miércoles, 23 de febrero de 2011
martes, 22 de febrero de 2011
Hypothermia - Discography
Hypothermia - Saphien Irretable
1 Intro
2 Emptiness
3 Saphien Irretable
4 Evig Kyla
5 Leave This World Behind
6 Winds of Loneliness
7 Mot Ett Slut
8 Outro
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Hypothermia - Suicide Fixation
1 Intro
2 Självhat
3 Evig Kyla
4 Your Misery
5 Outro
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Hypothermia - Självdestruktivitet Född Av Monotona Tankegångar
1 Part I
2 Part II
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Hypothermia - Svarta Nyanser av Ljus
1 Svarta Nyanser Av Ljus
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Hypothermia - Självdestruktivitet Född Av Tankegångar II - Monoton Negativitet
1 Part III
2 Part IV
3 Part V
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Hypothermia & Dimhymn
Dimhymn
1 Drakoforism
2 The City
3 Projektil
Hypothermia
4 Från ett depraverat inre
5 Hora
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Hypothermia - Veins
1 Part I - Isolation
2 Part II - Failure
3 Part III - Counting Hours
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Hypothermia / Aska (Split)
Aska
1 Abuse Myself (I Want To Die) (G.G. Allin Cover)
Hypothermia
2 Melankoli
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Hypothermia / Svartnar (Split)
Hypothermia
1 Själasvälten
Svartnar
2 Uppgivenhet
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Hypothermia - Arkha Sva (Split)
Arkha Sva
1 Salute to the Dark
Hypothermia
2 Från ett depraverat inre II
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Hypothermia - Köld
1 Svag Fysisk Lusta
2 Svärtade Passager
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Hypothermia - Rakbladsvalsen
1 Del I
2 Del II
3 Del III
4 Del IV
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Hypothermia / Grimnir / Trist/ Regnum (Split)
Grimnir
1 Angst - Requiem
Trist
2 Černá Melancholie
Regnum
3 Unerträglich
4 Ich Sehe
Hypothermia
5 Julia
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Hypothermia - Gråtoner
1 Gråtoner I & II
2 Gråtoner Repsession
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Hypothermia / Black Howling (Split)
Black Howling
1 ...em Sangue
2 A Noite Efémera
Hypothermia
3 Aprilimprovisation I
4 Aprilimprovisation II
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Hypothermia - Kaffe & Blod
1 Kaffe & Blod
2 Dagg
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Eric Steel - The Bridge (2006)
Eric Steel’s documentary examines the post card perfect Golden Gate Bridge as a suicide jumper’s paradise. Does the camera go too far following a jumper plunging to his death? Are such sequences a bridge too far? This is a documentary first about filming taboos and mental health secondly.
Jay Rosenblatt - The Darkness of Day (2009)
The Darkness of Day doesn't blink. It refuses to. This is a film that positively bleeds tragedy and sorrow as it meditates on the suicide of a close friend of the director using Rosenblatt's signature found ephemeral footage. The music is precise, the footage evocative, the voice-over unsparing. Another documentary about suicide, Steel's The Bridge (2006), feels positively hopeful next to this.
Not for the depressed. Not for the suicidal. But for those who seek truth, understanding, and a space to grieve.
no pass
lunes, 14 de febrero de 2011
Black Metal Theory
BLACK METAL THEORY
Dominik Irtenkauf interviews Nicola Masciandaro
a. First of all, black metal theory could be understood as some special kind of metal studies. Yet I can find some traces of philosophy in it as well.
The impulse from the beginning has been for something that goes beyond, without necessarily precluding, diagnostic or analytical discourse about black metal. No one merely listens to music, without participating in it. It is an object that infects and possesses the subject. So philosophy stands for the practice of thought, for thought as participation, as more than just studying or thinking about something. On this point black metal theory opposes the perverted secret identity between fan and philosopher in contemporary culture, namely, the situation according to which the fan is an unconscious or sleeping philosopher and the philosopher a mere fan. Black metal theory expresses a need to reopen music to the philosophy of music and philosophy to the music of philosophy in a black way. If philosophy is thought practicing the love of wisdom (philo-sophia), black metal theory is thought practicing the love of black metal.
b. It seems to be more about speculative interpretations of a musical sub-culture than developing a coherent system of theory. Is that perception correct?
