Death Melodies Series: Johann Sebastian Bach

johann_sebastian_bachThe Death Metal Underground (DMU) is proud to present the Death Melodies Series (DMS).

The primary function of the DMS is to expose metalheads to Classical Music that they might enjoy.

If it’s Baroque, don’t fix it.

Our first in the Death Melodies Series will feature some Baroque pieces. The Baroque Period followed after the Renaissance Period and was roughly from the beginning of the 1600’s to mid 1700’s. The emphasis on tonal harmony was established during this time. Opera was also introduced amid the Baroque term.

This article will focus on Bach, which is one of the most prolific Classical composers that ever lived. Bach gradually became blind as he aged, however his disability didn’t stop him from composing. Other noteworthy composers of this era were Handel, Scarlatti (x2), and Vivaldi. Nevertheless, the DMS will be showcasing more of the dark, ominous, and powerful pieces.

Bach’s most assaulting weapon was the organ, though he also played and wrote pieces for violin, viola, and harpsichord.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFtOgB_oFAw

There is debate about transcriptions for Bach’s organ work for other instruments. Hipsters like Glenn Gould would claim that they do justice transcribing it to piano, though piano was invented during Bach’s life and he didn’t compose any melodies for it because he found it somewhat lacking. Glenn Gould just wanted to be hip, different, and make money doing it. Orchestrated versions of Bach’s work tend to add more parallels, which Stokowski portrayed:

Here is another example of an orchestrated rendition:

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“Black Magic Evocation of the Shem ha Mephorash” Occult Book Released

Some classical music incorporated morbid themes, but most metalheads look back to Black Sabbath being the first to incorporate occult themes into their music. Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler have both been noted for dabbling in the dark arts, while their vocal counterpart Ozzy Osbourne publicly denounced any Satanic undercurrents. Their label Warner Bros was more than likely the cause to establish their occult image in the press. From this point on, the dark arts have been subject matter to innumerable musical acts and has become steeple in the extreme metal community.

Gilles de Rais from US Black Metal band Teratism has released his grimoire, “Black Magic Evocation of the Shem ha Mephorash“.

Excerpt from its press release via Negativity Records:black magic evocation

“The Shem ha Mephorash or Explicit Name is a list of 72 angels derived by ancient occultists. Combined, these spirits are believed to comprise the secret name of the Creation of the Universe. Now, for the first time, these angels are uncovered and illuminated, presented with detailed information and spirit signatures, enabling witches and left-hand-path magicians to access their energy and interact with them through ceremonial conjuration and black magic. In essence, Black Magic Evocation of the Shem ha Mephorash dissects the Abrahamic creator Deity into 72 segments and empowers brave witches everywhere to ritually evoke them into conscious interactive manifestation. Included are exhaustive tables of hours, days, weeks, months, planets, elements, and sacraments, all the information needed to bring the spirits of the Shem ha Mephorash, the most powerful name in western occultism, to life within the magician’s ritual chamber.”

 
Q&A with Gilles de Rais:

Where do you think the occult first gained momentum in Metal?

I don’t know: Black Sabbath? But that thread really goes back to the Blues, which is a form of apostate gospel sung by those who wanted to get drunk and laid on Saturday night more than they valued getting saved on Sunday morning. Moreover, the idea of magick hidden in music (or music as a form of magick) goes back to the dawn of civilization. The book of Genesis talks about the fact that music and musical instruments were invented by Jubal, one of the sons of Cain, the first murderer and a symbolic type of the Antichrist. Even though the book of Genesis is fictional, its poetry, symbols and imagery derive from archetypes in the shared collective unconscious going back to before Sumeria. To quote the old adage: the Devil writes the catchiest tunes.

You go by the saying ‘Do What Thou Wilt’, which stemmed from Aleister Crowley’s teachings. My personal take on this saying is more of a metaphysical one; meaning that we should harness our wills into the most impactful manner possible. Then again, there must be meaning behind our wills. If they are aimless, they shouldn’t be focused upon. How do you equate this saying in your day-to-day life?

