Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!



Some of the treats Rollaroll have in store for you over the next couple of weeks include a new interview with Shoeb Ahmad of Spartak, and some new articles/posts by a friend of mine, Alex Robinson (AKA Captain), who has recently come on board Rollaroll and who is well versed in jazz and classical music. Stay tuned.

New Releases on Important Records

Important Records' monthly newsletter, with updates on new releases:

Greetings!
Our fall release schedule is now in full swing with brand new records from Slomo, Nadja, Aidan Baker, Tecumseh and the debut solo record from Grails songwriter & multi-instrumentalist Zak Riles. Riles' debut is as essential piece of the Grails equation as often Riles songs are the origins of Grails material. He writes them his way and then once they're part of the Grails cannon they take on a different form. Riles' versions of these songs have the same intensity but delivered in a slower and more subtle way. For fans of Grails/Blackshaw/Fahey/Popol Vuh etc.

As you likely already know Ocean's "Here Where Nothing Grows" has outsold everyting on Important and received major international acclaim. Well, after 3 years of work their follow up is ready and will be released in early November with the LP version and bonus track ready sometime in December. It's appropriately titled "Pantheon Of The Lesser" and everything you could possibly wish to know about it can be found here:

http://importantrecords.com/ocean_lesser/

Also, Risil is delayed for a couple of months. The good news is that the record will be even better and will be available on both CD/LP. Risil is a caravan headed through the audio desert and under the canopy can be found Guillermo Herren (Prefuse 73/Savath & Savallas), Zach Hill (Hella), Tyondai Braxton (Battles), John McEntire (Tortoise), Alejandra Deheza (School Of Seven Bells), Eva Puyuelo Muns (Savath & Savalas). Get ready!

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We're still offering the Fall 2008 Back To School sale which gives you the opportunity to grab some key Important titles for as low as $5 each.

Chose from a list of almost 80 sale priced Important Records releases:
15 cds: $100
30 cds: $200
55 cds: $300
all 78: $400

Everything can be found here:
http://importantrecords.com/sale.html

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And don't forget to treat yourself to a Rega P1. Your ears and your record collection will thank you for it.

http://importantrecords.com/rega/rega.htm


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NEW RELEASES:

ZAK RILES "self titled" CD $12
Zak Riles is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist in the Important band Grails. His creative contributions to the group are immeasurable and can be heard clearly on this self titled debut solo outing. In fact some of the pieces on this solo record have been reinterpreted into Grails favorites......

TECUMSEH "Avalanche & Inundation" CD $10/LP $12
Heavy drone/heavy meditation. Be inside the sounds.
Formed in 2004, Tecumseh creates drone metal of the heaviest variety although with more forward movement than some of their peers and with the addition of cold electronic hiss.

SLOMO "THe Bog" CD $12
Holy McGrail: Moog Taurus II, Sunn Mustang, Clatter
Howard Marsden: Korg MS10 & Korg MS20, Hiss
Julian Cope: Poem
The Bog is the 2nd full-length release from Slomo, honing down the ritual clatter of their first album, The Creep (2005), into a more cumbersome and laden affair, ever heading downwards into the Northern Underworld upon slurries of unsignposted mung....

AIDAN BAKER "I Too Wish To Be Absorbed" 2xCD $12
Aidan Baker's I Wish Too, To Be Absorbed is a 2 disc compilation of tracks from various out-of-print, limited edition releases spanning the last 10 years of Baker's output, ranging from his very first release to material that was featured on the soundtrack to a book of his poetry.....

AIDAN BAKER/LEAH BUCKAREFF/NADJA "Trinitarian" LP $14
100 white/100 blue. One per customer.Trinitarian represents an attempt to break down the essence of Nadja by offering a solo track from each of its two members plus one Nadja composition; two stripped down ambient pieces featuring single instruments (guitar and bass, respectively) to a full Nadja composition......

SKULL DEFEKTS "Waving" 7" $10
Last copies of this extremely limited edition of 300 tour 7" available only at shows and direct from Important

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New Apparel:

SKULL DEFEKTS SHIRTS $10
- two different prints in two different colors
CONIFER $10
- Crown Fire shirts designed by Conifer member Zak Howard
HOTOTOGISU $10
- tour shirt printed on American Apparel
IMPORTANT RECORDS tote bag $10
- a tote bag + an Important logo = an Important Records tote bag. Fits records, books and groceries.
MERZBOW Dolphin Sonar $10
- available in two colors
JULIETTE ALARM CLOCK MOBILE $5
- new Important design inspired by a junk shop Juliette brand alarm clock.
DOUBLED UP 2008 $5
- update of the ever popular and ever so out of stock Doubled Up shirt design.


JULY/AUG NEW RELEASES:

KAWABATA MAKOTO & MICHISHIT SHINSUKE "Basement Echo" CD $11
MERZBOW "Dolphin Sonar" CD $11
TOM CARTER "Shots At Infinity 1" CD $11
TOM CARTER "Shots At Infinity 2" LP $14
ASTRO/HIROSHI HASEGAWA "Live At Muryoku Muzen Temple" LP $14
ASTRO/HIROSHI HASEGAWA "The Echo From The Purple Dawn" CD $11
BASS COMMUNION "Molotov & Haze" CD $12

REPRESSED:

GRAILS "Take Refuge In Clean Living" LP $15
- The first 100 orders will receive amber colored vinyl. When those are gone we'll start shipping
black copies
A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS self titeld LP $12
- Third pressing. This time around the first 100 copies shipped are on white vinyl.
ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE GURU GURU "Psychedelic Navigator" CD $10
- This sold out immediately and is finally available again
JULIA KENT "Delay" CD $10
- Another immediate sellout finally available again.

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PLACING AN ORDER:

If you'd like to add anything from ImportantRecords.com please click the ORDER
link on our site and fill out a complete order form including items from
this email as well as the new items from the website. Or you can put it all
in an email to me and I'll get back to you quickly with a total.
Your order will not be held until it is paid for.


SHIPPING IN USA:
CD/7": $3 for the first and $1 each additional
SHIRT: $3 for the first and $1 each additional cd/lp or shirt
LP: $4 for the first and $1 each additional cd/lp or t-shirt


SHIPPING TO CANADA:
CD/7": $4 for the first and $1 each additional
SHIRT: $6 for the first and $2 each additional cd/lp or shirt
LP: $6 for the first and $2 each additional cd/lp or t-shirt


SHIPPING OVERSEAS:
CD/7": $5 for the first and $1 each additional
SHIRT: $10 for the first and $2 each additional CD, and $2 for each additional shirt
LP: $12 for the first and $2 each additional cd and $2 each additional LP or shirt


CALCULATING POSTAGE:
Items above are listed in order by weight. CD/7" are the least heavy, followed by shirts and then LPs which are the heaviest. Select your heaviest item and then add in the prices for all additional items.
For instance, if you live overseas and you are buying two LPs and a CD you would calculate $12 for the first LP, $2 more for the 2nd LP and then $1 more for the CD. That would make your shipping total $15. If you are in the USA and you make the same purchase you would calculate $3 for the LP, $1 more for the 2nd LP and then $1 more for the CD making your total $5 for media rate shipping.
If you don't feel comfortable making this calculation please email me your complete order and address and I'll quickly respond with a total. imprec@importantrecords.com

Paypal ID is: imprec@importantrecords.com

or you can send payment to:

Important Records
Box 1281
Newburyport, MA
01950
USA

Very Best,
John & Important Records

John Scofield: Tonight at the Sydney Opera House

John Scofield will be performing tonight at the Sydney Opera House. If you can make it, make sure you don't miss it as it sounds like it's going to be a terrific night. Unfortunately, I'm tied up with other commitments, so I won't be able to make it. Here are the full details:

Joe Lovano ‘One of the greatest musicians in jazz history’ New York Times

John Scofield ‘Arguably the most influential jazz guitarist.’ International Herald Tribune

Sydney Opera House is proud to present two of the most dynamic players in contemporary jazz, Joe Lovano and John Scofield, sharing top bill with their quartet for one night only.

