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Transcendental Black Metal
A Vision of Apocalyptic Humanism

[excerpt]

 

 

Hunter Hunt-Hendrix

 

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The Wolfman I
J-A MILLER

Reducing the Sophist to Silence
ALAIN BADIOU

The Jouissance Program…
ERIC LAURENT

Freud and the Object…
P-G GUÉGUEN

The Universal Eye…
GÉRARD WAJCMAN

Transcendental Black Metal
HUNTER HUNT-HENDRIX

Leave the Screen Empty!
SLAVOJ ZIZEK

Mike Kelley,
Carroll Dunham,
Olaf Breuning
JOSEFINA AYERZA

Dunham image PROLEGOMENON

One could propose a new meaning for black metal along with a new array of techniques to activate that meaning. The meaning of Transcendental Black Metal is Affirmation, and its new technique is the Burst Beat.
The will to power has two stages. The first may be called Fortification; the establishment of a paradigm or set of rules and the ensuing exploration of potential that lies within those constraints. The second stage may be termed Sacrifice; an auto-destruction, a self-overcoming whereby the initial rules, having been fully digested and satisfied, are thereby mutilated. They are transformed into the basis for something new and unprecedented.
Transcendental Black Metal is black metal in the mode of Sacrifice. It is a clearing aside of contingent features and a fresh exploration of the essence of black metal. As such it is solar, hypertrophic, courageous, finite and penultimate. Its tone is Affirmation and its key technique is the Burst Beat.
The black metal that was born in Scandinavia in the mode of Fortification can be termed Hyperborean Black Metal. Hyperborean Black Metal is lunar, atrophic, depraved, infinite and pure. The symbol of its birth is the Death of Dead. Its tone is Nihilism and its key technique is the Blast Beat.
Today USBM stands in the shadow of Hyperborean Black Metal. The time has come for a decisive break with the European tradition and the establishment of a truly American black metal. And we should say “American” rather than “US”: the US is a declining empire; America is an eternal ideal representing human dignity, hybridization and creative evolution.
The act of renihilation is the betrayal of Hyperborean Black Metal and an affirmation of Transcendental Black Metal. And it is at the same time the constitution of an apocalyptic humanism to be termed Aesthetics. As such, the question of Transcendental Black Metal is only the tip of an iceberg at the base of which is hidden a new relationship between art, politics, ethics and religion.




Photograph: Liturgy.

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