Melancology: Black Metal Theory Symposium II

 

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Programme

12.30-1pm
Registration

1pm
Scott Wilson, ‘Introduction to Melancology’

1.15
Nicola Masciandaro, ‘Wormsign’
Aspasia Stephanou, "Black Sun-Blank Metal Perversion".
Drew Daniel, 'Towards the Re-Occultation of Black Blood'

2.15
Amelia Ishmael, ‘Metal’s Formless Presence in Contemporary Art’
Ben Woodard, ‘Irreversible Sludge: Troubled Energetics, Eco-purification and Self-Inhumanization’
Reza Negarestani, ‘_________’

Brief Drinking Break

3.30
Steven Shakespeare, ‘A Machine for Breaking Gods: Unity, Nature and Ritual in US Black Metal’
Liviu Mantescu, ‘Suddenly, life lost new meaning: Melancology as another new age metaphor for transcendental encounters’
Dominik Irtenkauf, ‘To the Mountains or: rocking against melancholy. The implications of black metal's geophilosophy’

4.30
Elliot A. Jarbe, ‘Beyond Melancology: Hüzüncology and the Thymotic’
Hager Weslati, ‘Going to Hell in Northern Deserts’
Evan Calder Williams, ‘The hot wet breath of extinction’

5.30
Eugene Thacker, ‘Sound of the Abyss’

6.15
The Black Buffet and longer drinking break

8pm
Niall Scott, ‘Blackening the Green: concluding remarks and Introduction to Abgott’

8.15 Abgott (Live performance)

Throughout the day:
Mark Patrick Oughton, ‘’Visions of Kali: Attack Sustain Release’ (Video installation)

MELANCOLOGY

‘Earthly thought embraces perishability (i.e. cosmic contingency) as its immanent core …. such perishability … grasps the openness of Earth towards the cosmic exteriority not in terms of concomitantly vitalistic / necrocratic correlations (as the Earth’s relationship with the Sun) but alternative ways of dying and loosening into the cosmic abyss … The only true terrestrial ecology is the one founded on the unilateral nature of cosmic contingency against which there is no chance of resistance – there are only opportunities for drawing schemes of complicity ... Hence, the Cartesian dilemma, “What course in life shall I follow?” should be bastardized as “Which way out shall I take?”’ -- Reza Negarestani, ‘Solar Infernal and the earthbound Abyss’

Black metal irrupts from a place already divested of nature, a site of extinction, ‘a place empty of life / Only dead trees …’ (Mayhem, ‘Funeral Fog’, 1992); ‘Our skies are forever black / Here is no signs of life at all’ (Deathspell Omega, ‘From Unknown Lands of Desolation’, 2005). As such black metal could be described as a negative form of environmental writing; the least Apollonian of genres, it is terrestrial – indeed subterranean and infernal – inhabiting a dead forest that is at once both mythic and real unfolding along an atheological horizon that marks the limit of absolute evil where there are no goods or resources to distribute and therefore no means of power and domination, a mastery of nothing.

A new word is required that conjoins ‘black’ and ‘ecology’: melancology, a word in which can be heard the melancholy affect appropriate to the conjunction. A new word implies a new concept and we know from Deleuze and Guattari that concepts have to fulfil three criteria. Accordingly, the plane of immanence of melancology is extinction and non-being. All things are destined for extinction; immanent to all being is the irreducible fact of its total negation without reserve or remainder. The development of the characteristics of melancology is to be addressed at the Symposium, of course, but there are already a number of apophasic determinations: it is not ecology, it is anorganic; it is not political economy, it is anti-instrumental; it is not love of nature, environmentalism, Gaia, geophilosophy … But it implies an ethos and a style that delineates the third aspect of the concept, its embodiment in a conceptual personae: the black metal kvltist whose ethos runs across the spectrum of melancholy from bile and rage to sorrow, depression and the delectation of evil all the better to affirm the desolation s/he contemplates in the sonorous audibility of black metal’s sovereign dissonance.

This environment of absolute evil is exactly the same as the absolute good of black metal itself: the expenditure of a sonic drive that propels a blackened self-consciousness, a melancological consciousness without object that is the necessary prior condition to any speculation on or intervention in the environment.

The Black Metal Theory Symposium thus invites speculation and interventions on the blackening of the earth, landscapes of extinction, starless aeon, sempiternal nightmares, black horizons, malign essences, Qliphothic forces from beyond … in a general re-conceptualization of black ecology.

Details and registration HERE.

Black Metal Theory in HIS Voice

The latest issue of Czech music magazine HIS Voice features an article by Karel Veselý on Black Metal Theory. Dominic Fox's Cold World and Hideous Gnosis are discussed.

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Ein Essay zur bewussten Umnachtung -- Black Metal-Theorie by Dominik Irtenkauf

@ Textem

Black Metal Theory on Expanding Mind

Erik Davis, Maja D'Aoust, Eugene Thacker, and Nicola Masciandaro talk Black Metal Theory.

Hideous Gnosis featured in Miasma Magazine

 

http://www.miasma.org/uusinlehti/

Black metalin pelottava tieto

– Voiko black metalista puhua teoreettisesti?

Joonas Tanskanen

Kuvat: Nicola Masciandaro

”Black metalin soundi on kuultavissa teoriana.”

”Black metal on sisäisesti ristiriitainen, paradoksaalisesti yhtä aikaa ei mitään muuta ja kokonaan toinen kuin musiikki jota se on.”

”Odotan mielenkiinnolla herättääkö kirja kiinnostusta tutkijoissa, jotka eivät muuten ole kiinnostuneita black metalista.”

Mitä tapahtuu, kun kasa akateemikkoja laatii pinon tekstejä black metalista? Jos tahtoo tietää vastauksen, kannattaa hankkia käsiinsä kirja Hideous Gnosis.

Muutamia kuukausia sitten kirjamarkkinoille ilmestyi mielenkiintoinen black metalia käsittelevä opus Hideous Gnosis – Black Metal Theory Symposium. Nimensä mukaisesti kirja on syntynyt viime vuoden joulukuussa järjestetyn black metal -symposiumin myötä. Kirja dokumentoi symposiumissa vaihdettuja ajatuksia kolmentoista esseen ja muutamien muiden dokumenttien ja liitteiden voimin.

Otin yhteyttä kirjan toimittaneeseen, Brooklynin yliopistossa työskentelevään Nicola Masciandaroon ja pyysin häntä kertomaan tarkemmin kirjasta ja näkemyksistään black metalin teoriasta. Kristallisesta kirkkaudesta häntä ei voida syyttää, koska mies verhosi monet vastauksensa erikoiseen mystiikkaan.

Black metal -symposiumi

Hideous Gnosiksen tekstit muodostavat hajanaisen kokonaisuuden. Monesti tekstit lähestyvät black metalia hyvin erilaisista lähtökohdista. Aihetta tarkastellaan estetiikan, politiikan, symboliikan, maantieteellisyyden jne. kautta. Aina ei puhuta puhtaasti black metalista, kuten esimerkiksi Eugene Thackerin kirjan loppupuolella olevassa pitkässä esseessä Three Questions on Demonology, joka on mielenkiintoinen kirjoitus demonologian historiasta, demonien luonteesta ja siitä, miten demonit voidaan lopulta ymmärtää.

