Cardiacs Tarred And Feathered

About fifteen years ago, I was a massive fan of the Cardiacs. Changes in my personal situation led to a change in musical taste; I fell out with the friend who had introduced me to their music; I couldn’t play their lp’s anymore because I had no record player; the recording quality of the cd’s was abysmal, and did not do justice to their glorious Technicolor sound; and slowly I forgot about these psychedelic proggy punksters. Then I saw this delirious video for ‘Tarred And Feathered’, a song from their 1989 album ‘Songs For Ships And Irons’, and I was reminded of just how great they are. The video shows them in all their acephalic, playful, desperate, poetic, transgressive, humorous, childishly erotic, tearfully happy, mad, lonely and very British wonderfulness, worthy of Queneau’s “Zazie Dans Le Métro” (which is however decidedly un-British).

Worthy of Genghis Khan

Tragic Black Metal Christ

In my last post, I said that when black metal directs it's hate against limited, specific groups, such as religious groups, it loses all it's charm. This might suprise the odd reader or two, given black metal's traditional hatred of Christianity.

Of course, I can understand that for some Satanism and Asatru (or Odinism) have a playful or nostalgic appeal. I can understand that many would call Christianity a hypocritic religion. However, most black metal invective against 'christians turds' is puerile and uninteresting. Living in a largely atheistic North-Western Europe mostly dulls Satanism's transgressive edge.

Also, I feel black metal could acknowledge the tragic dimension inherent in the myth of the crucified Christ - the bible's portrayal of the night of Golgotha is more blackened by far than the many black metal bands' music. Justin Broadrick's Godflesh and Jesu show the possibilities of making Christ's tragedy into a fine artistic strategy (an interesting issue, by the way, for another post).

Misanthropic gift

Advice from Charles Baudelaire for young writers:

"En effet, la haine est une liqueur précieuse, un poison plus cher que celui des Borgia, - car il est fait avec notre sang, notre santé, notre sommeil, et les deux tiers de notre amour! Il faut en être avare!"

For Baudelaire, hatred is a gift, a gift as precious as myrrh, incense and gold, because the hater gives his self to the hated. The violence of hate, directed outwards, is mirrored by a violence directed inwards, towards the blood of the hater, the health of the hater, the sleep of the hater, two thirds of the hater's love. Hatred is sacrifice of both other and self.

Baudelaire advises us to be greedy with hatred - out of self-preservation. Black metal's hatred however is recklessly generous and universal - misanthropy is it's name. It's generosity is exactly it's appeal. Those cases where Black Metal is less than generous - where it's hate is only directed towards certain races, or towards religious social or political groups - it loses all charm immediatly.

Recent acquisitions

The day before yesterday I bought:

The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld (Deluxe Edition); and
Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss.

I love to buy music which is so different in one go; my cultural ideal is to juxtapose Marcel Proust and Lucio Fulci.

On a trip to London I bought:

Jazkamer - Metal Music Machine;
Boxcutter - Oneiric;
Glen Brown and King Tubby - Termination Dub (1973 - 79);
Impact Allstars - Forward The Bass, Dub From Randy's 1972-1975.

And from the innanet I bought:

Dubstep Allstars: Vol. 4 Mixed by Youngsta & Hatcha; and
Vex'd - Degenerate.

And I'm waiting for:

Wolfmangler - Dwelling in a Dead Raven for the Glory of Crucified Wolves;
Velvet Cacoon - Northsuite; and
Xasthur - Subliminal Genocide.

Burzumic Burial

“As far as I am concerned, I love everything that presents this dimension of mixing, everything mixed blood, from sarcophagi dating from Roman times with faces of splendidly made-up women painted in the most realistic way to Fuegeans wearing European pants found in shipwrecks, not forgetting Alexandrine philosophy and the unmatchable elegance of Harlem negroes along the way” - Michel Leiris.

In the 1990’s, I loved this very dimension of mixing in Mick Harris’s, Kevin Martin’s and Justin Broadrick’s many bands – Scorn, Godflesh, God, Ice, Techno Animal, The Bug, Curse of the Golden Vampire; and in the many compilations these artists made (Macro Dub Infection, Jazz Satellites, Isolationism; and not to forget the Electric Ladyland series), I loved the mixed blood of ‘white’ (grindcore, industrial, ambient) and ‘black’ (jazz, dub, drum & bass, techno) underground musics.

Of course, Kevin Martin and Justin Broadrick are still quite active. Nonetheless, I’d very much like to see more miscegenation among current underground genres such as doom metal, dubstep, black metal and grime.

On one hand, for black metal, syncretism appears as yet to be far off, the genre sadly still being in the grips of racism and the ‘troo’, the ‘ kvlt’ and the ‘elite’. Yet in my minds ear I can already hear black metal’s ice-cold buzzing-bees-in-a-bucket guitars swarming around deep, warm, syrupy dubstep bass.

On the other hand, as far as doom metal is concerned, things seem to be on the move: on internet forums, many have pointed out similarities between doom metal and dubstep, qua slowness and use of sub-bass; both Kode9 and Sunn 0)))’s Stephen O’Malley have devoted blog entries to sound weaponry; and a very nice doom metal/hip hop mashup has appeared on the internet.

So: give me a Blood and Fire vs. Blood Fire Death soundclash, a Burzumic Burial, a Sunn-Skream, a Satanic Dubmaster, a Vex’d Xasthur, a Loefah Leviathan: the stars are right!