Not much time on my hands tonight, so I’m going to go straight into it. Everyone’s favourite merchants of wail and doom are back. NYIÞ had a storming set at this year’s Mayhemisphere, where they amazed and freaked out audiences in equal measure. And with this in mind, they’ve released their latest aural virus, a track titled “Hati þá guð og helgir englar allir” or “I Hate you god and all the heavenly angels”. At least i think that’s what it means.
Droning violins and pitiless chanting in the mould of “Tabula Rasa” Einstürzende Neubauten and a whole host of Death/apocalyptic folk acolytes, but still with a sulphurous whiff of black metal virtuosity to it. you can feel the occult energies swirl around your feet and flow under the doors while this plays . And dig those chains!
These guys and The Heavy Experience in a double-header gig. Something i would happily pay a lot of money to watch and listen.
A new Nordic Interstitial threshold mix is up and running. Some nice summer sound for you to skip down the street to. Ha!!! (PS - apologies for the spelling mistake in the title…)
Alas WordPress are being a complete fuckheads now and won’t let me post the mix here in any form. So click HERE to go and listen to it.
If you liked what you heard, then you can download a hi-quality MP3 copy just HERE.
So the farm has been a little bit quiet of late. This was mainly due to the fact that i was busy trying to to get away from Iceland and enjoy myself in London and for a few days. So what the hell did I get up to while i was there? Not a lot actually, but if you REALLY want to know, then, read on…
- I spent most of it drinking. Not the usual Icelandic “Hey it’s 10pm! Let skull 15 beers in 30 minutes!” type of binging. This was more like the slow burn of meeting a friend, or family and having a beer, then realising 3 hours later that you were absolutely smashed…. and it was only 4pm!
- There was also shopping. None of that “tourist from an expensive country who stocks up with 35 pairs of cheap underpants” type of buy. It was all books. And comics. Books wise i bought music volumes by Nick Kent (which were going cheap) A Whore Just Like the Rest: The Music Writings of Richard Meltzer and Fear Of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don’t Get Stockhausen by David Stubbs. The comics were mostly replacements of lost and damaged volumes (The 3rd volume of the Invisibles) to newer releases (2000AD’s Cradlegeave, Warren Ellis’ Supergod). Basically a lot to get my mental teeth into over the coming weeks.
- When you spend a couple of hours in a quiet Soho/Waterloo pub, you tend to spend a fair bit of it reading. I finished re-reading Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground. Still a damn good read considering I have a fair few black metal albums. And there are plenty of local people here who are into black metal in a big way and for the most part, are pretty well-rounded, reasonable people. the guys in these books though. Utter arseholes. As one section noted, when you have full-time Satanists shaking their heads over black metal musicians/fans using the “Do what thou will” tenets of Satanism to legitimise murder, hatred and wanton destruction, then you know that you’re really doing something wrong in life.
Also read Supergods by Grant Morrison. I VERY much recommend that you read it. Part criticism, part history lesson, part autobiography, this is a great companion piece to the recent Morrison documentary Talking With Gods. The meshings of his take on comics critical history really makes you want to go out and check out those early comics books that occurred before your time. thanksfully my local library has an immense comics section, so right now I’m burning my way though Jack Kirby’s New Gods saga. Lovely.
- Tried to fight those ingrained feeling of antipathy towards the human race by actually meeting people. First off was my family. I have a new baby niece named Lily Jo (who my brother and I actually call baby Mango. Don’t ask why), and she’s a sweetie, even when she threw up milk over my shoulder. Big stare-y eyes and restless hands. Awww.
Second were some good friends that helped me put the world to rights. First off was fellow Whitechapelers Mark Jones and Alex Vagenas. This was a bit of an off-the-cuff meeting organised at the last-minute. Basically consisted of an afternoon drinking off Borough market, ranting about all sorts of issues, which was all indeed good fun!
And i spent some time in a disgustingly grubby bar in New Cross with, DJ, label runner and live music mogul, Mr Jonny “Exotic Pylon” Mugwump! It was all a lot of fun, and hopefully with his prodding and suggesting, some really good things may be happening this year. There is actually some really exciting new happening this week that i will be announcing over the next few days. It will be a big one trust me. As For Jonny, go over and listen to his radio programme at the Exotic pylon hub. Do it! You Fucks!
- Also, how and when the fuck did beer in central London pubs get SO EXPENSIVE??? Seriously, when i found myself paying £4.50+ for a beer is surely taking the piss. This is actually more expensive than many Icelandic bars! Along with the rise of Tory fuckwittery and huge social and economic inequality, this could cause the complete dismantling of the UK’s social order!
- Travelodge are a bunch of robbing shits when it comes to Wi-Fi in their hotel rooms. I know it’s a budget place that’s pretty much the Ryanair of hotels, but come on! Avoid.
- I’m also becoming increasing irrational about my fears of flying. It’s mostly the take off part where my brain keeps screaming “This is it! This is probably going to be the flight that bursts into flames and takes us all!!” This could start cramping my travel plans in the future. Hmmm….
- Also spent a little bit of time in my hotel room watching morning TV. Most of it spent watching Jeremy Kyle. Jeremy Kyle seems to have progressed from his standard MO (that of a sleazy human Bear-baiter) to a presenting arsehole of Grand Guignol proportions. Most of the shows, they were spending more time in the studio’s back corridors and car parks than the actual studio itself. Needed to shower after watching 10 minutes of the stuff. I no longer count Jezza as a guilty pleasure.
