Aberrant RPG - What's Novox Got To Do With It?

[Matt]

<font size="6">What's Novox Got To Do With It?</font>
A look into the music of the twenty-first century as a result of the M-R node

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, I don't think you could've found even an optimistic music journalist who would say there was something original left for music to produce. Of course, this was before the first, of what was to be dozens and later hundreds, of nova musicians burst onto the scene in mid 2000. But even after N-Day, many had to ask, "Is there anything left to create?"
One such youth asking precisely that question was a fifteen-year-old Italian immigrant living in the Bronx by the name of Carlo Paginin. Carlo was an aspiring DJ making some of the fastest, most wildly creative and catchy dance techno heard on this side of the Atlantic. Carlo soon moved up from deejaying his in-laws' weddings to spinning at some of the hottest clubs in New York - all before he could buy a drink (or even get in legally!). I remember seeing Carlo way back at the Egyptian in early 2001, seamlessly blending hip-hop, jungle, Latin, and hard trance into something that kept the dance floor full all through the night. No one realized that this was the long term eruption that would later bless the world with DJ Faiz. By January of 2002, DJ Faiz was an international techno sensation.
Faiz was one of the many novas who helped coin the term "novox," the catch-all phrase used to describe any music created involving the use of quantum powers. It would be those very same novas who would kickstart the baseline music community to come up with some new creations of their own.

<font size="4">Novox in the Twenty-First Century</font>

The point is hotly contested on OpNet forums around the world, but DJ Faiz was the first publicly known novox artist. The debate came to a pinnacle around mid 2002 when Latin-pop megastar Alejandra set the world ablaze with her remarkable debut album. As the record destroyed album sales records, and the singles consistently topped Billboard's charts, the word "novox" began creeping into music journalism lexicons as the only way to describe Alejandra's music. However the term describes Faiz's aural concoctions just as well. Faiz himself is unsure as to which of his record's from 2000-2001 were made with the assistance of his M-R node, though his Sudden Silent Style album (which debuted at number one on Billboard's dance charts in March of 2001 and stayed there for an unbelievable fifty-three weeks) was unquestionably a novox release by the enigmatic DJ.
Contested or not, Alejandra herself sought to clear the issue up by publicly stating that Faiz came first. "There is no doubt in my mind that Faiz was the first novox artist," Alejandra said in the August 2002 edition of Rolling Stone. "His records, in what may have been even his pre-eruption days, are still the best dance records the world has ever heard. They have influenced me countless times, and I can still find much inspiration in all of them. Sudden Silent Style is quite possibly my favourite album of all time."
However, even Alejandra's bold words hardly quashed the debate. Pundits of all stripes and colours debated, and continue to debate, just what makes a nova's music "novox." In general terms, novox (pronounced know-veau for all you philistines out there) is any music made utilizing quantum powers in one form or another. There are obvious cases in which the actual sound is being manipulated, such as Alejandra or German-Latin guitar sensation Janur Ravid-Turgen. Or as is the case with DJ Faiz, nova's simply use their advanced intellect and wits to create something bold and challenging, without actually altering or manipulating the source sounds. And a third way involves nova's using powers that have nothing to do with sound manipulation or artistic genius. DJ Extacy provides his own quantum powered light show at any one of his raves, and former Powerstarz frontman Jakob Perkins's good looks and charisma charmed his group to multi-platinum success in late 2007. A fourth, and somewhat scary variant, is a combination of two or more of these forms! Suffice to say, the myriad of forms novox music manifests as is endless. And with novas erupting on a daily basis, the number of variations is sure to increase exponentially.
By 2005, novox artists of all forms would dominate the charts regularly. Even nova managers and A&R reps with a knack for finding great baseline talent became novox artists in their own rights. Groups that featured both nova and baseline performers became novox groups merely by association.