Yksi puute kirjassa on, ettei se pidä sisällään selvää johdantoa, jossa kerrottaisiin tarkemmin sen syntyhistoriasta. Siksi tahdonkin, että herra Masciandaro selvittää haastattelun aluksi black metal -symposiumin ja sen pohjalta syntyneen kirjan taustoja.

– Kirja perustuu black metalin teoriaa käsitelleeseen symposiumiin, jonka järjestäjänä olin viime vuonna. Hideous Gnosis on kokoelma tapahtumaan liittyneitä papereita ja dokumentteja. Se esittelee laajan otoksen näkökulmia ja käsittelee hyvin erilaisia aiheita aina telluurisesta ideologiasta apokalyptiseen humanismiin.

Masciandarolle black metal ja sen teoria on eräänlaista alkemiaa, prima materian eli ”mustan materian” esiin tuomista ja yhden tekemistä joksikin toiseksi.

– Symposiumin perusajatuksena oli synnyttää teoreettinen diskurssi, joka ei kohtele black metalia vain akateemisen ja teoreettisen ymmärryksen objektina tai fanityylisen tunnepohjaisen ihailun kohteena. Diskurssin lähtökohtana on pikemminkin sekoittaa raja black metalin ja teorian välillä. Viittaan tähän Black Metal Theory -blogissani seuraavin sanoin: ”Ei black metal, ei teoria, ei epä- black metal, ei epä-teoria, vaan black metal -teoria, teoreettinen metallin mustaksi maalaaminen, metallinen teorian mustaksi maalaaminen. Molemminpuolinen mustuminen”.

– Black metal -teorian etsiminen on jonkin kolmannen etsimistä, jotain joka syntyy black metalin ja teorian vuorovaikutuksesta. Eräässä mielessä se on jotain uutta, mutta toisaalta se on jonkin jo olemassa olevan (teorian ja black metalin) aktualisointia. Kirjan tarkoituksena on luoda jotain uutta tästä parivaljakosta. Näyttää siltä, että black metal on ajattelun muoto ja teoria on musiikin muoto selvästi havaittavassa paikassa. Se, että tämä paikka on vaikea ymmärtää sekä akateemikoille että metallifaneille, vain alleviivaa projektin tärkeyttä. Tätä aihetta käsitellään myös useissa kirjan teksteissä. Jos black metal on sotaa, niin black metal -teoria ei ole teoriaa sodasta, vaan teoriaa sotana. Se on taistelukenttä molemminpuolisille valtauksille musiikin ja filosofian välillä.

– Tämän lähtökohdan jälkeen projekti löysi pikku hiljaa oman auransa ja alkoi elämään omaa hämärää elämäänsä. Nimi Hideous Gnosis on lainattu Caïnan samannimisestä kappaleesta, joka ilmaisee jonkinlaisen negatiivisen ilmestyksen Jumalan katoamisesta tai kuolemasta: “I've seen demons / And I've been shown things that no-one should see / And I know why birds alight from cables with no-one beneath / Who's on the side of the angels / Who's on the side of Satan / God's not there anymore / I know why birds fly / No-one's there anymore”.

– Loppujen lopuksi minulle kirjassa tärkeintä oli sen tekeminen, eikä niinkään saavuttaa jokin selvä ja yhtenäinen lopputulos. Kirjan esseet puhukoot itse itsestään.

Black metaliin kätkeytyvää pelottavaa gnosista tai tietoa Masciandaro kuvailee hyvin hämärin sanoin:

– Black metalin gnosis on jotain, jota voi verrata David Lynchin elokuvassa Dyyni olevaan kojeeseen nimeltä Weirding Module. Black metal toimii kuin ylösalaisin käännetty ”vieraaksitekemiskone”. Weirding Module vahvistaa ajatuksen äänen tuhoisaksi voimaksi, mutta black metal kääntää antagonistisen energiansa ajatuksen ääneksi. Tämä ajatus ei ole käsite tai merkitys, vaan näkökulma johonkin joka säteilee tietynlaista pelkoa, siis kätkettyä gnosista. Tämä on kaiken sisäänsä sulkevaa pelkoa, se aistii kaikkialle tunkeutuvan omituisen tyynen ontologisen paniikin. Tämä kokemus edellyttää erilaisia mielikuvituksen muotoja ja spekulatiivisia näkyjä. Kuten näky, jossa koko maailmankaikkeus palaa, palaa ja palaa, ja kaikki oleva palaa siinä samalla, tai, kuten katkaistujen päiden valtava pyramidi, jonka on koonnut kosmisen yön mahtava valloittaja.

Antagonismin taide

Yksi kirjan mielenkiintoisimmista osuuksista on Benjamin Noysin kirjoittama Remain True to Earth, jossa Noys tarkastelee Peste Noiresta tutun Sale Faminen maailmankuvaa, jonka mies itse linjaa esteettispoliittiseksi oikeistolaismieliseksi radikalismiksi. Faminen ajatusten lukeminen on mielenkiintoista jo itsessään. Miehen ajattelun lähtökohtana on, että black metal ei voi koskaan olla olemassa abstraktissa muodossa, vaan aina tiettyyn paikkaan ja aikaan sidottuna. Tällainen alueellisuus on konkreettista ja todellista, poissa modernin maailman luomista, kapitalismin ja demokratian hämärtämistä abstrakteista käsitteistä. Esseessään Noys pyrkii selvittämään, missä mielessä black metalin estetiikka voi olla poliittista, vai onko black metal luonteeltaan liian paradoksaalinen, jotta sen yhteydessä voitaisiin puhua selvästä poliittisuudesta.

Hideous Gnosis -kirjan näkyvimpänä teemana voikin pitää tavoitetta valaista black metalin antagonistista mutta myös paradoksaalista luonnetta, ja samalla kysyä, miten black metalia voidaan määrittää ja onko se edes mahdollista. Antagonismia on vaikea purkaa teoriaksi, koska silloin se menettää helposti antagonistisen luonteensa. Elinvoimainen vastakulttuuri on aina haltuun ottamatonta ja määrittelemätöntä. Sitä ei voi kahlita ulkopuolelta tuleviin määritelmiin.

Masciandaro pohtii ongelmaa myös omassa esseessään Anti-Cosmosis; hänelle black metal on antikosmos ja kaaos ja samalla selvän diskurssin vastakohta. Voidaanko tällöin siis edes puhua black metalin teoriasta? Onko teoria jotain joka invalidisoisi koko genren, jotain joka on vastakkaista koko genren luonteelle?

Masciandaro selvittää näkökantaansa:

– Uskon, että black metalin teoriasta puhuminen on samaan aikaan mahdollista, mutta myös mahdotonta. Tietenkin on oltava toisistaan eroavia teorioita siitä, mitä black metal on, ei vain siksi, että ihmisen luonteeseen kuuluu asioiden teoretisointi, vaan koska black metal on luonteeltaan vahvan teoreettista. Black metalilla on soundi, mutta tämä soundi on ainoastaan kuultavissa, kun korvasi täyttyvät black metalista; ei vain siksi, että black metalilla on vahva yleinen idea joka tekee siitä tunnistettavan, vaan ennen kaikkea koska soundi tuottaa teoreettisia näkemyksiä kuuntelijassa. Toisin sanoen black metalin soundi on kuultavissa teoriana. Tämä johtuu osin siitä, että black metal on musiikin muoto, jossa ero äänen ja merkityksen välillä on samaan aikaan voimakkaasti maksimoitu ja minimalisoitu.

