are these guys ok? can't find anything bad on them.... sounds amazing too.... http://rideforrevenge.bandcamp.com/track/morning-won-t-bring-a-twinkling-star
Black metal that is not politically dodge
- Thread starter Chick Webb
- Start date
hot air baboon
Well-Known Member
Edwin Pouncey / Savage Pencil is something of a connoisseur of BM :
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/interview/savage-pencil.htm
Your comic strips and assorted artwork that has appeared in the Wire is apparently driven by musical influences. The Artfang exhibit in particular looks like a series of meditations on Black Metal iconography. How did the exhibit come about, and were you consciously trying to present an aesthetically unified exhibition based on Black Metal iconography? What is it that draws you to this imagery?
Artfang was exactly that, a series of meditations on the Black Metal music movement. The exhibition was planned in advance, proposed, accepted and displayed. I chose the Black Metal theme because that was the music I was listening to at the time. The music consumed my thoughts and the images just started to appear. Eventually I had enough images prepared to put on an exhibition and, somewhat gratifyingly, the event was a huge success with most of the work being sold.
Because I work and write about various forms of music, what I am listening to at the time becomes engrained in my work. Black Metal is an extreme music and I like that kind of musical form. After building collections of experimental, free jazz and noise music I decided that Black Metal—Satanic music made by Satanists—was an obvious extension to the forms of music I already used to create my art.
I was also interested in finding the more obscure sounding artists, rather than go for the more established figures of the Black Metal scene. The artists I admire the most are the solo artists who make their own music and persona. Of these I think artists such as Xasthur, Leviathan, Furze, Emit, Draugar, Benighted Leams, and various others are more interesting that the usual blood gargling Black Metal bands. My favourite Black Metal band of all time (and the one that started me out on this quest) is Abruptum, whose work I still think is astonishing and beyond the parameters of the somewhat closeted Black Metal scene.
One of the pieces in the Artfang exhibit is the extraordinarily detailed "Thee Golden Chalice." Isn't this one of the pieces that was used for SunnO)))'s Candlewolf of the Golden Chalice? How did you get involved with SunnO)))?
Yes it is. I was introduced to Sunn O)))'s music by sound artist Russell Haswell who suggested that I listen to their first album. I found a copy and really loved what I heard. They were everything that I loved about extreme music and the drone was instantly appealing to me. Haswell had been responsible for bringing Earth to London and their appearance at Paul Smith's Disobey club is on my top gigs of all time list. Sunn O))) had taken that same primal drone experience and extended it to almost La Monte Young levels. I found this very exciting and new. An almost anti-rock music that blew away most of the competition. Eventually I met up with Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson and they suggested I should do some poster and T-shirt work for them. For me this is an honour, in the same way that drawing stuff for Sonic Youth was an honour when they first started to be noticed in the UK. I hope that the working relationship I have built up with Sunn O))) can continue to evolve.
Let's talk a bit about the "Subterranean Metal" feature you did for the Wire. Your introduction was remarkable in that it comfortably encapsulated the origins of the tradition and followed its flow into the myriad tributaries that have now splintered into different genres: Noise artists such as Kevin Drumm, Avant composers like John Zorn, unclassifiable ensembles like Angelblood.
The article had to connect with the readership of the magazine whose initial idea of Metal was probably going to be negative until its hidden joys were explained to them. A Stoner Rock element was also suggested with bands like Sleep and Earth rubbing shoulders with Corrupted and Abruptum. The article was my attempt to attract a new audience to the music by insisting that the music was not a dead or stereotyped genre. Metal is a live music that is constantly changing shape and throwing up new ways of expressing itself. Even though it has become somewhat fashionable to admit to liking Metal now I still am intrigued by what it can offer. I am still excited by its possibilities.
For me the thrill I get from listening to Metal is the same one I got when I first plugged into free jazz. It has that same extremity and sense of urgency. As I said earlier, at the moment I really like the artists who just do it on their own and make records in their bedrooms. I really admire this kind of insular creativity that somehow produces something more focused than a production by a band.—Exceptions to this rule being Manes, Arcturus and Ulver.