The statement “Do What Thou Wilt” is misunderstood. Everyone seems to want to take orders and always looks for some new commandment. It is not a commandment. It is a simple admission that the laws of physics provide the limitations of human experience, not what your priest, pastor or rabbi tells you. It is simple, elegant, flatly amoral statement and should be left as such and not tagged with any asterisks, addendums, modifications or apologies. The morality should come from your own conscience and the fact that the temporal lobe of your brain gives you the ability to ponder the consequences of your actions and act accordingly.

What inspired you to write this grimoire?

I wrote it to consolidate the wisdom of a growing library of books on the occult — 700+ and counting — that I have collected over a lifetime, and from my knowledge of those books, synthesize a functional, cohesive, unique system of left-hand-path meditative and mystical Satanism as a way of providing a foundation of legitimacy to creating music under the titulary umbrella of Black Metal, which I personally believe begins and ends with the transmission of Satanism and demonology.

In the process of researching for that book, on which I am still working, I attempted to gain some understanding of the Shem ha Mephorash (Shemhamphorash) due to the fact that (1) it is ubiquitously referred to in Satanism and black metal, and (2) i could not find any authoritative, complete books on the subject. This book (Black Magic Evocation of the Shem ha Mephorash) is the result of my findings.

How would you differentiate Luciferianism and Satanism?

Etymologically, Lucifer means light bearer and the name primarily refers to Satan as the descending archangel who brings forbidden illumination to witches (and mankind). Satan means “adversary” or “accuser” and it refers to the role of Satan as an enemy of the herd, as a liberator from the commandments, restrictions, subjugations, and shackles of the right-hand path, and an instigator of insurrection against the tyranny of Light and the murderous blindness it engenders in its devotees.

Esoterically, some schools view Lucifer as Satan in his “pre-fallen” state as an archangel, and so their roles often differ in terms of how they are approached in occult ritual when accessing the two figures within this specific mythological paradigm.

Generically used, however, the two words can be interchangeable because you are drawing water from the same well. It should be noted though, that my answers are terribly condensed and incomplete, and that these two words also have as many meanings as there are practitioners of both disciplines.

What literary work would you impose on our readers that are interested in the Dark Arts?

Start with the Bible and the Koran to gain a healthy sense of contempt and rage for the mindless, savage, hysterical, phobic herds of the Right-Hand Path. When you are sufficiently outraged and ready to take action and see what the sitra ahra (other side) has to offer, you might begin Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, which is a graduate course on Western occultism. In terms of taking the elevator all the way down to basement level 666 and drinking the poison of Sammael right out of the genie’s bottle, go to Amazon and enter “Satanism” and “Black Magick” and enjoy.

Is there a direct correlation to your book’s subject matter to Teratism’s lyrics?

That’s best left for an interview with Teratism. They’d flay me alive and put me on their altar if I went into that here.

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Realm of Chaos re-released in FDR audio

bolt-thrower---realm-of-chaosBolt Thrower‘s Realm of Chaos album will be re-released by Earache Records on Monday 18 February, 2013.

This time around, it’s been pressed from the master tapes in Full Dynamic Range audio, which according to Earache means the album is

at its optimum sound quality, with full dynamic range and in its highest resolution. No loss of quality, no compromise. To put it simply, this is, without doubt, the best sound this album has ever had!

Realm of Chaos was originally released in 1989 and according to our review it shows how the band’s grindcore leaned towards the grandeur of death metal, making this album an amalgamation of the epic and the youthfully energetic.

The release includes a DVD of the Bolt Thrower performance at the “Grindcrusher” tour in Nottingham, where they played seven of the albums songs on 14 November, 1989.

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Best Metal of 2012 (en Español)

Spanish blog El Negro Metal has published a Spanish translation of our post, “The Best Metal (and related) of 2012”.

Compare the English original:

This legendary band existed before Amorphis and plays a grittier style of the bold, warlike and heavy yet melodic music that graced Amorphis’ first album, The Karelian Isthmus. These Abhorrence tracks show the band that would later write that album as they emerge from early grind/death stylings and gradually work more melody into their work. This is metal’s holy grail: how to be both epic and amoral in the nihilistic sense of worshipping power, darkness and nature, but also use melody and harmony to give the works some staying power. As this collection of re-released demos progresses, the fusion of the two gets more confident and deft, leading us up to the point where the greatness of the first Amorphis album was inevitable.