<font size="4">You Can Take Your Novox and Stick It Straight Up Your Node</font>

However, it's hardly like the human race to take such a slap to the ego as novas delivered without creating a ruckus of their own. What follows is a description of some of the most popular musical forms to arise in the post N-Day musical landscape. It would be unfair, however, to generalize all the new forms of music as by-products, or reactions to, the massive impact of novox. Rather, much like any kind of evolution in a given system, music continued to expand and evolve its capabilities and boundaries in the wake of an ever changing, yet wholly present set of variables. While the actual content of specific songs may be a by-product of or reaction to novox (or novas in general, in some cases), the music itself, if you look hard enough, has a history that stretches back further than even N-Day.

Iso
Iso is perhaps the result of humankind's long-standing feud with authority. The bastard child of twentieth century punk and hardcore metal, iso is the most reactionary and firestarting of all twenty-first century music. It is probably, though not indisputably, the most politically charged as well, picking up where bands like Ministry, Bad Brains, and Rage Against the Machine left off.
Not surprisingly, iso got its name from the word "isolated," which, according to Lying Codex singer Adrian Barnaby, "is exactly how a bunch of young, pissed off, 100% human beings felt when the rest of the 'civilised' world started sucking nova c!ck." Lying Codex is not the only band in the iso genre to take a stand against any given minority. The band Fallen Michael was banned in almost all fifty states in the U.S. because of their strict anti-nova message. Other groups like Europe's Blood Simple and the Caycrawlers simply hated everyone - including themselves. The world was shocked when all but one member of the Caycrawlers were found dead in the group's London flat they all shared, apparently of self-induced poisoning. Only the band's guitarist, Eric Stead, lived.
Thusly, the iso community is extremely volatile both in politics and in record sales. The only group to have put out more than two albums is the U.S.'s Yes Command (who released their third this past winter). Incidentally, Yes Command is one of the more politically active groups, choosing to focus their rage at such subjects as the Equatorial Wars, women's issues in southern China, and even the plight of Quebecois separatists. (Yes Command's singer, Paris Chambleau, is a native of Montreal.)
One music reviewer I knew back in 2003 said iso would never survive the coming musical evolution, especially in the wake of Alejandra. But, to paraphrase Darwin, it is the species that breeds the most who wins. Iso has survived, thanks largely to an enormous pool of musical talent, and a world that never runs out of conflicts to write about. On average there are no less than twenty new iso bands that debut on the charts alone every year. Granted most of them don't survive a full-year, but that isn't the point. Iso isn't going away, simply because it refuses to die. It is, in a sense, the voice of the world dissident.

Skew-metal
Skew-metal, or simply skew, is like iso in that it grew out of twentieth century rock music. Taking cues from such wildly creative metal bands including Pantera, Napalm Death, and even the likes of Dream Theater and King's X, skew is probably the form of music most suited to lead the charge against the novox regime. It has a hardcore following unlike any other genre of music today. Fans of skew are fans of the genre, not of any particular band. The first skew albums hit stores as early as 2000 and the genre got a death-grip on the industry in 2003. Bands like Placid, Faith Weapon, and Wasteland, took metal to faster speeds, more intricate arrangements, and unpredictable tonal structures, creating a style of metal that borrowed as much from the Chinese notational scale as it did from Korn. Most of the bands credited novox as inspiration, after having finally been exposed to something truly original. Of course, no skew musician or band is willing to admit that even their extraordinarily original music is based off of something else.
Wasteland is a band of particular importance. With their debut album in 2006, they were the first to incorporate elements from the terr'r genre into skew metal, creating a hybrid (affectionately called skerr'r, like "scare," by fans) that would eventually end up triggering the iweobi movement. And though Wasteland's lead singer Raiy "Darkwave" Clouser was a nova and elite, the band hated being lumped into the category of novox. Said Wasteland keyboardist and principal songwriter McKenna Consprit, "Raiy may have an extra gland in his head that makes him do cool sh!t, but that doesn't mean our music is some fake-ass bullsh!t that wouldn't sound good if it weren't for him. Our music is one hundred percent real, no quantum manipulating anywhere!" The point is still the subject of a heated debate on the band's OpNet forums.
The arrival of skew also found musicans long-thought obsolete coming out of retirement to record in the skew superstructure. The Motor City Madman himself, Ted Nugent, unveiled a skew album in 2005, and veteran producer and songwriter Don Was created a skew album that not only had skew songs on it, but the information chip that came with it gave detailed instructions on how to arrange skew songs. Many current skew bands credit Was's work in helping them understand the skew genre with greater clarity. Other notable skew comeback stories include Lou Reed and (of all groups) jazz ensemble Medeski, Martin, and Wood, whose free jazz musings and intricate jazz arrangements bled quite nicely into skew.
However you credit its success, the skew genre was started by baseline humans, and with the success of early bands such as Placid and later groups like Ryyptilique, there was proof positive that baselines could still have an impact on the musical map. More accessible than iso, but more in-your-face than standard pop and rock, skew dared to defy the mainstream and even take back a piece of it back from the novas who had come to dominate the charts in 2002.

