Nomen Nescio is a progressive rock/metal band from Belgium. We believe progressive metal is the greatest kind of music on earth, but also the most difficult music to make and to play and therefore the real challenge for musicians and composers. There are many progressive bands, but only a few manage to create the music that realises my definition of progressive music: music that makes you happy, music that feels great inside when you're listening to it, music that improves every time you listen to it. I hope you take the time to experience the positive energy in our music! CD will be available soon on... artists.mp3.com
Vreny Van Elslande		guitar (called 'ocean mysth') and vocals (not officially)
Dieter Cailliau (effX)		synth (Yamaha SY55; don't call my synth a keybord!!)
YAMAHA SY55		Drums & basses (If you can play better, contact us!)
What's the music like It's difficult to give our music a name (nomen nescio exactly means i don't know a name for it). In general it's progressive metal and rock definitely, but there is much more than that. Sometimes it's classical, sometimes it's jazz, mostly it's progressive. Here is my (effX) opinion on each song.     How we work I've always wondered how bands like Dream Theater and Shadow Gallery create their music. Are they just jamming around or recording solo stuff, or listening to the ideas of each other...? This is how we work: an idea is born by one of us, we record the guitar, we record synths, think about what should come next, and the song grows to it's top. We just sing thererere for the lyrics at this moment. After some time (sometimes weeks) we reach the end of the song. Next we record bass and drums with a sequencer, and usually when that's finished we re-record the whole song in right order (drums, bass, rythem guitar, solo guitar and synth, vocals). Usually the music changes in that stage, but the structure of the song remains the same. After two months of saying 'i gonna write the lyrics for that song', the other one shows up with lyrics for the song :) We discuss about the words untill we both agree about what it says, and we record the vocals. There's the song!		Pride is a very progressive sounding song, with a coherent structure, mainly composed by effX, which means open sound, and lots of synths and energy. Lyrics: effX Future plans is a long song, that takes of like 'under a glass moon', and evolves to a beatiful piano - metal combination. Lyrics: Vreny Perfect day has also lots of piano, and there's a very soundtrack-like part in the middle of it. The ending riff is very powerfull. Lyrics: Vreny Seas of love is more like a poppy - jazzy song, sounds very light, but after a while it turns out to a long keyboard solo, after that a magnificent chord progression and ending with a guitar joke. Lyrics: Vreny Alone again is a completely unstructured song, according to Vreny. It's a whole story expressed in music that fits the lyrics very close. Lyrics: effX Berklee is a 'deeper than life'-like song, compared speed, feeling, style. It's short and powerfull. It's they easiest song to listen to. Lyrics: Vreny Farewell is the last song recorded with Vreny as guitarplayer, and probably the last song of Nomen Nescio. The song is composed by effX, and is actually build around a piano riff, like the 2nd track of 'behind' (Superior) (what's the title?). It sounds very bright and energetic. It's composed when 'liquid tension experiment' came out and that was actually a clear direction to me, saying 'that is the way to go'. Download mp3's of each song below.

This is the story of Nomen Nescio, seen from Dieters side. In 1995, july, Vreny decided to find people to play in a progressive metal band. He had bought a multitrack recorder and recorded some of his ideas, all together one hour of guitar-jamming. He went to the music academy in Ieper to find musicians. He went to all teachers asking for the names of the persons who might want to join Nomen Nescio. Some days later he called me, asking me wheter i would like to play in a band. I was 16 and very happy to hear the invitation. I had no synth of my own, but I was using Roland (yuk) from a relative. I told him to come over to my house to talk further about the band, and maybe play some music. We met in a small room in my grandfathers house, where me and my cousin were jamming on the Roland and on a baseguitar, amplified throug the mic-input of a three-channel mixer and an amplifier of my brother in law. It all turned out in an explosion of the speakers but that's an other story. Vreny entered and started talking about progressive metal and studying in America, and I thought 'boy, get real, you haven't even finished your music academy' but I liked the idea and his great enthousiasm. I was a Genesis-freak at that moment (I still adore the song fading lights) and I had never heard of 'progressive', and metal was music for assholes if you would ask me than. But I was ready to start because he liked Genesis too. Some days later we had the first musical meeting in his house. He let me listen to his guitar-jamming (which was actually quite impressive to me) and played some Dream Theater records, trying to convince me how great this kind of music is. I didn't immediately like it. It was a whole step to get into progressive metal. We started playing together with a baseplayer, who left us one week later because he thought he wasn't good enough to stay in the band. And then there were two. We had plans to find musicians and go on stage, but the songwriting went slowly and the first recording was one big mess with faders, busses, gain and too many buttons for us. We started inventing music, riffs, some of those are in the song 'seas of love'. We managed eventually to record guitar and synth of our first song called 'welcome to the world'. We never took the time to record base and drums because the song was chaotic (that's why it's not in the songlist above). The intro actually is beautiful and would become the first track of our CD. Weeks went by, and we met every saterday to compose and record our music, just a guitar and a synth. After some weeks i could buy the yamaha SY55, and since that is a decent synth, the writing process went easier. To give you an idea: we usually worked 8 hours to compose and record 3 minutes of new music. But the result gave us courage to continue.

