#the cypher

[i-just-want-to-destroy]

[jinx-on-mars-19xx]

[scenesandscreens]

The Cypher (2020)

Director - Letia Solomon, Cinematography - Basil Schneeberger

[12xurecs]

Xetas - The Cypher (12XU 120-1)   release date January 24, 2020  Why do people start bands anymore? To get rich and famous? Compliment re-tweeting? To gain the respect of their peers in the RIAA? I don’t know, and I don’t have a computer so I can’t look it up. But I bet sometimes bands get started with no goal at all, beyond basics like don’t lose the keys to the practice space, and to share the excitement of making music together. From there, the goals become things like, get better at it, and do it more. But, again, no computer here, so, don’t know 100%. Xetas have been doing exactly that, making wired, joyfully intense music ever since their first 7” in 2014. Their first two albums, ‘The Redeemer’ and ‘The Tower’, are compact, high-voltage, furniture-throwing gems. With ‘The Cypher’, they emerge after a year of work as a one-minded beast. The songs blast off and burn, but carry a new depth and weight. Inside gusts of ferocious noise there are subtly sweet melodies that stick in your head; volume gets quiet, tempos charge, slow down, stutter, and implode. The sounds are of a deeper dimension, surprising glimpses of (what’s that?) and (huh wow!). It all creates a rich emotional dimension, which you feel even while the band is thrashing you around in its jaws like an alligator. Instantly you notice the vocal arrangements. Everybody sings every song, whether dividing verses or in unison, in true crew fashion. It’s a moving statement of intent. Punk rock? To be sure, but punk can mean anything goes. David Petro’s guitars come in countless layers of tension, incorporating punk mowdown and bad trip psych, at times bringing to mind Pen Rollings, Tara Key, and Roger Miller. On “The Objector,” bassist Kana Harris’s voice effortlessly shifts emotional gears as she reflects on power and change, leaving you to meditate on the lyrics “no one here will remember the old landscape.” Maybe it’s a concept record? Could be, if the concept is figuring out how to survive by being yourselves, how to get better and better every day at being a band, and leaving nothing on the court. Isn’t that a concept every band should have? Is that even a concept? Isn’t that reality? It’s like I have to look everything up these days. – James McNew 

Xetas : David Petro – guitar, vocals, Kana Harris – bass, vocals Jay Dilick – drums, vocals ‘The Cypher’ was recorded throughout 2019 at Estuary Recording, Austin TX and produced by John Michael Landon and Xetas. (band photography : Angela Betancourt) preorder ‘The Hierophant’ on LP/CD  : 12XU / Bandcamp stream / download “The Hierophant”

[backfromrlyeh]

[dragonsdogmatranscripts]

The Cypher (Wyrm Hunt)

SER MAXIMILIAN: As I was setting about to find work for you, I came upon this slate. I know not its origin, nor its age, but the writing it bears is old. So old, our men could only read a few words. ‘Dragon’, ‘scar’, ‘Arisen’, ‘heart’... What little we know all points to you, ser. Best you should have it. If there’s aught of import written there, we need to know. Your task is to find out.

CUT to Josias.

JOSIAS: What do I know of the old writings? Less than I know of modern script, and I never learned me letters! Alas, I’m a man of the sword, not the quill. Ask a scrivener. Or a counterfeiter, else. 

CUT to Mountebank.

MOUNTEBANK: Ancient writings? Aye, that’s simple enough. If you’ve the coin, that is. What? Oh, you just want aught read? Let’s have a look, then... As I said, simple enough. That’s ‘dragon’ there. Then ‘scar’, ‘Arisen’, and ‘heart’ there. The rest is no script, friend, just flourish. This slate’s no text. It’s a cypher. Like as not, it holds some secret meaning to folk those words relate to. I’m not one of them. I fear that’s all I can say, friend.

CUT to Maurin.

MAURIN: ‘Dragon’, ‘heart’, and ‘scar’, is it? Hmm... Does it have aught to do with that drawing? The figure of Hillfigure Knoll. You know it, aye? The man drawn upon the hill north of the capital. He bears a scar across the heart. Or the chest, at least. 

CUT to the Arisen walking up a hill, looking at something off-camera. Camera pans, following the Arisen’s gaze to a man sitting on a stone pillar.

THE FOOL: Him who knows that I know what he seeks to know, knows it well while he who knows not, knows not what I know or know not.

With that, he looks to the Arisen whose chest now glows. They gasp, clutching it. The glow disappears, and they glance up to see another man, much older than the other. Black covers him from fingertips to just past his elbows. A scar near-identical to the Arisen’s is across his chest.

DRAGONFORGED: You see me, yes? Then congratulations are due. You have found the man you seek. I am… Or was, perhaps, like you. A child of man, bound to the dragon.

The Fool steps out from behind him, looking to the Arisen. The resemblance causes the Arisen to gasp.

DRAGONFORGED: Well met, young Arisen. I am he who was forged by the dragon.

Camera zooms out, panning over to a drawing carved into the earth; a man with spear and shield, and a mark across it’s chest.

CUT to inside the cave. The Dragonforged sits at his chair, The Fool standing next to him. The Arisen and their party stand before him.

DRAGONFORGED: Well met, Arisen of the present day, new-forged link in the grand chain… You have come seeking meaning for that slate and the words it bears… There is none. None save that it brought you here to me. My form can be discerned only by true Arisen… I am the Dragonforged. Go, now. Tell him that gave you the cipher of what you heard here.

CUT to Ser Maximilian

SER MAXIMILIAN: Not a text, you say? A cipher, crafted to bring you to the Dragonforged… I see. If this man speaks true, and is immortal, there’s a fair chance he guided His Grace as well. Be that the case, his words are well worth heeding, ser. Meet with him as time allows.

[12xurecs]