Infernal Geometry

Flegetanis the heathen saw With his own eyes in the constellations things He was shy to talk about, Hidden mysteries that trembling revealed it: He said that there was a thing called the Grail, Whose name he had read clearly in the constellations. Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival

Toby Chappell is a musician and writer currently residing in Georgia. He has been enamored with the esoteric and the strange for as long as he can remember, pursuing these as gateways into unraveling the mysteries of existence and self-awareness.

Part I Part II Part III

My path to the Temple of Set could be summed up as: Teenage metalhead in the Deep South discovers Satanism, and imagines his favorite bands are really in league with the Prince of Darkness. Later finds out that for 99.99% of them it’s just a marketing gimmick, but thinks there might be something to this Satan thing anyway. Eventually discovers the truth is much deeper and stranger than he ever imagined.

Part II Part III Part IV

I woke up one morning, took an unbiased look around my room, and realized that you’d be hard pressed to recognize me as much of a minimalist based on its appearance alone.

The new Misdreamt CD is now available!

[ This is the first in a series of posts about Apophenia in its various forms, in preparation for my upcoming CD based on this phenomenon (to be released digitally on July 2) ]

HoneyWine Holllow is hosting their second annual house concert, featuring Toby Chappell (guitar, composer), Lucy Ralston (double bass), Anthony Barrese (piano, composer), Alison Moore (clarinet), and Elizebeth Tong (bassoon).

Sometimes simplicity takes a lot of work.

Over the last year, my efforts to transform my living spaces have been a reflection of my own path of change pushed on me from both within and beyond myself. During this time, I was literally living in a side room in a friend’s basement, with the rest of my possessions stored in the main basement. I have since shed the vast majority of what I moved into her house with (inspired by, but transcending, preparing to move somewhere else a month ago). I took that impulse of “Why do I have all this stuff?” everyone has at such times,...

Over the last month, since I decided to move and began to cull my physical possessions in earnest, I have given away or sold about 90% of my possessions in terms of number of items (CDs, DVDs, and books inflate that overall number quite a bit, of course).

The need for trimming down the unnecessary possessions in life is a problem of privilege. The notion that one can, and more importantly has the opportunity to, accumulate too much stuff is only really possible in a consumerist society. But, not everyone within such a society has to hold the same values and goals.

My efforts to slim down the things in my life are ongoing, but now I have a new force driving them: I’m going to be moving at the end of the month.

I first began to be seriously interested in shedding the unnecessary ‘things’ in my life when moving last November. I was moving somewhere temporary, of unknown duration, after splitting with my wife. A couple of boxes at a time, over the next several months I packed up and moved the things I had accumulated over the last 18 years since initially moving away from my parents, and most of the boxes ended up in the basement where I was staying. Unexamined, unfiltered, unprocessed, unvetted.

Friday night’s Misdreamt show went really well… the crowd was, how should I say, sparser than expected (possibly a casualty of the first bit of exceptionally comfortable evening weather in Atlanta in quite some time). But, the music seemed to go over extremely well and I’m sure this will be the foundation for further performances, and this proof of concept showed that the combination of film and live music (prerecorded electronics, live guitar) works very well.

I will be performing a new original soundtrack for the 1926 silent film Faust (directed by F.W. Murnau of Nosferatu fame). The performance will take place at the German Cultural Center at Colony Square in Atlanta on March 5th.

“The Bone Season” will be part of a sound diffusion recital by Adam Scott Neal at the Sonic Arts Research Center in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The audience will be completed enveloped by the vast 40.6 surround sound system, and some may even live to tell about it.