Also saw the TV only full-time music channel. the Chart Show Channel. It was simply a shine to the current state of Nu-Trance-Pop that you get on Flass FM ALL THE SODDING TIME! In particular there were two videos that actually grabbed my attention in a weird way. the first was Super Bass by Nicki Minaj. This track has been out for a while now and I’ve heard it on the radio many a time, but this was the first time I’ve really seen the video. It looked like some weird trans dimensional ghetto version of Lazy Town. the hyper-plasticity of it all, from the music, to the make up and clothing, to the props (that definitely was a model Ferrari that was being pimped out!) came all across like a Barbie/Brats aesthetic for ghetto tweens. It gave Mrs Sex Farm a blinding headache.
The second was Blackout by a bunch of trolls that call themselves Breathe Carolina. At first i thought it was those crunkcore oxygen thieves, Freaxxx. They all have tattoos, piercings and bad haircuts. But no! this is Breathe Carolina, the new and improved, upgraded model! But as per usual the video is chokka with that forced fun, empty hedonism that typifies the current state of dance pop right now (see LMFAO all those Guetta songs). That kind of “We’re living and partying on the edge of experience apparently, but have absolutely no imagination when it comes to really letting ourselves go” attitude. It actually reminded me a lot of those ’80s hair metal videos that would be wall to wall partying with Jack Daniels and off-duty strippers and porn stars.
Musiktilraunir 2012 winners RetRoBot are mined from this kinds of poisoned source material (albeit a clean, krútt version that’s still too young to start drinking). In fact, this kind of music links brilliantly into the “Djamm Í Kvöld” party culture of Iceland’s beautiful people. If you’ve ever been on a night out around Austurstræti, then you know exactly what i mean. Sigh….
And that’s what happened. Proper blogging will commence soon. I’m off for some breakfast.
i’ve been slowly getting my metal face on today. perhaps it was the synchronicity of a few things.
1 – Saw GONE POSTAL last night at a gig i was inclined to review. They played some new material and, dayum, it was some really fine Doom-infused black metal. Perhaps they can start making a real go of it now. they deserve it.
1 – Started re-reading this week LORDS OF CHAOS about the riseand fall of the black metal scene in the late ’80/ early ’90s.
So with all that in mind, lets take a moment for the guy that actually killed him in the first place, Count Grishnackh aka Varg Vikernes, and his solo project BURZUM. Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, the entirety of “Filosfem”, his first release while he was in prison can be streamed. As far as ’90s black metal goes, it’s pretty much on the money, incredibly harsh, brittle and messy, with the appearance of differing styles such as ambient and classical music. “Rundtgåing av den transcendentale egenhetens støtte” for example, is by all accounts a contentious song amongst the metal fraternity, but i love it’s stark, simple minimalism.
Alas the guy is an unaplogetic far-right dickhead who uses big words to cover up the fact that, like a lot of his ilk at the time, he’s pretty much an emotional runt. Still like this album though. I think this means that i’m going to hell… or Sweden or something…
Just the sort of thing you want to see when you are slightly hungover on a Saturday Morning.
Imagine the following. If the guys from severed Crotch accidentally played some Toro Y Moi on their van stereo by accident on the way from Reykjavik to Eistnaflug and were unable to turn it off. That’s 12 hours of their ears getting numbed by some nice sunny bro-vibe chillwave music.
Then the bass player says “Hey guys. I’ve got an idea for a song…”. This is a possible outcome of that road trip…
Hell in a laid back “Hey whts up bro? U fancy some chillaxin’? FUCK YOU AND I HOPE YOU DIE!!!” sort of way….
If you want to explore this madness some more, check their MySpace.
For the next few weeks in the run up to eistnaflug, i´m moving away from the regular Punk movie matinee to shed some light on the sweaty, studded jockstrap of metal and it´s fun times. So for todays installment of Sunday Metal Movie Madness, i´m going striaght for the prostate. I give to you the 2007 documentary, “Once Upon a time in Norway”
Recently there has been another documentary doing the movie festival rounds titled “Until the Light takes us”, which has been gathering favourable reviews on it´s story of Norwegian black metal and the murder of Burzum member Øystein Aarseth by fellow band memberVarg Vikernes . However some people have taken umbrage to the fact that the film makers were too close to their subjects and is often too one sided, relying on not enough independent accounts in it´s overview of the history of the early days of Norwegian Black metal.
“Once upon a time in Norway” is a bit more different. There is no concert footage and hardly any black metal in it´s soundtrack. It´s almost perverse. What we have are numerous talking heads from the main bands of the scene at that time (Mayhem, Emperor and Cadaver) talking about the rise of the scene in Norway, the Suicide of Mayhem vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin (aka ‘Dead’) and the aforementioned murder of Aarseth. The film also talks to a minister from one of the firebombed churches about the incident and associated violence eminating from the scene.
Given that most of the interviews come from people within the scene, it comes actross as surprisingly balanced and gives a slightly different take on the othodoxy of what went down in Norway at that time. An interesting watch….
let´s get down to business shall we?
