ALTER VOCALIS EGO (aka AVE) should be understood as an integrated concept that fuses various ideas and inspirations from art, science, literature and music within the fiery spirit of an anarchistic way of life:
Crown yourself with ivy, anything goes!
AVE's most important source of inspiration is the mythic figure of the greek god Dionysus (also known as Bacchus in Roman mythology, the god of divine madness, theatre, religious ecstasy and wine — the gift of Dionysus/Bacchus to mankind), just as different modern conceptions of the "Dionysian" which were defined by Friedrich Nietzsche (and also his many successors, e.g. Georges Bataille):
"What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil ...
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness...
And [...] what then is the meaning of that madness out of which tragic as well as comic art grew, the Dionysian madness? What? Is madness perhaps not necessarily the symptom of degradation, collapse, cultural decadence? ... What if it was clearly lunacy, to use a saying from Plato, which brought the greatest blessings throughout Hellas? ...
Saying Yes to life even in its strangest and hardest problems . . . that is what I called Dionysian, that is what I guessed to be the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet ... I, the last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus ..." (Friedrich Nietzsche)
"By inner experience I understand that which one usually calls mystical experience [...]. But I am thinking less of confessional experience, to which one has had to adhere up to now, than of an experience laid bare, free of ties, even of an origin, of any confession whatever. This is why I don't like the word mystical. […] Dogmatic presuppositions have provided experience with undue limits: he who already knows cannot go beyond a known horizon. […] But this experience born of non-knowledge remains there decidedly. […] We are only totally laid bare by proceeding without trickery to the unknown. [...] Inner experience not being able to have principles either in a dogma (a moral attitude), or in science (knowledge can be neither its goal nor its origin), or in a search for enriching states (an experimental, aesthetic attitude), it cannot have any other concern nor other goal than itself. Opening myself to inner experience, I have placed in it all value and authority. Henceforth I can have no other value, no other authority. [...] I call experience a voyage to the end of the possible of man. Anyone may not embark on this voyage, but if he does embark on it, this supposes the negation of the authorities, the existing values which limit the possible. By virtue of the fact that it is negation of other values, other authorities, experience, having a positive existence, becomes itself positively value and authority." (Georges Bataille, Inner Experience, New York 1988, pp. 38-42)
AVE places emphasis on connecting the Dionysian with motives, subjects and "new myths" of weird fiction literature, while especially the masters of this genre Gustav Meyrink, H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe have to be mentioned as important influences:
"The question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence — whether much that is glorious — whether all that is profound — does not spring from [...] moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil."
In what kind of area AVE mainly acts depends on what kind of current circumstances the members are in, just as it depends on their interests and others involved.
AVE was founded in 2004 by its singer and guitarist Frater F., who was working as a studio and live musician for several German gothic, rock and latin acts at that time.
Music, interviews, downloads and more about AVE you'll find here. Check out our links.