Chaos Re-Imaginos

In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 US Presidential Election (Clown Show), the great Christopher Knowles proclaimed Choronzon, Lord of Chaos, the victor. And aptly so, as regardless of which clown prevails, chaos will ultimately reign.

This will be especially true if Biden maintains his media-proclaimed victory. Trump TV is quietly going forward, ensuring the Orange One will have his own personal platform to directly address his millions of disgruntled followers throughout the Biden (Harris) administration. This dynamic has already been playing out at the Vatican for much of this past decade with "the two Popes." 

Neither Trump nor his followers will be nearly as diplomatic as Pope Benedict, however. And of course Benedict has likely been muzzled by his involvement in the Vatican's ongoing pedophile scandal. Trump certainly has Epstein hanging over his head, but so does practically the entire Democratic Party. Everyone and everything will burn if that card is played. So, Trump will have his soapbox and he will use it. 

And he may not have to do much, as things look like they're going to burn regardless. Despite the glowing public face, the Democratic Party appears to realize 2020 was a Pyrrhic victory at best. A leaked conference call revealed that the moderate and progressive wings of the party are deeply divided even in the face of an assumed Biden victory. Days later, progressive darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) unloaded on her own party and even threatened to quit politics. 

Be assured, this division will only increase as the election is further scrutinized. One factoid that is surely fueling the fire is the Orange One appearing to score the highest share of nonwhite voters of any Republican presidential candidate since 1960. 

Donald J. "Build the Wall" Trump. 

Just think about that for a moment, and then imagine some of the discussions awaiting the mostly white, baby boomers who comprise the centralist (Rockefeller Republican) wing of the party and the much more diverse progressive wing. Yeah, fun times indeed. 

And this assumes that Biden is still president by 2022. What happens if the torch is in fact passed to Kamala Harris in the midst of an internal party war while an unshackled Trump advocates an actual civil war to his followers? Imagine 2020 not ending, and even finding a way to ratchet the chaos up to eleven. And that's probably the most optimistic projection for how this particular scenario will play out.

Fittingly, Imaginos has re-emerged just in time for the post-election chaos. As longtime readers of this blog are well aware, Recluse is quite the Blue Oyster Cult fan. I first began subjecting all of you to this obsession in 2012, when BOC took center stage in the last two installments of my "How the Music Died" series (which can be found here and here). If this wasn't enough, I wrote an epic, five-part series during 2016 in the aftermath of longtime manager and producer Sandy Pearlman's death. It revolved around BOC's legendary "Imaginos cycle," which Pearlman had conceived of. The song cycle followed the saga of Imaginos, a unique human who later becomes a godlike being. It incorporates Aztec scrying mirrors, the Sirius tradition, demonic biker gangs, Nazism, the secret history of both World Wars, and of course, extraterrestrials, into one heady brew.

BOC never got around to doing a full-blown concept album centered around the cycle during their heyday, though the "Black and White" albums (most especially Secret Treaties) did make heavy use of those songs. It was not until 1988's Imaginos that the songs finally got their own collection. That album had begun during the early 1980s as an Albert Bouchard solo album. Bouchard was BOC's longtime drummer and one of their principal songwriters. After leaving the band in 1981, he and Pearlman teamed up to finally give the Imaginos cycle a proper album. Things did not go smoothly, however, and eventually the project reverted back to BOC, but in name only. The actual album that emerged is surprisingly strong, but mired by a badly dated 1980s sound.

Despite never quite getting the presentation that they deserve, the songs have continued to fascinate me. So much so that I dragged Chris Knowles onto The Farm earlier this year so we could talk some BOC, with a special emphasis on Imaginos. But it still wasn't enough. I knew that to achieve stratification, I needed to talk to someone directly involved with the cycle. The logical choice would have been Pearlman, but he sadly departed us in 2016. That left only one real candidate, the man who had written the bulk of the arrangements for Pearlman's songs: Bouchard. 

As its 2020, not only was Mr. Bouchard willing to indulge me for nearly an hour while I asked him many of the kooky questions I've always wanted to ask regarding Imaginos, but he also informed me that he would soon be releasing a new version of the Imaginos cycle as a solo album: Re-Imaginos. 

A new album's worth of Imaginos songs, and with arrangements in line with how Pearlman and Bouchard had always wanted the songs to sound? It sounded to good to be true until I heard Bouchard's new versions of "Black Telescope" and "Blue Oyster Cult." Yeah, they're not quite on par with BOC during the "Black and White" era, but are surely light years beyond the first Imaginos. Dig:

The album dropped on November 6, 2020, and it more than lives up to the promise of the first two singles. Until a time machine can be invented, enabling us to travel back to '74 and force the band to turn Secret Treaties into a full blown Imaginos concept album, this will stand as the definitive work on this subject. Highly recommended. 

It's also especially apt that it dropped days after what is easily one of the most chaotic elections in US history and which will surely usher in an era of unprecedented chaos in said history. For my money, the centerpiece of the Imaginos cycle is the classic "Astronomy."

I have long believed that this song describes a magical ritual being used to open a portal into the Abyss from which Imaginos (in his "Desdenova" form) can return to the physical realm. And as I'm sure many of you are aware, Choronzon is not just the Lord of Chaos, but also the Lord of Abyss. In some traditions, the Abyss is the realm the primordial chaos from which the ordered world emerged. 

For obvious reasons, it is both profoundly fitting and profoundly disturbing that this trope has once again re-emerged. But really, what could be more 2020 that the resurrection of Imaginos? If you're still not convinced, be sure to check out my interview with Bouchard, which can be found here. All kinds of goodies await.