Unsolicited Recommendations 6
Recently I've been too busy with other work-related activities and the national American sport of dodging bullets to consume a ton of culture from outside my little world. But what I tend to do in those time is reread and rehear stuff I already enjoy, so you know these two books have an unsolicited stamp of approval that has stood the test of time-
Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" and Ernst Jünger's "Storm of Steel"
You might've noticed a certain uptick in movies and TV being made about the First World War. My gamble is that it's less difficult to create a relatable struggle when there's no unambiguous evil. Barring the Ottomans, who were trying their damndest to get in on it early.
That being said, knowing the events is half the struggle and getting a grip on the feeling on each side is a very different game. The American and British novelists have quite a few famous ones (like T.E Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" or Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" to name two) but the German ones are known mainly by name rather than by people having actually read them.
This is a shame, as these books show the other side of this world changing conflict. "Storm of Steel" in particular has a lot of insights into the different divisions in the German forces (Lower Saxons and Prussians for eg.) It's hard to imagine but both Germany and Italy were united countries for about 50-60 years at the time The Great War broke out. It was all duchies, kingdoms, palatinates and presumably Palpatine-nates before that.
Meanwhile " All Quiet on the Western Front" is one of the greatest anti-war novels of the modern age. Unlike Jünger's book, it is a less complex and less flowery book, but the way it talks about the feelings and trauma of Paul Bäumer and company is both fascinating and hits home very hard. I believe many of the characters in the book are archetypes of people we see around us, and Remarque's insight can teach us a lot. We all know an armchair Kantorek, a dry and witty Westhus, or an overcompensatory Himmelstoß.
The books serve as interesting counter pieces to each other. Jünger was a more philosophical, more decorated soldier while Remarque was more sensitive and more clearly scarred by what he endured. Reading both, while not providing a complete education, definitely gives a better center to understanding this conflict.
P.S
Remarque's followup, "The Way Back" is also an excellent read. The Netflix movie for All Quiet is also pretty damn good.
Babalon's Bands III- Temples to Typhon (Thy Darkened Shade)
It is a bizarre and difficult time in which we find ourselves. Wherein free speech is under attack by people who desire human rights, sex is more liberal than ever and yet less commonplace, the freedom to own guns is seen as more important than the freedom to not get shot and worst of all, people like me have more efficient ways than ever to spam you with our opinions...not that I would... LISTEN TO THY DARKENED SHADE YOU BASTARD. Me? I would never do such a thing. A thing such as telling you to LISTEN TO THY DARKENED SHADE.
My shitty jokes aside, Thy Darkened Shade is a wildly imaginative black metal duo from Athens. What do I mean by wildly imaginative? Well, they have been squeezing about a world and a half of sophistication, memorable guitars and "this on paper doesn't work but they made it work" into an LP every half a decade or so. Much like Varg Vikernes being granted temporary leave in 2003 and going on the run, Thy Darkened Shade make their releases count.
Their debut, released a short, breezy thirteen years after their formation, is "Eternvs Mos, Nex Ritvs." It is a sharp, fast and unyielding record. It is also by far and wide the thrashiest of their three albums. While "Eternvs..." is by no means "punky," it also doesn't have that rumbling weight that their later releases have. It flirts more closely with Nifelheim and Gospel of the Horns than it does Morbid Angel or Blasphemy. However I am loathe to call it black thrash, in the same I am loathe to put a / or a "blackened" anywhere when talking about Thy Darkened Shade. Because it really isn't. The soul of this perverse genre is stretched in every which direction but it feels like black metal.
Even in their later records, the band goes from Chuck Schuldiner and Jon Nodtveïdt style complexities to borderline Slayer and Harmony Corruption era Napalm Death moments in what feels like a snap. 2014's Liber Lvcifer I: Khem Sedjet is an absolute masterclass in not letting tags bother you. Choruses straight out of Enslaved, leads like a somewhat less melodic Nodtveïdt, and grueling Pete Sandoval era Morbid Angel drums, sounds like a mess on paper - in practice the band pulls it off admirably.
It would be another nine short years before the band would continue that particular liber but in the interregnum the band released a bunch of splits. Depending on your tastes you might be more or less excited about the other bands. I'm not going to delve into all of them but my personal favorite is "SAATET- TA APEP" with Chaos Invocation. On top of having what is one of Karmazid's best and most yellow artworks, both bands bring their A-game and compliment each other well. In a world where Nile exists and metal bands have been digging through Egypt like I dig through graveyards for romantic partners, it is hard to stand out. But both Thy Darkened Shade and Chaos Invocation do it, firstly by bringing across a wildly different interpretation to most of what’s out there and second by bringing across wildly different interpretations to each other. They’re both black metal songs but Thy Darkened Shade focuses on the grandeur and elaborate nature of Egyptian mythology, while Chaos Invocation is more detail oriented and emotional.
