Scardust

Scardust
Scardust performing at their Nightwish tribute show in December 2021.
Background information
Also known as	Somnia (2013–2015)
Origin	Ramat Gan, Israel
Genres	Progressive metal symphonic metal
Years active	2013–present
Labels	M-Theory Audio, Independent
Associated acts	Patty Gurdy, Kobi Farhi
Website	www.scardust.co
Members	Noa Gruman Orr Didi Yoav Weinberg Yadin Moyal Aaron Friedland
Past members	Itay Portugaly Yanai Avnet Lior Goldberg Alex Nicola

Scardust (Hebrew: סקארדאסט) is an Israeli progressive metal band, founded in Ramat Gan in 2013 by Noa Gruman and Orr Didi. Until 2015, the band was known as Somnia. The band has opened for Symphony X, Epica, and Therion in Israel.

History

Somnia (2013-2015)

In 2013, pianist/vocalist Noa Gruman and multi-instrumentalist Orr Didi founded the duo Somnia. The aim of this project was to stage a rock opera written by both of them entitled: "Gates of Dawn;" they prepared the arrangements for a recording that would include a symphony orchestra, a choir, and a heavy metal band. They recorded a demo in a private studio, but there is no professional recording of this project, thus far; however they released the single, Betrayal, on their YouTube channel.

Shadow and name change to Scardust (2015-2016)

By 2015, after drummer Yoav Weinberg, bassist Yanai Avnet, guitarist Yadin Moyal, and keyboardist Lior Goldberg had joined them, the band had moved towards a different direction and on February 15, 2015, they released their debut EP, Shadow, recorded at Cast Iron Studios and released digitally.

After this, the band changed their name to Scardust because another band owned the "Somnia" trademark. In October 2015, Scardust participated in the Melodic Alliance festival, in Tel Aviv, which featured several fellow Israeli metal artists, as well as some international metal artists

Scardust logo at a live performance, April 2018

In December 2015 they headlined "The Scardust Epic Experience", a concert in Tel Aviv, which sold out.

Sands of Time (2016-2019)

In 2016, Scardust began pre-production for their first studio album, and in June they played a concert with fellow Israeli metal band Prey For Nothing. In autumn, during a fundraising event for the upcoming album, they played an acoustic concert. In April 2017, they began another fundraising campaign to complete the album.

Sands of Time, was released on July 13, 2017, "in a concert in front of 500 people," the band's largest headline up to that point. The first half of the album is a 27-minute epic, while the second half is composed of "separated songs that dealt with the concept of time..." Scardust collaborated with Kobi Farhi, of Orphaned Land, and Jake E, of Amaranthe, on two respective tracks, and released three music videos for the album.

On July 4, 2018, Scardust played a concert at Tel Aviv's prestigious Zappa Club. On July 12, they played at German metal festival Dong Open Air. Hurdy-gurdy player Patty Gurdy learnt about Scardust through a flyer anticipating Scardust's performance there. Patty would later develop a close friendship with Noa Gruman, after meeting her in Germany in 2019. On July 15, 2018, Scardust performed a concert in Berlin entitled "Sandstorm over Berlin," in collaboration with Stimmgewalt, a German choir that performs "a capella heavy metal."

On January 12, 2019, Scardust performed another concert in Berlin. On May 4, they headlined the Taihu Midi Festival in China. From July 18 until July 21, the band went on tour across the UK with Patty Gurdy, in what they called their "highlight of the year," including a performance at the Ramblin' Man Fair with a choir "assembled especially for the occasion." On July 24, Scardust played at Slovenian heavy metal festival, Metaldays. After returning to Israel, on October 16, they produced the first "Scarfest" festival in Tel Aviv, which "featured some of their favourite local bands."

In 2019, Scardust also signed with M-Theory Audio, a California-based label and re-released Sands of Time. The CD version contained the bonus track: "Mist - Acoustic Demo," the demo of the closing song that appeared on their sophomore album Strangers. The Vinyl LP of the release would include their debut EP Shadow on its D-side.

