barrwolf

2009-07-09T02:16:00.000-07:00

Order shall commence now commence after this self imposed hiatus.

2009-02-03T15:27:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine has a new and already amazing blog of obscure and almost forgotten 80's hardcore.

So far you can find Koro, YDI, Vatican Commandos, No Milk On Tuesday, SS-20, Killing Children, Antidote, Sluggo, and United Mutation.

Go!

Can't Stand the 80's

2009-01-04T18:46:00.000-08:00

The snow has begun falling on the Cascades again after a one week hiatus.

Before the freezing temperatures returned, just before the new year, we went to a park near one of the many rivers in the area and walked around with the dog. It doesn't get much better. Once warmer weather returns we'll be off camping in the mountains.

Invictus

2008-12-12T02:35:00.000-08:00

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

-Henley

folkloric necro metal

2008-12-10T02:23:00.001-08:00

Rigid drum-machine beats and soaring, ambient, melodic guitar brought to you by this Norwegian four piece. Sort Vokter features Vidar Vaaer (Ildjarn, Thou Shalt Suffer, Emperor) and his co-conspirator Nidhogg who is the man behind the Tolkien-esque art on the Ildjarn releases.

Trance inducing black metal recorded while under the influence of T.H.C. (excluding Vidar Vaaer). Glowing and brilliant. Not for pop music fans.

Recently re-released on CD with new artwork by Transcendental Creations out of Canada. Excellent and highly recommended label.

In Norse, Sort Vokter means "Black Guardian".

Sort Vokter - Folkloric Necro Metal - 1997

monotones cunjurations

2008-12-09T00:54:00.001-08:00

Darvulia - L'Alliance Des Venins - 2006

Witchery, drugs, and death. French Black Metal of the highest caliber. Darvulia is a two piece with ex and current members of Nuit Noire, Celestia, and Barbatos. Odd timing and riffage.

heimgang

2008-11-26T01:34:00.000-08:00

Kampfar - Heimgang - 2008

By far the best black metal record I've heard offered from a large label in quite a long time. One of the last Norweigan giants of the genre that are still doing something worthwhile.

Tenderness Of Wolves

2008-11-15T14:09:00.000-08:00

Coil - Scatology - 1984

Still Born

2008-11-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Burning Witch - Still Born - 02/06/1997

trust me

2008-11-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

Swans - Love Will Tear Us Apart - 1988

non-stop pouring rain today. trapped inside with a migraine due to a lack of coffee for two days. whispering breeze death chants...

The dawn is ours if the dream is pure

2008-11-12T02:31:00.001-08:00

Death In June - Nada! - 1985

We aim to please with constant unease.

No sense makes sense.

witchery in the twilight of the darkness

2008-11-10T16:09:00.000-08:00

still getting used to the weather up here in the pacific north-west. the sunshine that i'm used to is gone, and apparently part of my acclimation process is digging out industrial, goth, and ambient records from my crypts.

today i bring you Aghast, from 1995, norway. female two piece ritual dark ambient. swirling synthesizer keys with echoing voices.

Aghast: Hexerei im Zwielicht der Finsternis

Swastikas for Noddy

2008-11-03T03:15:00.001-08:00

"When all vegetation is covered by the flood there are now eyebrows on the face of the Waterworld."
J. Joyce, Finnegans Wake.

With the arrival of Fall, I've decided to make a change in the function of this journal. From this day forward I will be sharing music from artists out of my personal collection which I find to be inspirational, focusing mainly on recordings no longer in print. This will be happening alongside my usual entries. Enjoy, and open correspondence if you have any words to share.

Current 93 - Swastikas For Noddy - 1988
black sun bloody moon

2008-11-01T16:46:00.001-07:00

Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
Then you turn and run farther
when the fast bullets fly.

—Bob Dylan, "Masters of War"

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at Black Masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerer of death’s construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds.

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that all to the poor.

Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs of the power
And as God has struck the hour
Day of judgment, God is calling
On their knees the war pigs crawling
Begging mercies for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings.

—Black Sabbath, "War Pigs"

Listen to my last words anywhere.
Listen to my last words any world.
Listen all you boards, syndicates and
governments of the earth. And you
powers behind what filth deals con-
summated in what lavatory to take
what is not yours. To sell the ground
from unborn feet forever . . . And
what does my program of total resis-
tance and total austerity offer you? I
offer you nothing. I am not a politician.
These are conditions of total
emergency. And these are my in-
structions for total emergency if
carried out now could avert the total
disaster now on tracks: Peoples of
the earth, you have all been poi-
soned . . . Any minute now fifty
million adolescent gooks will hit the
street with switch blades, bicycle
chains and cobblestones..."

—William S. Burroughs, "Last Words
[of Hassan I Sabbah]" Nova Express

Be Careful.

2008-08-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

My grandfather, Arthur Stewart Randel, passed away this morning. For the majority of my life he was more like a father to me. I will never be able to thank him enough for this.

Three days ago when I was sitting next to his bed saying goodnight to him I told him that I loved him and thanked him for everything. He said, "Be careful."

Thank you. You will forever be missed.

Asunder: "Rite of Finality"

to give thanks and praise to the bough that breaks
under the weight of age and passing days
to the song of the swan when one's time has come
like passing clouds in the sky all must someday die
to falling leaves in autumn's shades the promise of
youth that fades under the winter's waning sun
the wind and snow of a life now done
like the tides retreating from tranquil shores
cold lips that draw breath no more
to the shifting sands of time lost
measured by star and frost
to scattered blossoms of spring this glory in which
we sing: o ephemeral passing life consumed in the
funeral pyres consumed in our burning desires
even these flames must expire
abiding ash and splintered bone
sodden earth and weathered stone
right of finality devouring infinity
works will come undone so as what we become
unknowing certainty of that which sets us free
to the end of days to give thanks and praise

2008-04-24T02:28:00.001-07:00

Exempt of negativity or positivity, the path that all lives travel down is that of struggle. Innately and completely.

2008-04-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

2008-04-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

current rotation-

Death In June: The Rule Of Thirds
Leviathan: Massive Conspiracy Against All Life

[forever loves decay]

2008-02-03T21:28:00.000-08:00

When you prey in silence
And see our Jesus stagger
Awake! Take a perfumed candle
And use life like a dagger

I'm your accidental protégé
The gift, the blood
The thrownaway

The silver chain has broken?
Goals and dreams fulfill
With emptiness with instinct
With impurity and will

I'm your accidental protégé
The grave, the love
The yesterday

In this, my year of three winters
Where orchards fade, fade
And fall
Like loaf of love's
New bake
Fallen, beautiful, adored?

I'm your accidental protégé
The gift, the blood
The thrownaway

I though I found a paradise
But, paradise came and wept
Like the wind through the
Winter's woods
It cowed and took a breath

I'm your accidental protégé
The grave, the love
The yesterday

(Death In June - "Accidental Protégé")

blackmail

2008-01-24T00:12:00.000-08:00

2008-01-16T18:23:00.000-08:00

“I shall live out my life rejoicing ribboning under the jagged shadow of the hawk. There is no reason for this joy eagle-bald, knifing through me like a canyon. There is nothing in this landscape that defines me.”

Dig me later...

2008-01-15T20:50:00.000-08:00

Maila Nurmi. R.I.P.

