APOPHIS — A New Dizzy Rock Release

What if chaos isn't the thing that destroys the story?

What if it's the thing that makes the story possible?

Apophis, the latest release from Dizzy O'Brian and the Dreamers, begins with a rather grand proposition: imagine being a god in complete control of the universe.

Everything happens according to plan. Everyone behaves exactly as expected. Every ending is already known.

It sounds wonderful.

For about five minutes.

Then our god does something considerably more interesting.

He spins the wheel.

Listen to APOPHIS

Listen to APOPHIS on SoundCloud

Apophis combines alternative rock, a touch of punk energy, cinematic music and surreal storytelling in the evolving style I've come to call Dizzy Rock.

But underneath the theatricality is a simple question:

If I already knew the ending, what would be the point of you?

That's where chaos becomes something other than destruction.

It becomes possibility.

The Serpent and the Wheel

In ancient Egyptian mythology, Apophis is the great serpent associated with chaos.

For the developing Future Mythology of the Dizzyverse, I've begun looking at him a little differently.

The cover image captures the idea: Apophis in his ancient serpent form, wrapped around the Wheel of Life—and spinning it.

Order gives us structure. Chaos makes another outcome possible.

Without some element of uncertainty, there can be no real surprise, discovery, adventure or choice. Life becomes a mechanism carrying out instructions whose ending was settled before it began.

So perhaps Apophis doesn't simply threaten the wheel.

Perhaps he keeps it turning.

APOPHIS: The Music Video

The new music video takes that idea and runs gleefully off with it.

A god emerges from the black void contemplating control of the universe and the pleasures of being worshipped. Instead, he spins the Wheel of Life.

A solitary human emerges through a hole in the universe and becomes a joker.

A king laughs at his jester.

A Shakespearean tragedy ends with bodies scattered across the stage—except one of the dead actors gets up and walks away.

Ancient hieroglyphs begin dancing.

And an archaeologist watches a mummy unravel itself and become a beautiful woman.

It is all treated with suitable mock seriousness.

Because in the world of Apophis, even death doesn't necessarily know how the story ends.

Apophis Enters Who Is The Dragon

The name also has a new significance in Who Is The Dragon.

In Chapter 9, Senator Tut is working for a mysterious organization attempting to deal with the growing conflict among the androids and the Electricians who helped create them.

Some factions want humanity eliminated. Others envision android domination. Others still want to serve.

Tut's organization has another idea.

Don't control them.

That may be the most radical possibility of all.

Instead of defeating one controlling power only to replace it with another, Tut and his allies are trying to restore the possibility that these increasingly sentient beings might determine what they become for themselves.

And at the end of Chapter 9, we finally learn the organization's name:

APOPHIS.

The serpent of chaos.

The spinner of the wheel.

Welcome to Future Mythology

Apophis is becoming one of those works where the song, imagery and story have begun feeding one another.

The music produced the mythology.

The mythology changed the meaning of the song.

The story found a place for the idea.

And then the characters started doing things I hadn't planned.

Which is perhaps exactly as Apophis would want it.

Because somewhere between complete order and complete chaos is that strange territory where something genuinely new can happen.

That's where I want Dizzy Rock to live.

Listen to APOPHIS on SoundCloud

https://on.soundcloud.com/cv2CHp4qM9nMsFC5IG

Dizzy O'Brian and the Dreamers — Alternative Rock for a Future Mythology.