Terr'r
It comes as no surprise to any music afficionado that novas would be able to bring any given obscure genre of music into prominence simply by stating they were fans of that form of music. Such was the case with the gothic genre. Hordes of radical youth who were suddenly given quantum powers came out in favour of the then reviled and horridly beleagured genre. In no time, goth bands with nova supporters were becoming mainstream faves, turning the once "anti-fashion" culture into haute couture. In early 2001, goth groups such as Sunshine Blind and Rosetta Stone were receiving mainstream airplay thanks to their nova fans. Even more techno/ electronic groups such as VNV Nation and Razed In Black, who had a harder style but still inextricable from its gothic qualities, were feeling the effects of nova support. This led to a more thoughtful critique of the genre, and the critic's whipping post finally got the credit it deserved for its brilliant, if still avant-garde, songwriting.
The impact of novox on the gothic music changed it forever. Goth and industrial bands rose to the challenge of creating something greater than novox artists. It was American group The Crypt Roses who were the first to be labeled as a terr'r band with their album Beyond the Effect of Fear. The Crypt Roses also had no problem sharing their knowledge of how to make terr'r, and soon other groups around the globe were following suit.
Terr'r is probably the one genre of music that owes much of existence to science. Terr'r is defined not by what is actually being played, but how. In every terr'r song, there is a frequency of sound (usually extremely low, but some groups have achieved the same effect with ultrahigh pitches) that actually triggers the fear centers of the human brain. Not a surprise then to find that "terr'r" is actually short for "terror." The effect of terr'r on your average person is quite real and quite disturbing. This of course blended perfectly with the goth genre, but inventive groups such as Lacefisher managed to work the subsonic terr'r frequencies into catchy punk-pop tunes and hard emo ballads.
Because of the psychological effects of terr'r, in almost every country save the most backwards of nations, terr'r is banned in moving vehicles and forbidden at venues exceeding a certain size. Nowhere has this been more evident than when in July of 2005, an anti-nova group known as the Shards used terr'r music to start a riot at a huge festival sponsored by Project Utopia. The damage caused by thousands of panicked Utopia fans reached the into the billion dollar range, and the effects, even after the music had ceased, took nearly forty-eight hours to subside.
Due to the dangerous effects of terr'r, most terr'r bands who go on tour (and very few do) are restricted to playing venues that can hold no more than 500 persons. Clubs which play terr'r songs are restricted to similar limitations, and most clubs have taken to having "terr'r nights" where nothing but terr'r is spun by DJs - a concept not heard of since goth broke into the mainstream, and the days of the "goth night" at your local dance club faded into distant memory.Terr'r is both a music and a science, with several books on the psychological effects (or lack thereof) of terr'r having topped bestsellers lists around the world. It is feared that as technology improves, the scope of effect terr'r could have on the general populace could reach apocryphal heights. The public's fears may not be unfounded. As musicologist David Yezzeret of the University of Colorado once wrote, "Iso can tear down governments, and skew can tear up eardrums - but only terr'r can tear apart the soul."