2008-01-14T21:02:00.000-08:00

"In field and forest, and in the animal world sheltered therein, indeed in every garden, a reality is perceptible that is infinitely more real, older, deeper, and more wondrous than everything made by people, and that will yet endure, when the inanimate, mechanical, and concrete world again vanishes, becomes rusted and fallen into ruin. In the sprouting, growth, blooming, fruiting, death, and regermination of plants, in their relationship with the sun, whose light they are able to convert into chemically bound energy in the form of organic compounds, out of which all that lives on our earth is built; in the being of plants the same mysterious, inexhaustible, eternal life energy is evident that has also brought us forth and takes us back again into its womb, and in which we are sheltered and united with all living things." -Hoffman

1974

2007-12-25T02:40:00.000-08:00

2007-12-13T21:41:00.000-08:00

today's songlist-

Electric Wizard: "The Chosen Few" & "Satanic Rites of Drugula"
Blood Ceremony: "Return to Forever"
High on Fire: "Death is the Communion"
Dead Meadow: "At Her Open Door"
The Misfits: "Halloween II"

Black Sunday

2007-11-30T02:01:00.000-08:00

Fire Walk With Me

2007-11-30T01:51:00.000-08:00

Thank you, Nick Cave

2007-11-14T03:46:00.001-08:00

Devil's Plaything

2007-11-12T04:45:00.001-08:00

+ It's approaching 5 am. Listening to Danzig's "Lucifuge" LP and going blind staring at images of dead horses.
+ The night before last was my first day of work in the graveyard shift.
+ I love this.

2007-11-11T03:08:00.001-08:00

Are we not all intrigued by the paradoxes, and making our final decision on which side of it we stand? Is this not amazing? Living and dying all at once. Each second closing in on death, always rotting. I know this is the thrill.

The Mummy's Ghost (1944)

2007-11-07T01:29:00.000-08:00

2007-11-05T01:12:00.000-08:00

When we speak the word "life," if must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach. - Antonin Artaud

2007-10-29T19:54:00.001-07:00

of course we are challenging nature itself and it hits back. it just hits back. thats all. we have to accept that it is much stronger than we are. its been said nature is full of erotic elements. i don’t see it so much as erotic. it’s more full of obscenity. and nature here is violent. base. i wouldn’t see anything erotic here. i see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away. of course there is a lot of misery. but it is the same misery that is all around us. the trees here are in misery. the birds here are in misery. i don’t think they sing. they just screech in pain. it’s like a curse weighing on an entire landscape and whoever goes too deep into this has his share of that curse so we are cursed with what we are doing here. it’s a land that god, if he exists, has created in anger. it is the only land where creation is unfinished yet. taking a close look at what’s around us there is some sort of harmony, the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder. and we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle, we in comparison to that enormous articulation only sound and look like badly pronounced and half finished sentences… and we have to become humble in front of this overwhelming misery, overwhelming fornication, overwhelming growth, overwhelming lack of order. even the stars up here in the sky look like a mess. there is no harmony in the universe. we have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony as we have conceived it, but, when i say this i say this all full of admiration for the jungle. it is not that i hate it. i love it. i love it very much. but i love it against my better judgment. – werner herzog

coffinborn

2007-08-03T23:26:00.001-07:00

There are nights like these that drain the blood, slowing everything to a crawl.

2007-06-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

Now the sun will rise as brightly
as if no misfortune had occurred in the night.
The misfortune has fallen on me alone.
The sun - it shines for everyone.

You must not keep the night inside you;
you must immerse it in eternal light.
A little light has been extinguished in my household;
Light of joy in the world, be welcome.

Now I see well why with such dark flames
your eyes sparkled so often.
O eyes!
It was as if in one full glance
you could concentrate your entire power.
Yet I did not realize - because mists floated about me,
woven by blinding fate -
that this beam of light was ready to be sent home
to that place whence all beams come.
You would have told me with your brilliance:
we would gladly have stayed near you!
But it is refused by Fate.
Just look at us, for soon we will be far!
What to you are only eyes in these days -
in future nights shall be stars to us.

When your mother
steps into the doorway
and I turn my head
to see her,
my gaze does not alight
first on her face,
but on the place
nearer to the threshhold;
there, where
your dear face would be
when you would step in
with bright joy,
as you used to, my little daughter.