– Black metal on sisäisesti immanentti, joka ylittää minkä tahansa merkityksen. Se on pure fucking metal, jotain joka valtaa mielesi ja sielusi. Toisaalta black metal on riippuvainen niistä ideoista, jotka määrittävät sitä. Black metal on sisäisesti ristiriitainen, paradoksaalisesti yhtä aikaa ei mitään muuta ja kokonaan toinen kuin musiikki jota se on. Kuunnellessa sitä kuullaan käsite, ei yksityiskohtainen ja systemaattinen, vaan revitty ja hajanainen, tavalla joka pitää sen elinvoimaisempana. Black metal kiduttaa ideaa, logosta, huutonsa äänellä se luo ilmestyksen, joka ylittää kaiken tiedon ja havainnot itsestään. Black metalin ideat eivät ole selvästi musiikin esiin tuotavissa. Voidaan sanoa, että black metal ei ole asia, vaan funktio joka asettaa ihmiset kammottavaan ja ekstaattiseen suhteeseen ajattelun ja olemassa olon ykseyden kanssa.

– On olemassa myös ihmisiä, jotka tahtovat tämän suhteen pysyvän yksityisenä ja yleisesti tiedostamattomana. Heidän mukaansa black metal, kuten todellinen rakkaus, on jotain josta ei voida eikä myöskään saa puhua, aivan kuten puhe rikkoisi tai saastuttaisi sen olemuksen. Eräässä mielessä he ovat oikeassa, sikäli kun he tukeutuvat välttämättömään eroon sen välillä, mitä voidaan sanoa ja mikä voidaan ainoastaan näyttää, ja syvällisemmin mikä voidaan nimetä ja mikä ei. Mutta suurimmaksi osaksi ihmiset ovat tätä mieltä, koska he ovat kapeakatseisia ja tavoittelevat egoistista ja materialistista hyötyä.

– Vastakohtaisesti tahdon löytää black metalille teorian, en selittämällä mitä black metal on tai olemalla asiantuntija, joka tahtoo paljastaa sen salaisuudet, vaan haluan mieluummin nähdä black metalin vahvistavana taiteena ja ennen kaikkea sekoittaa eroa black metalin ja teorian välillä.

Uusi vastaan Vanha manner

Kirjassa on paljon keskustelua eurooppalaisen ja pohjoisamerikkalaisen black metalin erosta sekä toisen aallon skandinaavisen black metalin ja 2000-luvun black metalin suhteesta. Itse laitoin lukijana merkille sen, että kirjoittajien näkökulmat ovat useissa kirjan teksteissä hyvin Amerikka-keskeisiä.

Hunter Hunt-Hendrix jakaa esseessään Transcendental Black Metal black metalin kahteen kehitysjaksoon kuvaillen molempia hyvin nietzscheläisin käsittein. Ensin oli hyperborean black metal, jolla hän tarkoittaa skandinaavista black metalia. Sitä hallitsi blastbeat ja se edustaa kuolemaa ja negatiivista surkastumista. Toinen, ja hänen mukaansa kehittyneempi taso on transcendental black metal, jolla hän kutsuu Amerikan mantereella syntynyttä uudempaa black metal -aaltoa. Transsendentaalia black metalia hallitsee ”burstbeat” ja se edustaa elämää ja liikakasvua vastakohtana surkastumiselle. Se tahtoo muuttaa nihilismin affirmaatioksi, antaa black metalille uuden kehittyneemmän muodon. Transsendentaali black metal on jatkuvaa intensiteettiä, burstbeat ei koskaan saavu minnekään, se on aina vain melkein perillä, kun taas blastbeat on muuttumaton, vailla loppua, alkua tai dynamiikkaa. Transsendentaalinen black metal vahvistaa elämää ja myöntää elämän, se johtaa jatkuvaan kasvuun, ei staattisuuteen ja surkastumiseen.

Vanhan ja Uuden mantereen eroja setvitään myös Brandon Stosuyon kokoamassa keskustelussa Meaningful Leaning Mess, jossa useat tunnetut amerikkalaiset black metal -aktiivit keskustelevat oman mantereensa musiikista ja siitä, mitä tarkoitetaan käsitteellä USBM ja onko se edes relevantti käsite.

Masciandaro esittää oman näkemyksensä mantereiden välisistä eroista:

– Oma historiallinen käsitykseni genrestä ei ole kaikenkattava. Tämä näyttää olevan hyvin amerikkalainen piirre – heikko historiakäsitys, ymmärryksen puute kronologisista välttämättömyyksistä, kohtuuton ja naiivi tunne omaan napaan keskittyneistä oikeuksista… – joten en tiedä osaanko täysin vastata kysymykseen.

– Pohjoisamerikkalainen black metal on vahvan synkreettistä. Amerikkalaiset metallistit näyttävät etsivän enemmän harmoniaa kuin ristiriitaa. Jos eurooppalaisen black metalin tavoitteet ovat antikirkollisia ja fasistisia, niin amerikkalainen black metal tavoittelee spiritualiteettia ja epäpoliittisuutta, tavoite joka näyttää johtaneen selvästi merkille pantavaan isolationismiin ja lukuisten sooloartistien, kuten Judas Iscariot, Leviathan, Sapthuran, Xasthur ja Woe, esiintuloon. Tämä on hyvin karkea yleistys ja toivotan kaikki vasta-argumentit tervetulleiksi.

– Uskon, että tällä hetkellä on olemassa virtaus kohti uudenlaista yhteisöllisyyttä ja uudenlaisia tapahtumia: halu muuttaa black metalia viihteenä. Mahtava Gathering of Shadows -tapahtuma, joka järjestettiin Kalliovuorten metsissä, on iskevä esimerkki esoteerisesta ”punaniskamystiikasta”. Amerikasta löytyy myös taiteellisia urbaaneja tapahtumia, kuten Woldin äskettäinen esiintyminen Mathew Barneyn varastostudiolla jossa keikkaa edelsi painiottelu ja nietzscheläinen saarna.

Millaiseen kontekstiin sitten asettaisit black metalin osana taidemaailmaa?

– Black metal on moniulotteinen taidemuoto, joka pitää sisällään musiikkia, kuvia, sanoja, sosiaalisia rituaaleja ja niin edespäin. Se ei ole vain musiikkia, vaan taidetta yleensä. Se sopii moneen kontekstiin samanaikaisesti, eikä mielestäni tarvitse selvää kategorisointia tähän tai tuohon luokkaan. Black metal on taidetta, mutta sen merkitys taidemaailmassa (jota yleensä hallitsevat galleriat, kuraattorit, keräilijät ja kriitikot) syntyy siitä, että se on osa populaarimusiikkia jota ihmiset tuottavat ja kuluttavat suhteellisen itsenäisesti suhteessa taloudellisiin ja sosiaalisiin suhteisiinsa. Uskon, että black metalilla on taidemaailmalle paljon annettavaa dekadenttisen askeettisena taiteena. Se tarjoaa jonkinlaisen ääniesteettisen itsekidutuksen muodon, jonka kuuntelija voi omaksua ilman tartuntavaaraa.