Yes. And yet there is a ‘coherence’ to black metal. There is a principle according to which we rightly insist and argue that things are and are not black metal. In this respect black metal theory territorializes the potentiality of a non-systematizable coherence, a substance without law. Or we could say that black metal is formally equivalent to Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, that its topos or place is the black spaces or unreachable interiors/exteriors that system per se cannot reach. As these spaces are different with respect to different coherent or axiomatic systems, so black metal is not something universally fixed, but a virtually mobile unreachable thing, like an unmineable mineral that weirdly relocates its inaccessibility according to the equipment on the surface.
c. If so, can there be a specific methodical approach to black metal theory? Can it be relevant to develop such a method from the subject of research itself, i.e. black metal and its connotations?
Nothing significant is produced without method, which simply means the way of doing something. Arriving anywhere requires a specific way. And it is precisely in relation to the specificity of method, to its necessary individuation, that there is no general way. As Nietzsche says, “’Das — ist nun meinWeg, — wo ist der eure?’ so antwortete ich Denen, welche mich ‘nach dem Wege’ fragten. Den Weg nämlich — den giebt es nicht!” In other words, if black metal theory is anything significant, it must exist within many specific methodologies, the truth or utility of which is absolutely indifferent to whether or not they are followed or implemented.
d. What importance does black metal theory attach to the scene’s activists such as musicians, journalists and followers of the cvlt?
This is a strange question to answer because it seems to address ‘black metal theory’ as if it defined a specific viewpoint or set of values towards persons and vocations. Perhaps the question is analogous to the kind of questions that get posed to black metal artists regarding the importance of the ‘fans’ or the ‘scene’ to their music, questions that spark responses of total indifference and sincere fidelity. All I can say is that black metal theory is neither for anyone nor for no one. I do not even want to say that it is for the people who practice it. At a practical material level it does not seem to be. More positively, I think black metal theory attaches importance not to social identities and roles, but to the act of penetrating once again into the essence of black metal, an act whose value might be compared to the release of kind of intoxicating atmosphere. Participants in the first two symposia included all the kinds of persons you mention, as well as people not otherwise involved with black metal.
e. Can statements by black metal musicians help to start a first interrogation with the music’s material?
Of course. All statements about black metal are always already a form of black metal theory.
f. Now let‘s take a short rest: there were books like "Lords of Chaos" which dealt with black metal in a journalistic way. There is a new book in Norwegian dealing with Scandinavian black metal’s evolution. Mostly, they tell anecdotes and are not very interested in developing theoretical lines.These publications respectively their authors indulge in psychological interpretations of seminal moments in the history of this musical style. Is that a proper way to deal with black metal?
That is one way, though it is not necessarily ‘proper’, in the sense of belonging to black metal. I can appreciate the generic utility of intelligent factual accounts of black metal events. But I am much more interested in ‘accounts’ of black metal that are somehow also black metal events in their own right.
g. In Hideous Gnosis, there were some philosophers mentioned in the context of understanding black metal. Is there a certain tradition in the history of ideas that could be easily linked to this kind of music?
There are many traditions that are relevant, as well as several modern thinkers with natural affinities to the genre. Too many to list here. More importantly, black metal perpetuates itself via a satanic logic that corrodes and occludes its own resources while allowing them to remain apparent. You could say that black metal practices what Benjamin called “the art of citing without quotation marks.” Rebelling against the logic or order whereby the citation produces authority, black metal weaponizes citation against its own authorizing aura. For black metal, repetition IS the original.
h. Some contributors did also publish in the experimental journal Collapse from the UK. Is there a story behind this connection? The journal’s editors seem to follow an approach to phenomena that helps to minimize the distance to black metal music.