How did the "Subterranean Metal" feature come about? Was this something that was a hard sale to your editor? Are you planning on contributing any more metal writing to the Wire?
I simply put forward a good case for running a Metal Primer in the Wire and the editor accepted it. The magazine obviously thought it was a good idea or they would not have entertained the suggestion. At the moment I am not planning on doing any more serious writing about the subject for the Wire, but that's not to say I won't be doing so in the future. At this time I prefer Black Metal to be my secret pleasure. Writing about it too much would perhaps tarnish my passion for it in a way.
Deathspell Omega, Velvet Cacoon, Haemoth, Benighted Leams, Abruptum: All are ensembles that have continued to push the boundaries of the metal genre, adding elements of Drone, Folk, Classical and "Post-Rock" to their approaches. Why do you think metal is subjected to a double-standard: It's either chalked up as some sort of knuckle-dragging enterprise, or ridiculed when written about in a cogent or intellectual fashion, forever fetishized by metalheads as a sort of "thing-in-itself?"
What makes Black Metal interesting to me is that it has endless possibilities to reinvent itself: in the same way that “gangsta rap” had before it became soft and commercial in the middle and just became a parody of itself. Black Metal is an underground music where the only limitations are self-inflicted. I feel that there is enough up and coming talent inside the scene to keep it constantly changing. Only people who walk around with a fixed, distorted idea about what Black Metal sounds like—or should sound like—belong to that group who, for whatever reason, want to control or deny the music. The more diverse Black Metal becomes can only be a good thing, so that its biased critics and those who want to use it as a fashion device will be ultimately confused and confounded.
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/interview/savage-pencil.htm
Your comic strips and assorted artwork that has appeared in the Wire is apparently driven by musical influences. The Artfang exhibit in particular looks like a series of meditations on Black Metal iconography. How did the exhibit come about, and were you consciously trying to present an aesthetically unified exhibition based on Black Metal iconography? What is it that draws you to this imagery?
Artfang was exactly that, a series of meditations on the Black Metal music movement. The exhibition was planned in advance, proposed, accepted and displayed. I chose the Black Metal theme because that was the music I was listening to at the time. The music consumed my thoughts and the images just started to appear. Eventually I had enough images prepared to put on an exhibition and, somewhat gratifyingly, the event was a huge success with most of the work being sold.
Because I work and write about various forms of music, what I am listening to at the time becomes engrained in my work. Black Metal is an extreme music and I like that kind of musical form. After building collections of experimental, free jazz and noise music I decided that Black Metal—Satanic music made by Satanists—was an obvious extension to the forms of music I already used to create my art.
I was also interested in finding the more obscure sounding artists, rather than go for the more established figures of the Black Metal scene. The artists I admire the most are the solo artists who make their own music and persona. Of these I think artists such as Xasthur, Leviathan, Furze, Emit, Draugar, Benighted Leams, and various others are more interesting that the usual blood gargling Black Metal bands. My favourite Black Metal band of all time (and the one that started me out on this quest) is Abruptum, whose work I still think is astonishing and beyond the parameters of the somewhat closeted Black Metal scene.
One of the pieces in the Artfang exhibit is the extraordinarily detailed "Thee Golden Chalice." Isn't this one of the pieces that was used for SunnO)))'s Candlewolf of the Golden Chalice? How did you get involved with SunnO)))?
Yes it is. I was introduced to Sunn O)))'s music by sound artist Russell Haswell who suggested that I listen to their first album. I found a copy and really loved what I heard. They were everything that I loved about extreme music and the drone was instantly appealing to me. Haswell had been responsible for bringing Earth to London and their appearance at Paul Smith's Disobey club is on my top gigs of all time list. Sunn O))) had taken that same primal drone experience and extended it to almost La Monte Young levels. I found this very exciting and new. An almost anti-rock music that blew away most of the competition. Eventually I met up with Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson and they suggested I should do some poster and T-shirt work for them. For me this is an honour, in the same way that drawing stuff for Sonic Youth was an honour when they first started to be noticed in the UK. I hope that the working relationship I have built up with Sunn O))) can continue to evolve.