When your mother steps
into the doorway
with the gleam of a candle,
it always seems to me as if
you came in as well,
slipping in behind her,
just as you used to come into the room!
O you, a father's cell,
alas! how quickly

Often I think that they have only stepped out -
and that soon they will reach home again!
The day is fair - O don't be afraid!
They are only taking a long walk.

Yes: they have only stepped out
and will now return home!
O don't be anxious - the day is fair!
They are only taking a walk to those hills.

They have simply gone on ahead:
they will not wish to return home.
We'll catch up to them on those hills
in the sunshine!

In this weather, in this windy storm,
I would never have sent the children out;
They were carried outside -
I could say nothing about it!

In this weather, in this roaring storm,
I would never have let the children out.
I was afraid they had falllen ill,
but these thoughts are now idle.

In this weather, in this cruel storm,
I would never have let the children out;
I was worried they would die the next day -
but this is now no concern.

In this weather, in this cruel storm,
I would never have sent the children out;
They were carried outside -
I could say nothing about it!

In this weather, in this roaring, cruel storm,
they rest as they did in their mother's house:
they are frightened by no storm,
and are covered by the hand of God.
The day is fair on those hills.
you extinguish the gleam of joy!

2007-05-15T00:23:00.000-07:00

2007-05-15T00:05:00.000-07:00

Watching:

Alice
Gore Gore Girls
Black Christmas (original)

2007-04-11T02:49:00.000-07:00

"... only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning: "Why?" I don't think they were wondering why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? To surrender dreams - this may be madness; to seek treasure, where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness! But maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be"

The Dead Hand of the Past

2007-03-21T02:33:00.000-07:00

Those who cannot forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

Remember how differently time passed when you were twelve years old? One summer was a whole lifetime, and each day passed like a month does for you now. For everything was new: each day held experiences and emotions that you had never encountered before, and by the time that summer was over you had become a different person. Perhaps you felt a wild freedom then that has since deserted you: you felt as if anything could happen, as if your life could end up being virtually anything at all. Now, deeper into that life, it doesn't seem so unpredictable. The things that were once new and transforming have long since lost their freshness and danger, and the future ahead of you seems to have already been determined by your past.

It is thus that each of us is dominated by history: the past lies upon us like a dead hand, guiding and controlling as if from the grave. At the same time as it gives the individual a conception of herself, an "identity," it piles weight upon her that she must fight to shake off if she is to remain light and free enough to continue reinventing her life and herself. It is the same for the artist: even the most challenging innovations eventually become crutches and clichs. Once an artist has come up with one good solution for a creative problem, it is hard for her to break free of it to conceive of other possible solutions. That is why most great artists can only offer a few really revolutionary ideas: they become trapped by the very systems they create, just as these systems trap those who come after. It is hard to do something entirely new when one finds oneself up against a thousand years of painting history and tradition. And this is the same for the lover, for the mathematician and the adventurer: for all, the past is an adversary to action in the present, an ever-increasing force of inertia that must be overcome. It is the same for the radical, too. Conventional wisdom has it that a knowledge of the past is indispensable in the pursuit of freedom and social change. But today's radical thinkers and activists are no closer to changing the world for their knowledge of past philosophies and struggles; on the contrary, they seem mired in ancient methods and arguments, unable to apprehend what is needed in the present to make things happen. Their place in the tradition of struggle has trapped them in a losing battle, defending positions long useless and outmoded; their constant references to the past not only render them incomprehensible to others, but also prevent them from referencing what is going on around them. Let's consider what it is about history that makes it so paralyzing. In the case of world history, it is the exclusive, anti-subjective nature of the thing: History (with a capital "H") is purportedly seen by the objective eye of science, as if "from above;" it demands that the individual value her impressions and experiences less than the official Truth about the past. But it is not just official history that paralyzes us, it is the very idea of the past itself. Try thinking of the world as including all past and future time as well as present space. An individual can at least hope to have some control over that part of the world which is in the future; but the past only acts on her, she can never act back upon it. If she thinks of the world [whether that "world" consists of her life, or human history] as consisting of mostly future, proportionately speaking, she will see herself as fairly free to choose her own destiny and exert her will upon the world. But if her world-view places most of the world in the past, that puts her in a position of powerlessness: not only is she unable to act upon or create most of world in which she exists, but what future does remain is already largely predetermined by the effects of events past.