The intersection seems due to some overlap in tastes, and more specifically, to the obvious intimacies between noise and speculation. Reza Negarestani’s involvement with the forthcoming volume of Glossator on black metal, which was planned before the first symposium, has also been instrumental.
i. Considering metal music’s strive for direct speech, this might effect black metal theory. How much value are you willing to attach to this aspect?
Black metal theory will develop according to its own logic and the diverse desires of the persons who practice it. I am not concerned with how it may be affected by the principle of ‘direct speech’, which is deeply ambivalent anyway. More interesting to me are the significant parallels between metal vocal styles and theoretical discourse, especially with regard to questions of immanence and the aesthetics of impenetrability. Most of the discussion around BMT has focused on one sense of the term, i.e. black metal theory as the theory of black metal. The significance of the other equally important sense, though more or less evident in the contributions, is less acknowledged: black metal theory as the black metal of theory.
j. In the end, there is the question: why intellectualism anyway? Cannot this music better do without questioning the core of its material?
Why not? Especially if black metal theory does improve the music, i.e. the black metal in my head. I think an essential function of black metal theory to expose and explore the non-difference between thought and metal.
k. Seemingly, black metal theory appeals to a certain circle of people. Is there a long-time prospect for this movement? I find it quite stimulating in matters of creative renewal in the field of writing. Plus there are vivid connections to occultural studies as well.
What is the ‘circle’ to which black metal theory appeals? The ‘collision’ between black metal and theory certainly offers many possibilities for development and will appeal to different people for different reasons, perhaps especially because of its newness and because of black metal’s esoteric and anti-modern dimensions.
l. So far, most texts of black metal theory that I know of show strong links to the genre of essay. Let me outline this style more thoroughly in order to find out the tricks behind „how to talk about a music that refuses to be talked about“ like Eugene Thacker puts it in Mute magazine. Essay bears the attempt to try something new and hence unknown in it. Talking about a beast that refuses to be tamed might bring a certain degree of aggression into theorizing. You cannot get a grip on this topic other than using some rhetorical violence. Can this be an option for theory?
Absolutely. Nothing ventured, nothing won. As Gawain says in Chrétien de Troyes’s Knight with the Lion, “Now is not the time to dream your life away but to frequent tournaments, engage in combat, and joust vigorously, whatever it might cost you.”
m. Do you know of any ambitions for augmenting the single texts into one big melting pot of theory? Is there a need for finding a systematic approach to bm theory or is it better to stay in the flow?
No, I do not know of any such ambitions. Though it is likely that the encyclopedism of metal culture, evident in projects like Encyclopedia Metallum, A.N.U.S, Black Metal Revolution, Transcix’s Metal Archive, will eventually move in the direction of metal theory/studies. But systematic synthesis is another matter. I do not expect a Thomas Aquinas of black metal theory to arrive anytime soon.
n. Seemingly, some writers in this field take quite a poetic stance. Can black metal theory still be understood as critical then? Or does it turn into some sort of arts that is to be perceived in a different way?
I am very much in favor of black metal theory work that does violence to the separative distinctions between poetry and philosophy, art and theory, and so forth. Agamben is correct that modernity is conditioned by a “scission of the word,” a kind of fatal gap within language that holds the spheres of knowledge and pleasure apart. This is the condition for the birth of criticism, as a distinctly modern way of knowing that “neither represents nor knows, but knows the representation.” The problem, then, is precisely one of going beyond and creatively destroying criticism, to explode from within its suspension of the infinite immanence of the present.
o. Curiously enough, some musicians can relate to this philosophy and they have started their own research some time ago. I think of bands like Ulver and Emperor that seem to be some spearheads of an intellectual movement in black metal. Yet there is a huge scene evolving under the tag „avantgarde black metal“ in Scandinavia and elsewhere. Will they maybe co-work with you in future?