When this Grammy Award-winning tenor saxophonist and master guitarist come together they make one of the most exciting jazz collaborations of our time. Close friendship shines through formidable musicianship in a technically brilliant performance beaming intensity, skill and fun.

The highly anticipated merger of Joe Lovano and John Scofield reunites the stellar duo that led one of the most popular jazz groups of the early 90’s and the powerhouse group ScoLoHoFo. Teaming up once again, these stellar musicians will play repertoire from their Blue Note classics ‘What We Do’ and ‘Meant to Be’ as well as new compositions.

Grammy Award winner and perennial poll winner, Joe Lovano is one of today’s most formidable and stylistically eclectic tenor saxophonists. Lovano’s playing possesses in abundance the sense of spontaneity that characterises the music's finest improvisers.

Hailed by Down Beat magazine as “King John,” John Scofield is a true legend of jazz guitar, collaborating with the Miles Davis band, Herbie Hancock, Bill Charles Mingus and Pat Metheny. Armed with his trusty Ibanez, he continually explores the outer edges of contemporary jazz.

Don’t miss these masterful jazz improvisers, joined by Matt Penman (bass) and Matt Wilson (drums) for one night only!

Duration:
Low Fidelity: 8pm - 8:30pm
Interval: 8:30pm - 8:50pm
Joe Lovano and John Scofield Quartet: 8:50pm - 10:20pm

You can book tickets at this location.

Keep on 'Rockin!

Over at The Chauvel Cinema, in Paddington (Sydney) as part of the cinematheque program, there will be a special screening of D.A. Pennebakers' 1969 Keep on 'Rockin!, which is being screened with Cosmic Ray on the 15th and the 17th of November. More info follows:

SAT. 15/11 & 17/11 KEEP ON ROCKIN!

Cosmic Ray USA/1961/B&W/4mins/16mm/NFVLS Dir: Bruce Conner. A rapid montage of images cut to the music of Ray Charles.

Keep on Rockin! USA/1972/Colour/94mins/16mm/NFVLS Dir: D.A. Pennebaker. Filmed at the 1969 Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, this concert film features four legends of rock ‘n’ roll: Bo Didley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. The compere is Kim Fowley. Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix also feature.

Make sure that you check out the rest of the program, as there are quite a few highlights this season, including a guest appearance by Albie Thoms.

Dai Pritchard - The Guitar Session

Rose Tattoo’s powerhouse guitarist Dai Pritchard will present a blistering one hour guitar session for those who want to learn how to really rock.

Allans Music Pitt Street Sydney
28 October @ 1pm - (02) 9283 7711
To Register click here

Allans Music Bourke Street Melbourne
7 November @ 2pm - (03) 9654 8444
To Register click here

Allans Music Adelaide
28 November @ 1pm - (08) 8223 5533
To Register click here

Allans Music Brisbane
12 December @ 6pm - (07) 3229 2155
To Register click here

This sounds pretty cool. It's free, so make sure that you can catch it if you're in the area.

Tango Saloon Play Secret Halloween Show

The Tango Saloon are playing a secret Halloween show this Friday, the 31st of November at a secret venue in the inner-west of Sydney. The only way you can find out more details is by emailing thetangosaloon@hotmail.com. Make sure you do, because it sounds rad.

Antony Milton

For our second series of interviews with musicians for Rollaroll, I spoke with New Zealand's Antony Milton, who recently performed a series of shows in Australia, including a show at Newcastle's This Is Not Art festival. Read the interview below:

For readers of Rollaroll who aren't aware of what you do, would you like to give a brief overview/description of your work?

I started out as a kid who was obsessed with tape recorders- recording weird noises. I particularly liked radio static (because it sounded like rivers and I was equally obsessed with wilderness and nature). Later on I got into writing (stories/poems), and when I was about 15 or 16 my Dad taught me to play the guitar. Inevitably enough this lead to me writing songs. But right from day one of learning my first guitar chord I was recording everything I did. It wasn't long before I was mixing weird noises with my songs and I spent much of my 20s (the 1990s) making hybrid song/noise albums that I released on my cassette label Wire Bridge (The 'Sirens' CD on Last Visible Dog is a collection of some of the best of this stuff). It was also during this period that I discovered that I wasn't the only person in the world who was doing this stuff. NZ labels like Metonymic and Xpressway became big influences. Around 2000 I had something of a 'post structuralist' crisis. I lost faith in 'the word'. Haha. This lead to me focussing far more on instrumental and drone and noise based works than previously. Basically I no longer felt comfortable employing words in my art.. It was also around this time that I started playing live on a regular basis. I had been very shy and insecure about putting myself 'out there' previous to this. It was strange really, one day I simply woke up and that insecurity was gone and it never came back. (Recently I've started writing the odd song again (albeit with as spare a use of words as possible..)). Anyway since 2000 I have been doing music semi-professionally. Touring, doing sound installations, making records and running my new label (PseudoArcana). I have several different on-going solo projects, as well as many collaborative ones. The common threads linking these projects- for me-are an interest in ecstatic states and musics; a reverence for 'place' (trying to draw out or represent the feeling of being in a specific environment); a fascination with textures (I like the rough rumble of tape); and the aspiration to play hands-on instruments in a sort of calligraphic gestural manner..

I saw you twice recently; once with Campbell Kneale for Birchville Cat Motel at This Is Not Art Festival in Newcastle, and once at Serial Space in Sydney performing a live set of your solo material. Both were exceptional performances. How different do you find it to collaborate with another musician than it is to perform your own music?

Thanks! I think in Campbells interview for you he might have pointed out that the Newcastle show was actually meant to be billed as With Throats As Fine As Needles? That's our ongoing duo where in we basically set up a single one note drone and sing over the top. For records we traipse out to bunkers and caves etc with battery operated gear and make use of the natural reverberant acoustics of those spaces. When playing live we make our own caves and bunkers from electronics! In answer to your question I find playing with other people a lot more 'fun'. Playing layered electric music solo can sometimes be a bit like juggling - trying to keep all the balls in the air without the dynamic crashing to the floor.. In a duo it is at least twice as easy to keep the dynamic up where you want it. Playing solo is a lot more intense. That's not necessarily a bad thing of course. I get a great deal of satisfaction from the intimacy of solo performance. When playing with others the energy interchange is primarily with the person/people you are playing with. When playing solo it is necessarily between yourself and the audience.

On both occasions, but particularly at Serial Space, you seem to have quite an intricate set-up. Would you like to talk about what equipment and instruments you use during your performances?

My set up for doing sets like that live has evolved so gradually over the years that it still seems fairly rudimentary to me... But yes, there are a lot of gadgets employed. My father-in-law actually came along to one of the shows on the tour. Hes 79 and I'm not sure that he actually listens to ANY music for pleasure. Ha. I had something of an insight into how bewildering my set up must look to others when I was trying to explain to him what all the different bits did. The Serial Space show was mainly guitar and effects. Wah, reverbs etc. Having a hands on expressive instrument is really important for me when I play. I used vary-speed cassette walkmans to play tapes of field recordings. I layered rubbed and e-bowed guitar strings using a loop pedal. (This looping pedal also has 'beats' on it. Over the years I have had some disasters in shows when I would accidentally turn the beats on. Recently though I have decided to embrace them.) I had an sk1 sampling keyboard that I was using to drop in synth like pulses of sound, and for further drones. I had a contact mic'd caster wheel that I was running through a distortion pedal. This caster wheel is the new addition to the set up. I'm not sure that I've got it working right yet.. The idea is that I will spin it and it will make this huge grrrrggghhhrrrrrrrr sound- kind of like as a noise interjection. But despite it working really well at home it didn't really do its thing at any of the shows. So instead of using it for that I discovered that I can fit it in my mouth and sing through it. Haha. (I find that singing- or howling perhaps..- is actually one of the best ways of getting 'into the zone' when one plays.) Everything runs through a small cheap 12 channel mixer that also has cheesy built in effects that I can play about with.