With the translation:

Este grupo legendario existió antes de Amorphis, y practicaba una versión menos refinada de la música audaz, belicosa y pesada, y sin embargo también melódica, de que hizo gala Amorphis en su primer álbum, The Karelian Isthmus. Estos temas de Abhorrence muestran al grupo que más adelante compondría aquel disco a medida que emergía de un estilo grind/death primitivo para ir introduciendo gradualmente más melodía en su obra. Aquí radica el Santo Grial del metal: cómo resultar a la vez épico y amoral en el sentido nihilista de la glorificación del poder, la oscuridad y la naturaleza, sin dejar de utilizar también la melodía y la armonía para conferir a las grabaciones cierto poder perenne. Según avanza esta recopilación de maquetas reeditadas, la fusión de ambos factores se vuelve más segura y hábil, llevándonos hasta el punto en que la grandeza del primer disco de Amorphis resultaba inevitable.

Looks like a good in-depth analysis and translation. Thanks to El Negro Metal for this addition to the world of metal en Español!

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“Christian” black metal band attacked by fans

christian_black_metalAccording to the Norwegian daily Aftenposten, the Sweden-based “Christian” black metal band Antestor recently experienced black metal fans engaging in some real life activism.

The band left a successful gig in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, to encounter a crowd of about a hundred people who, bearing banners with anti-Christian and anti-Antestor messages, attacked the band, spat on them, beat them and kicked them. According to Antestor, if it had not been for the timely arrival of the Brazilian police, things might have gotten worse.

According to a local black metal blog that reported on the attack, WarMetalBR.com, Christian black metal is a “cultural plagiarism” that needs to be disposed of. Apparently the protestors agree.

Given the history of black metal, it is hard not to see the protestors’ point. Black metal was founded as a rejection of all that Western civilization considers sacred, including humanism, Christianity, acceptance of others, kindness, hope and even “fun.” Like metal itself, black metal is a realist reactionary movement that distrusts society because of its tendency to put human moral emotions before the consequences of our actions in reality itself. Black metal musicians pointed to the church, McDonald’s, pollution, cultural loss and rising stupidity as the result of us prioritizing human emotions before nature and the consequences of our actions.

“Antestor play extreme metal with a Christian message, while those who lay in wait for us are ‘Satanists’ — they lag ten years behind musical developments development in Norway. It is just not something new that some extreme metal fans ‘hate’ the Bible and Christianity. But it is the first time for us that there is such a thing,” said Antestor guitarist Robert Bordevik.

At the Death Metal Underground, we can’t condone randomly assaulting bands (or can we?) but we can’t claim to be surprised. Black metal is music of hatred and of hating humanist ideas including those in religion and its secular counterpoints. It is nice that people are well-intentioned. Black metal, like a predator in the dark Nordic forest in winter, is not. It is based on power and competition in nature and not on good intentions.

Most people go through life in a willful denial of the results of their actions and the consistency of reality that makes it so. People want to be aware of only what they want, and they invent happy stories to justify this. They manipulate others with these happy stories and the vision of equality that makes us all feel like there is no competition or need to exert ourselves.

Like the heavy metal generations before it, black metal crashed down on these fanciful illusions by pointing out that reality is shared between us and is the ultimate arbitrator of what is true. We can deny it, but then it just grows stronger as we bury it under prayers, propaganda, good feelings, alcohol, drugs, television and Big Macs.

For those who believe this, any form of humanist or Christian attempt to make “black metal” will seem like someone spreading the opposite message of the genre within the genre, so it’s not surprising they retaliate. Perhaps this will spur the black metal community to go back to its roots and analyze what it actually stands for.

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Steve Harris British Lion tour dates

steve_harris-british_lionIron Maiden’s Steve Harris will be taking his new solo/side project British Lion out on the road next month, visiting fourteen countries and twenty four cities across Europe starting in Portugal on Feb 21.

Harris comments, “It’s fantastic to get out there and once again experience the sheer vibrancy of small clubs with the fans right up front and in your face. I think the fans will enjoy that too. It’s exciting, going back to the roots, and it’s going to be fantastic. We are taking this to clubs all round Europe – a full club tour, with club shows at club prices, hot, sweaty and loud.”