Let's talk a bit about the "Subterranean Metal" feature you did for the Wire. Your introduction was remarkable in that it comfortably encapsulated the origins of the tradition and followed its flow into the myriad tributaries that have now splintered into different genres: Noise artists such as Kevin Drumm, Avant composers like John Zorn, unclassifiable ensembles like Angelblood.
The article had to connect with the readership of the magazine whose initial idea of Metal was probably going to be negative until its hidden joys were explained to them. A Stoner Rock element was also suggested with bands like Sleep and Earth rubbing shoulders with Corrupted and Abruptum. The article was my attempt to attract a new audience to the music by insisting that the music was not a dead or stereotyped genre. Metal is a live music that is constantly changing shape and throwing up new ways of expressing itself. Even though it has become somewhat fashionable to admit to liking Metal now I still am intrigued by what it can offer. I am still excited by its possibilities.
For me the thrill I get from listening to Metal is the same one I got when I first plugged into free jazz. It has that same extremity and sense of urgency. As I said earlier, at the moment I really like the artists who just do it on their own and make records in their bedrooms. I really admire this kind of insular creativity that somehow produces something more focused than a production by a band.—Exceptions to this rule being Manes, Arcturus and Ulver.
How did the "Subterranean Metal" feature come about? Was this something that was a hard sale to your editor? Are you planning on contributing any more metal writing to the Wire?
I simply put forward a good case for running a Metal Primer in the Wire and the editor accepted it. The magazine obviously thought it was a good idea or they would not have entertained the suggestion. At the moment I am not planning on doing any more serious writing about the subject for the Wire, but that's not to say I won't be doing so in the future. At this time I prefer Black Metal to be my secret pleasure. Writing about it too much would perhaps tarnish my passion for it in a way.
Deathspell Omega, Velvet Cacoon, Haemoth, Benighted Leams, Abruptum: All are ensembles that have continued to push the boundaries of the metal genre, adding elements of Drone, Folk, Classical and "Post-Rock" to their approaches. Why do you think metal is subjected to a double-standard: It's either chalked up as some sort of knuckle-dragging enterprise, or ridiculed when written about in a cogent or intellectual fashion, forever fetishized by metalheads as a sort of "thing-in-itself?"
What makes Black Metal interesting to me is that it has endless possibilities to reinvent itself: in the same way that “gangsta rap” had before it became soft and commercial in the middle and just became a parody of itself. Black Metal is an underground music where the only limitations are self-inflicted. I feel that there is enough up and coming talent inside the scene to keep it constantly changing. Only people who walk around with a fixed, distorted idea about what Black Metal sounds like—or should sound like—belong to that group who, for whatever reason, want to control or deny the music. The more diverse Black Metal becomes can only be a good thing, so that its biased critics and those who want to use it as a fashion device will be ultimately confused and confounded.
ouchmonkey
Singe Gainsbourg
This threads current poster boys at number 5 in louder than war's year best...
http://louderthanwar.com/albums-of-the-year-2014-part-three/
http://louderthanwar.com/albums-of-the-year-2014-part-three/
now. John Robb may be many things, gob shite, annoying, etc but he is generally a decent chap
and knowledgeable too.
I know it's not solely his work on LTW but still, he must know about this right?
http://louderthanwar.com/albums-of-the-year-2014-part-three/
http://louderthanwar.com/albums-of-the-year-2014-part-three/
now. John Robb may be many things, gob shite, annoying, etc but he is generally a decent chap
and knowledgeable too.
