In our solipsistic modern age, it’s sometimes easy to forget that many of the questions with which we concern ourselves today are not just of the moment but are in fact eternal. Such is the case with debate on the relative merits of art.

It’s with this in mind that I present to you a slightly modified excerpt from Moliere’s The Misanthrope. Yes indeed, even in the 17th century, “me too” peasants are easily provoked when confronted plainly with the diabolical stupidity of their creations…!

The scene: ORONTE has shown ALCESTE (the eponymous misanthrope, no less) his bedroom black metal band’s debut kvlt CD (on Goatfukk Records), hoping to gain favourable comment…

ORONTE (to ALCESTE): And now, Sir, you remember what we agreed. Please give me your candid opinion. 

ALCESTE: Well, Sir – it’s always a delicate matter… you see when it comes to questions of taste we all like to be flattered… but as I was saying only the other day to a person whose name I won’t mention, on listening to some music he had composed, a gentleman should always be at pains to control that itch for picking up the guitar and pro-tools to which we are so prone; one should keep a tight rein on any desire one may have to advertise such trivial diversions or in eagerness to display one’s work one runs a risk of cutting a pretty poor sort of figure.

ORONTE: Are you trying to tell me that I was wrong in wanting to…

ALCESTE: No, I’m not saying that… but what I went on to tell him was how deadly the effect of pedestrian composition can be, how it only needs a foible of that sort to ruin a man’s reputation and though one may have a hundred good qualities, people only notice one’s weaknesses.

ORONTE: Are you saying there’s something wrong with my music?

ALCESTE: No, I’m not saying that but… to put him off writing music I pointed out the harm this sort of craving had done to some very worthy people in our own time.

ORONTE: Do I write music badly? Am I to assume I resemble them?

ALCESTE: No, I’m not saying that… but what I did say to him finally was this – do you really need to write music and if so, why on earth must you rush into having it released on CD? The only people who can be excused for letting a bad album loose on the world are the poor devils who have to write music for a living! Take my word for it, resist the temptation, conceal what you do from the public, however much people may urge you otherwise – for the sake of receiving at the hands of some grasping record label  the wretched and ridiculous title of musician. That’s what I tried to impress on him.

ORONTE: I think I understand what you mean, but may I not be told what there is in my album that…

ALCESTE: Frankly, the only thing to do is to put it away and forget it. You have formed your style on bad models. There’s far too much emo, metalcore, rock and God only knows what else. The old bands, your ancestors, crude and unpolished as they were, did very much better. I prefer to any of the stuff people admire so much nowadays an old ballad such as My Journey to the Stars.

ORONTE: For my part, I still maintain that my album is excellent.

ALCESTE: You have your reasons for your opinion, but you must permit me to think otherwise.

ORONTE: It’s sufficient for me that other people think well of it.

ALCESTE: Because they are skilled in dissimulation. I am not.

ORONTE: So you think you have a pretty good share of discernment?

ALCESTE: I should, if I saw anything in your songs!

ORONTE: I shall manage very well without your approval.

ALCESTE: I’m afraid you will have to.

ORONTE: I should like to see you compose something on the same theme.

ALCESTE: I might well have the misfortune to do equally badly, but I should take care not to show other people the result.

ORONTE: You speak with a good deal of assurance, Sir. Such self-opinion…

ALCESTE: I suggest, Sir, that you pursue your search for flattery elsewhere.

(The argument continues…)

Morgan Steinmeyer Hakansson, guitarist and founder-member of Swedish black metal band Marduk, wistfully blew a smoke ring into the air, contemplating the fine curves of his Harley Davidson from the lounge window. With a sigh he stubbed out his cigar and drained two fingers of whisky as he sat heavily into a dark leather armchair, dislodging a signed Pantera CD from the armrest with a clatter. That cunt Satyr had left it at his house after Frost’s birthday party (it read: TO MY MATEY SATEY, HEIL HITLER, LOVE PHIL with a badly drawn swastika underneath). He felt down the side of the chair and found a little marzipan demon – all that remained of the cake he’d carefully baked the day before. Of course, Frost had been drunk and had wiped his limp penis all over the icing, the ungrateful dubiously gendered twat. Morgan closed his eyes and sank deep into thought as he usually did at this time of day.

It wasn’t fair. He’d done everything he could to make Marduk what it was, admittedly more through sheer bloody-minded persistence than any real discernable talent, and deep down he knew that it had never been enough. Sure, they had a relatively big fanbase and made a more than comfortable living from their music, but most of their fans were total idiots and there was always the nagging doubt that they were far from equal amongst their contemporaries. Ivar from Enslaved had pissed all over Morgan’s shoes on tour once and on demanding an apology, Ivar simply farted and walked away without a word.

