The Awakening

Johannesburg SA /, Illinois 美國 The Awakening is and has always been the brainchild and creative expression of Ashton Nyte. Since it's inception, Ashton has been the songwriter and producer for the vast body of work released by The Awakening over the years. In many cases he has performed all or most of the music on the albums, often recorded and produced in his own studio (Ashton does not like to sleep). But that's just the album side of things. The Awakening has always been a very powerful live act and over the years has experienced it's share of line-up changes, along with the various challenges faced by any band comitted to making a difference. More so for a band who began it's career in Johannesburg, South Africa, a country better known for it's political difficulties than Dark Romantic Art. So then - In the beginning…. It all began with a band called Martyr's Image who formed in early 1994 and disbanded somewhere around May 1995. The vocalist and occasional guitarist (Ashton) insisted that bassist Jenni Hazell join him in his new project, tentatively entitled "Children of the Torch." They spent a year rehearsing and perfecting Ashton's songs in Jenni's living room with a drum machine with no name and too many cups of coffee. Finally they were joined by a third live contributor, in the form of guitarist Philip Booyens in December of that year. THE AWAKENING 1996 (PHILIP BOOYENS, JENNI HAZELL, ASHTON NYTE) February 1996 saw the band (having decided on the more appropriate name "The Awakening") play its' first show to a rabidly ecstatic audience pleading for salvation from mediocrity. In March, Ashton started work on the self-financed debut album "Risen." More gigs followed, the recording went slowly as finances permitted. Jenni played bass on the album, Philip played guitar on a track or two and a lovely vocalist called Cheryl added some ethereal female vocals to two of the songs. The additions work well indeed on the minimalist goth-rock arrangements that were and still are "Risen." Almost as an after-thought, Ashton went into the studio in January of 1997 (that's right, the album was still not finished) and added a cover version of the Simon and Garfunkel classic "The Sounds of Silence" onto the album, which was recorded by Leon Erasmus at Mega Music Studios (Johannesburg, South Africa). Alternative radio stations became quite hysterical when first hearing "The Sounds of Silence" when "Risen" was finally released in April '97 and instantly a legend was born. Gothic Rock was indeed an unheard of entity in South Africa at the time and The Awakening were often victims of rather radical preconceptions relating to their sombre attire and ethos. Fortunately most lynchings were escaped unscathed. By this stage Philip and Jenni were unable to continue due to personal commitments and Ashton was joined by AV on guitar and Thaun on bass in January of 1997. The 3-piece launched and toured the debut album quite valiantly with 3 nation-wide tours of South Africa in their momentous time together. RISEN PROMO SHOOT MARCH 1997 (THAUN, ASHTON, AV) Late '97 saw Ashton invest in a small digital studio and begin work on the follow-up album to "Risen." The second album "Request" actually ended up sounding quite dramatically different from its' predecessor and incredibly saw The Awakening creeping into the mainstream arena. The singles "Maree", "Rain" and "Before I Leap" all did exceedingly well on all manner of radio stations and more touring followed. The album blended 80's New Romantic tendencies with all things dark, quite effortlessly. So impressed was the record label, that a video was shot for "Rain" by the exceedingly talented Katinka Harrod. Unfortunately the video was shot in the middle of winter, which nearly killed poor Ashton who was submerged in an icy lake for some scenes and was painted black and then hosed down for other scenes. To this day he often runs from the radio screaming if "Rain" plays unexpectedly. The video did, however, gain The Awakening television exposure, quite unheard of for a band in their genre. The Awakening also headlined the second stage at the Oppikoppi festival (South Africa's most notable music festival), rounding off a rather fruitful year. A STILL FROM THE RAIN VIDEO MAY 1998 November '98 saw the evil elves of rock 'n roll decay convince AV to leave and concentrate on his own project and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. But two weeks later guitarist Mark Sprawson joined and all was well again. But as if one change was not enough, bassist Thaun announced that he would be leaving for a life in the UK in March of '99, which gave Ashton the incentive to do a major re-working of what The Awakening was to be. After careful consideration and intensive studio alienation he revealed his plan…. A full 5 piece band would celebrate his new creation - the third album "Ethereal Menace" which he had been manically constructing and reconstructing for some time. Not only was this change at hand, Ashton had also decided to leave the record label he was with. As he still despised the very thought of sleeping anytime before the year 2038, he started his own record label, Intervention Arts, and duly re-released the first two albums, remastered, with enhanced artwork and bonus tracks, to coincide with the albums' release in the USA. So the new recruitment process of The Awakening yielded a