Ultima Eternus

Listen to all parts at maximum MP3 quality and unsegmented here.

Download all parts here @ 320 kbps MP3

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV - A
Part IV - B

Part V - A
Part V - B
Part V - C

So, Ultima Eternus is done and totaling at around 65 minutes or so. Lots of blood, sweat and tears there.

I'll end this post with a mail I wrote to Silvino Navarro about where my inspiration for it came from but first some projects that I've finished and that I'm currently working on.

Cry for Mercy (Instrumental) - Intro Track for my album

Hyperbird (Surfin' Bird Remix) - Originally "Surfin' Bird" by The Trashmen.

Light's Out (Link's Awakening) - Extended and remastered.

Hybrid II (Extended) - Remastered aswell.

For now, I don't think there's anything more on the table. I'm working on the album "Legion" and hope to have an EP finished sometime in September.

Here's the long letter: (tl;dr Bawww)

First off, the original song which Ultima Eternus is based upon is "Evighetens Palats", swedish for "Eternitys Palace". I made it in 2002 and it was very well received by my friends, even to such a degree that they decided our band at the time would play it. This never happened though due to the high skill requirements of the synths and the intense speed at which the song would need to be played. Regardless, we played parts of it at slower tempos in our basement sessions.

Now, in 2003 my sister committed suicide and after this, my music started to darken alot in themes. Still, this was very poor quality music in terms of the virtual instruments I had at my disposal. I did however create four sequels to Evighetens Palats.

In 2004 my father, Gordon Sorber, was diagnosed with prostatecancer, and in July 2008 he died. These four years were hard for me and not long before his death I went into a manic psychosis. During this episode, Ultima Eternus part I and II were composed.

I was placed in a closed psychiatric ward for 3 weeks and got the diagnosis "Schizo-Affective syndrome" which was quite a blow. It took me a rough seven months to get back into my music and once there, Ultima Eternus part III was born. This was in 2009.

Later on I was once again locked up due to another manic psychosis. This time in relation to the conditions of my fathers last times in life, conditions which were not good. It's reported in his medical journal that at some point he was started on Haldol which is a completely irrelevant drug for any kind of treatment against cancer or pain thereof. It is possible this was in relation to him developing dementia or perhaps senility in old age and becoming increasingly restless, but when have you ever heard of an elderly man or woman with alzheimers, dementia or the likes being treated with Haldol, which is a soulcrippling drug whose effects are closely similair to those of a lobotomy, only not permanent.

Upon these realizations, I had such an immense outrage for what was done to him that I can only assume was what lead to my second psychosis.

Ultima Eternus part IV was born as a birthday gift to my girlfriend, Jennifer. Still channeling all the medically repressed emotions of the drugs to combat my psychotic episodes, I went with powermetal and cellos as recurring themes since these are both things that Jennifer enjoys. Part IV is probably the most lighthearted of the now five parts in the sense that is was made with love as a primary ingredient.

In August 2009, I went into psychiatric care due to a debilitating depression where it was found that i was in fact Bipolar, not schizo-affective, something that could be considered a bittersweet victory in my struggle to fight schizophrenia as my diagnosis.

Once back home, I was completely broken until maybe four months ago, when I started to mend myself by visiting friends, spending as much time as I possibly could with Jennifer, and most recently, getting back in my musical saddle, so to speak. I actively refused the medicines within a month after each of my three homecomings. I still do not medicate, even though it is recommended for bipolar patients to do so. I was given enough medicines while in these psychiatric wards and for my depression I was even given Electro-Convulsive Therapy. The only side-effects they mentioned were temporary short-term memory loss. Jennifer told me of the actual potential side-effects of it, which included permanent memory loss among other possibly worse ones. When I was home and receiving poly-clinical ECT treatments, I saw a swedish inquisitive special on the subject of ECT where several people had received it and in one case, a woman had forgotten five years of her life, including her education, along with her short term memory capabilities being virtually non-existent. Needless to say, I stopped my treatment.

Ultima Eternus part V was made as a remembrance of my old works (the first 16 minutes of the song are a quite comprehensive recreation of earlier works) and the final chapter of my psychological illness as I was declared mentally healthy a few months ago. Bipolar disorder is however a lifetime disorder, so the validity of such a claim is questionable at best.

All in all, Part V is the climactic finish to a couple of long, dark and brutal years of my life.

And I have to say, the person I was before all of this happened died successively with each psychotic and depressive episode. When you're told you're schizophrenic, which is basically saying that you are perceiving reality incorrectly you question reality itself. I was told that I was delusional and then after a year of thinking my mind was incorrect, suddenly I am bipolar, not schizophrenic.

Bittersweet. My foundation for reality was allready shattered, and try as one might, it cannot be identically reconstructed again. As Friedrich Nietzsche put it: "If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

So, essentially, that is the story behind Ultima Eternus. Though it was in no way an inspiration but rather a catalyst.

Now, I suppose I am doing allright. The only thing that bothers me is how numb I've become after all this. The only times I feel any emotions at all are when I'm with Jennifer. Other than that, nothing. I think that abyss Nietzsche was talking of might just be the depths of our own minds. Once you go there, theres really no turning back.

But I digress. All in all, I am doing better today than yesterday, and hopefully better tomorrow than today.