And what about what equipment and instruments you use to record with? Is it different from what you use to perform live with or is it pretty similar?

Different projects have radically different set ups... Mostly when recording I play only one instrument at a time and build up layers through careful crafting. My live shows are far more chaotic than my records. They are truly improvised and tend to range across different feelings and modes of playing. As a result I actually release a lot of live things because that is like a recording project in its own right. In my recordings I'm kind of on two diverging paths at the current moment. On the one side I've been trying to make the loudest heaviest and most intense psychedelic guitar noise records that I can. Layers and layers of feedback and guitar riffs with pseudo-techno beats.. So its almost like 'pop' noise or something. That's really fun. On the other hand I've also been doing a series of records where I go camping somewhere for a week or so and try to make a record about the place where I am. For example I recently spent a week in a small village at Arthurs Pass in the mountains of the South Island where I made a banjo record. (Admittedly it only sounds like banjo some of the time..) Anyway these records tend to be a lot more nuanced and subtle and more aligned with say haiku than spectacular bombast.

How did you find the shows in Australia, were they enjoyable?

I think this last tour in Australia was maybe the best tour yet. It was really very fun. I found myself laughing a lot and I was happy with the shows and got to see some killer performances from other folk as well.

What do you have planned for the future?

Well.... Theres some big changes happening actually. My girlfriend and I are flying off to Sth America in March where we are planning on travelling together for one year. I'm taking some basic recording gear and have been talking about a few possible shows in Argentina but ostensibly 2009 is a year off music. Certainly off the label at any rate. So before then I am busy trying to finish off the various records I'm working on and packing up my NZ life. I'm already excited though about getting back into playing and touring in 2010. I also have ideas for some big installation projects that I would like to work on.

The following short clip is from a solo show of Antony's at Sydney's Serial Space. The night also featured Inappropriate Tough Guy Behaviour, Seaworthy, Brassskulls and Birchville Cat Motel:

Links: Antony Milton, PseudoArcana, Our Love Will Destroy the World, Sound&Fury, CPSIP

Related articles: Interview with Campbell Kneale of Birchville Cat Motel

ATP Festival Australia 2009

Poster for ATP Festival in Victoria (at Mt. Duller Ski Resort)

Tickets for Australia's first ATP Festival will soon be on sale on the 10th of November. Curated by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, the festival will feature an absolutely mouth-watering lineup featuring Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Spiritualized, Fuck Buttons, The Necks, Afri-Rampo, Bridezilla, Laughing Clowns, James Blood Ulmer, Rober Forster, Harmonia, Silver Apples and The Saints, with more to be announced shortly.

More info below:

The other unique aspect of All Tomorrow's Parties is the location. There will be no football fields or sport stadiums here. Instead, ATP has taken the time to present the festival goer a whole new experience.

In Victoria, All Tomorrow's Parties is to be held over two days - January 9th & 10th - in the remote yet easily accessible location of Mt.Buller Ski Resort, some 3 hrs drive from Melbourne City. Punters will have the option to either stay on the mountain in a selection of ski-chalets, lodges or hotels, or down the mountain in nearby Mansfield. Both on-site and off-site fans alike will have the opportunity to enjoy all that Buller offers: a fully serviced township complete with bars, cafes, restaurants, walking trails, bike trails, ski-lifts and a gymnasium plus ATP's trademark rock 'n' roll trivia, cinema and 30+ bands performing over 3 stages.

In NSW, All Tomorrow's Parties is to be held in conjunction with Sydney Festival on Cockatoo Island over the weekend of January 17th & 18th.
In it's former life, Cockatoo Island has been a prison, a reformatory for wayward girls, and a shipbuilding yard. The industrial and maritime landscape together with the picturesque backdrop of Sydney Harbour make this urban island the perfect setting for this unique event. For 2009, All Tomorrow's Parties (and Sydney Festival) will present a one day program on Saturday January 17th, which will then be repeated on January 18th. There will be three stages - all with amazing views of the harbour and surrounds - a food court (that's real food - not regular festival mush), undercover bars, outside bars, a Bad Seeds video display, green 'chill out' areas, a free ride across the harbour to and from the show plus 20+ Bad Seeds hand picked acts.

In Queensland, All Tomorrow's Parties will present a series of one stands between January 12th - 16th at Brisbane arts & culture venue, The Powerhouse. Featured acts will include Fuck Buttons, Afrirampo and Harmonia with more to be announced. In addition to this, ATP will also present a larger afternoon/evening show on January 15th at the picturesque Brisbane Riverstage headlined by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and featuring Spiritualized, Robert Forster, James Blood Ulmer and others.

The on-sale date for Riverstage is October 13th, with more info on the lineups for that show and the Powerhouse shows coming soon!

Make sure you don't miss this as it looks like it's going to be one of the most exciting festivals to ever reach Australian shore.

New Vinyl: Genghis Tron Remix Vol. 2

I try to buy one thing on vinyl a week, usually from overseas. However, with the state of the economy at the moment, I'll probably be buying more and more stuff locally.

Anyhow, I'll try to post some pictures of some of the good vinyl offers out there that come into my possession.

Just got this in this morning - Genghis Tron's second volume of remixes of Board Up the House on vinyl, this time through Lovepump United Records:

Limited to 1,000 copies on yellow vinyl with red splatter. Tracklisting:

01 Relief (Black Moth Super Rainbow Remix)
02 Recursion (Circle Remix)
03 Recursion (CFCF Remix)
04 The Feast/Ergot (Dntel Remix)

Purchase it here (US$12).

Rollaroll Interview With Campbell Kneale

Campbell Kneale has been performing under the name Birchville Cat Motel for over a decade. Earlier this month, Kneale performed his last shows throughout Australia and New Zealand as Birchville Cat Motel before he moves on to his next project called Our Love Will Destroy the Earth (incidentally, the title of one of his Birchville Cat Motel Records). In the first of a series of interviews with musicians for ROLLAROLL, I spoke with Kneale about things like his last shows, performing live, influences and the recording industry. Read the interview below:

You recently just performed your last shows under the moniker Birchville Cat Motel, how did that feel?

FanFUCKINGtastic. Im so glad that its over and that I can start afresh. I really feel like its going to be so much more productive for me. I seemed to bump into so many people on tour who were so comiseratory about the whole 'end of Birchville' thing... like they expected me to be really bummed about the whole deal or something. I'm not. Im delighted. Fuck Birchville.

I saw two of your last Birchville Cat Motel performances; one with Antony Milton at This Is Not Art Festival in Newcastle, and your solo stint at Serial Space in Sydney. Both were amazing performances, but there were quite notable differences between them. I saw Domenico Sciajno give a talk after his show for This Is Not Art, and he stated that he had to adjust his sound to the noisy environment in which he performed. Are you subject to changing or adapting your sound to the environment in which you perform in?

Not really. My solo performances are loud. If the room is noisy... i play louder. Easy. I tried my best to specify a large PA for BCM shows and tried my best to get promoters to put me on in places that were going to be appropriate for maximum volume shows. However, every now and then you turn up in a venue and the PA is about the size of a couple of laptop speakers and rather than smoke the poor sad little thing I'll would try and bend to accommodate its meagre output.