British Lion is Harris’ debut solo/side project CD which was released by EMI in September 2012. Alongside him are Richard Taylor on vocals, David Hawkins on guitar and keys, Grahame Leslie on guitar, and Simon Dawson on drums. The 10 track album was mixed by Kevin Shirley, Iron Maiden’s longstanding producer, and is both similar to Iron Maiden and taking the characteristic Steve Harris songwriting in new but faithful to influences directions.

FEBRUARY 2013
THU 21
SAT 23
SUN 24
TUE 26
WED 27
THUR 28
PORTUGAL
SPAIN
SPAIN
SWITZERLAND
ITALY
ITALY
PORTO HARD CLUB
MADRID LA RIVIERA
BARCELONA SALAMANDRA
ZURICH KOMPLEX
MILAN LIVE CLUB
ROME ORION
On sale Tuesday Jan 15th
On sale Tuesday Jan 15th
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MARCH 2013
SAT 02
SUN 03
TUE 05
THUR 07
SAT 09
SUN 10
TUE 12
WED 13
THUR 14
SAT 16
MON 18
FRI 22
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SUN 24
TUE 26
WED 27
FRI 29
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GERMANY
GERMANY
GERMANY
AUSTRIA
GERMANY
GERMANY
SWEDEN
SWEDEN
NORWAY
SWEDEN
FINLAND
HOLLAND
BELGIUM
FRANCE
ENGLAND
ENGLAND
SCOTLAND
ENGLAND
NUREMBURG ROCKFABRIK
MUNICH BACKSTAGE HALLE
STUTTGART LKA
VIENNA ARENA
COLOGNE LIVE MUSIC HALL
BERLIN COLUMBIA CLUB
MALMO KB
GOTHENBURG BREWHOUSE
OSLO ROCKERFELLER
STOCKHOLM KLUBBEN
HELSINKI CIRKUS
AMSTERDAM MELKWEG
VOSSELAAR BIEBOB
PARIS LA TRABENDO
O2 ACADEMY ISLINGTON, LONDON
O2 ACADEMY 2, BIRMINGHAM
GLASGOW GARAGE
MANCHESTER CLUB ACADEMY
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20 years ago: Nespithe

Demilich-NespitheAlmost exactly two decades ago, Nespithe, the sole full-length album of Demilich, was released, like a snake swiftly escaping its cage. That simile is not entirely off: trying to explain what this now classic death metal album sounds like, one almost inevitably comes across likenesses to slippery serpents or, considering the “cut-off” melodies played, to dismembered slimy worms twisting and turning. And growing anew.

What about the vocals? Metal fans seem divided and either hate those belching croaks or love them to death. In any case, I think they fit the idea of the album pretty darn well. The world of Nespithe seems like a cavernous microcosm of life and death, an evolutionary breeding ground hidden away from the rays of the sun, where Antti Boman‘s murky vocals comment on developments like a detached god. Penetrating those underground worlds (that are surprisingly free from tremolo riffs) feels like being thrown down a dark hole, and, after hitting the ground, you realise the floor is “moving”. And the listening experience is much like that: the mind is forced to pay attention to every single movement in the dark despite its complexity. Challenging, terrifying, beautiful.

23 years since its conception, the band Demilich is no more (it now seems definite), but Boman, the mastermind behind it all, is involved in other interesting projects (e.g. Winterwolf and Jess and the Ancient Ones) and we will always have the ever so generous Demilich download page.

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Supuration to unleash Cube 3 on February 25

supuration-cube_3Long-time progressive rock, alternative rock, death metal and Voivod crossover band Supuration (sometimes called S.U.P.) are releasing yet another album of their eccentric yet interesting music.

Cube 3 will hit the CD stores on February 25, 2013, or you can pre-order it here on Listenable Records. Expect more unusual but logical death metal.

Supuration‘s material ranges from early death-grind, recently released on a demos compilation Ultimate Sessions 1992-1993, to this kind of rock-metal fusion that keeps the metal at the forefront and while it is experimental, never forgets to actually write a song.

Unlike most of the rock-metal hybrids now, it is not so much jazz-based as rooted in the oddball progressive and folk rock of the 1970s and the alternative rock of the late 1980s, giving it a richness against which it can play its rougher metal elements.

