i'm bored /mu/. can we talk about how good liturgy is?
desu HHH is the modern Glenn Branca except he's a lot more interesting conceptually
and Julia Holter is Laurie Anderson
First heard this album play at Good Records in East Dallas. I had to ask the teller who it was. I had grown out of metalcore a few years ago but this LP made me want to revisit metal from a different subgenre. Black metal is great and, even though this is hardly a black metal album, I enjoyed it. Not sure I can really listen to it much now though.
the populace underrates hunter's melodic talent, and overrates greg's drum performances
>>65195108
saw them open for lightning bolt two nights in a row, the second night they played generation and it banged. hunters vocals did not come across well
>>65195177
it's hard to overrate the drumming on this record, but i agree that hunter's ear for melody and harmony is on point
>>65195249
There are no vocals on Generation tho
so fucking awful
>>65195330
true i meant in general. he was just going "eh" with infinite delay on his voice
>>65195370
>he was just going "eh" with infinite delay on his voice
lol sounds like hunter
Serious question did anybody else think that the level of pretense in Hunter's manifesto was overblown by music "journalists" and people in general. In particular, I remember Vice running an article on it where they published the first few paragraphs and then cut off the article with this condescending snub at how pretentious it was and that they couldn't bring themselves to publish the rest.
I mean I read it and it seemed to me like an interesting approach to metal music and was presented rather intelligently. For one thing it was actually published in a journal with other literary essays on Black Metal and I thought it was a good read. Does the public just hate people putting thought into the music?
>>65195457
Vice is a bad music source and would obviously nip anything in the bud worth reading that actually took thought to appreciate, but Hunter's manifesto is not one of those things. It's an overblown, navel-gazing, self-obsessed, "new" take on metal music that amounts to little else but inserting himself into one genre, playing music from another genre, and calling it innovation through a series of complicated but shaky semiotic bait and switches. He's a complete hack, and you got memed.
>>65195457
>Does the public just hate people putting thought into the music?
Yes, and critics most of all. Ambition is a negative trait for these people.
>mfw 0:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t65Li7hLDpI
how do people not like this?
>>65195457
>>65195494
>>65195499
America is historically skeptical of art. It's why we have musicals while Europe has opera.
It's also why Beefheart and Zappa were charting in the UK while over here they were less consistent.
And it's also why Julia Holter tours over there frequently: she mentioned the UK having better taste for her music.
For being a place where 99% of experimental music is being made or at least inspired, America is garbage at high art.
>>65195494
>It's an overblown, navel-gazing, self-obsessed, "new" take on metal music
I didn't see it as that. To me it just seemed like somebody using philosophical analysis on Black Metal and I though that was interesting given that it's a relatively new genre with an interesting history.
>>65195494
>He's a complete hack
You don't know SHIT about music.
>>65195457
>Serious question did anybody else think that the level of pretense in Hunter's manifesto was overblown by music "journalists" and people in general
absolutely. people love to jump on the hate bandwagon, and liturgy is low-hanging fruit. i think most people were only turned off because they couldn't understand what he was talking about. i think it could have been written in plainer writing, but like you said, it was published in an in-depth study of black metal theory and ideologies. it was written for nerds, so i don't think hunter was concerned with making it accessible to the general public. either way he has some interesting stuff to say
>>65195543
Yeah, it seems culturally the English like to intellectualize things where as Americans have a culture of anti-intellectualism.
>>65195494
I don't agree with everything you wrote but I love how you wrote it.
I was in love with them for awhile but not so much anymore. Aesthetica has some really interesting tracks on top of some shit ones, and The Ark Work would be a good album if it weren't done with clean vocals. I don't know why HHH decided on that but it makes the album sound ridiculous imo
>>65195494
>complicated but shaky semiotic bait and switches
can i get some examples?
