Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
British progressive metal band TesseracT released their comprehensive live concert film and album titled “Radar” on December 5th, as theprp reports. The recording captures a professionally-filmed performance at the ‘RADAR’ festival in Manchester, UK, held on July 27th, 2024. For this performance, the band expanded their live ensemble by incorporating the Choir Noir. To encourage audience engagement, the band has simultaneously released a video of the performance of “Natural Disaster” from the concert.
The world is changing. As a species, we’ve never been more conscious of who we are or where we are going – our minds circling with questions that are no longer exclusive to the more philosophical among us. It’s a revelation that inspired much behind TesseracT’s latest full-length, “Sonder”. The UK-based progressive metal pioneers, who were instrumental in paving a new wave of exciting and heavy sounds the world over, purposefully chose a title that had no orthodox meaning whatsoever. When you think about it, this is something that marries perfectly with their non-conformist approach to music…
“I stumbled across the word ‘Sonder’ a few years ago,” reveals singer Dan Tompkins. “I assumed it was an actual word taken from the dictionary. When I was thinking over the concept and titles for the album, I looked the word up in the dictionary but couldn’t find it anywhere. Lo and behold it was coined by a wonderful writer that was beautifully putting into words, the thoughts and feelings that nobody had officially considered, it seems.”
The writer in question, John Koenig, is someone who has been at the forefront of reimagining how we communicate, much like TesseracT have been doing through sound. Author of “The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows”, he created his own terms based on research on etymologies and meanings of used prefixes, suffixes and word roots, ultimately filling in the linguistic gaps we never realised were there…
“The word ‘Sonder’ is a name given to the seemingly ineffable emotions we experience when realising that each of us are simultaneously living vivid and complex lives,” continues Dan. “Everyone has a story, a unique story that is shaped and created within a plethora of emotion. This realisation, or rather perspective, can leave us conscience-stricken with regards to any sense of self-importance, and render us insignificant to the world and people that we’re surrounded by. There has been a huge generational shift in technological advances compared to when all of us in TesseracT were children – disconnection from each other can only be a bad thing in my eyes, the art of communication is more important than ever. In a volatile, aggressive and ignorant world, maybe it’s this very perspective that is missing and much needed: these are the notions of Sonder. Very deep to say the least…”
