Tyler Kamen-Bamboozle Tesseract
Tyler Kamen is your guide to extraterrestrial and psychedelic fuelled travel. Here is an artist that comes, assuming human form-putting his extraordinary skills on display. A poet, guitarist, singer, songwriter, music producer, video producer, photographer, graphic designer-a polymath in other words. It is safe to say no one from our species can exercise these many skills at once. These are the ones he chooses to admit. This is his latest expedition through space, Bamboozle Tesseract. Imagine an energy volume that voids time and gives you infinite energy to travel the ends of the known universe. This is the soundtrack to that journey. I’ve been a Star Wars nerd most of my life, my fingers tingled when I saw what I had to review. Luckily, I’ve also been a Rush fan, so I’ve visited Megadon whenever Earth bogs me down. This is where I dove into this album with the eagerness of a 14-year-old without any prior fandom. Tyler Kamen delivered. Tyler Kamen welcomes you to Gnome City He opens with Introduction-Future X. A Floyd-esque chord progression is your key to travel, while you wait for the take-off. The Bamboozle Tesseract plays immediately after the 40-second opening. Like a TV theme, I can feel the goosebumps because of the melody. Upbeat and energetic, it reverberates with prog-rock exploration eagerness. The layers come together like a trifecta, the drums killing it on all cylinders, while the brass and the guitar form a dual-natured sword. It becomes evident immediately that a poet is writing these lyrics, imaginative and well-crafted, for the moment and story. We get to visit Gnome City Lab. Feel a puckish, playful aura come over the instrumentals. The odd time riff is something you immediately feel grooving to. I spent my time picking apart all the layers, like I do for any prog-rock anthology like this. I already fear the end of this album, for it all exists within this time frame, is all. Furthermore, I might write fan fiction on this with Tyler Kamen if he pleases, but I have thoroughly enjoyed every second of it till now. Splitting Atoms zooms into a moment, the complexity narrated within the lyrics. This one was one of my favourites till now. Frames of time are spent in waiting for the process, where you lock into how the groove evolves. Gnome City, however, achieves a breakthrough. Breaking News delivers the joy of the labs finally creating the Bamboozle Tesseract. Even in supposed interludes, Tyler Kamen puts in the effort of making it a cinematic enterprise. The incubation flourishes with Vegetable Medley. It is an instrumental extravaganza, Tyler Kamen conducting some of the most fun, riveting instrumental parts I’ve heard in a long time. Nuclear Core Meltdown shows it all go south. Riffs galore, while the invention folds on itself. What ensues is chaos, documented through Are You Mutant? To Intermission. We embrace this mutant development in Gnome City, through Lights Over Zezop Way and Cruciferous Creepers. I enjoyed the video game energy of Street Fight as well. This article could technically be a thousand words and I still wouldn’t be close. This is sci-fi glory, an escapist haven for me to just get lost in. I’d prefer a sci-fi/animated movie of this concept, which Tyler has brilliantly laid out through the zeal and noesis of prog-rock. If you enjoyed this, listen to Artichoke Pythagorum, which you might get addicted to as well. Follow him for what will be explorations to different truths. Till then, the gates of Gnome City welcome you!
Tyler Kamen-Cornucopia Modus
Imagine every stage of your life is a video game. Tyler Kamen can write the soundtrack to your life in a jiffy. This talented songwriter exploded our minds to fragments with his superior album, Bamboozle Tesseract last year. He ups the ante and the level fittingly, with Cornucopia Modus. The thrill is ours, comrade. If you’re ever in a need to write a rock epic, I cannot point you in any direction but Tyler Kamen’s. His songwriting slices open parts of otherworldly exploration with surgeon like ease. You travel on a magic carpet with a mage, understanding a whole new aspect of divinity. If Bicentennial is his opening, you’ve just put the helmet on (fans of 3 Body Problem, wink wink). Gearing up, the opening song is like listening to Rush on an acid trip. You’re subjected to the exciting theme song, the guitars flowing melodies taking you through the scenic divinations to be witnessed eventually. Underneath is the third track, with instrumentals that tease the aspects of time travel. There are ridiculous melodic runs, sudden shifts and dramatic changes. Tyler Kamen balances the ride with each song exploring one aspect of a fantasy world with his raw talent and budding excitement. You’re in every part of the journey with him, while witnessing in awe the kind of instrumental genius he portrays. The Vegetable Tribe introduces you to a new species, an entire interaction with creatures that have a purpose. When he draws back the curtains, you can imagine the entire picture-a puzzle you’re making as he introduces you to the pieces. If you think songs like Frequency 9 are interludes, you’re a silly worm. Tyler Kamen designs these as B-rolls that can entice you to visualise the next background. As far as rock epics go, I cannot name one artist that would delve into the detail of what he is making with such care. Write a book parallelly, and we have an audiovisual voyage for fans to obsess over for years to come. The tones he chooses for songs like Jinx Loon give you the mystery and veil the depth of the whole story. He weilds Chekhov’s Gun, and he's using the trigger carefully. When you’re taken on journeys like Road to Lizard House, you can express the twists and turns. You might exhaust yourself telling your friends, so might as well host a listening party for Cornucopia Modus. Rarely do you find a gem like this where so much work is put with so much fervor. Each album of Tyler Kamen’s is a whole new world, and being a part of it is a greater than any movie you can watch. A spinoff of Dungeons and Dragons is the only feature I can visualise for this brilliant work. Check out more of his albums and his collection of work on his Spotify. Make sure you follow Tyler Kamen for more epics that will drop soon! Till then, I’ll be taking a nap in Gnome City.