Strangers (2020-present)

Noa Gruman during the Scardust photoshoot for their sophomore album, Strangers

At the start of 2020, the band entered the studio to record their follow up album; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which "brutally destroyed their recording plans," they had to proceed in "solidarity." While they initially planned to fund the album through live shows, they ended up partially funding it through donations on Bandcamp; however, they were able to play one concert (entitled In Concrete Cages), featuring Patty Gurdy, in Tel Aviv on March 12, before the lockdown began. Patty was unable fly to Israel due to flight restrictions, so she was featured via Zoom at the concert, instead.

They finished recording the album in mid-2020, and released the concept album Strangers on October 30, 2020, through M-Theory Audio. This album features hurdy-gurdy recordings from Patty Gurdy on two tracks as well as her vocals on one. Noa's side-project, Hellscore, a choir focused on heavy metal music, provided the adult choir for the album, and the children's choir was performed by the Westbrook Hay School Chamber Choir. The album's concept is "estrangement." The band wrote pairs of songs and recorded them as one long piece, separated them at the end of the editing stages, and put them on opposite sides of an arch form; this "creates an album that sounds more familiar in its second half, just when the listener begins to lose attention." They also used Theme and Variation such that the "entire album is based on the very first musical theme it begins with... to play on the theme of familiarity and estrangement".

On November 16, the band played a virtual concert and held a Q&A session with Patty Gurdy to celebrate the release of the album, which would later become critically acclaimed.

In February, 2021 bassist Yanai Avnet and keyboardist Itai Portugali left the band and were replaced with longtime associates Orr Didi (bass) and Aaron Friedland (keyboards). On March 18, Scardust livestreamed BREAKING THE ICE, their first concert in over a year, for free, but allowing viewers "to support the band by paying what [they chose] during the show to help them recover from [the] nightmarish year." On August 12, the band performed their first concert at a venue in 17 months (in Tel Aviv) entitled Breaking the Cages.

On October 22, Scardust were supposed to perform at the first Kineret Open Air Festival in Tiberias, featuring 22 Israeli metal artists; However, due to COVID-19, the Kineret Open Air was cancelled and replaced with the Israeli Metal Fest in Tel Aviv, featuring the same artists during the same dates, including but not limited to co-headliner Scardust.

On December 23, Scardust played a Nightwish tribute concert in Tel Aviv, and has begun releasing a series of covers from that concert.

On March 22, 2022, Scardust played a concert in Tel Aviv, entitled Concrete Cages, which was livestreamed for free. Patty Gurdy was featured in person, this time around, and they played both Scardust and Patty Gurdy songs. This concert was Patty's first concert outside of Europe, and her first time ever leaving Europe. Patty appeared on Scardust's music video for the song Concrete Cages, released in May. In August, Scardust performed at Wacken Open Air, 2022. On December 19th, 2022, Scardust released a single and a music video entitled "The Evolution of the Disney Princess, but she's METAL," in which they covered 13 Disney songs about princesses arranged in a medley, starting from 1937's Snow White, and concluding with 2018's Frozen II, in chronological order of release date. The music video was recorded in one take, and the band promoted the song as a "secret project" on which they had worked for over a year.

Line-up

Current members

• Noa Gruman − lead vocals (2013–present)
• Yadin Moyal − guitars (2014–present)
• Orr Didi − bass (2021–present) -- Also credited as lyricist and composer since 2015
• Aaron Friedland – keyboards (2021–present)
• Yoav Weinberg − drums (2013–present)

Former members

• Alex Nicola − keyboards (2016-2017)
• Itay Portugaly − keyboards (2017-2021)
• Lior Goldberg − keyboards (2014-2016)
• Yanai Avnet - bass (2015-2021)

Timeline

Discography

Studio albums

• Sands of Time (2017)
• Strangers (2020)

EPs

• Shadow (2015)

Singles

• "Tantibus" (2015)
• "Shards" (2015)
• "Arrowhead" (2017)
• "Sands of Time" (2017)
• "Queen of Insanity" (2017)
• "Dials" (2017)
• "Mist - Acoustic Demo" (2019)
• "Tantibus II" (2019)
• "Addicted" (2019)
• "Stranger" (2019)
• "Gone" (2019)
• "Break the Ice" (2019)
• "Mist" (2019)
• "Tantibus II LIVE" (2020) -- included in COVID-19 DONATION

External links

• Scardust's official website

This article "Scardust" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Scardust. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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