However, when me and Antony play together its a totally different thing with a very defined agenda. Strangely, we were supposed to be performing together under our duo name, With Throats As Fine As Needles. When we turned up to Electrofringe we found we were billed as Birchville so I guess a whole bunch of people went away with a rather twisted impression of what constitutues Birchville Cat Motel. Its wasnt a very 'Birchville' performance at all. The Serial Space show WAS Birchville... sand-blasted dronerawk and shamanic lung-shread. With Throats As Fine As Needles gives no thought to ideas like 'continuity' or 'style' other than instrumentation (which in our case is primarily our voices) so each space holds the criteria for an entirely new performance. Yes, we respond... but only because we give no real thought to performing, we simply play with the resources we have available.

What equipment do you use to perform live with?

Oh dear oh dear... You are merely a novice in the ways of this dark magic and as such are not yet privvy to such powerful, galaxy-ripping secrets. Even Antony Milton only knows a secret handshake or two. Yet verily I say unto thee, gear maketh not the rockstar.

On your MySpace account, you list Black Metal as one of the genres your music participates in. The influence of Black Metal seems to me most apparent on a record of yours like Bird Sister Blasphemy, but how do you account for the influence on records like Gunpowder Temple of Heaven?

I dont account for the influence. I like all sorts of music and count them all as influences. The Wedding Present, Cheap Trick, Striborg, Angus MacLise, Brian Eno, Neu!, Ethiopian psyche, The Carter Family, The Stone Roses, Albert Ayler, Van Halen, Henri Gorecki... i can hear it all in the music. I find it curious how easily people latch on to labels... even 'underground music types' who you think would not be so eager to do such a thing. Metal is the new Wolf Eyes. Everybodys doing it. Everybodys waffling on about doom and death and black... people are so boring. I find black metal attractive as it is probably the most 'experimental' kind of metal... its raw and utterly unforgiving yet more about atmosphere than technique. It manages to transcend its own metal-ness and become something else entirely.

Gunpowder Temple of Heaven has nothing to do with black metal... its more like 'Loveless' meets 'Rime of The Ancient Mariner'.

Our Love Will Destroy the World is the name of one of your Birchville Cat Motel records. What was it that drew you to this title, and why have you chosen it as your new moniker?

Titles float in and out of my head in a constant and random fashion... sometimes I manage to retain them for long enough to write them down. That was one that didnt get away. As per usual it holds all the ingredients of my own definition a good title... resonance, mystery, power, fuckedupness.

I felt like it was a good idea to reference my past work, after all, Our Love Will Destroy The World while being something different for me is not THAT different on a surface level to BCM. In fact you'd have to be some kinda autistic mathematical genius to be able to hear the difference at all. The new project is a transformation of ATTITUDE rather than anything to do with music... a new work ethic, a new 'point' and a new chapter for me rather than a whole new book. Our Love Will Destroy The World was the title that seemed most appropriate. Like so much of what I do 'I just like it'. Its not that deep really. Sorry. Ha.

In a recent post of yours, you’ve told us that you intend to release the majority of your work in the future on analogue mediums (vinyl and cassette) only. What are your views on the recording industry at the moment?

Well, I have very little to do with the recording industry personally. Like many of the 'cdr brigade' I really only work via 'gentlemens agreements' with small labels, run by individuals who, almost without exception, are very kind, honest people. Friends in fact.

For what its worth though by means of observation, the 'recording industry' has never really been less relevant. Certainly to me, but i sense perhaps also for the entire 'record buying public'... which less face it is dwindling to almost nothing... who BUYS records released by labels who could be considered 'industry' anymore? I feel like we are reaching another 1977... a bloated, geriatric record industry that has been feeding off the whole compact disc farce for 20-plus years (sorry, when did you say CDs were going to become cheaper?) and now they are getting the big 'fuck you' that they deserve. The global monoculturalism and predominance of hip-hop says it all... there has never been a form of music MORE popular that has had LESS to say. The industry deserves everything they get.

Lastly, when will we hear the first Our Love Will Destroy the World release?

Soon.

Links: Antony Milton, CPSIP, Electrofringe, Our Love Will Destroy the Earth, This is Not Art

New Issue of Arthur Magazine

.

Arthur Issue #31

download...

Arthur No. 31 part A (6.2mb pdf)
Arthur No. 31 part B (8.3mb pdf)

Purchase a copy here.

Brandon Stusoy's "A Blaze in the North American Sky"

Read Brandon Stusoy's excellent "A Blaze in the North American Sky" article from the June/July issue of The Believer:

A BLAZE IN THE NORTH AMERICAN SKY
AMERICAN BLACK METAL BANDS SPECIALIZE IN A UNIQUELY BRUTAL, HOMEGROWN SOUND, BUT THEY DON’T ACTUALLY KILL PEOPLE. SO WHY SHOULD THEY BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY?

DISCUSSED: Multiple Stab Wounds, Inner-Scene Power Struggles, The Suicide of a Man Named Dead, Untitled Salt Sculptures, Japanese Literature, Pretzels, Hash, Necklaces Made of Teeth and Bones, The Common Conflation of Two Different Metals, Corpse Paint, Dude-ish Tracksuits, Illinois, The Sound of the Ghost of a Strangulated Raven, How Dreaming About Killing People Is More Radical Than Killing People


[Photograph of D. from Vrolok, in 2004, by Joshua Heckathorn.]

Note: This article serves as the introduction to
“A Brief Oral History of U.S. Black Metal”,
also in this issue of Believer.

*

“Here we find the dream world of a teenager thinking he’s a demonic overlord, suffering from delusions of grandeur. He knows it’s just a dream, but he refuses to admit it’s not real. Maybe he’s been reading too much Tolkien or been playing too many role-playing games, but the thing is: He’s bored with the world of the grown-ups, with the harsh dullness of living in a more or less capitalist society. I think it is interesting that black metal exploded in Norway immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the final demise of the idea that fighting against the bourgeoisie and capitalist conservatives, including Christianity, could be defeated by revolutionary socialism. Now there is only one strategy: Burn the churches to inflict harm. It’s all part of an escape from reality… Old black metal has an aspect of aesthetic fanaticism that I find beautiful. Some of the best black metal ever is made by fifteen-year-old kids with a four-track sitting in their father’s basement making what they believe is the greatest music ever, because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking that.”

— Svein Egil Hatlevik, of Norwegian bands/projects Umoral, Fleurety,
Pronounced “Sex,” and Zweizz, in discussion with the author.

*

A little over a year ago I went to the Norwegian city of Trondheim to attend a mostly indie rock, non–heavy metal festival so I could meet Snorre Ruch, a.k.a. Blackthorn, a black-metal musician likely best known for his connection to the murder of another black metaller, Øystein Aarseth, a.k.a. Euronymous, on August 10, 1993. While Ruch didn’t actively participate in the murder, he knew the general idea when he helped the killer, Kristian “Varg” Vikernes, drive east from Bergen to Aarseth’s apartment in Oslo.

As the story goes, Aarseth answered the door in his underwear, Vikernes confronted him, chased him through the hall and down a flight of stairs, and ultimately stabbed him a total of twenty-three times with a dull knife. The final deathblow was a wound through Aarseth’s forehead. When Vikernes removed the blade, Aarseth fell down another flight of stairs, in Varg’s words, “like a sack of potatoes.” Also according to Vikernes, Ruch was shocked when he came upon the carnage. As Ruch put it in an interview in the book Lords of Chaos: “When I stood outside Øystein’s door I heard noise inside and Øystein came out, with [Vikernes] on his heels, covered in blood, rushing down the stairway… I realized that this was going to hell. We had intended this to happen in the apartment, and fast—no big, dramatic thing with a hundred knife-stabs or something. So I ran down the stairs, past them, and into the square outside the building.” Ruch drove the car from the immediate scene, but was so rattled by what had taken place that he circled listlessly around Oslo for twenty-some minutes. Vikernes took the wheel after removing his bloodstained clothes, which he later dumped into a lake. Ruch was twenty-one at the time. The murdered Aarseth was twenty-five. Vikernes, twenty.

