Guitarist/composer Diego Caicedo will release Eidos Daimonium, a stunning fusion of extreme metal and avant-garde chamber music, on November 7 on Burning Ambulance Music.
An earlier version of this press release misspelt the album’s title. It is Eidos Daimonium, and it is now available for pre-order on Bandcamp. The track “Islas de Estabilidad” is available for streaming and embedding in any news stories, reviews, etc.
The album features an unorthodox string quartet with Francesc Llompart on violin, Leonor Falcón on viola, Clara Torner on cello and Alex Reviriego on bass, with Caicedo playing electric guitar and Carlos Jorge contributing vocals. The track “Parte III: Preludio y Fuga: Nismo Posiednji (1977)” is inspired by the work of painter Zoran Mušič (1909-2005).
Caicedo writes, “Eidos Daemonium is the continuation of Seis Amorfismos, my last work released by Burning Ambulance, but with a much more emphatic idea. This time, I felt an essential need to create a much heavier and denser work in terms of melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, lyrical, and orchestral information. Technically, in both composition, performance, and studio recording, I followed a similar approach to Seis Amorfismos. At the same time, I was looking for a sound more similar to a chamber orchestra with an unusual string quartet — violin, viola, cello, and double bass — and a sound closer to extreme metal in the guitars, as well as the vocals: louder, more aggressive, and experimental, with more direct lyrics but the same poetic orientation as before. The improvisations are also conducted by that fundamental need for dense and heavy intensity.”
“The harmonic/melodic construction is based on three complex chords, each one constituted by seven voices and with a high density of dissonances, acting as ‘vertical characters,’ and their deployment in series/modes of notes and their respective contrapuntal variations, acting as ‘horizontal landscapes.’ The pieces are built on the different possibilities of interaction and exchange between the three chords and the fundamental characteristics within each of them. The rhythmic construction draws on the different expressions of extreme metal: dissonant death metal, technical death metal, and black metal, and in turn on the rhythmic development proposed by 20th/21st century composers and their different expressive disciplines.”
“The structural/formal concept and the relationship between the pieces are based on a balance using a series of opposites: tension/relaxation, high/low, loud/soft, fast/slow, etc., with 60% traditional musical writing and 40% free improvisation and conduction signals.“
“The lyrics are inspired by the social, political, economic, and ecological reality of this current dementia, polarization, destruction, dehumanization and genocidal behavior, filtered through more personal experiences, personal ideas and thoughts.”
Born in Colombia, Diego Caicedo has been based in Barcelona for over two decades. He is a vital part of the city’s free improv scene and works in a music school, teaching guitar and theory. He is as passionate about classical music and extreme metal as he is about jazz and free improv. His 2023 album Seis Amorfismos received rave reviews from The Wire (“an ambitious paradigm shift attempting to bridge seemingly disparate musical worlds”) and Avant Music News (“Caicedo’s writing and playing…bridge the gap between modern classical, metal, and free improv”).
Eidos Daimonium will be released on November 7, 2025 digitally and as a limited edition of 500 CDs in heavy-duty gatefold mini-LP sleeves printed on textured paper, with artwork by Burning Ambulance Music co-founder I.A. Freeman.