THERION - Leviathan Trilogy (22/01/2021 - 28/10/2022- 15/12/2023)

eudus a écrit:Et bien après deux écoutes attentives je suis très agréablement surpris
Pas impossible que je le considère comme le meilleur du groupe, période post Gothic Kaabalah !

Pas loin : https://www.leseternels.net/chronique.aspx?id=19121

Aucune chronique entre Lepaca et Gothic Kabbalah sur le site ? Etonnant, j'avais jamais fait gaffe à ça.
(Dudusse, Wotan, qu'est-ce que vous foutez ? )

Therion, Ghost, Townsend, personne ne veut chroniquer ces groupes

Seosamh a écrit:Aucune chronique entre Lepaca et Gothic Kabbalah sur le site ? Etonnant, j'avais jamais fait gaffe à ça.
(Dudusse, Wotan, qu'est-ce que foutez ? )

Ha oui tiens, il y a un gros trou a combler la (le petit Wine est demande au rayon).
On peut se repartir les taches avec Dudusse. Je peux faire Vovin, Lemuria et Deggial.

Wotan a écrit:

Seosamh a écrit:Aucune chronique entre Lepaca et Gothic Kabbalah sur le site ? Etonnant, j'avais jamais fait gaffe à ça.
(Dudusse, Wotan, qu'est-ce que foutez ? )

Ha oui tiens, il y a un gros trou a combler la (le petit Wine est demande au rayon).
On peut se repartir les taches avec Dudusse. Je peux faire Vovin, Lemuria et Deggial.

Pas moyen que je mette quoi que ce soit dans Therion

J'ai pas abandonné l'idée de faire un dossier reprenant la discographie mais j'ai pas le temps
mais un jour je le ferai

De mémoire, Leviathan I mérite son 13/20 et Leviathan II, un p'tit 10/20. Rien de bien zinzin sous le soleil.

Premier extrait du 3eme volume qui sort en décembre :

Faut arrêter avec les clips faits par IA.

Ca marche aussi avec la musique.

Lucificum a écrit:Faut arrêter avec les clips faits par IA.

This is something I have been thinking about for a long time, but the time was never right. But some days ago I decided that today would be the right moment for it. This is a VERY LONG post and I put a lot of effort into it as it’s about something very very important about the future of music. Please show me the respect of reading it entirely.

The question of AI (Artificial Intelligence) has become a hot topic lately. And rightly so, as many of the people behind the creation of it (and 1500 professors worldwide) have warned that it could be the end of humanity if things go wrong. It’s like with the nuclear fission, it could both provide us with stable and clean energy, but it has also caused devastating nuclear accidents. And it was also intentionally used as a mass extermination of Japanese civilians as a nuclear weapon - and nuclear weapons in the amounts possessed the last 50 years threaten the very existence of our civilisation if used.
AI also threatens to blur the border between reality and fiction, when you can imitate people their voices. If unregulated, you won't be able to tell if the speech of your president was really him/her or an AI.
So in the light of the above, the concerns later in this post are of course meaningless in comparison. But they mean a lot to me and for other artists.

On the good side AI can create breakthroughs within medicare, and solve mathematical and scientific problems that seemed unsolvable just a decade ago. Maybe we can learn how to communicate with animals (like an intra species Google translate). And many other things. And obviously it will also have a huge impact on artistic matters, such as visual art, movies and of course music, which is what we are going to discuss here.

Throughout the history, there has been a constant replacing of occupations with technical innovations. Trains don’t need station masters any longer and tons of occupations like telegraph operators and switchboard operator are long gone. Many stores in Europe have self check out at food stores where you scan your stuff and pay with card. Self driving cars already exists and it's mainly legal matters that have stopped companies from making taxi drivers obsolete in the western world.

In the world of music, we have seen the previously important sheet music writers occupation vanish into total obscurity and digital recording has made artists record their music on their own and just go to a real music studio for the mix. And sound engineers that don't already own a studio can just set up a room at home where they do the mix, as more and more mixing is done digitally in a software. Music studios where you have a physical mixing console and a recording room with proper acoustics are already vanishing. Soon most bands will use AI for mixing for peanut money. Studios will not disappear entirely, but it will be a niche. Just like there is still a need for people who can do typewriting and restaurants with a vintage theme. The same will happen to actors, authors, visual artists and of course also to musicians and song writers. Just like streaming has already totally changed the music industry, so will this new technology. It's already technically possible today, but it's not yet profitable enough as AI is still too expensive to make it worthwhile in this niche. It's all about economy and scaling. Just like Spotify wasn't an option for most people when it was launched, because the audio quality was bad and people couldn't afford fast enough internet with unlimited data. Today all streaming services has acceptable quality and you have fast mobile data in your smartphone (often even roaming abroad), so you have a world library of unlimited music in your pocket. Which is impossible for CD’s to compete with. In USA (the single biggest music market) more than 90% of the CD sales have vanished and it continues to drop. In 2022 around 11% of the revenue in the music industry came from physical sales, but that includes vinyl as well and physical buyers generate more revenue than streamers, so if we look at the amounts of consumers that choose streaming vs buying, it’s just few percent that actually buy CD’s. At first the artists complained a lot, but today even most artists are streaming too. Some at least use Tidal, so the artists get paid well, but most of them even use Spotify, which is the worst paying one. I even know people who play in vintage rock bands who don’t own a record or CD player and just use Spotify. I’m almost the only one I know that still buy CD’s. It’s when you observe that you know how unstoppable new technology is.