Älykäs ja para-akateeminen

Kuten yllä on jo mainittu, kirja on kerännyt sekä ylistyssanoja että vahvaa kritiikkiä osakseen. Masciandarolle negatiivinenkin kritiikki on kuitenkin osa projektia.

– Kirja on kerännyt monia kehuvia ja asiantuntevia arvosteluja (katsokaa blogistani). Symposiumi sai negatiivista palautetta internetissä jo ennen kuin sitä oli edes järjestetty, ja kuten jo sanoin, tämä seikka on filosofisesti hyvin mielenkiintoinen. Suurin osa negatiivisesta keskustelusta on julkaistu kirjan lopussa liitteenä. Suurimmaksi osaksi negatiivinen palaute on kuitenkin ollut vain tiettyjen ihmisten itsetärkeilyä ja valtavaa energian tuhlausta. Tämän energian ihmiset olisivat voineet käyttää johonkin paljon kehittävämpiin asioihin. Palautteen voi jakaa yleisesti neljään luokkaan: välitön rakkaus, suora viha, epämääräinen ”se kuulostaa hyvältä” -asenne ja täysi tietämättömyys.

– Odotan mielenkiinnolla herättääkö kirja kiinnostusta tutkijoissa, jotka eivät muuten ole kiinnostuneita black metalista. Kirja on älykäs, mutta ei täysin akateeminen, paremminkin para-akateeminen.

Uusi black metal -symposiumi on luvassa jälleen vuoden 2011 alussa. Masciandaro toivoo tapahtumasta jokavuotista perinnettä.

– Seuraava symposiumi järjestetään Lontoossa 13. päivä tammikuuta. Se kantaa nimeä Melancology. Tarkemman kuvauksen melancologian ekologisesta ja luontoon liittyvästä käsitteestä voi lukea internetistä. Symposiumin järjestäjinä toimivat Scott Wilson ja Niall Scott ja se pitää sisällään Reza Negarestanin luennon. Tapahtumassa esiintyy Abgott. Myös tästä symposiumista tullaan kokoamaan ja julkaisemaan kirja. Nyt kun black metalin teorian ensimmäiset siemenet on istutettu, uskon seuraavan tapahtuman olevan edellistä suurempi.

– Toivon, että black metal -symposiumi tulee jatkumaan jokavuotisena talvitapahtumana, joka järjestetään eri paikoissa ja eri ihmisten toimesta. Tämä olisi käytännöllisin tapa harjoittaa älyllistä työtä ja se olisi paljon avoimempaa ja joustavampaa kuin jonkin järjestön tai julkaisun perustaminen. Glossator-lehdestä (glossator.org), jota olen mukana toimittamassa, on tulossa vuonna 2012 erikoisjulkaisu, jossa on 17 puheenvuoroa black metalin merkkiteoksista. Se tulee olemaan mahtava.

blackmetaltheory.blogspot.com

Black Metal Revolution on Hideous Gnosis

[reposted from Black Metal Revolution]

 

Hideous Gnosis is a recently published book whose core aim was to explore Black Metal Theory.

Prior to commencing work on Black Metal Revolution, I was pursuing another text titled The Stench of Black Metal. The purpose of said publication was to invite Black Metal musicians of considered scope and vision to articulate their own "philosophy" of Black Metal, guided by a brief set of questions. The adoption rate was not where I wanted it to be and though I did receive some excellent insights, the project moved too slowly for my liking and I decided to put it on ice for an indeterminable amount of time.

Adopting a simpler strategy with regard to my next offensive - Black Metal Revolution - a collected work comprised of musicians and artists discussing their most revered Black Metal records, I have since been contacted by a number of people pursuing what I would call "like" as opposed to similar projects. The motivation for this blog having been born of one of those; an introduction to Hideous Gnosis.

The following is both a series of comments about Hideous Gnosis as well as relative discourse on Black Metal Revolution.

I see true merit in the expressions of many, verses the opinions of the few. Black Metal Revolution aims to expose anecdotal commentary from no less than 333 artists, withapproximately 85 submissions so far received. In my almost 20 year engagement with Black Metal, I have observed as it has evolved through a number of trends, seen it expand, gain popularity and reach unexpected levels of commercialisation. It would have once been difficult to anticipate these levels of accolade, though I wonder if that's a seemingly simplistic point of view when considering the cult of Bathory or that Venom were in their heyday a stadium-sized band, but in the wake of murder, arson and treachery, it would have been quite a leap to think that contemporaries of artists serving prison terms, well shy of a decade later, would be receiving awards equivalent to Grammys in their native countries.

Having reached the magnitude it has, as well as existing on a plane infinitely more complex than being described simply as music, it's no surprise that Black Metal has undergone an academic styled appraisal.

Black Metal is enriched by an increased presage not held by a troupe such as Venom, the term alone now failing to convey one singular focus. Ask ten noted BM musicians for an insight into what they believe te essence of BM to be and chances are you'll be privvy to ten unique appraisals.

Fundaments proffered may bear similar witness, but perhaps one way of articulating these divergent positions is to consider these deductions as plotted along a curve of extremes depicting alienation from contemporary morality, most would exist in the shadowy end of the scale, with examples manifesting as outliers - at the thinnest end of the shape.

So it was of great interest to me to learn of the existence of Hideous Gnosis via its primary architect, Nicola Masciandaro who contacted me and explained that she had orchestrated a volume of which the purpose was to traverse the concept of Black Metal Theory. Being a person always keen to explore the considered reason of others, especially those engaged in what could potentially prove to be groundbreaking pursuits, I was anxious to check Hideous Gnosis out and am satisfied to say that it was definitely worth the time.

Having put TSOBM aside for an indeterminable period to instead focus on Black Metal Revolution, I have remained true to my earlier belief that the thoughts of the respected masses provide for more engaging and credible reading than were I to compose my thoughts on 333 of my most revered BM records. What is relevant here when comparing BMR to Hideous Gnosis (not something I intend to do too much of) is that the aforementioned architect, Nicola Masciandaro seems to view the two projects as somehow similar. On a personal note, I find this somehow flattering, but at the same time believe it to be misleading should a reader be uninformed about either project with the exemption of recognizing that Black Metal is a theme prominent in both. HG was compiled by approximated 13 authors, none of who I recognise from any known bands.

BMR will be comprised exclusively by noted musicians and artists. I don't believe you need to play in a band to have an insight into the essence of BM, and I think HG proves this. It does however raise some sort of question as to how credible it may be perceived as, something I will discuss further on.

Interestingly Hideous Gnosis, like BMR are not books ABOUT Black Metal. Neither was designed to retell a series of events.