Following up on Supuration‘s greatest success, 1993’s The Cube, this album promises to restore this band to the spotlight at a time when most “progressive metal” bands can noodle all day long but never write a coherent song.

Here’s the released teaser track, “Consummate,” from the forthcoming Cube 3:

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Death Metal Underground podcast 01-27-13

death_metal_underground-podcastWe are proud to launch the DeathMetal.org podcast series which features the type of music and thinking you expect from your favorite nihilist death metal maniacs.

Covert DJ Rob Jones brings you the esoteric undercurrents of doom metal, death metal and black metal in a show that also exports its philosophical examinations of life, existence and nothingness.

If you miss the days when death metal was a Wild West that kept itself weird, paranoid and uncivilized, you will appreciate this detour outside of acceptable society into the thoughts most people fear in the small hours of the night.

The playlist for this week’s show is:

Derketa – Obscurities of Darkness (In Death We Meet)
Extract from Aubade by Philip Larkin (read by Larkin himself)

Deathless Order – Tentacles of Circumstance (Obeisance)
Goatcraft – Vestibule to the Abyss (All for Naught)
War Master – Into the Abysmal Fire (Pyramid of the Necropolis)

Beithíoch – Arm Na Déithe (Summoning the Past)
Uriel – Azathoth (Arzachel)
Swallowed – Unsavourably (Swallowed)
Chthe’ilist – VeÆcoiitnÆaphnatÆsmaalÓ (Amechth’ntaas’m’rriachth)

A transcript of the dialogue embedded therein:

Death metal is a reflection of our every fear. It thrives upon our sense of our own mortality – the unavoidable feeling of horror that comes from the knowledge that we and everything we cherish and hold dear will eventually all amount to rot.In a world without god there is no respite from this fear; no comfort or deliverance from the terror that wakes us in the night.

To face this darkness unflinchingly is wisdom. To act in spite of the over-arching fear of death is godly.

The very existence of life and consciousness, and all things fleeting and impermanent in this reality are themselves a contradiction and a challenge to the crippling endlessness of death stretching before us and behind us – for if life came from nothing and is only going back to nothing, perhaps here and now is actually something special and sacred?

Death metal like a Lovecraft story presents the world to us in a way that is grotesque and fantastic, contorting and parodying things that at one level should be ordinary and rational but defy explanation – but are also all too familiar and real in their prescient sense of horror at death, despite how obviously mythic and over the top the presentation may be.

Indeed, arguably the surreal outward appearance of death metal is entirely appropriate for discussing death – for death and the cessation of consciousness are to us now as they always have been to man – beyond the normal bounds of our thinking – semi-mythic, inexplicable and more than the mundane sequence of things we grow accustomed to.

The last incomprehensible, more-than-real event our lives will encounter in this secular and rationalist age.

***

Metal music is quite deliberately not very sentimental or excessively introspective about death; but rather by its raging implores us to be actively conscious of death and to endeavor to live life.

For, as death is certain, it is no more meaningful to live in willful ignorance of it than it is to wallow in self-pity about it. Both of these responses are passive, and are little better than being dead before your time. Knowing that, there is perhaps nothing left to do but marvel at the awesomely uncrafted beauty of everything, and to treat life as a constant challenge or adventure – which, paradoxically perhaps, we seem to instinctively know is the most fulfilling way to live.

For by great striving and fortitude life justifies itself, both with each moment and in the reaching towards some future moment or goal – in defiance of the entropic power of decay and death.

Relish the madness. Submerge in the surreal.

DOWNLOAD

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Is death metal essentialist music?

essentialismDuring the second world war, while most of humanity was involved in mass warfare, the writer and thinker Jean Paul Sartre was instead laboring away in the libraries of occupied France. He was solidifying what has become known as the philosophy of ‘existentialism’. One of the main tenants of existentialism is that ‘existence precedes essence’, or in other words, that there is no fixed and immutable basis from which human life proceeds and from which it derives its meaning.