Who, then, would want to be a meaningless fleck near the end of the eight thousand year history of human civilization? Conceiving of the world in such a way can only result in feelings of futility and predetermination. We must think of the world differently to escape this trap—we must instead place our selves and our present day existence where they rightfully belong, in the center of our universe, and shake off the dead weight of the past. Time may well extend before and behind us infinitely, but that is not how we experience the world, and that is not how we must visualize it either, if we want to find any meaning in it. If we dare to throw ourselves into the unknown and unpredictable, to continually seek out situations that force us to be in the present moment, we can break free of the feelings of inevitability and inertia that constrain our lives—and, in those instants, step outside of history.

What does it mean to step outside of history? It means, simply, to step into the present, to step into yourself. Time is compressed to the moment, space is concentrated to one point, and the unprecedented density of life is exhilarating. The rupture that occurs when you shake off everything that has come before is not just a break with the past—you are ripping yourself out of the past-future continuum you had built, hurling yourself into a vacuum where anything can happen and you are forced to remake yourself according to a new design. It is a sensation as terrifying as it is liberating, and nothing false or superfluous can survive it. Without such purges, life becomes so choked up with the dead and dry that it is nearly unlivable—as it is for us, today.

None of this is to say that we should condone the deliberate lies of those who would rewrite history, with the intention of trapping us even deeper in ignorance and passivity than we are now. But the solution is not to combat their supposed "objective truths" with more claims to Historical Truth—for it is not more past we need, to weigh upon us, but more attention to today. We must not allow them to make our lives and thoughts revolve only around what has been; instead we must realize that it is up to us to reveal what is true about the present and what is possible from here.

So what can we embrace in place of History? Myth, perhaps. Not the obscurist superstitions and holy lies of religion and capitalism, but the democratic myths of storytellers. Myth makes no claims to false impartiality or objective Truth, it does not purport to offer an exhaustive explanation of the cosmos. Myth belongs to everyone, as it is made and remade by everyone, so it can never be used by one group to lord itself over another. And it does not paralyze—instead of trapping people in the chains of cause and effect, myth makes them conscious of the enormous range of possibilities that their own lives have to offer; instead of making them feel hopelessly small in a vast and uncaring universe, it centers the world again on their own experiences and ambitions as represented by those of others. When we tell tales around the fire at night of heroes and heroines, of other struggles and adventures and societies, we are offering each other examples of just how much living is possible. There may be those who will threaten that the whole world will unravel if we stop concerning ourselves with the past and think only of the present. Let it unravel, then! A lot of good history has done us until now, repeating and repeating itself. Let's break out of it once and for all, before we too tread the circular path that our ancestors have worn so bare. Let's make the leap out of History, and make the moments of our daily lives the world we live in and care about—only then can we make it into a place that has meaning for us. The present belongs to those who are able to seize it, to recognize all that it is and can be!

athwart the infinite

2007-03-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

"this ghastly skeleton, bone-bare, on ghostly nag,
gallops through space. no spurs, no whips...
and yet his steed pants toward Apocalypse,
nostrils a-snort in epileptic fit.
headlong they rush, athwart the infinite,
with rash and trampling hoof. the cavalier,
his flashing sword aflame, slashes - now here,
now there - amongst the nameless slaughtered horde;
then goes inspecting, like some manor-lord,
the charnel-ground, chill and unbounded, where,
under a bleak sun's pallid, leaden glare,
history's great sepulchered masses lie,
from ages near and ages long gone by."

Tonight will be the first night working on material in the new studio over in downtown. New resonance for old tones.

into the sea

2007-03-04T17:07:00.000-08:00

Late Winter, 2007. First entry.