AI will have its effect on music creation in an even more drastic way than streaming though. Already today you have AI making mock ups where you can hear famous singers performing virtually in other bands. And we had an AI creating fake music by the artist Drake. So we’re not talking science fiction. We are talking technology that is already here that will just need some year or two of perfection - and an economic model for companies to earn money. There are possibly some copyright issues regarding imitating specific voices (it’s still being worked at, it’s a grey area in the law), but in terms of composition, it’s totally legal to use an AI to analyse songwriting to generate new music sounding like for example classic Beatles, Queen, ABBA or any other world famous music and there’s nothing the artists and record labels can do about that. Those type of songs will be the main target, because that’s where the money initially is. But with time, this will be popularised and just like you today own a smart phone with a processor that equals a super computer 30 years ago, there will be something similar to Spotify where you can order the creation of new songs from an AI and save to your playlist and share with others. Some of those songs will be super popular, others may stay obscure as your personal creation. You will be able to order a new Therion album where you can choose which style you want, what sound, what singers etc. Like: ”Write me a new Blood of Kingu with the sound from Vovin and with Piotr on vocals”. Or generate a live version of songs that was never played live. And also make cover versions that are as good as the originals, and thus circumvent having to pay royalties to the record companies and artists. ABBA won’t make any money from an AI generated on demand created ”almost Mamma Mia”.

Given that they have already toured with a hologram Ronnie Dio on stage, X Japan brought back a dead guitarist in stage already a decade ago and ABBA will be performing as holograms, the next thing after music on demand will likely be concerts on demand. A virtual concert that feels almost real where you choose what members performing what songs in what environment. Wanna see Therion live how it was back in 1989? No problem, an AI will be able to recreate it for you. This could be created with the technology we have today. It’s just that only a few millionaires would afford to use it (just like when the first mobile/cell phones came). When the technology has become cheaper (like it has with any other new technology historically) you will be able to afford it, just like you can afford to unlimitedly stream Netflix, YT and Spotify on your mobile network today, which would have been crazy expensive 10 years ago.
The only thing that is not clear to me is the timeline. If we look to the past, I’d say 10 years from now. But things have accelerated a lot, so for the AI music on demand, I’d say 5 years or even less.

When this happens, it will mainly effect the creation of new music. People who are older will not stop listening to Bohemian Rhapsody, just because there is another song that is similar, even if the AI one is even better. They have no reason to listen to an AI generated cover either. It will mainly be younger people who have no relation to the originals that will discover the cover songs that companies generating them will market, trying to capitalise on famous songs and not having to pay for a license or world class people to record it. So financially, artists that are already established will be able to continue to capitalise on their heritage for at least one more generation. What will be the biggest issue is that it’s going to kill 90% of human made new music. There will be both entirely artificial music as well as hybrids where everything is artificial except the singer who will be the star, as there will still a certain human need for stars of flesh and blood (though I predict when people are used to entirely AI created movies, a majority will also accept virtual stars).

There will of course be a counter movement to all this. People who will oppose listening to AI generated music by principle. Just like many started to go back to vinyl today when streaming is taking over. The metal scene is a gonna host a significant part of that, but don’t fool your self, there’s a also a more commercial part of the metal scene where bands do everything from putting just one guitarist or a bass player on backing tracks live to bands who have been revealed to have also lead vocals or even the entire band on play back. And fans still go to their concerts saying ”Who cares?”