Vikernes remains in Tromsø Prison, serving a twenty-one-year sentence for the killing, as well as several counts of arson (specifically, church burnings). He tried escaping while on leave in 2003, which added to the previously reduced sentence, and was denied parole in 2006 (he was up for parole again in April 2008, but as of May, no actions have been taken). Ruch served eight years and was released in the late ’90s.

The gossipy he said/she said stories surrounding the Varg-Euronymous debacle, which was covered extensively by the Norwegian media and in the British metal magazine Kerrang! as it unfolded (and somewhat later in SPIN, etc.), continues to this day, primarily due to the media—and the fans’—enduring fascination with the case, a fascination flamed by Vikernes’s willingness to give incendiary interviews and maintain a personal website that asserts his (sort of) innocence.

It’s become a pretty lucrative business: In 2007, Vice produced True Norwegian Black Metal, a five-part web TV series. This year, the director of the project, Brooklyn-based photographer Peter Beste, published a large monograph, True Norwegian Black Metal. And there’s a forthcoming documentary, Until the Light Takes Us, that focuses on Vikernes and other early Norwegian black metallers. Subsequently, through the various (cartoonish, incomplete, or incorrectly angled) retellings and Vikernes’s own shifting storyline, it’s difficult to establish an exact motive for the killing. It’s been said that Vikernes was angry with Aarseth over contracts and royalties owed to him (at the Burzum website Varg claims he gained entrance into Aarseth’s apartment building by telling him “I got the contract. Let me in” when he buzzed up), but the killing could just as easily have been inspired by an inner-scene power struggle between Aarseth and Vikernes.

Aarseth, a major force in establishing the early Norwegian black-metal scene, ran an underground metal store in Oslo called Helvete (“Hell”) and operated Deathlike Silence Productions, the black-metal label to which Vikernes’s one-man Tolkien-referencing band Burzum was signed. In 1984, Aarseth also cofounded the black-metal band Mayhem, in which Ruch played guitar briefly, and Vikernes (then called Count Grishnackh) also briefly played bass. Aarseth initially sang and played guitar, but quickly passed along vocal duties to a series of singers. (Aarseth wasn’t the first member of Mayhem to die: The band’s most infamous vocalist, the Swede Per Yngve Ohlin, a.k.a. Dead, shot himself in the head in 1991 at the age of twenty-two.)

In January 1993, a few months before Aarseth’s death, the Bergens Tidende ran a story called “We Lit the Fires” on the scene and its alleged criminality: church burnings, Satanism, the participants’ shadowy appearances, etc. Vikernes was interviewed anonymously for the piece, at his apartment, by the journalist Finn Bjørn Tønder. Over the years, the burnings would be explained as a way of removing the Christian invaders from Norway, returning the grounds to their pagan roots, but in the story, never identified, Vikernes talks about the burnings in terms of spreading fear and honoring the Devil. (In the article, he rejects the term “Satanism” as a word used by “foolish groups of poseurs.”)

Vikernes was arrested soon thereafter (even though, in his own words, he’d “exaggerated” a bit). He alleges that he only agreed to do the interview after he and Aarseth decided it would be a good way to bring attention to the scene. As he explains at his website, Varg thought of it, too, as a way “to help Euronymous get some customers for a change.” Aarseth closed shop temporarily, which angered Vikernes, who interpreted it as a sign of Aarseth’s weakness (the store closed for good later in 1993, shortly before Euronymous was killed).

And, as Vikernes wrote at his site in December 2004: “[W]hen the media wrote all that crap about me it made him feel less important. Suddenly he was no longer the ‘main character’ in the hardcore metal scene.”

To this day, Vikernes maintains that he didn’t murder Aarseth. He’s stated, more than once, that he stabbed Aarseth in self defense, after learning that Aarseth had allegedly wanted to kill him. Again, as Vikernes writes at burzum.org: “His problem was that he included a few of the metal people in his plot to kill me, and they told me. He had told them because he trusted them, but obviously they had warmer feelings for me than for him, so to speak. At one point he phoned Snorre, who lived in my apartment, and Snorre let me listen to what Euronymous had to say. He told Snorre that ‘Varg must disappear for good’ and similar, confirming the plans others had told me about earlier.”

For his part, the more understated Ruch is no longer interested in discussing the events. As he told me, “There are enough silly speculations, personal opinions, and fantastic versions without me feeding the curiosity and gossip… The incidents might have given our music publicity, but not good [publicity]. Most Norwegian mass media is tabloid and they helped feed the fire with sensationalistic headlines. It just becomes boring that [this story] always turns up, as one has moved on for so long. One will always end up pigeonholed and misunderstood when trying to do something different.”

Since being imprisoned for murder, Vikernes has grown more outspoken and radically minded, long ago graduating from his early Satanist leanings to right-wing, anti-Semitic, and racialist views. He brushes off the accusations of Nazism, preferring to term himself an Odalist (though the Bergens Tidende does describe Nazi paraphernalia in Vikernes’s apartment back in 1993, during his Devil-worshipping phase). He’s also continued to occasionally release Burzum music, though the albums he’s recorded in prison tend to be more darkly ambient than marked by the explicit brutality of black metal. They’re also not that great.

*

Snorre Ruch and I met in a bar. He was with two of his friends. I was with one of mine. Before meeting, Snorre and I had corresponded via email, and he’d suggested this crowded corner pub close to his house. We each had a beer and discussed a mutual acquaintance as well as his collaborations with the artist Banks Violette (a collaboration that culminated in 2005 with an untitled salt sculpture representing a burnt church at the Whitney museum) before he said it was too loud in the bar—I agreed—and suggested we go back to his apartment. So we all bundled up and walked out into the snow.

As we trudged along the pathway, I started thinking about the gruesome stories in which he played supporting roles. Stories that the media fueled, yes, but that the Norwegian scene musicians have also willingly kept alive for years. Though I trusted Snorre, a part of me started wondering if we were suckers for accepting the invitation to his house. I knew he was a nice guy via our talks, and that he had been young (and somewhat clueless) when the murder happened, but still: You’re in Norway with an infamous ex-con black-metal musician who was present that bloody night when the myth of Norwegian black metal was born. (Also, I didn’t want to extend Vikernes’s anti-Semitism to the rest of the black-metal scene, but it should be mentioned that my cohort, another writer, was Jewish.)

Then again, Snorre seemed reformed. As he later told me: “I mostly get my kicks from the music, and as we are getting better at it, the need to go smearing cat blood on the local Christian community house is even less existent.” He also claimed that “black metal… is a true blessing for a fiery heart! It touches a universal nerve of spite. It is empowering, dark, destructive, and creative.” Yeah, we were sorta nervous.

After a ten-minute walk, we arrived at Snorre’s apartment. We entered, took off our shoes. It was a cozy, well-kept space with a couple Violette pieces on the wall, well-stocked bookshelves (Japanese lit, philosophy), and an intense home-studio computer setup. Snorre had already laid out various snacks for us (peanuts, pretzels, crackers), along with hash, red wine, and other drinks.

We listened to the British electronic band Nitzer Ebb awhile and then he played us the new—and at that time unreleased—Mayhem album Ordo Ad Chao.[1] We spent the night talking about the weather (cold), the past (only in general, hard-to-pin-down terms), and Ruch’s current project, Thorns, which he started in 1989. He’s released only one proper full-length album (self-titled, 2001), but it’s considered a seminal effort—an all-consuming, industrial-tinged, and claustrophobic slice of latter-day black metal. (I heard from him recently, and he said to expect the new, much-delayed Thorns album in 2009.)