Black Metal must be bound by some conventions, however it is my contention that these don't necessarily have to be musical; as suggested earlier, "ties that bind" may be best represented in philosophical terms. Before getting to that though, the appraisal of music in this text was excellent. Particularly noteworthy, Joseph Russo's chapter in which Xasthur was the focus of discussion. The link between his perception of Xasthur's music and Malefic's personal pursuit of decay exists on a plane of analysis well above the played out role of the typical, hyperbole riddled album review.

This leads me to my general affection for this work. My position on Black Metal is that it is an expression that has been liberated from stylistic shackles and that the adoption of various elements, eccentric to its original core may not be necessary to its survival, but serve as both engaging and rewarding for listeners seeking satisfaction across the breadth of musical experience, (as well as new currents of extremity with which to bolster the lyrical platform) which encapsulates a host of elements including orchestration, atmosphere, intention, articulation and conviction. I often find myself pondering the divide between the lyrical expression and the music. Both work in unison to create the overall declaration. Where the music was dull and insipid, how strong does the message then need to be in order to compensate for this limitation? Can the music exist without the lyrical force and still be as potent? Can this  also work in reverse? Abruptum achieved a measure of this on their DSP full lengths whereas Havohej expressed an inversion of the idea by unleashing an exclusively verbal tirade on 'Dethrone The Son Of God'. Granted, it's a little harder to take these diatribes quite as seriously as the sinister aura of Abruptum, but it takes me closer to the concept of an exclusively verbal and/or written communication being a befitting medium for the conveyance of Black Metal. Does the Ondskapt 'Manifesto' contained in the 'Draco...' album make the music more credible? If Abruptum's anti-ambience can be accepted as a tool of BM, the same manner in which Paul Ledney's unconventional metaphors have been, I come to question how Hideous Gnosis has been met in various circles with animosity.

Certainly, it is an ambitious work and it no doubt flies in the face of those who wish for their model of black metal to remain as the "one true god". If BM can evolve beyond a genre, a style of music, then why should it be considered an abomination for those with the means to place it under the microscope of academia? And why are so many quick to assume that individuals wishing to explore deeper levels of what may or may not have been intended are outsiders or have some bizarre agenda beyond this being their nominated vehicle of expression. it may not be a contribution to the art of black metal, but why can't a contribution based on the experience of said art be worthy? Why would the ever stable platform of the album review or interview somehow be considered as elevated in merit. Granted, the artists own words, verses those interpreted by the authors of HG may be more direct but it's not to say they should be excluded. I expect some of the artists featured would be envigorated to see their creations examined in such depth.

I would however have prefered more direct artist imput and thought that the employment of "secondary data" was something of an admission that many artists wre not interested to participate in such a text. Further, it is unclear as to who the intended audience for this book is. Assuming the book was compiled solely for academics, it is questionable whether contemporaries of the authors would possess a grounding evolved enough to appreciate and facilitate a seasoned enough understanding of the text. As there is no preface, no introduction or explanation of the mission of the work, I can understand why it has been derided. Most likely assessed with the idea of "who are they to discuss what is sacred to us..." As an individual never arrogant enough to assume there to be an area of learning on a topic of interest that I can't benefit from, it is always with an open mind that I approach works such as this and as previously stated, found the experience to be a rewarding one for the most part. Still I feel that Benjamin Noys discourse on Peste Noire would have benefited from direct imput from the band, as opposed to material sourced from an interview in Zero Tolerance Magazine. It's true that research is a valid tool, but it feels less endorsed in this context. After all, I want to believe this is not strictly an academic work.

It may be a gross generalisation, but I question how much of the book's true meaning will be extrapolated by the average BM acolyte. For the most part, it doesn't seem that anyone (with the exception of Eugene Thacker's "Three Questions Of Demonology") has considered their most likely audience when utilising their nominated language and phrase. It's dense, wordy and on occasion unnecessarily clever; but on the other hand, so were the philosophers they have been inspired by, so why not?

Still, criticisms I have seen have generally been base and petulant, reactive and unconsidered; uninformed! Of course this is just my opinion, and I'm not exactly writing this as a studied consideration, as much as a once read impression. I don't intend to arbitrate over what should and should not be - frankly, I have my own interests to pursue outside trying to convince someone of the worth of something than can decide for themselves.

Though impossible to cover all degrees of relevance, it was interesting to note that certain events were viewed empirically amidst a sea  of cited theory and speculation. The omission of Bathory as the true architect of Black Metal's sound; the unquestioned acceptance of Euronymous' romanticised position on Dead's suicide being some grand scene related action and the omission of understanding as to where it was that Darkthrone's calling to play Black Metal came from served the book no favours and in a sense seem redundant in what should generally be viewed as an ambitious, if sometimes questionable collection of ideas.

Should "rules" apply to some and not to others? Should conviction not be the barometer with which expressions are accepted, or at least considered? If you have a mind to read HG, read it...

Buy the book from Book Depository - cheap and free postage!

Tammy L. Castelein & Bram Ieven Review Hideous Gnosis at Culture Machine

HERE

Occultural Studies 1.0 -- Eugene Thacker on Hideous Gnosis at Mute Magazine

(reposted from Mute Magazine)

Occultural Studies 1.0: Black Meta

Increasingly DIY and nihilistic, it's not surprising that contemporary philosophy is drawn to the untilled fields of undead subculture. Recent book, Hideous Gnosis, unleashes a bloodthirsty plague of para-academic commentary upon Black Metal, but, asks contributor Eugene Thacker, ‘how to talk about a music that refuses to be talked about?’

The book Hideous Gnosis: Black Metal Theory Symposium is based on a symposium held in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in December of 2009. Now, for many, the idea of an academic symposium dedicated to black metal is about as ridiculous as a black metal band with songs like ‘The Subculture of the Tritone Chord and its Posthuman Discontents’ or ‘The Hegemony of Your Biopolitical Jouissance.’ Certainly those familiar with the various mutations of cultural studies – particularly in the US – will not be surprised to find academics talking about culture and music. But that metal, that most anti-intellectual of all musics, could be the topic of intellectual inquiry would seem to be the height of absurdity. Either these guys take themselves way too seriously, or they’re so self-aware of being ‘meta’ that they end up enjoying themselves just a little less. One imagines professors giving the ‘horns’ sign during a lecture for emphasis (definitively replacing the more tentative ‘bunny quotes’ gesture). At the very least one would hope to find all speakers donning corpse paint or monkish, hooded robes. Whatever the case, the event caught the attention of the New York Times, which ran an article on it immediately.ⁱ A short time after the symposium, the talks – along with additional essays – were collected together in book form as Hideous Gnosis (a second symposium, entitled ‘Melancology’, is planned for January 2011 and will be held in a London anatomy theatre).

Image: Hideous Gnosis book

I’m being a little droll here because I myself am one of the contributors to the Hideous Gnosis book. Whether one comes to it from philosophy, cultural studies, political theory, or some other field, cultural commentary always places one in a tenuous position. As a scholar and academic one treats the material one is commenting on with a certain degree of seriousness and rigour; but as a fan (or consumer…) one is also aware that, at the end of the day, it’s all a big joke. So I begin this review with the following: ‘black metal theory’ not only challenges what is or isn’t black metal, but it also challenges what cultural commentary is, and the claims it makes.