Fortunately for me, I make music in a part of the metal scene where the fans are more appreciating human hand craft, so I’m not worried about my own future financially (though I have actually made investments ensuring I will be economically independent even if I don’t earn a cent on the music in the future). I started making music when I was 15, sitting with a cheap bass on my bed and writing down songs on paper (because I had no means of recording them). I feel the same joy and write for the same reasons today. So I will always continue to write and produce music for my own sake (and share with those who care to listen) and I’m also pretty sure that our ageing audience will be continuously interested in hearing new stuff as long as it’s good. And the same people will probably show up in enough numbers to make it worthwhile playing live. So generally speaking, I’m personally in a good spot in that regard. I guess the biggest difference for me will be that the typical impolite morons writing comments like ”RIP Therion” on YT and FB will probably upgrade their comments to ”RIP Therion - I created something much better with AI”. I can live with that. But for the next generation of bands, this will be a huge issue.

So why am I’m posting this now all of a sudden?
Just a couple of days ago I got the latest lyric video delivered. It was AI created. I had ordered a regular lyric video, there was never any talk about making it with AI. I got three thoughts in my head upon watching it.

The first was that I principally don’t like AI created stuff, because I prefer to live in an analog work with genuine things created by real people. There were even some AI created stuff in the video clip for ”Twilight of the Gods” that I had the director to remove because I didn’t like it.

The second thought was being shocked how much value I actually got for a very small budget. I couldn’t help being very impressed. I knew you could make a fake Greta Thunberg promoting her own oil company video with an AI for people to laugh at on You Tube, but I don’t have any perspective on how much such a generation would cost. Such YT videos could have been generated by AI companies to promote their abilities. So I was totally blown away that this could be made for the same money as a cheap lyric video with some animated bear waving in the background to some lyrics. The technology has accelerated SO fast in this field it’s shocking!

The third thing was that it contained tons of inaccuracies. Arabic letters, Arabic clothes, Arabic building and a lot of desert... Turkey don’t even have a desert (yeah I know, the Karapınar field, but that is just a small area with volcanic sand). So my first conclusion was that we can’t use it. But at the same time we needed some kind of video for ”Ruler of Tamag” (which is the most important song on the album) and there wasn’t time to create a new lyric video or even a new AI created one.
So I came up with the idea to use it anyway and use this as the opportunity to start a debate about AI and where it’s taking us in the future.

The reactions in the comments on YT was more or less exactly as I thought it would be:

- People in Turkey will see that it’s Arabic content. Very few people who are not Turks reacted to it.
- Those who already know where we are going with AI reacted negative. But most people just viewed it, have no clue and think it’s cool. Some even defended it being AI.

So, I want to use this as an example of both how you can get a lot content for almost no money (which is why it’s gonna be unstoppable), how an AI totally lacks knowledge about what it’s doing (which is creating lower quality standards) and how the masses will still happily consume it. And plant a seed of debate here.

I’m not naive. Only a few thousand people will see this despite me having 25.000 followers (because we have to pay FB tons of cash if I want to reach our own followers). Maybe a few hundred will take the time to read it in full. So I obviously can’t change much. But we all need to do what we can. Not to stop it, because it will inevitably happen. But to at least strengthen the cult around real art. The difference between failing and succeeding with that is that your kids may never have the same joy as you going to see a real concert if we fail. Just like most of you today can’t afford to buy a real oil painting from an artist with a bit of a name. Real live concerts is likely going to be like the opera today. It’s a thing of the past that has a small following today, mostly by wealthy people who can afford the usually very expensive tickets. I predict that live playing will be like that for established artist (much fewer concerts and much more expensive tickets) and then there will be an underground scene where some local kids form their own band and play free concerts for a hand full of other kids (like how the death metal scen was in the late 80’s).

So what can we do? You can do what I just did. Speak to people, create awareness. Complain massively in the comments of every AI created video clip. Share this post. In the same way new unknown bands get spread by word of mouth. Metallica became famous worldwide via tape trading even before they made a record. Every effort counts.

Sinon j'adore ce nouveau single, on revient un peu à l'essence du groupe sur certains aspects (bien que le morceau soit pas non plus phénoménal) et Taida est vraiment la révélation vocale de cette trilogie

Et de trois (chroniques) : https://www.leseternels.net/chronique.aspx?id=19388

On n'est pas prêts de revoir un concert de Therion en France... Johnsson se plaignait déja des conditions dans le Rock Hard de décembre.

Christofer Johnsson a écrit:WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THERION?

So, the Leviathan albums has been released and we did our very best to give the fans what they wanted with those. Many of you liked all of them and hopefully those who didn’t found at least one Leviathan which was for them. Or if not, at least being able to put together one Best of Leviathan I - III that do the trick for you. The only thing we can can not do is to give you your youth back and recreate that special feeling that one has at that age discovering new music.
Given the commercial success of the first two albums and the less than usual senseless wining by the internet complaint mafia, one must say it was been a mission complete with the trilogy.
Fans in Latin America has also been asking for a show with orchestra for 15 years after we did it in Europe. So finally I gave in (after being offered tons of cash admittably). The result was a sold out arena show with over 11.000 tickets and an orchestra and choir that did a much better job than in Europe. That mission complete went totally through the roof!