According to an existentialist, an individual human being is borne, becomes conscious, and then creates his or her own meaning from a point of reference of personal choosing, in a subjective act of pure freedom. Indeed according to Sartre, existentialism is a form of humanism, and we can see why. Secular Humanism, or modern humanism, is the normative or ethical ideal that individuals have the right and responsibility to give meaning and purpose to their own lives, free from tradition, scripture or ‘higher’ authority. So ‘existentialism’ and ‘humanism’ are both cut from the same cloth, the former being a complex (and some would argue, intentionally obscure and obfuscate) philosophical justification for the latter.

Existentialism is a reversal of the traditional metaphysical notion of ‘essentialism’, or the idea that there exists a fixed point from which values and meaning can be derived, by an objective act of intellect or rationality. The most commonly encountered form of essentialism is, in fact, religion. In the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths, God is the basis for existence. He forms the immutable point from which values and meaning are derived. The actions of individuals, their lives, even the actions of entire cultures and cultural movements, derive their value (Good or Evil) from their particular relationship to God. A figure representing the extreme end of the essentialist spectrum, in so far as absolutely positioning life in relation to something prior and fixed, might be Osama Bin Laden. For Bin Laden there is one Word, one Truth, one measure of values. Human ‘choice’ is only as valuable insofar as it leads to a life proscribed by the Word of God. You are beheaded with a bread knife, held down on a concrete floor in panic and terror, if, in choosing to give your life ‘its own meaning’, you align yourself against God. Needless to say, Bin Laden and Sartre would not have got along.

In light of the issues discussed above, death metal is a curious art form. Its position on the existentialist <–> essentialist spectrum is unclear. In its aesthetic outlook, it mocks religious sentiment and tears down religious imagery with truculent glee. Its lyrics praise Satan, evil, darkness and anything, it would seem, that runs against the grain of monotheism. Hence it could be swiftly concluded that death metal is anti-essentialist art, par excellence, tearing down that that last barrier to human freedom: religion.

With a shift in perspective, however, death metal could be viewed in a thoroughly different light. It could be viewed a form of essentialist art. If this is true, then what prior structures could death metal be said to worship? Firstly, death metal posits an immutable essence from which individual human existence stems and from which it cannot escape: biology. Death metal abounds in morbid liturgical hymns about dissection, disease, the tearing of flesh, and the wrenching of bone. Secondly, death metal posits an ‘absolute’ point of reference from which all human actions are judged: death. That ‘all life ends’, is embodied in roaring sentiment in the whole show of death metal. Everyone dies, and reality cares not one whit for the individual. So you, buying your coffee table and matching coasters, beware; your time is finite. Death metal might well be an artistic conduit for spiritual readjustment in the face of something inescapable that, whether we like or not, at some point we are going to have to judge our lives in reference to.

Thirdly, in compositional method and production death metal seems to be inspired, if only implicitly, by prior natural forms. Compositionally, a death metal piece evolves via the linking of riffs according to geometrical shape as opposed to the normal way of linking parts in rock music which is harmonic. This is what give death metal its atonal and, at first, unattractive sound to the uninitiated. Production wise, nihilistic individual units of distorted tone depend on their relation to other such units, or the overarching structure of the song, to achieve beauty in death metal, a bit like matter and the physical universe where a piece of matter, taken by itself, is unremarkable and unsexy.

The list of ways in which death metal could be viewed as an acknowledgement of prior and apparently inescapable aspects of reality is a long one. Battle, night, winter, solitude; all are frequent topics of lyrical subject matter and fodder for imagery. Of course, there are all sorts of aspects of reality that are fixed and inescapable yet which death metal ignores: love, growth, joy, etc. But this is because death metal is concerned with those prior structures to human life that we choose to ignore because they are uncomfortable. Hence its ominous and brooding aesthetics. But while death metal is dark music, anyone who cares to pay enough attention can apprehend that the most worthy contributors to the genre are a world away from writing protest music.

Death metal is not ‘rebelling’ against the uncomfortable parts of life that we are doomed to face up to at some point. It is an attempt to give these aspects of life an artistic redemption. In this, and only this sense, can death metal be said to be ‘humanistic’. It is an attempt at representing those aspects of reality that we often ignore, in order to give them some relevance in human affairs so that we might adjust our lives accordingly, in full awareness of the place of human live in the cosmos.

If all this is correct, then death metal may very well be ‘naturalist religious’ music: A ‘yes’ to, and artistic redemption of, life as process, renewal, conflict and reductive energy.

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