The symposium and Hideous Gnosis book is the brainchild of Nicola Masciandaro, who teaches at Brooklyn College and is trained in medieval literary studies. Hideous Gnosis is a strange kind of book – it’s not exactly an academic anthology, in that the texts range from poetic evocations of black voids, to black metal manifestos, to band interviews, to historical essays and scholastic commentary. It’s also not quite music journalism, in that many of the texts are quite demanding, freely dropping quotes from Carl Schmitt, Arthur Schopenhauer or Michel Foucault instead of album reviews or the requisite history of the genre.

In music writing of this type, one typically finds a focus on one of four things: musical form, lyrical content, subculture and aesthetics, or politics and ideology. Each contribution to the volume touches on all of these to varying degrees, but what really distinguishes the writing in Hideous Gnosis is that each contribution revolves around a fundamental contradiction: how to talk about a music that refuses to be talked about? Or better: how to think about a music that negates all thought (in so far as ‘thought’ denotes order, system, and the production of knowledge – by human beings, for human beings)? As Masciandaro has noted in an interview, ‘there’s lots of resentment toward a sensible discourse around black metal… . Its center of gravity is an essential negativity…’ⁱⁱ

Image: Poster for Hideous Gnosis - Black Metal Theory Symposium

This central antagonism runs through nearly all the writing in Hideous Gnosis. That no one can agree on what is or is not black metal is not surprising – every music genre is defined by such debates. What’s more interesting is that in Hideous Gnosis, each attempt to think about black metal also puts itself forth as an antagonism, as a negation – an anti-natural nature, an anti-political politics, and an anti-philosophical philosophy.

Some of the authors think about black metal in terms of nature – but a concept of nature quite different from the romantic-hippie view of a nature beneficial for us (much less a nature we are ordained to save), as well as from the blood-and-soil view of nationalism. A casual look at black metal album covers and song lyrics reveals an ambivalent approach to nature, at once predatory and decaying, undergoing a constant metamorphosis that produces nothing. This is reflected in much of the writing: Steven Shakespeare’s more poetic text evokes pantheism, Schelling, and the idea of ‘absolute sound’; Aspasia Stephanou traces the motif of the wolf, lycanthropy and the forest in black metal; and Anthony Sciscione comments on its themes of cold and fire.

Other authors think of black metal in terms of politics – but a politics that attempts to avoid the poles of right and left, nationalism or ecology. Scott Wilson discusses the concept of sovereignty in the history of political thought, contrasting the archetype of the warrior to the soldier in black metal; Joseph Russo points out the central role that the body plays in black metal, albeit an ambivalent body of decay and rot; and in a sort of tête-à-tête the essays by Benjamin Noys and Evan Calder Williams approach black metal from different viewpoints – Noys questions both the left-wing and right-wing tendencies of black metal (both retaining a fidelity to Carl Schmitt’s maxim ‘remain true to the earth’), while Williams sees black metal as raising the stakes on what politics can mean, imagining a body politic without a head, a ‘war by the human in the name of the inhuman.’ⁱⁱⁱ Whereas for Williams, black metal’s antagonism is really about the ‘war of totality against itself’, for Noys the best black metal can manage is the kind of self-reflexive ‘meta-fascism’ one can also find in punk and industrial music.

In addition to nature and politics, still others in the Hideous Gnosis volume think of black metal in terms of philosophy – or mysticism – because in black metal they increasingly become one and the same. Erik Butler examines black metal in relation to early modern monastic traditions; Hunter Hunt-Hendrix provides a manifesto for ‘transcendental black metal’; Masciandaro utilises the medieval catena or ‘chain’ form of writing to comment on the relation between black metal and cosmos (order); Niall Scott provides some ruminations on black metal as a form of religious confession; and my own contribution borrows the Scholastic quaestione to trace the role of demons and demonology vis-à-vis black metal.

Whether Hideous Gnosis definitively answers questions about nature, politics, or religion is beside the point. Nearly all the contributors agree that there is something here worth thinking about, though what that is differs a great deal from one text to another. Strangely, while I imagine the Hideous Gnosis contributors are also fans of the music, almost no one defends black metal, at least not to the hilt. And, in a way, black metal is indefensible – which makes it both appealing and frustrating for the philosopher.

Image: Poster for Melancology - Black Metal symposium part II

Music and language exist in an antagonistic relation to one another. The most verbose and baroque of writers often trip up when writing about music and its effects – for instance, while music was central to Schopenhauer’s philosophy, in The World as Will and Representation he only manages to scribble down a few paragraphs, and even those are riddled with vague comments about music as some kind of inhuman, cosmic ‘Will’. At the same time, music bears a close relationship to poetry, with its emphasis on meter, cadence and rhyme. Many a classical composer has set pieces to poems – indeed western classical music, from the liturgical texts of Christian masses to modern opera, is so closely tied to language that it is nearly impossible to separate them. This back-and-forth is perhaps best symbolised by John Cage’s anthology of writings, scores and performance texts enigmatically entitled Silence.

If there is an antagonism between music and language, things get even more messy when we consider language about music. There’s something superfluous about music criticism, let alone something so grotesque as a philosophy of music. As with any specialised field, everyone has their opinion, debates ebb and flow, and the alibi of subjective aesthetic experience serves to keep the discussion or debate alive.

All of this is fine. But it is when we come up against a music that is so saturated with antagonism – both internally and in its relation to the world – that we see how these antagonisms endemic to music become apparent. I would argue that black metal is an example of such a music. There is a certain impasse in black metal, an abyss at its core that is, in a way, what black metal is. My own take – and many may disagree with this – is that the abyss at the core of black metal shares many affinities with negative theology, and what scholars often refer to as ‘darkness mysticism’.^iv I would even argue that to understand black metal beyond a music genre, a marketing category, or a subcultural style, and to understand it aesthetically and politically, one has to read Dionysius the Areopagite or John of the Cross. This is the musical equivalent of negative theology – without god. One of my favorite quotes from Hideous Gnosis comes from Erik Butler, who reminds us of why metal is heavy:

The heaviest metal found on Earth is uranium: enriched uranium is plutonium, a substance that conjures up the Lord of the Dead. Heavier elements occur only in space, where Pluto mournfully orbits the Sun at a distance of 3,666 million miles. Somewhere still farther off in the void floats the philosopher’s stone, black metal.v

We live in a time of levitation; everything from the information we process to the bodies we wear is portrayed as weightless, mutable, and subject to infinite, personalised variation. At the same time, we are constantly reminded of just how leaden and earth-bound we are, from the thick, viscous oil that seeps onto the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, to the sheer biomass of waste produced by the world’s major cities. Perhaps this is why metal is heavy – not because it is about nature, politics, or religion, but because it gets at a central ambivalence surrounding material culture.

I’m also reminded of Blake’s famous line about the ‘dark Satanic Mills’ of industrial London – perhaps mills similar to the steel factories outside the schoolhouse in Aston, where a young Tony Iommi listened to their incessant, inhuman churning.