>>65195673
It comes with the role as both european and american ally I can imagine
Keep European art culture with American populism
In a sense I think London isthe new Paris
>>65195714
i mean, for one, he weaves a narrative out of geographic determinism that makes music derived from English heavy metal (first wave black metal) somehow have its "ultimate" expression in the Arctic Circle. he seems to have a hard time separating between what happened to happen (history) and some sort of overall determining framework for this happening (what might be called the metaphysics of metal). his "theorizing" amounts to little more than pompous posturing and bloviating on a stretch of a stretch of a stretch of an idea, goaded on only by his audience's presumed ignorance on the subject (anyone who thinks black metal hit some terminal expression in Nordic black metal has only absorbed media accounts of the genre and has not engaged seriously with its proponents of the past twenty years since the second wave took hold in the '90s - aka hipster metal fans who would have time for Liturgy).
i can go on to the burst beat if you wanna give me some time to articulate myself.
>>65195875
Black Metals glory days aside, I think more than anything the idea behind the manifesto was to highlight the key themes and motives behind his music.
He talks about how the essence of Black Metal has always been to push towards the negative (Nihilism, Atrophy) towards some sort of ultimate expression of Heaviness and despair which he refers to as the "Haptic Void". He then introduces his idea of "Transcendental Black Metal" which is in sorts an anti-thesis to Black Metals a reversal of it's core values pushing towards the positive (Affirmation, Hypertrophy).
>>65195875
>he seems to have a hard time separating between what happened to happen (history) and some sort of overall determining framework for this happening
he's talking about the freudian will to power. according to that idea, there is a determining framework for any artistic/musical/cultural movements. it's not like he's just weaving a framework out of nowhere. he's just applying a pre-established philosophical idea to the history of metal music.
>anyone who thinks black metal hit some terminal expression in Nordic black metal has only absorbed media accounts of the genre and has not engaged seriously with its proponents of the past twenty years since the second wave took hold in the '90s - aka hipster metal fans who would have time for Liturgy
that's just a matter of opinion. there's no logical fallacy in saying that the second wave was the pinnacle of black metal
i agree that calling the drumming burst beats is kinda lame though. it's not like it's such a new technique that it warrants its own name. i'm still curious to hear your thoughts about them though
>>65196089
you're thinking nietzschean, and a serious genealogy of a cultural movement does not just cut the history off into the part that's thematically easy for your argument. black metal simply does not have its origins in Nordic countries. this must be accounted for.
and you confuse pinnacle with terminal. the entire argument of the need to cross the haptic void or whatever the fuck is that there is some sort of wall that has been hit. Nordic black metal continued to be developed further in the intervening years, and Liturgy abandons that history because it is inconvenient.
ultimately, it comes down to Liturgy doing something similar to Deafheaven - coming in as outsiders to the genre, taking some of the signifiers of the genre and really sort of paying them homage while actually composing math rock songs with noise rock timbres (Deafheaven do the same with more post-rock elements). i really don't care if this is the kind of music people make, and i'm not mad at people for "appropriating" black metal sounds. but it's simply not a "development" of black metal to cherry pick some second wave features and sprinkling them into your otherwise unrelated music. the fact that he wrote an entire essay that can't even bring up an example of a composition he's discussing or an interview with a black metal composer of the past who talked in the way he asserts should be dubious to any skeptical reader. but Liturgy's media proponents don't care to be skeptical, because Liturgy is an easier band to sell as an eclectic alternative palette for indie rock listeners than actual black metal bands would be, and music journalists are woefully under-educated on the history of genres outside of the alternative/indie rock and increasingly hip hop traditions these days.
the burst beat critique i would bring up is essentially an extension of the above to musical features. the entire point of a blast beat is to be that pounding, constant pulse of a track. [cont.]