Iweobi
Iweobi literally means, "anger of the heart." And given the caustic nature of the music, it is easy to see why. It is perhaps the first form of music in the twenty-first century spawned from its contemporaries of iso, skew, and terr'r. Sonically, iweobi is a combination of all three of those genres, as well as borrowing heavily from black metal, hip-hop, and industrial.
Purists of iweobi are usually first to claim that the music is not derived from its contemporaries, and that's its geneaology is rooted firmly in black metal groups like Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Thorns, as well as hardcore hip-hop like NWA and Ice-T. Throw in the modern technological advances of terr'r and techno, and you get iweobi. None of this is false, but to dismiss the impact that skew, terr'r, and iso have had in the formation of iweobi would be a mistake. Almost any musicologist, including the aforementioned David Yezzeret as well as any levelheaded individual, are quick to point out the intrinsic similarities between the modern genres. Skew, for instance, borrowed as heavily from black metal as it did from hip-hop, two components which most iweobi pundits claim are essential. The combination of hard guitar attack, techno beats, and terr'r subsonics was first pioneered by Wasteland, under the shortlived genre of skerr'r. Most iweobi fans and bands admit to Wasteland being influential, but offhandedly dismiss the group as arguably being the first iweobi band (which Wasteland themselves deny as being true). Nonetheless, iweobi owes its birth to its contemporaries, for without such innovations, iweobi would be nothing more than a version of Limp Bizkit that worships Satan.
And it is precisely that attitude of blind righteousness that has forced the iweobi movement completely underground. Unlike iso, which rallies itself around standing for something (whatever that may be), iweobi as a musical movement has yet to congeal on anything. Such division within its ranks has fractured the movement, with the bands earning a reputation with the underbelly of youth culture - along with a penchant for violence. Those two elements combined headlong at a concert in Austin, Texas last May, featuring the iweobi bands Shaken Baby Syndrome, Brainfreeze, The Doomsayers, and Damballah, playing a concert at which several known members of the Church of Astaroth were in attendance. The Doomsayers provoked the audience into a frenzy by throwing three-foot-long burning crosses into the audience, and when several audience members began shouting obscenities at the band, the music seemed to provide the perfect backdrop for the CoA to hospitalize over a dozen other patrons.
Your average well-informed citizen might say that the music had nothing to do with the violence, but many of the bands within the genre's ranks have a history of things like what happened in Austin happen at their concerts. Many bands, including the Doomsayers, glorify and even encourage excessive violence. A select few even participate. Brainfreeze lead singer Khrystal Gangeon was in prison for a year for manslaughter, let out on good behaviour and no criminal record prior to her manslaughter conviction. And Baknath bassist Brian Gurps was sentenced to life in prison for murdering his mother, whom he said abused him constantly as a child. The courts managed to prove otherwise thanks to the use of a nova telepath.
It's tragic to think that a genre of music as intriguing as iweobi might fall prey to the violence it promotes. If the genre's artists continue down the path they've started, we may not see another iweobi band by 2020.

Pop/Rock
It may come as a shock to some readers that even with novox music and the advent of new twenty-first century genres, there are still some artists - nova or not - that still make old fashioned music the old fashioned way. Simply put, the rock and roll that was perfected in two-oh is still being played today by a variety of artists. Some qualify as novox simply because the music is quantum powered, but that is of minor importance to the critics and the fans because the music is readily identifiable as conventional pop and rock.
Consider for instance nova singer/songwriter Porl Stone. Stone is a nova with the ability to increase his density and become (as one might guess) hard as stone. This power has very little to do with his music and it's only apparent use is as a conversation piece.
More graphic examples of pop reentering the music mainstream came in 2007 when Lou Perlman, creator of two-oh boybands the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, decided to reclaim a piece of the pop throne with a nova boyband of his own. Perlman's idea fell flat when he could only recruit one nova that suited his purposes, even after screening hundreds of applicants. In the end, ultra charismatic nova Jakob Perkins was placed in the lead slot in Powerstarz, the ill-fated pop supergroup. Armed with a treasure trove of surefire hit songs, Perlman's expertise and Perkins's quantum powered charm, the group looked destined for success. They created a minor splash in late 2007, but didn't even come close to the success Perlman had with his baseline boybands, and Powerstarz totally paled in comparison to more strictly novox artists. The band continued to tour and record until late 2008 when the group was undone by one of their own. Another member of Powerstarz, Ryan Cordell, jealous of Perkins's powers and all the attention that focused on them, flew into a rage after a concert in Holland and attack Perkins. The fight triggered Cordell's latent M-R node, and he erupted. Perlman thought he'd finally stumbled onto a goldmine, until Cordell abruptly quit Powerstarz and joined the XWF as Delerium. The fiasco tarnished the image of the band, and Powerstarz has not recorded or toured since.
It is safe to assume that the music from the twentieth century which has influenced novas and baselines since 1998 will continue to have a place in the modern musical landscape. With resurgence of traditional rock bands like Kingwater and The Verdant Call, some predict that "old-school" rock will make a comeback sometime soon in the twenty-first century.