Anything is possible. I welcome the chance for such collaboration.
p. Will black metal theory lead to novels instead of booklets, to acoustic experimentation instead of raw primitive sounds and finally to music’s overlapping by books and lectures by the musicians themselves?
Surely such work is already taking place in various forms. I suppose the question is about whether black metal theory is really a site for the real mutation or migration of black metal into other media, into forms that participate in and are not only about black metal. Right now it seems that black metal can withstand the addition of any adjective placed before it (this black metal, that black metal), where the difference is registered as one of variety within the genre. Black metal theory engages this process from the other side.
q. Any last words and comments on things that might have been left out?
Nothing comes to mind.
Black Metal Theory
Theodor Kittelsen, Up in the Hills a Clarion Call Rings Out (1900)
In its initial incarnation in the 90s, Norwegian Black Metal was a variant of heavy metal, which adopted an innovative style: blurred and misty layers of tremolo-ed guitars took the place of the, previously fashionable, rushing technical gymnastics on the instruments; a purist lo-fi recording approach was preferred to the “high-definition” production value of thrash metal and death metal; singers abandoned the macho growls of the past and assumed more mournful and lamenting modes of singing. Some would say that one of the strengths of black metal has been a completely humorless and literal re-interpretation of the grand guignolesque theatrics, which have always been essential to rock and roll music entertainment, from glam to hard rock. The Norwegian scene has produced a bona-fide mix of ferocious anti-Christianity (most of the participants defined themselves Satanists or Pagans), misanthropy and an absolutist rejection of contemporary consumer society (this very often paired with supporting totalitarian ideologies), which in its turn has been at the root of the production of a few truly excellent records, but also of an escalating violence, which reached its height, in 1994, when Varg Vikernesof the band Burzum was convicted for the murder of Øystein Aarseth (known as Euronymous) of the band Mayhem and for the burning of several churches of historical relevance.
Burning Church
In 2009, a series of symposia and publications regarding “Black Metal Theory” was initiated by Nicola Masciandaro. The first symposium was held at the Public Assembly Hall in Brooklyn in December 2009. The Symposium and resulting book was called Hideous Gnosis. Professor Scott Wilson (professor of Media And Cultural Studies at the Kingston University in London) who organized the second one Melancology – in London in January 2011 was good enough to have a conversation with us about this nascent theoretical field.
Would you please introduce us to Black Metal Theory?
Black Metal Theory concerns the violent conjunction of theoretical ideas and Black Metal. It involves an indefinite number of people, some of them academic but not all, who love Black Metal, love the experience of Black Metal but who also love reflecting on that experience. Black Metal Theory is emphatically NOT Black Metal Studies. It does not involve taking a cultural studies, sociological or ethnographic approach to Black Metal; it is not a form of musicology. On the contrary it attempts to find different ways of thinking, speaking and writing about Black Metal that are fully cognizant of the fact that you can’t write about Black Metal. Eugene Thacker’s paper ‘Sounds from the Abyss’ at the last Symposium, for example, demonstrated a non-cultural studies, non-musicological way of talking about the music.
There are plans for a third and initial ideas for the location include Oslo, Budapest, LA, Edinburgh. It will be organized by someone else.
What were the main themes in the latest symposium?
One of the most important things about this violent conjunction is the way in which Black Metal disturbs thought, leading to the creation of new concepts. As a musical form that evokes frozen, desolated landscapes, infernal forests real and phantasmal, physical and metaphysical, for example, Black Metal is clearly a form of environmental writing, but one that could not easily be accommodated into current ecological discourse. Participants seriously considered the idea of melancology both as black ecology, exploring black metal as a geophilosophy of real and psychic spaces (the frozen desert is not so much ‘out there’ but inside you), and as an ethos, looking at black metal as the re-occultation of black blood and bile in rituals of mourning and celebration for the death of God and the extinction of his creation, particularly humanity, under the black sun of melancholy. As such, the symposium connected with a new strain in contemporary philosophy that regards extinction as a speculative opportunity for thought. Black metal resounds from the abyss and it is precisely only in relation to its sonic forces that the question of intervention in the environment arises in the articulation of melancology with ethics. That is, in deciding ‘which way out’ we should take, in deciding with what surpluses to dwell, with what waste, what detritus or decay in a process of unbinding with sonic forces that traverse an earth choking in wealth and death.