The likes of Emperor, Darkthrone, Mayhem, or those freewilly fuckers in Enslaved had all quickly started making crappy albums after 1995 or so, but at one point they had all released bonafide, influential classics hailed to this day by sensible metal fans the world over. Where was Marduk’s classic album? Morgan sighed again and thought back to the early days of the band, trying to figure out for the millionth time where he’d gone wrong.

With the original (failed) intention to form “the most blasphemous band in the world”, Marduk started off playing death metal as most soon-to-be black metal bands did in those times. They relatively quickly signed to a record label and a young Morgan felt his blasphemous (tee hee!) band was really going somewhere. But doubts had already formed in his mind even before the release of ‘Dark Endless’ in December 1992, as he realised Marduk’s form of death metal was outmoded, generic and uninspired. It added nothing to a burgeoning genre that had already seen the release of absolute timeless classics (that damned word again, Morgan thought) like Deicide’s first album and then the legendary ‘Legion’ six months before Marduk’s own lame debut. Not to mention Morbid Angel’s ‘Blessed are the Sick’, released a year earlier. Morgan could hear the precise writhing riffage of Trey Azagthoth and Richard Brunelle playing dimly in his head and wished he could completely erase his own sub-standard first effort ‘Dark Endless’ from the dank corner of his memory where it sat, mocking him with its garishly painted cyclopean eye.

Still, those stupid Americans could keep their death metal, black metal was where it was at in Northern Europe and Marduk could become legendary in that revitalised genre instead! So Morgan quickly began the writing of material for ‘Those of the Unlight’, a black metal masterpiece that would seal Marduk’s place forever in the… oh shit. Already those Norwegian wankers Burzum, Immortal and Darkthrone had released veritable milestones in metal, making ‘Those of the Unlight’ look almost totally redundant by the time of its release in 1993. Yet again, others were taking giant leaps in innovation and evolution while Marduk slowly plodded along behind like the class retard on a school trip.

Frustrated and depressed with his lack of acclaim and feeling left out of the media furore surrounding the death of Euronymous and various other events, Morgan strove to create a truly dark and furious recording more in the vein of his Norwegian neighbours. With ‘Opus Nocturne’ he hoped he could create an album to finally raise Marduk to what he saw as their (his) rightful place in the black metal pantheon. Working as he’d never worked before, Hakansson finally saw the release of his masterpiece in December 1994. It was the absolute best he could do, he’d literally burnt himself out creatively giving birth to the album and… it fell short by quite a way. Although it was easily Marduk’s best album so far (and remains so to this day), it was also occasionally verging on being unadventurously simplistic, unambitious and lacking the genius intensity, compositional awareness, epic vision and mystical atmosphere of several key albums from around that time: ‘Pure Holocaust’, ‘Transilvanian Hunger’, ‘Hvis Lyset Tar Oss’, ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’ and ‘In the Nightside Eclipse’. In short, despite their best efforts Marduk had yet again failed to meet the standards set by others and Morgan had nothing left to offer.

At this point, despite having made a half decent album, Hakansson was at his lowest and felt a great ineffectual angsty rage building inside of him. The whole world should be made to suffer for not bowing to the might of Marduk, he seethed. In frustration he began to write even simpler, angrier music for a new album which after a great deal of thought he decided to call ‘Fucking Fuck Off You Ungrateful Scum We’ll Kill You All’. Arranging the artwork, Morgan requested that it depicted an army of loyal Marduk fans all bearing official Marduk merchandise emblem shields, preparing to attack those failing to appreciate his beloved band. The other members were somewhat sceptical about this and in particular took issue with the title, suggesting instead the only slightly less impotent rage sounding ‘Heaven Shall Burn When We Are Gathered’. Morgan sulkily accepted this compromise, retaining the naff artwork, though in later years with a clearer head it was altered to something more kvlt for the reissue, along with that of ‘Dark Endless’. He at least had the last laugh over that stupid eye!

And so, after good album sales of ‘Heaven Shall Burn…” Hakansson realised the key to the band’s future commercial success: lowest common denominator appeal. Fuck trying to create something meaningful, he could attain respect and a real position of authority by appeasing the tastes of people who vaguely liked the idea of black metal but couldn’t stomach the intricate complexities of its leading artists. He would write “extreme” and “br00tuhl” music so bland, so dull and generic that even a Cannibal Corpse or Pantera fan could get into it, with a bit of luck. Add a bit of black metal cliché lyrics / imagery and voila, easily accessible pseudo-black metal for the peasants to enjoy and throw money at so they can be part of it.