>>65196178
[cont.] when you make the blast beat "organic" and "dynamic," you're just importing math rock drumming with a louder and faster technique than might be expected of fare like Don Cab or whatever and passing it off as innovation. this is what i mean by semiotic bait and switch - because he's sold the music as derivative of black metal and written essays and gotten reviews that say the music is black metal, people pay no mind to the fact that it could never be musicologically defined as such.
again, i don't care that he doesn't make black metal music. i dislike the music just because i think the sound is not terribly pleasant. i don't care to defend black metal from imposters or hipsters or whatever. what i do care about is people claiming that they've innovated genres that they haven't really engaged with. continued dialogue with figures of the past and development of existing musical ideas are necessary to change genres. there's a reason you don't hear of a lot of other "transcendental black metal" bands. it's a marketing schtick. or perhaps a practical joke gone too far.
what do you guys think of hunter's new solo project
https://kelvalhaal.bandcamp.com/releases
someone needs to tell him he cant sing
>>65196178
in exclusively Nordic countries* before people bring up that many first wave bands are also from Nordic countries. my point here is that the influence of NWOBHM, Motorhead, and Venom must be wrestled with. why were these soil from which this music sprung if it's uniquely "hyperborean?"
>>65196178
>black metal simply does not have its origins in Nordic countries. this must be accounted for.
i don't quite understand why that matters. yeah he talks about geography, but when he calls it "hyperborean" he's just using that as a descriptor to differentiate between the northern stuff and the british stuff. i don't think he actually defines the music based on the geographical region it came from.
>and you confuse pinnacle with terminal
did he actually say that black metal stopped after the second wave? i haven't read it in a while but i don't remember that
>>65196377
he uses the term terminal. if you would like to continue the discussion, i'd appreciate you re-reading the essay. it's incredibly short and lean on actual content anyway, and you can read how strange his geographical determinism is. then we can have a substantial discussion instead of you thinking i'm misrepresenting him. or if i am, you can actually clarify instead of saying you think i don't know what i'm talking about.
>>65196224
>the music is black metal, people pay no mind to the fact that it could never be musicologically defined as such.
>Blast Beats
>Tremolo Picking
>Downtuned Guitars
>Shrieked Vocals
Literally all features of Black Metal music. Why can't it be defined as Black Metal?
>>65195108
I'm fairly certain that if Hunter had never opened his mouth about transcendental black metal, Liturgy would be a lesser known but more well liked band.
>>65195370
>he was just going "eh" with infinite delay on his voice
Fuck, I really need to go to a Liturgy show sometime.
>>65195457
>did anybody else think that the level of pretense in Hunter's manifesto was overblown by music "journalists" and people in general
Definitely, I read the manifesto and it's a pretty short read that does what any artistic manifesto is supposed to do. I didn't get any real sense of pretense from it, it just seemed like Hunter had some ideas that had a profound impact on his art and he really wanted to share them.
>>65196438
liturgy does not use blast beats, by their own admission (this "burst beats" nonsense). tremolo picking is a musical feature of black metal that is used, yes, but the other two features you list are common to many forms of music.
>>65196547
But Black Metal music by definition is a style that uses all of these in conjecture. Also, You and I both know that the "burst beat" is just a modified blast beat. My point being what exactly defines Black Metal and why does Liturgy not fit this criteria?
>>65196418
just read the part in question. you're right about the geography thing, but i'm still a bit confused by your argument. you're saying that the location didn't create black metal because it started in england, but do you seriously think that first wave and second wave bm sound the same? nearly all of the elements that characterize black metal as we know it today were created during the second wave. it totally had its own unique sound.
he is being pretty closed-minded when he says he thinks it stopped in the 90s though. i think the idea certainly peaked artistically, but obviously it didn't just stop
>>65196702
my point isn't that Nordic black metal isn't the dominant strand but rather that to chalk it up to some sort of geographic location thing, going on about the never-setting sun, etc. is a classic case of determinism. it's intellectually lazy, which makes this venture suspect in my opinion. no ethnomusicologist goes on about the climate of the area they're discussing. it seems like a way to make his argument pretty rather than to make it cohesive or compelling. notice he doesn't deal much with musical material but with cultural factors that he just insists are there.
>>65196731
i just always read that talk about the coldness and darkness of the climate as a metaphorical way of describing the music. he never says that the climate is what determined the sound of the music
>>65196731
>notice he doesn't deal much with musical material but with cultural factors that he just insists are there.
>continued dialogue with figures of the past and development of existing musical ideas are necessary to change genres.
these are good points though