I know it's not solely his work on LTW but still, he must know about this right?
details and discussion on this thread: http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/rebellion-punk-festival-in-blackpool.313689/page-2
ouchmonkey
Singe Gainsbourg
not sure about these guys tbh...
subtle
I think you're probably just misrepresenting them tbh
not sure about these guys tbh...
subtle
cantsin
Well-Known Member
Chick Webb
Countryfile and a can
I got the new Terrorisor yesterday, with Winterfylleth(sp?) on the cover, which caused me to scowl. Why do we distrust them again? They say nothing about it in the interview except a brief mention of "political accusations", which they brush off as being akin to people "hating them for not wearing corpsepaint". The dude makes some what I would consider simplistic and naive comments on Ukraine, but the comments don't sound particularly dodge. He also makes comments about the British army going to other countries stealing resources and killing innocents, and that Brit soldiers aren't heros, they are just people who've swallowed a pack of lies. Which doesn't necessarily sound like the talk of a someone with white power sympathies, but who knows.
He does also mention being good mates with several bands that crop up as dodge on this thread, for whatever that's worth.
He does also mention being good mates with several bands that crop up as dodge on this thread, for whatever that's worth.
ManchesterBeth
Well-Known Member
Winterfylleth are far right, i thought we established that quite clearly on this thread?
Also, I just had a listen to their music the other day. utter dogshite and uninventive imho.
Also, I just had a listen to their music the other day. utter dogshite and uninventive imho.
Chick Webb
Countryfile and a can
Terroriser seem to think they're great. Oh well, I won't be able to listen to them if they're dodgy, so I hope you're right about their music.Winterfylleth are far right, i thought we established that quite clearly on this thread?
Also, I just had a listen to their music the other day. utter dogshite and uninventive imho.
That's why I said his Ukraine and Brit army comments weren't necessarily informed by rightwingness. He's obviously just belatedly discovered the art of protecting his career by not saying dopey stuff.
ManchesterBeth
Well-Known Member
Meh, I think Varg's 90s stuff under the Burzum moniker is sonically fucking awesome TBF. Of course I'd not financially support him in any way and always attach caveats if recommending his stuff to others, but if I had to find music that roughly accorded with my political views I'd be really rather quite limited. I mean, it's completely acceptable to listen to Wagner these days, yet he was a raging antisemite of the highest order...
Chick Webb
Countryfile and a can
I've actually never heard Burzum. It's ridiculous as a black metal fan, but there it is. I suppose I'll have to give them a listen at some point to educate myself. At least that doesn't need to involve giving Varg money in this day and age. Incidentally, I do roll my eyes and say "fecks sake" at a lot of the more bombastic bits in Wagner, and that reaction is not entirely unconnected with what I think I know about the personality/beliefs of the composer! I find it hard to listen to music I know is made by outright nazis, but I don't sit around listening to rock proletario songs about Stalingrad all day either.
ManchesterBeth
Well-Known Member
Chick Webb
Countryfile and a can
The last person I saw wearing a Burzum tshirt was a black hipster. I wonder if she would have confused or annoyed Varg if he had spotted her. I certainly couldn't very well give her a dirty look for being a presumable white supremacist.
ManchesterBeth
Well-Known Member
I read an interview where he claimed that metal was 'n****r' music. Yet he produces it. oh the irony.
Chick Webb
Countryfile and a can
I do, but I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to spending my money.
Chick Webb
Countryfile and a can
Last thing I read on them was their own interview so I'm getting it from the horse's mouth.
ManchesterBeth
Well-Known Member
Far right you say? Racist? The drummer just got married - to an Iranian woman. Hardly the actions of a white supremacist.
That twat who played on the first album, the nazi? Fired years ago.
I have every album by them so far and not one song can be even remotely seen as right wing, or racist, or anything like that at all. Basically every song they've done is either history or spirituality. ..or instrumental!
Chick - what was said in this interview that's "far right" then? because I don't recall them ever saying anything like that in print.
That twat who played on the first album, the nazi? Fired years ago.
I have every album by them so far and not one song can be even remotely seen as right wing, or racist, or anything like that at all. Basically every song they've done is either history or spirituality. ..or instrumental!
Chick - what was said in this interview that's "far right" then? because I don't recall them ever saying anything like that in print.
ManchesterBeth
Well-Known Member
Yeah we get it, they're just patriots, not nationalists. What did you think this place was, a liberal circlejerk?
ManchesterBeth
Well-Known Member
Oh this is embarrassing. You've clearly never heard of Iranian neo-nazis or pan-iranists.
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