Eugene Thacker is a New York based writer and the author of Horror of Philosophy (forthcoming from Zero Books). He teaches at The New School and is a scholar-in-residence at the Miskatonic University Colloquy for Inexistent Cryptobiology

INFO

Nicola Masciandaro (ed.), Hideous Gnosis: Black Metal Theory Symposium, New York: Createspace, 2010.

FOOTNOTES

i The article is online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/arts/music/15metal.html?_r=1.

ii Ibid.

iii Hideous Gnosis, p. 136.

iv On darkness mysticism see Denys Turner, The Darkness of God, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

v Ibid., p. 30.

Black Metal Theory Symposium II: Melancology

MELANCOLOGY

Black Metal Theory Symposium II

13 January 2011

The Fighting Cocks

Old London Road

Kingston-upon-Thames, London

1-11pm

Another gathering dedicated to the mutual blackening of metal and theory

Live Act

ABGOTT

Plenary Speaker

REZA NEGARESTANI

‘Earthly thought embraces perishability (i.e. cosmic contingency) as its immanent core .... such perishability ... grasps the openness of Earth towards the cosmic exteriority not in terms of concomitantly vitalistic / necrocratic correlations (as the Earth’s relationship with the Sun) but alternative ways of dying and loosening into the cosmic abyss ... The only true terrestrial ecology is the one founded on the unilateral nature of cosmic contingency against which there is no chance of resistance – there are only opportunities for drawing schemes of complicity.’ ...

‘Hence, the Cartesian dilemma, “What course in life shall I follow?” should be bastardized as “Which way out shall I take?”’

Reza Negarestani, ‘Solar Inferno and the Earthbound Abyss’

MELANCOLOGY

Black metal irrupts from a place already divested of nature, a site of extinction, ‘a place empty of life / Only dead trees ...’ (Mayhem, ‘Funeral Fog’, 1992); ‘Our skies are forever black / Here is no signs of life at all’ (Deathspell Omega, ‘From Unknown Lands of Desolation’, 2005). As such black metal could be described as a negative form of environmental writing; the least Apollonian of genres, it is terrestrial – indeed subterranean and infernal – inhabiting a dead forest that is at once both mythic and real unfolding along an atheological horizon that marks the limit of absolute evil where there are no goods or resources to distribute and therefore no means of power and domination, a mastery of nothing.

A new word is required that conjoins ‘black’ and ‘ecology’: melancology, a word in which can be heard the melancholy affect appropriate to the conjunction. A new word implies a new concept and we know from Deleuze and Guattari that concepts have to fulfil three criteria. Accordingly, the plane of immanence of melancology is extinction and non-being. All things are destined for extinction; immanent to all being is the irreducible fact of its total negation without reserve or remainder. The development of the characteristics of melancology is to be addressed at the Symposium, of course, but there are already a number of apophasic determinations: it is not ecology, it is anorganic; it is not political economy, it is anti-instrumental; it is not love of nature, environmentalism, Gaia, geophilosophy ... But it implies an ethos and a style that delineates the third aspect of the concept, its embodiment in a conceptual personae: the black metal kvltist whose ethos runs across the spectrum of melancholy from bile and rage to sorrow, depression and the delectation of evil all the better to affirm the desolation s/he contemplates in the sonorous audibility of black metal’s sovereign dissonance. This environment of absolute evil is exactly the same as the absolute good of black metal itself: the expenditure of a sonic drive that propels a blackened self-consciousness, a melancological consciousness without object that is the necessary prior condition to any speculation on or intervention in the environment.

The Black Metal Theory Symposium thus invites speculation and interventions on the blackening of the earth, landscapes of extinction, starless aeon, sempiternal nightmares, black horizons, malign essences, Qliphothic forces from beyond ... in a general re-conceptualization of black ecology.

Inquiries & abstracts to Niall Scott & Scott Wilson
NWRScott@uclan.ac.uk
S.Wilson@kingston.ac.uk

Hideous Gnosis Reviewed in Wire Magazine by Mark Fisher

Hideous Gnosis: Black Metal Theory Symposium 1

Nicola Masciandaro (Editor)

CreateSpace Pbk 292pp

“What sucks is when metal is co-opted by wannabe academic nerds,” grumbled the Black Metal blog Chronic Youth in anticipation of the Brooklyn symposium on which this book is based. Scott Wilson’s “Pop Journalism And The Passion For Ignorance” uses the Chronic Youth complaint as its epigraph, treating it as part a “hostility to academic commentary on popular culture that unites conservatives with pop journalists and bloggers everywhere”. If there’s one attitude likely to be shared by certain Black Metal fanatics and the middlebrow compilers of Private Eye’s Pseuds’ Corner, it is this hostility to the ‘intellectualising’ of popular culture. Chronic Youth was by no means the only dissenting voice about the symposium: comments from the Black Metal Theory blog, included as an appendix here, and some remarks quoted in editor Nicola Masciandaro’s essay “Anti-Cosmosis”, attest to a deep suspicion about the project.

Yet Black Metal as a genre is saturated in metaphysics. If some BM performers resist commentary, they are nevertheless unlikely to trot out the boring musician cliché that ‘they just play’. The reticence comes from a reverence, a sense that what the music evokes is unspeakable. BM is a music of intense vision and commitment, a music that – whether it likes it or not – is deeply theoretical. As Evan Calder Williams argues, Black Metal “is smarter than it thinks”. It isn’t exactly a stretch to connect Xasthur, Burzum or Wolves in the Throne Room with the dark, inhuman philosophies of Bataille, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Schelling and younger theorists like the gnomic metaphysician of decay, Reza Negarestani.

The danger with these sorts of projects is that they assume a kind of anthropological distance from their object, performing their analyses with a studied air of neutrality and a neurotic concern that footnotes are properly referenced. There is no trace of that in Hideous Gnosis: whether they are disinterring the different meanings of the ‘Black’ of Black Metal, as in Eugene Thacker’s “Three Questions on Demonology”, or tracing the mythic roots of some BM tropes in myth and folklore as in Aspasia Stephanou’s “Playing Wolves And Red Riding Hoods In Black Metal”, the essays are all exercises in passionate engagement, intellectual without being dryly academic.

It is quickly clear that BM’s real enemy is not religion as such – which, after all, is ripe for infestation and inversion – but the desacralised arcades of postmodern populism, with their ontological and cultural pluralism and their smirking personability. Joseph Russo’s essay “Perpetue Putesco – Perpetually I Putrefy” notes with disgust that religion itself has succumbed to this quotidian cheeriness: many “masses often take place in fluorescent-lit recreation centres” and “priests often wear swimsuits”. Much of Black Metal’s appeal consists in the way it constructs a (sepulchral, subterranean) alternative to these overlit zones. One of the most interesting and difficult problems, however, is BM’s tendency – by no means ubiquitous, but widespread enough – to characterise its alternative in terms of extreme right-wing politics. Benjamin Noys’s “’Remain True to the Earth!’: Remarks on the Politics of Black Metal” and Evan Calder Williams’s “The Headless Horsemen of the Apocalypse” are about the political implications of BM given that, in Williams’s words, it is not possible to “separate the musical wheat from the crypto-fascist chaff”. For Williams, BM becomes a symptom of the very world that it abominates but fails properly to negate: “If the antistatic condition on which Black Metal is staked is ... that of militancy, its impossible solution is collective militancy.” One of the many provocative claims in a book that is an exhilarating example of how to write about music as if it matters .