In 1997 it became clear that time was running and we still haden't found a drummer or baseplayer. In 1995 it seemed so far away and so unreal, but Vreny still had in mind to study in Berklee college in Boston. Date of departure: august 30 1998. I wanted to complete our music with base and drums and that's when we decided to use the synth for the drums and base. We started completing the songs we had with base and drums, sequenced in an Amiga 1200 (wow!). Putting those tracks next to the guitar and synth track was a very very difficult task. There was no way to synchronise with the tape. But we did it anyway and after many restarting and retrying, it all worked out. An other hard thing for us were the lyrics. It's not obvious for a musician to write lyrics in a language that is not yours. Result: the instrumental song Pride was born. But as it was finished, it felt like something was missing. So the instrumental song turned into a non-instrumental song, losing a keyboard solo but gaining structure and consistency.

February 1998: it's real: Vreny will go to Boston. That's good and bad news because it really means the end of Nomen Nescio. But that was no reason to quit. Knowing we only had 7 months any more, we worked harder every day. Next, a songs had to be written to send to Boston, to make chance for a sholarship for his studies. We worked day and night on 'Berklee' which resulted in a powerfull and bright song about Vreny. It was then that my cousin Bart proposed to send a CD to Boston instead of a tape. He had the equipment and all, so why not? Because they wanted a normal tape. Anything else not allowed. But the idea was born: why not record a CD with our music? We decided to do that in july 1998, two months before Vreny left. The project actually turned into nothing for Nomen Nescio, disappointement, due to lack of time, stress, bad luck,... you know what can go wrong in studios... Too bad. The idea rose to try it again in august, but we realised it would be as difficult and Bart couldn't help anymore because of work. It didn't look too good...

Of course there was an other possibility: transfer the songs from multitrack tape to CD! But that depended on me, and I didn't really feel like it, after the nul-result of july. Encouraged by Jeroen and Bart, I decided to try it, and without Vreny knowing about it, I went to the B-ware studios again. Raise at 6 o'clock was the plan, in reality it was 6.25 (and if my mother wouldn't have got me out of my bed I would probably still be there), which meant 15 minutes to take the multi track recorder, place it somewhere safe on my bike (impossible), put the chain back on without driving crazy, get on the bike and drive to the station. Catch the train at 6.40am, arrive at 7.50 in Gent, arrive at 8.15 at B-ware studios, were Bart let me in, explained how to record, and took off. So there was I. I had 10 hours to do the job. God must have been with me that day because Windows 95 only crashed two times that day! At 19.00 Bart arrived and after dinner we were ready to write the master CD. At 21.20 the very first Nomen Nescio CD existed. Five minutes to say thank you and see you, and then run to the station (missed the bus), catch the train at 22.08, arrive home at 23.40, and listen to the result. Which was 7/9. Two songs were not ok (Berklee and Perfect Day). The next day, I returned to the B-ware studios, re-mixed the songs and wrote an other CD. The days after that, we (me and Jeroen) created the cover for the CD. Vreny didn't know anything about it, it would be a complete surprise. After years of hard work, knowing we would never be able to bring our music on stage because it's to difficult to play at this time, and knowing it would be very hard to find a drummer and a basplayer who can play our music, like it and who are able to create music, it feels really good to have this great result, the thing we worked on all that time: our music, forever fixed on a CD.

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