With each new Marduk album released, their popularity increased exponentially and Morgan laughed to himself as he thought how much easier it was to lower black metal for the consumption of idiots than try to equal the achievements of his contemporaries as he’d attempted back in 1994. After releasing ‘Panzer Division Marduk’ in 1999, the culmination of his tried and tested “duh duh duh duh at 350BPM” technique, it dawned on him that even the most brainless Marduk fan was slowly realising how limited their music actually was. As he began to believe his own hype and buoyed with a false sense of his own greatness Hakansson made an attempt at a “heavy”, slower record to counterbalance what had tediously gone before. It failed utterly. His grunting monkey fanbase wanted something fast and broootuuuhl and no one else even cared anymore. The only thing he could think of doing was to go back to what Marduk did best, yet conceal it behind a gimmick of some kind. All it had to do was serve as a distraction for the majority of moronic modern black metal listeners, which wouldn’t prove too difficult. At first he flirted with the idea of a science fiction themed album called ‘Star Destroyer Marduk’, where the war film samples on “Panzer Division…” would simply be replaced with Star Wars sound effects. But as it turned out, he discovered an even better solution to his problem, and it would also provide Marduk with the scene credibility Morgan had so longed for all these years, no matter how artificial and fleeting it would eventually prove to be.

Of course, he had known Belfagor of Ofermod for years, here was someone who had actually looked up to Hakansson and hung out with the band trying to look cool, an impressionable kid who’d even formed a band, Nefandus, to try and impress him. Later, Morgan had heard the kid’s EP, Ofermod’s ‘Mysterion Tes Anomias’ and felt a surge of panic. It was nothing amazing, it was just above average “Swedish black metal” ™, but it showed that there was a potential rival to Marduk’s position as kings of not-quite-good-enough. Then, a few years later many younger Swedish bands claimed to have been largely influenced by Ofermod’s “religious black metal”, much to Morgan’s chagrin and hurt feelings.

One of these bands in particular held Hakansson’s attention, a kvlt underground entity known as Fragrant Mist. He listened to their debut full-length album ‘Salvation’ with both awe and intense jealousy. Yet again, it was nothing really worth listening to, its genericism was cleverly hidden amongst production techniques, effects, samples and some absurdly over-the-top vocals, but that was where its genius lay, Morgan thought. This album could indeed be Marduk’s salvation. He quickly got hold of Fragrant Mist’s mainman Arioch and outlined his plans for a born again Marduk. Arioch would be to Marduk what Dead had been to Mayhem, and as such Arioch even changed his name to Mortuus, or “Dead” in the kvltest language of all: Latin. Lyrical / album concepts mostly changed to overtly religious ones and when combined with production techniques, effects, samples and those over-the-top vocals concealed the fact that underneath it all lay the same old Marduk that everyone knew and loathed. Unlike Dead-era Mayhem, Mortuus-era Marduk simply became Fragrant Mist-lite, yet were a major band with the underground credibility of having a kvlt personality as vocalist. Morgan rubbed his hands with glee as he contemplated the new glorious era for Marduk that awaited him…           
   
Morgan opened his eyes with a start as Mortuus nudged him gently.
“Thou must awaken,” said Mortuus, “verily I say unto thee, we hath many dreary and generic riffs of various genre origins to compose and fit into thy patented template for thy new opus, before entering ye studio and speed tremolo picking an angry faux-black metal song out of it. I thinketh the new album should be christened ‘Korinthianzzz PraYer Ritual Angel ov Poo’. I heareth that the cooleth thing in the scene now is scatoliturgical misspelt album titles. Amen”.
“Fucking hell I hate you,” said Morgan wearily.

Epilogue:

Satyr and Frost announced their engagement in 2007, marrying a year later in the ancient spectre ruins inspired by overflowing medieval belief and vikings and shit. A majestetic hail in honour of Peter Tatchell and their spiritual brothers in Stonewall. Hail Satan!

Mortuus / Arioch released a nu-black metal album with his religious circus troupe Fragrant Mist called ‘Maranatha’ in 2009. It is already considered black metal’s answer to Sepultura’s ‘Roots’ by many metal fans.

Morgan Hakansson continues to release Marduk albums tailored to the current middle-of-the-road “extreme metal” prevailing trends at a rate of one per financial year, to general apathy. Merchandise sales are doing well, with plans to release official Marduk plastic swords and shields bearing their logo in 2010.

Guest article by Wooden Artifact.