Hip-Hop and R&B
The only other twentieth century musical survivor in the wake of novox was hip-hop, which despite its lack of novox artists, has been able to survive as a legitimate and still platinum-selling genre. Today, most mainstream hip-hop is still written by baselines and published on major record labels.
A notable exception to this rule is Quantum Boom records, a novox hip-hop label run by and for nova hip-hop artists. Its first signing was the label's president, nova thug Mefistofaleez. His debut went straight to the top of the charts and made Quantum Boom a force to be reckoned with in the twenty-first century.
Since its inception, Quantum Boom has signed and marketed only nova rappers and hip-hop artists, including Kobayashi, No Sleep Node, and the notorious Teragen rapper Paypavue.

<font size="4">Novox and Politics</font>

Music has always been an incendiary way of getting a message across. And with such a heated political climate in the twenty-first century, the paths of music and politics were bound to cross at some point. Below are two examples of how novox and politics crossed swords.

Revolution At Its Loudest
Entertainers becoming senators and presidents. Rock stars becoming spokespersons for international causes. It is not an unheard of concept. With the influence media superstars can have (not to mention the charisma to make people listen), it is no surprise to find them, one way or another, being sucked into some political drama. In the age of novas, where one individual can have more influence and charisma than all of history's greatest leaders combined, this fact seems even more dramatic - and frightening.
Such was the case with New Zealand born nova Kenneth Burtis, whom after erupting, moved to the South Pacific to gain control over his nova powers. Laying low for several years, Burtis (whose powers involve control over the rapport between groups of persons and sometimes even between plants, animals, and the elements) emerged with a plethora of novox albums influenced from the native music of the South Pacific. His albums were a hit in Australia and parts of Asia (though they did poorly in the U.S. and Europe), and earned him a cult following. Burtis shocked the world when he refused to go on tour, and instead built a small empire of fans and never left the South Pacific.
All of this seemed acceptable until late 2008 when seismologists in Hawaii reported a strange earthquake registering at 8.5 on the Richter scale emanating from somewhere a few hundred miles from Fiji. When satellites took photos of the locale, they found a new island, approximately fifty kilometers in diameter, lush with exotic plant and animal life. No sooner had the island been created, then thousands of citizens from several South Pacific countries emigrated to the island, renouncing their former citizenship, and swearing allegiance to Kenneth Burtis.
Apparently, Burtis had spent those years not touring collecting samples of exotic plant and animal life that were on international Endangered Species lists, and used the money from his album sales as well as his extraordinary quantum abilities to raise his own island paradise. Fans of Burtis's music became the islands citizens, and as it was later revealed, caretakers of the island's precious zoological specimens. Burtis declared his island an independent state, and since it was raised in international waters, very few could argue with him. Not that any naysayers were allowed to get close: any attempts at invading Burtis's island suddenly encountered fierce storms and were forced to turn back.
Environmental groups from Greenpeace to Greenwar came out in favour of Burtis's accomplishment, though Burtis claims to have no allegiance to anyone but himself, his island paradise and its citizens. The Teragen also publicly endorsed Burtis's actions and allegedly offered him a place high in their ranks, but Burtis has yet to accept as far as anyone knows.
Moreover, since raising his island, all of Burtis's albums have gone to number one in almost every country worldwide.