Mark Fisher

68 / The Wire / Print Run

Hideous Gnosis Reviewed @ Aquarius Records

From Aquarius Records:

This one almost doesn't require a review, pretty much every truely obsessive black metal fan is gonna want this, whether they actually read it or not. And having only dabbled, it's hard to say how many folks, metalheads in particular, are actually gonna want to delve into this, a collection (often in expanded and revised form) of essays and documents that were presented late last year at "Hideous Gnosis", a symposium on black metal theory (yes, a symposium on black metal theory), which took place in Brooklyn in December of 2009. That said, we also can't imagine a metalhead who wouldn't feel like they had to have copy of this on their bookshelf, if they have any intellectual pretensions whatsoever (which this sure does), or sense of humor (which perhaps this does as well).

The real question regarding Hideous Gnosis is whether black metal does indeed have some sort of lofty academic underpinnings, or is this academic study of the genre simply another example of hipsters trying to legitimize something that appears to be, at its core, raw and underground and visceral and personal and pretty much diametrically opposed to any idea of scholarly study or academic examination? Which thankfully is discussed quite a bit in this book, in the form of several essays, but via the inclusion of comments from the symposium's website, both positive and negative, plenty of them mean, some of them funny, and a few measured and thought out. But it's good to know that the very fact that there exists an academic black metal symposium is in itself worthy of debate, keeps Hideous Gnosis somewhat grounded.

There are definitely some interesting essays here, one in particular that focuses on black metal's reliance on climate, as in grim and frosty and cold, etc. The most interesting to us, are also the ones that are easiest to read, the ones NOT mired down in academic grad school doublespeak, there are plenty of examples of essays that seem interesting, but require digging though a malfunctioning thesaurus to get to the root of what's really being said. There is an excerpt of Brandon Stosuy's in progress oral history of American black metal (featuring our very own Andee) which was also printed in a different form in a past issue of The Believer, which is definitely cool, there's Hunter Hunt Hendrix of Liturgy's confusional analysis and dissection of "Transcendental Black Metal", and so it goes, the collection slipping back and forth, striking a pretty good balance, between people who love black metal who just want to dig deeper, and explore a music they love and discuss it with other like minded metalheads, and the flipside, dry, academic treatises on various elements and aspects of black metal, a bit too removed from the actual sound, and the fucked up ferocious intensity that is what makes the music truly appealing for us. But again, that doesn't mean those pieces aren't a blast to read, some might win you over, others actually do offer up some keen insights, and some seem to exist simply as fodder for merciless mockery. But really, in some weird way that does essentially reflect the genre as a whole, there are dabblers, there are folks who take it WAY too seriously, people who love it and live it, others who are merely fascinated or curious or even repulsed. It ultimately doesn't matter, like the spate of recent black metal docs, online blogs, if you're into black metal, for whatever reason, you're probably gonna want to read this, even if it pisses you off. ESPECIALLY if it pisses you off. An essential, and maybe controversial [addition] to your metal music library.

Hideous Gnosis is Here

Available from Amazon (US) and Createspace
Wholesale orders via email: hideous.gnosis AT gmail.com

Hideous Gnosis: Black Metal Theory Symposium 1. Edited by Nicola Masciandaro. 292 pages. $20.00. ISBN 1450572162. EAN-13 9781450572163.

Essays and documents related to Hideous Gnosis, a symposium on black metal theory, which took place on December 12, 2009 in Brooklyn, NY. Expanded and Revised.

"Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous" (Lovecraft)

“Poison yourself . . . with thought” (Arizmenda)


CONTENTS

Steven Shakespeare, “The Light that Illuminates Itself, the Dark that Soils Itself: Blackened Notes from Schelling’s Underground.”

Erik Butler, “The Counter-Reformation in Stone and Metal: Spiritual Substances.”

Scott Wilson, “BAsileus philosoPHOrum METaloricum.”

Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, “Transcendental Black Metal.”

Nicola Masciandaro, “Anti-Cosmosis: Black Mahapralaya.”

Joseph Russo, “Perpetue Putesco – Perpetually I Putrefy.”

Benjamin Noys, “‘Remain True to the Earth!’: Remarks on the Politics of Black Metal.”

Evan Calder Williams, “The Headless Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Brandon Stosuy, “Meaningful Leaning Mess.”

Aspasia Stephanou, “Playing Wolves and Red Riding Hoods in Black Metal.”

Anthony Sciscione, “‘Goatsteps Behind My Steps . . .’: Black Metal and Ritual Renewal.”

Eugene Thacker, “Three Questions on Demonology.”

Niall Scott, “Black Confessions and Absu-lution.”

DOCUMENTS: Lionel Maunz, Pineal Eye; Oyku Tekten, Symposium Photographs; Scott Wilson, “Pop Journalism and the Passion for Ignorance”; Karlynn Holland, Sin Eater I-V; Nicola Masciandaro and Reza Negarestani, Black Metal Commentary; Black Metal Theory Blog Comments; Letter from Andrew White; E.S.S.E, Murder Devour I.

Publication Imminent

Coming soon . . .


Hideous Gnosis: Black Metal Theory Symposium 1. Edited by Nicola Masciandaro. 292 pages. $20.00. ISBN 1450572162. EAN-13 9781450572163.

Essays and documents related to Hideous Gnosis, a symposium on black metal theory, which took place on December 12, 2009 in Brooklyn, NY. Expanded and Revised.

“Poison yourself . . . with thought” – Arizmenda

CONTENTS

Steven Shakespeare, “The Light that Illuminates Itself, the Dark that Soils Itself: Blackened Notes from Schelling’s Underground.”

Erik Butler, “The Counter-Reformation in Stone and Metal: Spiritual Substances.”

Scott Wilson, “BAsileus philosoPHOrum METaloricum.”

Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, “Transcendental Black Metal.”

Nicola Masciandaro, “Anti-Cosmosis: Black Mahapralaya.”

Joseph Russo, “Perpetue Putesco – Perpetually I Putrefy.”

Benjamin Noys, “‘Remain True to the Earth!’: Remarks on the Politics of Black Metal.”

Evan Calder Williams, “The Headless Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Brandon Stosuy, “Meaningful Leaning Mess.”

Aspasia Stephanou, “Playing Wolves and Red Riding Hoods in Black Metal.”

Anthony Sciscione, “‘Goatsteps Behind My Steps . . .’: Black Metal and Ritual Renewal.”

Eugene Thacker, “Three Questions on Demonology.”

Niall Scott, “Black Confessions and Absu-lution.”

DOCUMENTS: Lionel Maunz, Pineal Eye; Oyku Tekten, Symposium Photographs; Scott Wilson, “Pop Journalism and the Passion for Ignorance”; Karlynn Holland, Sin Eater I-V; Nicola Masciandaro and Reza Negarestani, Black Metal Commentary; Black Metal Theory Blog Comments; Letter from Andrew White; E.S.S.E, Murder Devour I.