F*CK DOES “EPIGENESIS” MEAN, ANYWAY?
So I’m really, really, really excited for Melechesh’s new album, The Epigenesis, which comes out October 26, and which has album art now. I don’t feel like I really “understand” that album art, though, and then I realized that I don’t even really know what “epigenesis” means, so I decided to Google that shit and see if I could make heads or tails of this cover.
So as it turns out, there are actually multiple definitions of “epigenesis” —
- In geology, “epigenesis” is defined as “Change in the mineral content of a rock because of outside influences.”
- In biology, “epigenesis” is defined as “The theory that an individual is developed by successive differentiation of an unstructured egg rather than by a simple enlarging of a preformed entity.”
- And according to the always-reliable Wikipedia, “epigenesis” is “the philosophical/theological/esoteric idea that since the mind was given to the human being, it is this original creative impulse, epigenesis, which has been the cause of all our development.”
So… I don’t think the geologic definition really has any value in this instance. But the other two definitions, I think, can be helpful in figuring out the larger question of, “What the fuck are Melechesh going for here???”
Because both of those definitions involve something smaller getting larger… and the pharaoh/wizard dude is getting larger, or, at least, there are several versions of him in a variety of sizes… and those opal-ball things are all connected, which suggests, uh… connection, and…
Nope. I got nothing. I’m not high right now, so maybe that explains why I can’t formulate some cockamamie theory. Oh, well.
At some point maybe I’ll get to interview Ashmedi and ask him for his take on all this… although he strikes me as the kind of dude who would never really give a helpful answer. Y’know. For artistic reasons, or whatever.
Like I said before, The Epigenesis comes out October 26. You can hear a shitty live recording of an instrumental version of a new song that may or may not have made it onto the final album here.
-AR