Black metal, or associated imagery and references, seem to have percolated in experimental music in the 00s or in other fields such as contemporary art/cinema. What would you say are the elements that have kept the genre relevant after all these years?
This is an area addressed at the conference by Amelia Ishmael from the School of Art Institute, Chicago. She argues that it is not so much the imagery derived from album covers and promotional materials that is significant, but the sonic production of a kind of ‘formless presence’ that infuses some contemporary art, both audio and visual. She discusses, for example, the sculptural installations of Banks Violette, the drawings and video art of artist/musician Terence Hannum, and the photography of Grant Willing. For myself I would even risk suggesting that in its defining moment in Norway in the early 1990s, black metal is genuinely art, the most significant art from Norway since Munch and Ibsen, and as such continues, and will continue for some time to come, to exert a profound influence on artists and musicians alike. In Norway at that moment a ‘terrible beauty was born’, to echo W.B. Yeats, a trauma to which many people in Norway would have a highly equivocal attitude I should think.
Per Yngve Ohlin (stage name: Dead) singer for Mayhem, who committed suicide in 1991, at the age of 22.
I guess that some of the more severe criticism Black Metal Theory might have received has been generated by the rabid anti-intellectualism and affiliation with extreme right wing political movements known to characterize some aspects of Black Metal. How would you respond to such points?
Hostility to so-called intellectual commentary on popular music is not especially a feature of BM fans, but of a strange alliance between conservative critics who say that such music does not deserve critical inquiry and journalists and bloggers who say it does not require it. Theory is either redundant or it misses the point which can only be grasped in authentic, inexpressible experience. Journalists – particularly in Britain and the US – like to mystify popular music in this way order to support their own professional authority. More interesting to us are the fans – from the guy who wrote to us from prison in America to thank us for Hideous Gnosis – and to bands like Abgott who performed for us at the most recent symposium who totally support the idea of Black Metal Theory Symposia. I have a number of answers to your question about extreme right wing politics. The first would be simply to state the fact that there is nothing intrinsically right wing or fascist about black metal any more than there is about basket weaving or ecology. No doubt there are some extreme right wing basket weavers out there, and certainly judging by their websites many fascist groups are keen to proclaim how ‘green’ they are. The second point to make would be that in Europe and the US the Nazis are the default position for anyone who wants to draw attention to their negativity and rejection of liberal culture: from Sid Vicious wearing a swastika on his chest in 1976 to the Columbine murderers in the ’90s. Euronymous was well aware of this ‘strategic’ aspect of self-representation which is why he chose to call himself a Stalinist and celebrate notorious Communist regimes. The Nazis were ‘way too commercial’ in his view. Euronymous had a great sense of humor. The third point to say is that where it exists, this extreme right wing, racist aspect to black metal can be seen as an interesting symptom of the ressentiment of white culture. This was the view taken at the Melancology symposium by our Tunisian colleague Hager Weslati from Kingston University. Quoting Hellhammer’s provocation, ‘we don’t like black people here. Black metal is for white people’, Hager, speaking as a black woman who loves black metal, replies in kind by saying that ‘I find that aspect of the genre fascinating’, adding ironically, ‘in the same way that I cannot reconcile myself with keyboards and women on a Black Metal stage’. For her, music is not the vehicle of racial antagonisms or questions of otherness so much as what is at stake for such questions; it is the site of contestation and appropriation.
by Francesco Tenaglia
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