new energy to compliment the more aggressive sound of "Ethereal Menace." Drummer Glenn Welman, Bassist Andre Liebenberg and Keyboardist Catherine Stone were the line-up to realize the new vision, along with Mark Sprawson (still on guitar) and of course - Ashton. ON SET AT THE MARCH VIDEO SHOOT JULY 1999 (GLENN WELMAN, ANDRE LIEBENBERG, ASHTON NYTE, CATHERINE STONE, MARK SPRAWSON) The new line-up launched "Ethereal Menace" in July 1999 to a less than receptive media audience. The hybrid of militant styled semi-industrial instrumentation with layer upon layer of keyboard soundscapes upon even more layers of aggressive guitar, was not everyone's idea of 1999. It still has the dark-pop-sensibility of any Awakening album, it's just well disguised on "Ethereal Menace." The first single "The March" was indeed successful and warranted a music video, shot by the passionately brilliant Eban Olivier's Concrete Productions. The video was decidedly less life threatening than the arctic plunge pool routine of "Rain" and even made it onto MTV Europe. The other singles "In Etherea" and "Chains" also resonated well in the 5 piece incarnation of The Awakening, who in addition to the live instrumentation, were running samplers and sequencers to fatten the sound to a level that would quite definitely instill blind terror into your average rave bunny - the rave culture being the abhorrence that threatened the very existence of live music and most things creative in 1999. The Awakening headlined the main stage at the Oppikoppi festival to over 20000 people in August 1999 effectively reaching the threshold in the SA music community. By December of 1999, Ashton had decided that a break from The Awakening would be in order and began choosing tracks from his ever growing library of songs for a solo album. The album "The Slender Nudes" was released in mid 2000, merely a couple of months after The Awakening's "last show of 2000"… ASHTON AS THE ELECTRIC MAN - SLENDER NUDES PROMO SHOOT MARCH 2000 Naturally by September 2000, Ashton was already missing The Awakening and in record breaking time, assembled the darkest Awakening album to date, "The Fourth Seal of Zeen." Zeen, he explains, is a surrealistic dream-like state where reality is an unfortunate disturbance and the apparition the essence of normality (??). Apparently it's where genuine beauty can reign supreme and the fundamental truths are once again accessible and possible. The epic release of 15 tracks (and limited edition bonus disc of an additional 3 tracks) displays a range of sounds from darkwave to classic goth and most things in between. The "concept-album" theme gives the work the focus and fluidity not previously as well realized on an Awakening release and yet it still manages some pop-art-rock gems : "Eve" is dramatic beauty incarnate, "The Dark Romantics" the gothic dancefloor anthem for the new millennium, whilst tracks like "Stigma", "Zeen" and "Precious" melt the dark electro / future rock sound superbly. Bassist Kate Towsey and keyboardist Frankie Clark who had both involved in Ashton's "Slender Nudes" band officially joined The Awakening's Zeen line-up. Zeen and it's signature track "The Dark Romantics" quickly established The Awakening as dark dancefloor favourites everywhere from Johannesburg to London to Berlin to LA to the great beyond. The album was the first to be released in Germany, Russia and the UK as well as the USA. ASHTON LIVE ON STAGE AT A ZEEN CONCERT NOV 2000 2001 was a year of more line-up changes with Matthew Fink taking over the position of keyboardist. Live shows continued for both The Awakening, as well as for Ashton's solo shows, in their ever varying incarnations as Ashton went about work on his second solo album - "Dirt Sense." However, Nyte being the eternal schizophrenic decided one dark eve in October to spontaneously grow the band to a full 6-piece live unit and called up Marcus van der Tuin to join the band as an additional guitarist. Marcus had joined Ashton earlier in the year for some shows in yet another of Ashton's side projects, called "Cut The Rope", being something of a guitar master. Determined to keep the fans (and the band) happy, Ashton assembled a 7 track ep, called "The Fountain" which was in his opinion "an overview of goth sounds past & present." I personally feel "The Fountain" to be a brilliant introduction to the world of The Awakening for any new-comer. The songs range from fiercely electronic ("The Fountain", "The New Renaissance") to classic goth ("Asrya") to guitar driven goth-rock ("Cerebral Song") to Bowie-esque brilliance ("Martyr"). For the final track Matthew & Ashton recorded a live piano version of "Amethyst" (from "The Fourth Seal of Zeen"), which captures the true emotional angst of the song in this superb stripped down version! "The Fountain" was released in November 2001 with due touring and melodrama. January - June 2002 was essentially dedicated to Ashton's second solo, the deconstruction masterpiece - "dirt sense" (see ashtonnyte for more). ASHTON STRIPS IT ALL DOWN FOR DIRT SENSE - MARCH 2002 However - the end of June saw Ashton attack the studio yet again for the most aggressive Awakening release to date. Garrick Van der Tuin had replaced Glennn Welman on Drums during Ashton's "Dirt Sense" tour in May 2001 and had become a brilliant new feature in the harder sound of The Awakening. ROADSIDE HERETICS PROMO SHOOT JUNE 2002