Ewigkeit

Ewigkeit
James Fogarty
James Fogarty
Background information
GenresIndustrial metal, black metal, progressive metal, avant-garde metal, electronic music
Years active1994–2007, 2013–present
Labels
MembersJames Fogarty

Ewigkeit is the musical project of English artist James Fogarty aka Mr. Fog from Brighton. Having released five studio albums, on 28 March 2007, Fogarty announced the end of the project on Blabbermouth, the Death To Music website and also on Myspace[1] but revived it in 2012.[2]

Band history

[edit]

The purpose of this one-man project was to try and forge a unique musical sound. After the release of the first album, Battle Furies on a short-lived Neat Records subsidiary called Eldethorn, Fogarty gave his entire music collection away to an Oxfam charity shop so that he would be free of influences creating his next work. Starscape was received well by the extreme music press, but label folded and the project was put on hiatus. During the missing years, Ewigkeit concentrated on his other black metal project The Meads of Asphodel and his collaboration with Jimmy Cauty on the multi-media project Blacksmoke.[3] In 2003 Land of Fog, was eventually released on Metal Age Productions. Fogarty himself regarded this as the first Ewigkeit album, and it gained him enough attention to get his project signed to Earache Records, on which Radio Ixtlan was released in 2004, to considerable acclaim.[3][4]

Released in 2005, Conspiritus (mixed by John Fryer), a conceptual album examining conspiracy theories, has been hailed by many as "marking a maturation of Ewigkeit's eclectic sound". Also in 2005, a music video was made in collaboration with film-maker Anthony Gates for the track "Its Not Reality".[5] In 2006, Ewigkeit made a live video recording entitled Ewigkeit - Live From A Bunker,[6] which displayed the project in a live setting acting as a free "online" gig - the 25 minute set (filmed in a Nuclear Bunker in the vicinity of Brighton, England) was uploaded to Google video.[7] Also recorded was a free download MP3 EP, Return to the Land of Fog.[8]

In December 2006, Fogerty burned all his recording contracts.[9] All previous Ewigkeit material was then made available at Deathtomusic.com. In January 2007, Death to Music Productions gave away a remastered and superior version of Battle Furies. In March 2007, Starscape was available free, with the intention that all material will be fully released online.

In March 2007, James Fogarty abandoned the Ewigkeit project, stating in the press-release, "... [metal] is mostly out-of-date, out-of-touch with its origins and (worst of all) conservative in the extreme..."

An online link to Fogerty's new project, The Bombs of Enduring Freedom, was created with the debut self-titled album released in December 2007, and an EP Kalashikovs and Car Bombs, followed in 2008.[10] During this time, he also produced the Old Forest album Tales of the Sussex Weald.[3]

In 2012 Ewigkeit was reactivated, with a black metal sound, and two more studio albums were released: Back to Beyond in August 2012, and Cosmic Man (July 2017).[11][2] In 2017, the band fully re-recorded its 1997 album, Battle Furies, and re-released it as Battle Furies 2.017, on CD via Death to Music Productions, and on vinyl via Beverina Productions and Casus Belli Musica.[12] A new EP, Depopulate, was released on 23 January 2021.[13]

Etymology

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Ewigkeit was the name given to this music project when Fogerty found the word in the English Concise Oxford Dictionary. A little known "imported" word, hardly used in the English language at all, Ewigkeit means 'eternity' in German. He has been known in interviews to say that in retrospect, it was the worst name he could have chosen.

Discography

[edit]
  • Faery Lands Forlorn demo (1995, self-released)
  • Beyond Realms Unknown demo (1996, self-released)
  • Dwellers on the Threshold demo (1996, self-released / Death to Music Productions)
  • Battle Furies (1997, Eldethorn / Death to Music Productions)
  • Starscape (1999, Eldethorn)
  • Music for the New Millenium demo (2000, self-released)
  • Land of Fog (2003, Metal Age Productions / CD-Maximum)
  • Radio Ixtlan (2004, Earache Records / Soyuz Music)
  • Conspiritus (2005, Earache Records / Союз)
  • Return to the Land of Fog (2006, Death to Music Productions)
  • Lost Yet Not Forgotten (2008, Death to Music Productions)
  • Back to Beyond (2013, Death to Music Productions)
  • Cosmic Man (2017, Svart Records)
  • Battle Furies 2.017 (2017, Death to Music Productions / Beverina Productions / Casus Belli Musica)
  • Starscape 2.019 (2019, Death to Music Productions)
  • DISClose (2019, Death to Music Productions)
  • Declassified (2019, Death to Music Productions)
  • Land of Fog (20/20 Re-Vision) (2020, Death to Music Productions)
  • Depopulate (2021, Mospharic)

Ewigkeit has appeared on various compilation albums, notably:

  • Metal Hammer covermount Earache Sampler CD (2004)
  • Black Light Magazine CD sampler
  • No Holy Additives vol. 2,3 & 4
  • Metal Age Productions sampler CD
  • Britannia Infernus
  • Metal: A Headbangers Companion

References

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  1. ^ "Deathtomusic.com". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 29 March 2007.
  2. ^ a b "Ewigkeit". Discogs.com.
  3. ^ a b c "EWIGKEIT - 'Back to Beyond'". Archived from the original on 16 January 2018. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
  4. ^ "Ewigkeit Radio Ixtlan". Exclaim.ca.
  5. ^ "Ewigkeit - "Its Not Reality" - YouTube". YouTube. Archived from the original on 9 January 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  6. ^ "Ewigkeit News". Archived from the original on 9 September 2017. Retrieved 8 June 2017.
  7. ^ "EWIGKEIT - Live from a Bunker". 19 November 2007. Archived from the original on 19 November 2007.
  8. ^ Ewigkeit Archived 16 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine at Earache.com
  9. ^ "EWIGKEIT - Burn the Bastards - YouTube". YouTube. Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  10. ^ "The Bombs Of Enduring Freedom". Discogs.com.
  11. ^ "Ewigkeit - Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives". Metal-archives.com.
  12. ^ Islander (29 October 2017). "Shades of Black (Part 2): Ewigkeit, Horizon Ablaze, Ignis Haereticum, Kanashimi". No Clean Singing. Archived from the original on 18 September 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  13. ^ "EWIGKEIT: Release Digital EP "Depopulate" on January 23rd!". Metal Temple. 11 December 2020. Retrieved 27 December 2020.
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