Djent wasn’t well-known beyond the online communities it grew up in when Prog first encountered TesseracT in 2010. As they prepared to release their debut album, One, and embark on their first US tour, they offered an account of a movement that many suspected was a bit geeky – in an article that also tipped Periphery, Chimp Spanner, The Safety Fire and Textures as ones to watch.
You’ll be forgiven if you haven’t come across TesseracT before. Having formed from what is quite possibly the geekiest musical scene ever – it was born, raised and still thrives in internet-based communities – it’s not a stretch to say that the British prog metal quintet is quite a modern phenomenon. The sub-genre in question has a peculiar title: djent.
“Back in 2002 or 2003, the producer-musicians who spawned this new wave of progressive metal began to come together,” says Acle Kahney, TesseractT’s lead guitarist and chief songwriter. “A factor that set the community apart from others is that it had no geographical base. People from all over the world were sharing ideas, recording parts for each other and even jamming live online.
“Like punk came from bars, clubs and rehearsal rooms, this scene started in chatrooms, forums and home studios. It would have been impossible without the internet.”
‘Djent’ is an onomatopoeic word used to describe the iconic chord that Swedish prog metallers Meshuggah made their own over the past two decades. It was via that band’s online forum that Kahney learnt how to play the complex construction. When Meshuggah’s lead guitarist, Fredrik Thordendal, heard some of Kahney’s riffs on another forum and complimented them, it was all the encouragement he needed to forge ahead.
But TesseracT are far from being a tribute act. “These influences – you can’t really hear them in the music,” Bassist Amos Williams says. “They’re just what we like, so it’s fairly subtle. If you ask Meshuggah, they’d say, ‘Those boys sound nothing like us. It’s a great compliment; to be lumbered in the same class as them is just awesome.”
And what of the band’s name? A tesseract is a complex four-dimensional, cube-like geometric entity that has been used in surrealism and as references to the unknown. Coupled with the online origins of their music, surely here we have the ultimate geek band? “Honestly, man, people assign so much more to the name than what you actually think about when you start things,” Williams says.
“The reality is we just like music that makes us dance. Yeah, it’s pretty progressive, but it’s not Rush, is it? It’s not exactly Dream Theater. The virtuosity comes in the details and the subtlety, rather than... over-playing, shall I say.”
TesseracT started out in 2003 in Kahney’s bedroom. What began as an outlet for creativity and experimentation grew and grew as he posted clips of his technically accomplished heavy guitar work on said forums, taking the resulting feedback on board and gradually improving his technique.
Embodying the trans-national vibe of the genre, Frenchman Julien Perier supplied vocals; but the logistical difficulties meant that the band – also featuring guitarist James Monteith and drummer Jay Postones – settled on Dan Tompkins as singer in the summer of 2009.
Now, while the band is musically attuned to the discordant sounds of their Swedish inspiration, Tompkins brings a vast, haunting and melodic side to their sound. Mainly avoiding screams, he offers a new world of accessibility. And with a US tour supporting Devin Townsend approaching, user-friendliness is exactly what they’re aiming for.
“Our main hope is to seriously raise our profile,” says Monteith. “It’ll be the longest tour we’ve done, and the fact we’re playing with Devin and the fact that’s it in the States makes it by far the biggest thing we’ve undertaken.”
Williams explain how much the opportunity means: “We like music that we can share with other people, and that’s about not only being able to do it on the record, but also doing it live. We’ve spent the last three days just solidly rehearsing – and we’re all knackered! But it shows the importance of us being able to play well. We take a bit of pride in what we do.”
More people in Europe are into us than in the UK. Maybe we’ve got the wrong haircuts!
Acle Kahney
After signing a worldwide deal with Century Media Records in 2010, it quickly became clear the label has grand plans for them Stateside. Monteith displays the level of business nous that comes with they path they’ve taken to opportunity. “Our stats on the net showed we get 60 per cent of web hits from the US, and most of the rest from mainland Europe. So the US office of Century Media want us to go out there quite a bit.”
“We’ve that after touring a few times that a lot more people in Europe are into our sound than in the UK – which is interesting,” Kahney continues. “We can’t quite figure out why it is. Maybe we’ve got the wrong haircuts! Hopefully people in the UK will come round to us, though.”
There’s talk of returning to America and touring Europe next year in support of their debut album, which was produced by Kahney and Williams. In the meantime, however, you can whet your appetite with their EP Concealing Fate.
“It’s a concept,” Williams says. “It’s a 27-minute long track in six parts, and that means 27 minutes from the album – but the album will have a lot of extra material on it. The EP is six songs designed around each other. Now, that’s a very prog thing, to have a concept record!”
The title track started life as a two-minute clip before the band built the other 25 minutes around it, completing a body of work that’s been quite rightly described as coherent. But Kahney says the concept is mainly aesthetic: “There’s no real story to it. Dan sang along to it, but musically there are no intentional themes – just good grooves pieced together into a package.
It’ll be nice to move on – we’ve started writing album two. We’ve got almost half of it
Acle Kahney
“Some of the music from part one appearing in part six wraps it all up a little bit, but it wasn’t really a conscious thing. It’s just what happened after refining it for a couple of years.”
Kahney says the music’s decade-long development didn’t feel complete until the whole album was finished. “When it’s released it’ll be nice to have it set in stone. But it’ll be nice to move on – we’ve already started writing album two. We’ve already got almost half of it.”
After a couple of years bubbling just under the surface of the UK prog metal underground, it appears TesseracT are about to show the world exactly who they are. You get the feeling with this band that you won’t be asking questions about them for long. After all, we do know that the geeks will inherit the Earth.
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