#DREAM THEATER NOMACS SERIES#

“It’s not necessarily something people are listening to, and it could easily be a NOMAC in the background just making sounds while they’re texting their friends. “Music has definitely become a background for a lot of people,” nods James. Memorise these names: you’ll be tested next month. Everybody is more and more distracted, everyone’s multitasking… if you’re not looking at a screen, you’re being pulled away from it. “You’ve got to have patience or maybe just meditate.

“It takes a certain mentality to listen to music,” Jordan states.

#DREAM THEATER NOMACS SERIES#

A resurgence of interest in vinyl, box sets and immersive TV series that are consumed in huge, absorbing chunks, suggests that many people are rediscovering the joy of engaging with music and art, rather than merely using it as bland wallpaper to accompany other activities.

One of the more heartening phenomena of recent times has been the quiet but steady backlash against the disposability of much modern music and entertainment. So it’s about the juxtaposition of hearing these NOMACS making this really crappy nonsense music, because that’s what they think is good, and then hearing Dream Theater playing, with real strings, a real guitars, a real piano and a real singer…” The other aspect is that in a lot of industries, robots are taking over and replacing humans, and so what would happen if that happened to the arts? In this future, with all this technology, in an effort to make perfect music, we make artificially intelligent machines – the NOMACs – that make music, and there’s no need for humans to make music anymore. “So that’s a little bit of a comment on what’s happening today and where things could potentially go. “The world has returned to feudalism, the way it was when the aristocracy had all the money and the land and the power and ordinary people were just toiling,” John explains. It certainly helps that some of the story’s principle supporting facts parallel what’s going on around us in 2016. Like many a sci-fi scenario, the album transports us to a dark and menacing time that is just plausible enough to ring true on some deep level.

Instead, The Astonishing takes place in a world where societies have collapsed and been replaced by a feudal system: empires ruled by all-powerful leaders, with ordinary people reduced to cowed worker bees, striving for survival. “The whole prog movement is about fairies and elves and we’re proud of that!” Jordan cheerily proclaims, before adding, deadpan, “but there are no fairies and elves on this album.” It’s for people that love storytelling and diving into the detail, the methodology of it all.” Whether it’s progressive music as a genre, gaming, sci-fi as a genre… it’s a very similar headspace for all of those. So if anything, this grandiose way of looking at things comes more from movies. It’s not something tha I’m personally into, but I think it crosses over in the sense that we’re all into sci-fi and fantasy we all love Star Wars, Game Of Thrones, Lord Of The Rings, any futuristic stories about the Apocalypse…” “As far as the RPG stuff goes, that would be the least of the influence. If you thought we were nerdy before, this will blow your mind!” laughs John. The town of Ravenskill, home of Gabriel, aka The Chosen One

Dream theater nomacs