Given how sweetly un-evil Snorre appeared to be, I found myself querying the infamous (and implicit) bad-assedness of Norwegian black-metal musicians. The murder of Aarseth, the aforementioned suicide of Mayhem vocalist Dead, the not aforementioned murder of a gay man in Lillehammer in 1992 by Emperor drummer Bård G. “Faust” Eithun (a one-time member of Thorns and currently in the thrash act Blood Tsunami and the lyricist for Zyklon), the dozens of church burnings perpetrated by various individuals between 1992 and 1996 (the cover of Burzum’s Aske EP is a photo of the torched Fantoft stave church), the grave desecrations, the obsession with Satanism that veered into racism and fascism among the more extreme crews, and the generally attendant ghoulishness (after Dead killed himself, the surviving members of Mayhem supposedly made necklaces out of his teeth and bones), are all essential to the Norwegian mythology upon which subsequent black-metal mythologies may (or may not) be based.[2] But at what point does a myth—even if it’s based on a real event—begin to more resemble a convenient fiction (or worse, an empty caricature), utilized by music writers and fans and the musicians themselves, to create easy cohesion and a sense of purpose? Are mythologies essential to the playing of “authentic” black-metal music? Is cohesion?

*

A common mistake made by the uninitiated listener is to conflate death metal and black metal. I’ve been at a few parties or dinners or whatever where someone has asked me to describe the difference between the two. To answer involves me trying to explain a blast beat, followed by vocal impressions of a death-metal vocalist (low, deep, guttural growling) vs. a black-metal vocalist (usually higher, wispy, wraithlike, and screeched). Admittedly, sometimes it can be like splitting hairs. Black metal’s gone through various shifts, but generally speaking, the guitars buzz, the drums are quick, the vocals shrieking, ghostly, and anguished. The early work had a particularly eerie, lo-fi sound. As the scene developed, and younger musicians mastered their instruments, the structures grew more complex. Black metal is generally not as straight-up technical as death; it’s usually more classically symphonic. (Of course, there are always exceptions, such as the early Floridian death-metal crew Morbid Angel, who created complex, epically sublime death constructions.)

Death metal started out in the States, Germany, and the UK, and was also a force early on in South America and Sweden. Carving out a space for black metal put Norway on the map musically. When fledgling black metal first appeared underground in the late ’80s, death metal was the dominant extreme metal mode. In fact, there was plenty of crossover between the scenes: for example, the Norwegian black-metal duo Darkthrone started out as a death-metal band. The difference between Darkthrone’s 1990 album Soulside Journey and 1992’s A Blaze in the Northern Sky elegantly illustrates the tipping point at which ex–death-metal bands embraced black metal’s more sinister visual aesthetic and primitive sound. There are exceptions, but in general, the death-metal musicians of that period eschewed black metal’s sartorial pageantry for basic dude-ish tracksuits and sneakers.

The British metal band Venom’s 1982 album Black Metal (and its grunting title track: “Black is the night, metal we fight / Power amps set to explode / Energy screams magic and dreams / Satan records their first note,” etc.) coined the term “black metal,” even though they were technically a more formative blend of doomy proto-thrash and speed metal (their “Satanic” image, though more of the theatrical stage-ready Mötley Crüe sort, was also essential). The First Wave of black metal (the aforementioned Venom along with the Danish band Mercyful Fate fronted by King Diamond, Sweden’s Bathory, and Switzerland’s Hellhammer, who later became Celtic Frost) influenced the future sound of black metal by laying down the general aesthetic and sonic template. Bathory’s lo-fidelity recordings, Satanic lyrics, and grim vocal style were especially important. Euronymous took his name from Hellhammer’s “Eurynomos” (and it’s pretty obvious where current Mayhem drummer Hellhammer scored his moniker).

The Second Wave of black metal, initiated by Aarseth and his Norwegian cohorts, technically began in the late ’80s after Mayhem set the mood with their Pure Fucking Armageddon demo (1986) and the Deathcrush EP (1987), but didn’t really flourish until the early ’90s.[3] It was the Second Wave that introduced corpse paint, weapons, and shadowy horror-film photos. Norway established and mastered the black-metal image—low-lit, highly ambient photographs of the dead-looking musicians standing in a cavernous basement or wintry Norwegian forest.

Today’s international black-metal scene, which to my ears is strongest in France, Eastern Europe, Canada, and the United States, could be seen as the Third Wave. Though there’s no clear date, you could say it started in the mid-’90s, when bands began upping their production values and, in some cases—like the Norwegian band Dimmu Borgir—heading toward a more arena-ready (and filling) sound.

But I focused earlier on the Second Wave because that period is most helpful when trying to explain the black metal coming out of the United States—or USBM, as some folks call it—because it’s impossible to understand USBM without touching on this pervasive mythology. Also, for all the attention Norway’s black metal scene has received since the early- to mid-’90s, Norway hasn’t been producing the best black metal in recent years. The majority of the older bands are no longer making as intense, grim, or fucked-up music as you can find elsewhere—as you can find, for example, in the U.S.

For a long time, the majority of black metal emerging from the States was seen as a joke. As recently as two years ago, I remember talking with European black-metal artists who snorted when I asked them about it. That’s part of what I like about American black metal—its scruffy underdog nature. More compelling, though, is the music itself, its inventiveness and eccentricity and, most importantly, the feeling that it hasn’t crested or stagnated.[4]

No one agrees exactly on the genesis or roots of USBM. New York’s Profanatica, formed in 1990 by three former members of the death-metal band Incantation, is often cited by other black-metal musicians as a seminal USBM band. Their death-tinged sound is raw, hissing, and lo-fi, and they have song titles like “Raping of Angels” and “Final Hour of Christ.” They broke up in 1992.[5] Another of the first American black-metal bands of note is San Francisco’s Von, a guttural, minimalist, especially scrappy, tiny-sounding crew who formed in 1989. They received early international props when Vikernes wore one of their shirts during an interview/murder trial session and contributed to their mythology when he was asked to spell the band’s name and he replied, “Victory, Orgasm, Nazi.”[6]

Another important early USBM group, Judas Iscariot, the project of Andrew Harris (a.k.a. Egyptian-inspired Akhenaten), focused on nihilistic, anti-Christian, and anti-capitalist themes, and laid down a smoother, often slower, atmospheric, and more depressive template that’s been picked up by various current one-man USBM acts. Harris spread USBM further abroad than most early practitioners, gaining respect from European fans. More philosophical than some of the other early USBM acts, he has a song titled “Nietzsche,” and formed the band in 1992 in DeKalb, Illinois, initially under the name Heidegger. He kept the project going until 2002, after which he retired from music.[7]

However, it’s the current crop of American black-metal bands that have really found a voice. These USBM bands, hailing from vastly different cultures and geographies, have managed to latch on to different sounds without diluting their defining brutality (and beauty). The 2008 record Massive Conspiracy Against All Life by California-based Jef Whitehead (a.k.a. Wrest, of one-man band Leviathan) sees an intense blend of warped atmospherics, death riffs, huge drums, and a warbling, at times throaty, Eastern-tinged howl—it’s like returning in ways to the early sounds of Profanatica or Judas Iscariot, but layering it fathomlessly with all the developments that have happened since.