The Lyrics and the Litigation
In early 2010, Quantum Boom rap artist Paypavue recorded a track called "Zipkilla," in which the known Teragen member described how he had killed several baselines and why he was going to have to kill more. Before the track could even be pressed, a demo was mysteriously sent to the offices of New River Records, Alejandra's label. Alejandra herself petitioned Quantum Boom to not release the track, and Quantum Boom's president, Mefistofaleez, agreed that the track might be too incendiary.
However, when Paypavue's album, Born Right, was shipped, "Zipkilla" was track number one, and released as a single. Alejandra took Quantum Boom to court for apparently violating a contract between Quantum Boom and New River, to which Mefistofaleez denied signing. Alejandra then publicly threatened to make sure Quantum Boom albums never made it to major record store chains, to which Mefistofaleez replied, "If you've got such a big f!cking problem with me, bitch, then you can settle it with me the old-fashioned way: by throwing down!" Alejandra, a pacifist, refused to respond.
But Alejandra made good on her word, and numerous chains including Wal-Mart, Sam Goody, The Wall, and Record Town all refused to sell Paypavue's hateful message. Quantum Boom remained unfazed, and instead marketed the album over the OpNet, selling the chip directly through the label for a fraction of the cost it would be in a record store. The schism caused by the album turned out to be the best marketing tool Quantum Boom had in its arsenal, and the record reached multi-platinum status in just two months. Mefistofaleez then revealed it was he who had sent the demo to Alejandra, hoping to provoke the Latin superstar and generate hype for Paypavue's album.
Paypavue himself remained unapologetic, and as it turned out, had more baseline supporters than he had anticipated. He had no shortage of nova supporters as well, however. When the Church of Michael the Archangel threatened to kill him at his next concert, and Project Utopia trumped up defamation of character charges to arrest Paypavue with, Paypavue took the stage in Miami with a posse of Nova Vigilance bodyguards onstage with him including Geryon, Leviathan, Gauze, Epoch, and Scattershot. Since then, Paypavue has paid NV bodyguards with him at all times.
Quantum Boom is still tied up in court with New River, and sanctions placed on the label by the U.S. government has kept the label from releasing another album in the U.S. declaring the music "obscene"; the first usage of the term since 2 Live Crew's As Nasty As They Wanna Be was marred with the term in 1989.

<font size="4">The Future of Novox</font>

Novox, its contemporaries, and even its derivatives have an unsteady future in the coming years. While its obvious that there will always be superstars, the divisiveness of the genres may end up being its undoing. The music of the twenty-first century, while exotic, ever-changing, and interesting, has yet to settle on anything that will solidify the movement. Each genre claims to be as different from one another as rock is different from jazz. It is unheard of to find skew musicians making guest appearances on iso or terr'r bands' albums, and rare is it that techno artists like Prokklamationn go on tour with Superbeast. A fan of iso may hate skew, even though the two genres can be derived from similar sources.
But to any true music fan, the current musical climate is one ripe with unending possibilities, and is sure to provide some of the most engaging and entertaining chips to listen to for a long time to come.

<font size="4">In Memoriam</font>
Novox artists that passed away this past year

Burton C. Bell, of Fear Factory, was caught in a crossfire between Team Tomorrow and the Teragen when a building collapsed on him. His invulnerability to physical harm saved him from the impact but he ended up suffocating under the debris. Team Tomorrow was unable to rescue him in time.

Novox jazz saxophonist Carl Black died of a stroke in his home in Memphis, Tennessee.

Terr'r artist and nova Breaker Fortunado committed suicide in his home by ingesting large quantities of water, towards
which he had a particularly virulent allergy.

Christian rocker Robb Heaven was assassinated onstage by Church of Michael the Archangel member Gavin Gauthier. Gauthier was arrested and sentenced to life in prison.