So what now?  Well, we still have a world tour 2024 to promote the trilogy in Europe/China and a tour to promote Leviathan III in Latin America on our to-do-list before the future starts kicking in.
And what does the future hold after that?
Well, there will be some changes. When it comes to recordings, I’m not entirely sure how the next Therion album will be like. I only know that there will be many more Therion albums to come.
What I do know for sure is also that after completing 3 complex Therion albums in 3 years, I now need a creative break from the band for a while and will be doing not one, but two new albums with my 70’s sounding side project Luciferian Light Orchestra next. Fact is that those two albums are not only fully written, but even partially recorded (all drums, bass and guitars). They just need the keyboards and vocals nailed before I can mix and release them. Aside from some musical differences from the debut album, I would also say a difference is that LLO is now a Therion side project rather than my personal side project. Everything has been recorded by Therion and Therion-related members this time. And Thomas has teamed up for the song writing.

Then I also want to make a classic sounding 80’s heavy metal album. I feel that I owe that to the 11 year old Chris that was dreaming about playing metal back in 1983 - without his dreams I wouldn’t be here. I just need to touch a guitar and 80’s heavy metal riffs start flowing. There has always been a lot of heavy metal hidden in Therion (and will always be), but now it’s time to go pure and together with Thomas, I have already written a kick ass 80’s heavy metal album that will show the kids of today how it’s done. Also for this album we have already recorded drums, bass and guitars. And yes, it’s also an official Therion side project. No need to go over the river to fetch water.

Then we have the question of touring. And here there will be some changes. I still love being on stage and would never retire totally from touring as long as I have the health and can still perform well. For sure another 20 years of playing live. BUT, I have started to grow tired of everything else on tour aside from being on stage. All the travel, all the waiting… So we will be raising the bar a notch and start cherry picking a bit when it comes to concerts. Which means that the places where we either pull the least people, get least paid or have the most unfavourable rules for artists to perform will be excluded after the coming tours. This of course means that from previously being highly unlikely we ever tour the US again, you can now pretty much take for granted we will never play there again. And in Europe it means we will be cutting down a lot in the future as well. No show in the UK and only one show in France on the upcoming tour is an indicator, but I would also say that without France on the way, it may not be worth it to have 4 travel days to get down and back up to Spain and Portugal either. It may also  happen that we will not tour on Balkan to the same extent like before. In 2018, we did a stunning 57 shows in Europe. This time we do 30. I would expect maybe 15-20 next time.

So what I am saying is that you can’t take the band for granted in Europe in the future (unless you live in Poland or Netherlands possibly). For some places this tour will be a goodbye concert, for other it may mean we will at least not return for a very long time.
I already said no to offers from 3 very famous festivals in Europe for this summer and we will only do one festival in Europe this year. I’d expect we do 1-2 festivals a year for future summers as well. We will always play Europe, but we can’t be taken for granted in all countries there anymore.
For Latin America and the rest of the world I’d expect it to be like it always has been. Some countries we always play, some we play occasionally when the offer is good enough. With other words, if you live in Mexico you don’t have to worry (we may even do more shows there than last time) and Chile + Colombia can be pretty sure we will always come around as well. The rest will be depending on the offers and general conditions.

LLO and the heavy metal project won't be playing live at all.

Qu'est-ce qu'il reproche aux organisateurs européens ?
(drôle de façon de s'adresser à sa fanbase, même si ça a le mérite de la franchise )

En gros la hausse des coûts un peu partout et particulièrement en France avec des problèmes administratifs en plus qui font que ça n'est plus vraiment rentable de tourner en Europe pour un groupe comme eux...

Merci. Si plusieurs groupes se plaignent et arrêtent de tourner ou tournent moins pour les mêmes raisons, ce sera le signe qu'il y a un vrai problème. Si Therion est seul ou quasi seul dans ce cas, ce sera juste de la chouinerie qui masque autre chose (genre j'ai des exigences coûteuses mais comme je ne remplis pas l'équivalent d'un zénith, je ne m'y retrouve pas dans mes frais. Donc j'accuse les méchants organismes européens et nord-américains plutôt que reconnaître les faits, tandis que je continuerai à faire de bénéf en Amérique du Sud grâce au niveau de vie moins cher). J'espère que c'est l'option 2 (vu que je m'en fiche de Therion en concert), parce que si c'est la 1, on va vers des moments difficiles pour les concerts.