Then there’s the chaotic punch-drunk tenor of Bahimiron’s especially witchy, overlapping, blown-out vocalisms. Another Texas band, Averse Sefira, infuses a personal cosmology and occultism into their pummeling, full-band black metal. Then there are those like the rawer Chicago black-metal duo Cult of Daath, whose dual vocalizing hits with more of a death-metal growl. If My Bloody Valentine was a black-metal band, they might sound like the “eco-fascist,” tongue-in-cheek tricksters Velvet Cacoon (who recently told me they moved to Prague to live the lives of decadent Satanists, but it’s hard to tell if they were fucking with me). Buffalo one-man band Wrath of the Weak talks about the importance of the western New York landscape; his music sounds like a blizzard. Olympia, Washington trio Wolves in the Throne Room focus on a back-to-nature lifestyle and perform psychedelic shoe-gaze black metal, anchored here and there by a folky, ethereal female singer who cuts the harshness of the black-metal vocals in a Jarboe/Swans style. The Chicago group Nachtmystium, fronted by Blake Judd, shifted from their early black-by-the-numbers sounds to a psychedelic, Floydian form of post–black metal.[8]

Another aspect of USBM is the crossover between straight-up free-noise: New York’s Dominick Fernow, of the one-man power electronics project Prurient, performs in the black-metal duo Ash Pool, and avant-garde guitarist Mick Barr of Orthrelm sings and plays guitar in the New York–based black-metal band Krallice.

Maybe the biggest name in USBM, though not the most interesting, is Scott Conner, a.k.a. Malefic, who records as Xasthur. Sticking to the icy, candelabra-lit feel of Burzum or Judas Iscariot, he tosses additional claustrophobic layers into the fire. His most interesting accessory is his voice—he comes off like the ghost of a strangulated raven.

Southern Lord, a label run by Greg Anderson of Sunn O))), has helped certain American black-metal bands cross into indie-rock realms. These are the bigger names like Xasthur, Leviathan, and Leviathan’s other project, Lurker of Chalice. Most interesting and strange for such a solitary genre is Twilight, a sort of USBM supergroup made up of Xasthur, Leviathan, Nachtmystium, and Krieg—though they hate the term “supergroup” and its rock-and-roll ramifications.

Supergroups are, of course, very American.

All that said, the problem with claiming USBM as a genre is that you’ll find a lot of the musicians who practice it denying that the genre exists. Of course, this is a common reaction most artists have when a pigeonholing takes place. But especially in the case of black metal, to claim a genre and therefore genre tropes and overlaps of sound and influence is to claim a cultural uniformity to our country that is geographically impossible. Many of the participants see USBM as a marketing term—again, the outsiders who make up the black-metal genre inherently reject such sloganeering.

You could say one of the biggest influences exerted by the early Norwegians on USBM might be an anxiety surrounding the need to have a mythology under cultural circumstances that prevent it. For instance, how important is it that there is no mythological “bloody night” for USBM, no Varg vs. Euronymous drama to mark its dark impact on the world? Does this make the music any less authentic by comparison, or vapid, or poseury?

In some regards, USBM emerged as a reaction to and against Norwegian black metal, similar to the way Mayhem and company originally rejected, and tried to find something more extreme and underground than the death-metal scene. In the brutal, noisier strains of USBM, where the real-life coefficients of church burnings and murders aren’t as integral to the music, the sound itself has become harsher and more death-like. It’s more private and less theatrical. (Some of the best—for instance the aforementioned Wrest of Leviathan, and Lurker of Chalice—are Pynchon-like when it comes to publicity.) It feels more punk. The music’s also drawing from a greater array of influences.[9]

And, as Blake Judd of Nachtmystium told me: “I just feel that those bands are marketed for what has happened outside of the music, not so much involving the music. Like ‘Oh, church burning and murder and [Gorgoroth vocalist] Gaahl kills or tortures guys,’ but the last Gorgoroth album was weak as shit. Who cares what he does, if he’s a criminal? There’s guys selling crack in Chicago that are scarier to me than that guy.”

Perhaps there’s no need for a gory mythology when we have the daily reality. We live in a place, unlike Norway, by and large, where actual killing is happening both domestically and abroad, to Americans or perpetrated by Americans. Is it possible, then, that actual death—and destruction of buildings and whole countries—could be seen, in the current political context, as less radical than simply dreaming about it?

Those who view USBM as inauthentic tend to do so because America seems an unlikely place for the icy, grim strains of black metal to flourish. But as the U.S. dollar continues its nosedive, our black-metal impulses become validated. We’ve become a nation of scrappy, lo-fi underdogs. Have you ever tried to buy a dinner in Norway (one of the wealthiest countries in the world) with converted U.S. currency? When I’ve been there, I can only afford to eat in convenience stores. So much of the history of Norwegian black metal is just that—history. While Americans are often accused of lacking a history, we more than compensate for that lack with our bleak view of the future.


Continue to our excerpt of this article’s companion piece,
“A Brief Oral History of U.S. Black Metal” »


__________

1. At this point, the only remaining original Mayhem member is bassist Necrobutcher. Mayhem’s current vocalist, the Hungarian Attila Csihar, who’d previously recorded the classic 1994 album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas with the band, has collaborated with Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley on sound pieces for Banks Violette sculptural installations at Team and Gladstone galleries, etc.

2. Most influential in molding recent thoughts about the Norwegian scene is Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind. Part oral history, part tabloid, and definitely pushing the soap-opera angle over the music itself, it includes crime-scene photos of the bloody bodies and torched churches. Published in 1998, the book is in its second printing and is reportedly being adapted for film. Supposedly, the White Stripes’ Jack White wanted to play the part of the murdered Aarseth. The book takes its name from a group of six Florida teenagers, calling themselves the Lords of Chaos, who went on a crime spree from April 12 to April 30, 1996, in Fort Myers, burning, exploding, robbing, car-jacking, and generally terrorizing the area. (They wrote a manifesto titled “Declaration of War: Formal Introduction of Lords of Chaos,” which outlined their crimes, warning folks to “be prepared for destruction of biblical proportions, for this is the coming of a NEW GOD, whose fiery hand shall lay waste to the populace.”) The wilding culminated in the shotgun murder of their high school band director, Mark Schwebes, after he’d caught them outside their school with materials—including canned peaches—they’d intended to use to vandalize it. Key members of the group were arrested a few days later. The Lords of Chaos are the subject of Someone Has to Die Tonight, a true-crime book by Jim Greenhill. Their leader, Kevin Foster, a.k.a. “God,” was into Timothy McVeigh, not black metal.

3. The focus of this piece so far has been on Norway, but Swedish bands like Marduk and Dissection, and the Finnish band Beherit, are also essential to the development of black metal. Not to be outdone by their Norwegian colleagues, Dissection vocalist/guitarist Jon Nödtveidt was imprisoned in 1998 for helping to kill a gay man and killed himself in 2006.

4. Some people say that the introduction of upfront synthesizers led to the end of the Second Wave, but it’s more likely that the original Second Wave bands just lost steam.

5. Original member Paul Ledney reformed the group in 2001 with two new members. He’s also managed to continue his longstanding one-man black-metal band Havohej.

6. Von existed during a time when the West Coast was inundated with thrash metal (see early Metallica, Megadeth, Overkill). They’ve exerted an international influence: The Swedish black-metal band Watain named themselves after a Von song. Vikernes also helped distribute Von’s Satanic Blood demo (the album came out in 1992).

7. Other early groups include Absu (who have remained active), Demoncy (formed in 1989 by Profanitica guitarist Ixithra), the aforementioned Havohej (Jehovah backwards), Black Witchery, the now-defunct racialist-leaning Grand Belial’s Key (and the related, still-active death-metal act Arghoslent), Black Funeral, Crucifier, Acheron, Demonic Christ, and Goatlord. In 2004, Demoncy went on the “USBM Attack 2004” European tour with the NJ one-man band Krieg. The San Francisco progressive black-metal group Weakling, who released Dead as Dreams on tUMULt in 2000, is time and again cited as an entranceway for younger participants in the scene.

