genre are “pretentious,” so we chose a name that we found maximally pretentious as a way to poke fun at the people who make such complaints. (Neal later ended up properly forming Hellships in Olympia, WA with Robin Flowers and Alex Freilich. I produced their two studio albums, Leaden Hum and Doom Organs in 2012 and 2015 respectively. I consider Hellships and 55YT MQRT to be sibling projects… Hellships is a bit more of an unhinged and “off the grid” fellow, whereas 55YT MQRT is an equally strange individual who somehow manages to hold down an office job.)

We developed the band’s compositional approach in the early days. We would do long improv sessions that were then edited down in Pro Tools into seamless songs. From there we would add elements, cut parts, and rearrange things until the songs felt complete. We released our early tracks on MySpace.

Within a year of forming the band, Neal moved to Olympia, leaving our project with an uncertain future. In 2010 I ended up deciding to move there as well. We became roommates and revived 55YT. We assembled an untitled album consisting mostly of ambient noise tracks. When we moved from our apartment into a house where we could make loud music, we started properly practicing again. Over the next roughly 4 years we would occasionally work on 55YT material, but during that time we did not properly record anything due to focusing on other projects (Hellships, A God or an Other, Bird Surgeon, The Lunch).

Neal eventually decided to move to Montana to pursue a master’s degree, and again this left the band with an unknown future. In January 2016, before he left, we decided to properly document what we had been working on, again following the edited improv approach of our early works. We quickly had solid recorded versions of our songs that represented what we had been doing live during that time: Neal playing a single guitar accompanied by myself on the drums. The lone overdub was bass for fullness. Neal then left for Montana. This version sounded complete to me, but not to Neal. He wanted to overdub some additional parts he had been imagining.

He came to visit Olympia and we recorded his extra ideas. Now that there were additional elements on certain scattered parts, the parts with no overdubs sounded empty to me! And thus, a nearly 8 year process began. Parts were added and edits were made in short bursts, usually when Neal would come to visit for a few days here and there. Sometimes the session sat for literally years without being opened. Finally, in November 2023… we knew it was complete.

It shocks me when I think of how different my personal world and even the world in general was when we began working on this album. I was pursuing music full time living in Washington state. Donald Trump was just beginning his first run and the idea of him becoming president was ludicrous. Since then, I moved halfway across the country, had a son and a daughter, worked as a cable technician for 4 years, and made my jump into software development as a career. And the whole pandemic thing happened.

This is my longest-running recording project to date. I don’t know how many people will connect with this album but this is one of my personal favorite releases I’ve ever put out. We had been envisioning creating something like this since high school. The vision is finally fulfilled.

Over the last couple of years Neal has regularly been coming from Iowa, where he currently resides, to visit our family in Colorado. During those visits we have been recording new tracks which will be the basis for the next 55YT MQRT album. If the pattern holds, we’ll release the next album somewhere around 2031. We’ll see!

Album art by Garrett Botkins.

Tapes available through Big Name Records or the Bandcamp. BNR2400

Gapless w/ Lyrics on YouTube:

Stream or Download/Purchase (name-your-price) on Bandcamp:

Consequence of Sound – Mining Metal – The Fractal Ouroboros Blurb

Posted on by Jon

Consequence of Sound – Mining Metal: Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze, Dwelling Below, Ὁπλίτης, Myaelin, Narzissus, Phobocosm, Resin Tomb, and Saevus Finis

It’s always frightening when a promising group goes silent for an extended spell, especially when that group does so in the midst of COVID, which wound up taking many many projects from us. So it was with tremendous relief that I saw Bull of Apis announce they had a new record in the can, and then exceeding delight when I finally heard it and found it to be better than the previous in every metric...

Full article here.

Distorted Sound – The Fractal Ouroboros Review

Posted on by Jon

ALBUM REVIEW: The Fractal Ouroboros – Bull Of Apis, Bull Of Bronze

Colorado has produced some of the most exciting and interesting takes on extreme metal that the genre has seen in recent years; from BLOOD INCANTATION to WAYFARER, the Centennial State has produced some of the most stunning bands and albums within the US’ already impressive underground scene, with even relatively new bands creating some incredibly world class music. BULL OF APIS, BULL OF BRONZE are certainly one of the most impressive black metal acts to emerge from there in the last few years, with the trio’s debut album Offerings Of Flesh And Gold boasting some surprisingly broad and immersive musicianship within it. The band’s latest record, The Fractal Ouroboros, provides an even more sprawling take on the already gargantuan sound present on its predecessor, developing the heady and noxious blend even further.

Full article here.

Dead Rhetoric – The Fractal Ouroboros Review

Posted on by Jon

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – The Fractal Ouroboros (Fiadh Productions)

The Colorado-based trio first arrived with Offerings of Flesh and Gold in 2019, serving as an eye-opening introduction to a band willing to not only push boundaries, but obliterate them entirely. Their singular morph of avant-garde black metal and ambient music was a breath of fresh air to those who found it, and admittedly, this scribe only caught wind of them a few years after said debut dropped. However, when album number two, The Fractal Ouroboros, was announced, it quickly shot up my list of must-listen albums...

This album is a challenging listen, but those up to it will absolutely reap the rewards. Intense, sullen, and immersive, Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze have no doubt realized much of their seemingly limitless potential. Their stance against fascist ideologies is a poignant and timely one that raises the stakes of the band’s lyrical content, fitting well within the complexities of their musical endeavors. Altogether, what they provide is a raw black metal force of nature that grips tightly and won’t let up. The Fractal Ouroboros rips apart both conventions and our eardrums with a conscience.

Full article here.

AngryMetalGuy – The Fractal Ouroboros Review

Posted on by Jon

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – The Fractal Ouroboros [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze manages to create a mammoth hour-and-fifteen length that takes its precious time before crushing your soul with calculated second-wave intensity. The swell and lull of its atmosphere has its time and place, thus lending The Fractal Ouroboros its immense but supremely organic feel, each track moving fluidly among its influences and giving each track a unique identity to fuse into the tapestry of the album’s pitch-black palette and atmosphere – dark and unholy places constructed under godlike suns...

Because the album takes its time at well over an hour, the atmosphere must be front and center. Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze does not disappoint in this regard, weaponizing an array of synth tricks to concoct such a relentlessly dark aura throughout. “A History of Cages and Broken Bones” and “Our Overt Apocalypse” are mammoth tracks of jolting doom and scathing tremolo that crash through the thick ambiance, while fiery vocals guide the movements. The quiet climaxes of “Annihilation” and “Liberation Ritual” showcase the stolen weight of the darkness, dwelling heavy and dense smoke-filled atmosphere, existential dread coursing through every fiber of the slow-burning movements. The ambient swell of the former transitions neatly into the shamanistic drumming of the latter, constructing a darkened tabernacle that feels more authentic and human, a whisper, than its explosive tendencies.

Full article here.