The city of Bristol, England. With large areas having been bombed flat in the war, it was decided to build a tribute to that versatile substance the romans apparently loved and knew how to utilise so well: concrete. Unfortunately, lacking any kind of artistic vision whatsoever, a new hellish canyon of jagged edifice and cliff emerged from the bloody churned sea of blitzed devastation.

The purpose of this new-fangled development of abomination was to provide the perfect natural habitat for numerous species of large corporate “shops”, or “stores” as Americans called them. People could peer in through the windows and imagine owning the products enticingly displayed within, memories of war, maimed loved ones and thoughts of death growing more distant with each new product desired. Most shops not owned by major conglomerates were thus forced out into the wilderness, and in later decades those seeking underground metal music were therefore required to cross dangerous rivers of effluent, brave urine stinking burrows under roads and to smile or scowl at drunken beggars and other human refuse as necessary.

Such was the case with Replay Records. Having reluctantly visited Bristol city with parents as a child, no intelligent person would be eager to return, however, I’d seen a small advert in a local newspaper which promised a large secondhand record shop; vinyls, CDs, magazines and, YES, a wide selection of independent music. For a young man with not many other options at the time, it seemed like a worthwhile adventure. As I had thought, the city centre was bad, very bad. Seeing as I’d grown up in a small rural town with a population barely pushing 20,000, it was still always an unpleasant culture shock to descend into cities of surging crowds and heavy traffic fumes.

A brief walk out of the centre’s limits, a few wrong turns and several subterranean tunnels later and in front of me lay a pair of small shops both adorned with graffiti covered metal shutters, one of which sold paraphernalia pertaining to sexual gratification, and finally, the aforementioned Replay Records. As I entered the dimly lit, never been cleaned, stale smelling premises, I espied two large racks of CDs and another longer rack filled with LPs spanning the wall.

Somewhat self-consciously I began carefully flicking through the CDs while a fellow metaller nearby ran an expert hand quickly along the rack, scanning for any new stock. To my surprise, as he came nearer he looked up, and dismissively brandishing a copy of Metallica’s “Black Album” said “cool shirt mate, look at this shit, must be about 15 copies of this”. I nodded in amazement, in agreement with his assessment of Metallica’s icon of final artistic doom but also in shock of even being addressed in such a casual, natural manner. This was England, in a large city, in the late twentieth century and this sort of thing just wasn’t done. As I visited more frequently over the next couple of years, I learned to accept this behaviour and met a variety of interesting people, some of whom went on to form bands active in the “scene” even today, years later.

As the WWW became more ubiquitous, record shops lost a lot of business to downloads, internet sales and auction sites, with even major companies facing critical difficulties in the physical retail sector. Although independent record shops should manage to stay open in theory, due to a loyal clientele often travelling some distance just to visit them, they often close down anyway (including all those I was eventually familiar with), most likely never to be replaced. For those still lucky enough to have such a shop near them, perhaps you will still be familiar with the arcane, slightly redundant knowledge collected below.

For me it is as distant a memory as that first trip home to my rural town, tightly holding a large yellow bag filled with several LPs and CDs, looking very conspicious and faintly ridiculous against my black jeans and jacket…

Thee arcane knowledge and etiquette of secondhand independent record shops:

- Don’t steal. There’s no point in stealing anyway, only the cases/sleeves are on display, the discs themselves are filed away behind the counter. Independent secondhand shops can’t afford to security tag their stock. The shop needs every penny they can get just to stay open.
- If you’re looking for something specific, remember that the shop is probably only very loosely arranged in alphabetical order and you may need to look carefully around the adjacent letters as well. You could also try asking the staff if they aren’t busy. They’ll probably have a list of stock and could check it for you.
- There’s a reason why there are 10 copies of a certain album on their shelves, it’s rubbish awaiting removal to the landfill.
- The condition of the booklet is quite important. If it’s badly bent, creased or waterdamaged then chances are the previous owner didn’t care too much for the disc itself either. Most shops claim to test all stock before putting them out on the shelves but it’s best to err on the side of caution and not risk a purchase, unless it’s a particularly rare or sought after record. 
- If you see something you really want, pick it up there and then, or someone else may take it before you. You can sometimes ask shop staff to hold items for you behind the counter so as you can buy it another day. Though if you haven’t returned before a certain date it goes back on the shelves again.
- There are usually classified advert boards on display which are useful for selling old instruments, seeking band members, promoting gigs and such like. Independent record shops are often focal points for local “scenes” and musicians, the Helvete shop in Norway being a well known example. The members of bands such as Sadistik Exekution also got together from an advert placed in such a shop.