8. In ’07 they signed to the larger label Century Media and released Assassins: Black Meddle, Pt. 1 in June ’08. The title Black Meddle is a play on Pink Floyd and black metal. Says vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Blake Judd, “The ‘Black Meddle’ thing is a number of inside jokes. Mainly, the whole Floyd comparison… it’s a shot at their album Meddle, but at the same time… the word meddle carries its own meaning. So it’s a bit of a joke on us ‘meddling’ with black metal. Nice that it can be a total Floyd hark and a smart-ass joke at the same time.”

9. As Neill Jameson, a.k.a. Imperial of Krieg, put it: “We were one of the first geographical groups to really tie in non–black metal inspiration, like my covers of the Velvet Underground/The Stooges, etc., Leviathan/Lurker of Chalice’s Joy Division and Black Flag influences and covers, Nachtmystium’s interest in psychedelics and more blues-based ideas, etc.”

Brandon Stosuy blogs at Stereogum and writes a metal column at Pitchfork. “Formulas Fatal To The Flesh,” his essay for Matthew Barney’s exhibition at Sammlung Goetz this past fall, was named after a Morbid Angel album, though he doesn’t think the gallery realized it. He’s currently at work on a book-length oral history of non-Scandinavian black metal.
Photograph of D. from Vrolok, in 2004, by Joshua Heckathorn.

Upcoming Gig Worthy of Mentioning

This Saturday, the 25th of November, U.S. grindcore band Pig Destroyer (currently on Relapse Records) will be performing live in Sydney at The Gaelic Club thanks to Heathen Skulls booking agent/independent record label. Pig Destroyer will be performing at a few other places around Australia and New Zealand during this time, so click on the scaled-down poster above to see when they're playing.

Joining them in Sydney, amongst others, will be Melbourne's wonderful noise-trio Grey Daturas and Sydney's Crux. A show not to be missed. Get off your asses and purchase tickets, this is going to be great!



(Sydney show)

Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers' Bloom

Pioneering modern ambient composer/musician/producer Brian Eno has teamed up with Peter Chilvers (who also worked on video-game Spore with Brian Eno) an an interactive Apple iPhone/iPod touch application called Bloom [App Store]. Here is Apple's description of the application:

Developed by ambient pioneer Brian Eno and musician / software designer Peter Chilvers, Bloom explores uncharted terriotry in the realm of applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. Part instrument, part composition and part artwork, Bloom's innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen. A generative music player takes over when Bloom is left idle, creeating an infinite selection of compositions and their accompanying visualisations.

"Bloom is an endless music machine, a music box for the 21st century. You can play it, and you can watch it play itself." - Brian Eno

Features

- 9 different mood settings
- Random mood shuffle
- Adjustable delay
- Shake to clear
- Evolve when idle

Here's a video demonstrating how it works:



I've been playing around with this application this afternoon, and it's a lot of fun. At AU$4.99 or US$4, it's definitely worth a try.



Since we're talking about Brian Eno, I might as well remind everyone of his recent collaboration with Talking Heads front-man David Byrne called Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, self-released with the help of Topsipn. I highly recommend that you purchase this record for a few reasons. While the music is great (one of the best rock records to be released this year) for the most part, you should purchase a copy as a way of supporting their release method.

Stanley Kubrick, 2001 and Gyorgy Ligeti

Below the header of the blog, I've included a quotation from Stanley Kubrick, "To 'explain' a Beethoven symphony would be to emasculate it by erecting an artificial barrier between conception and appreciation". This has been lifted from a lengthy interview that he did with Playboy Magazine in 1968 or 1969 just after the release of his mammoth of a film 2001: A Space Odyssey. At this point in his career, Kubrick had refused to try to tell people what he thinks his work "means", partly because it's kind of an absurd thing to do, and for the most part because he thought his film, 2001: A Space Odyessy, was filled with deep philosophical and emotional content that penetrated audience's subconscious rather than appeal to their intellect. But Kubrick also foresaw that completely bypassing intellectual discourse is a rather pretentious idea, and agreed that there would be a large amount of thoughts and ideas about the film passed around through discussions, articles, and whatnot, but only second to the experience of the film itself.

Kubrick made quite a few really valid points through this interview, one of them being comparing his works of film with music, stating that "to 'explain' a Beethoven symphony would be to emasculate it by erecting an artificial barrier between conception and appreciation". I've been trying for the past few days to find a copy of the full transcript, because it offers some really interesting points and insight into Kubrick's oeuvre, but I've had no luck as of yet, and I will post it up to Rollaroll as soon as I can.

Since we're discussing music in some capacity, I think I might point out the obvious which is to state that Kubrick's use of music in 2001: A Space Odyssey was enormously influential. I recently saw Pixar's WALL·E, a visually amazing sort of post-apocalyptic space-age animation, and it was amazing to see that 40 years later, Johann Strauss' The Beautiful Blue Danube and Richard Strauss' Also Spake Zarathustra were being used as part of the score, alluding to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which really popularised both of those pieces within popular culture. I think one of the major achievements of Kubrick's score, however, is his use of compositions by Jewish-Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who recently passed away. His micropolyphonic works are some of the most creepy, absorbing, consuming pieces of music I have ever heard.



If you have never heard anything by Ligeti, I recommend that you start with the following; a four CD boxset of his works from everything from compositions for piano, horns, orchestra, and so on. Released in 2006 on Deutsche Grammophon, shortly after the death of Ligeti, this boxset aimed to commemorate the work of this wonderful late 20th Century composer, as well as bring together his complete recordings for this label. Download it here and make sure you purchase the record from Amazon or other places if you really enjoy it.

Introduction

While starting a new blog should be the least of my priorities at the moment, I've found it more and more difficult to talk about music as much as I would like to on my other two blogs: My personal blog should be updated more frequently with what I've been doing at the moment, and my Spreading Like Wings blog is all about The Dillinger Escape Plan. It just felt right to make a new blog for the purpose of talking about music (new or old) that I find interesting to some extent. I'll be offering articles on music and downloads of records to accompany what I've written. Please note that by offering the records for download, I am distributing them as "fair use" for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and any music will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). If you enjoy the music you find on this blog I recommend you support the artist through means of purchasing their music (unless of course, they are on a RIAA-stained major label), attending their shows when they are in your area, and by purchasing merchandise. For my position on the state of music today, read Rob Sheridan's - currently the art director for Nine Inch Nails - widespread article "When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide".


Cover photograph by Keith Morris

So firstly, for those of you who haven't already picked up the reference, the title of my blog, Rollaroll, is taken from the title of a John Cale song from his fifth record Slow Dazzle (1975). It also alludes to one of my favorite magazines at the moment, Rock-A-Rolla, which makes excellent coverage on everything new and exciting in the worlds of experimental/avant-garde rock, metal, rap and so on, and with a focus on independent and DIY labels like Ipecac, Southern Lord, Ecstatic Peace, Chocolate Monk, etc., live music, and album reviews. It's a beautiful publication, so there's really no excuse not to go out and purchase a copy.

If you haven't as of yet heard Slow Dazzle, you can download it from Rollaroll at this location. Slow Dazzle was released on Island Records, which is an RIAA-affiliate record label, so I suggest that rather than purchase this album that you support John Cale by other means, including buying merchandise.

I thought it was fitting to begin this blog with a John Cale reference, seeing how his work with the Velvet Underground (especially their records The Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat) is, to me, some of the most exciting stuff to have ever come out of rock and roll. Depending on how well this blog picks up, I hope to be able to include some exclusive material such as interviews and so on, but I think I'll be taking this one step at a time.