That brings us to 2023 AD. A mysterious place where dreams come to die. However not all of them because nearly a decade after the first volume, Thy Darkened Shade opened this year swinging with "Liber Lvcifer II: Mahapralaya." I don't want to spoil the surprise, but Liber Lvcifer II took the 9 years of anticipation and expectations and delivered. The death metal edge is more pronounced in this one, the vocals are more varied and better preformed than ever, and the bass is so good that it makes me wish other black metal bands would put in half this effort into their bass arsenal. As for specifics, sorry Charlie, you’re going to have to go check it out yourself. It’s well worth the time investment.
Unsolicited Recommendations 5
(Insert a charming opening paragraph with some vague and bland best wishes, followed up with some joke here. Then say the division today is into an album and a series of books. )
Batzorig Vaanchig’s The Great Chinggis Khan
As anyone who know me can attest, I have had a strong and long standing fascination with Mongolian culture. I have a tattoo of "khan" in Mongolian Bichig (Тод Бициг) script an my hand, and I've occasionally used both Mongol terms and Bichig script in my own art. But let's take a step back, do you know that meme with the Mongolian musician playing the horse head fiddle (морин хуур) on a mountainside? Wearing a traditional, green Mongolian robe ( дззл)?
That man is Batzorig Vaanchig. With the rise of popularity and interest in Mongolian Folk and traditional music, Batzorig Vaanchig cannot and will not go unmentioned. He is, beyond the meme, perhaps the greatest and most famous modern musician in the genre.
If you roll on back to the prehistoric year known to scholars as 2015, before The Hu exploded in popularity (much love to them too,) there were a select few places you could go for full albums of real Mongolian steppe music. In the west, the list for many years basically began and ended in Steppenwolf. But joke references to Hard Rock aside, the list basically began and was headed by Khusgutun and Batzorig Vaanchig.
While the two Khusugtun albums (a self titled debut and Jengar) are my personal favorites in the genre, I believe the accessibility of his new solo record makes for an ideal starting point. Honestly you can't go wrong with any of the three, but if you're new, start here. Savor it, because his voice is one of a kind.
Stephen Fry's Mythos, Heroes and Troy
Being a huge Greek Mythology fan and philhellene myself, I like to dig into every aspect of the old books. There isn't a great many of them, and while they're almost infinitely re-readable, there's a point where you start humming along. But many people tell me they can't pick up an unabridged copy of Theogony, the Iliad, or the Odyssey without getting lost. Between references, customs in Ancient Greece and blurry lines between what is history and what is myth, it can get massively overwhelming.
I broke my head against the wall until I got it. However if you'd rather not be a nerd and spend your days hitting on ladies and making money rather than pondering the ineffable will of Zeus, Stephen Fry has you covered. From cultural significances to fun tidbits and references, Stephen Fry retells and explains the stories in a charming and compelling way.
Id like to stress that it is not and is not intended to be a substitute to reading the originals. Whether we're talking about the Iliad, the Argonautica or Theogony, there's a great deal that is conveyed beyond the storyline. However, Stephen Fry is an excellent Vergil to your Dante as you make your way through.
Unsolicited Recommendations 4
After an undeserved yet still taken break, I have got some more unsolicited recommendations for all of you good boys and girls. If Santa gave you coal, you're hereby invited to stop reading. Santa is the great moral arbiter of our time. The Greeks had Themis, the Romans had Justitia, the Egyptians had Maat and Anubis, the Hindus have Durga, and we, we have Santa. Anyway, rambling aside, here come the recommendations.
Crone- Gotta Light?
Being informed Secrets of the Moon would stop existing after Party-San, I was both saddened and somewhat unsurprised. The change from Black-Extreme Metal to Gothic Rock with some Black Metal leanings was so drastic that their 2015 and onwards crowd and their 1995 crowd were almost completely unrelated. I personally adore both sides of the equation, but I think the name represented an entity that has functionally stopped existing a couple of years ago already.
That being said, I made sure not to take my eyes off sG (Philipp Jonas) and his other band-turned-main band, Crone. Their 2022 album, eventually entitled "Gotta Light?", would be, for better or worse, massively influential on the band's future. Oh well, good thing that it's an awesome and deeply confrontational album then.
Good thing indeed. While Crone existed since 2011 and have undoubtedly already found their footing, "Gotta Light?" is their best album so far. It might have the word light in the title, but don't let that fool you- it's more fucking depressing than getting shot on your birthday. In the rain. By Jonas Renske of Katatonia. sG's mournful, almost lost, vocals and the band's drift from cleaner guitar and piano sections to darker, more distorted pathways make this album feel like a journey. The light, for all its brightness, feels like dawn after a flood.
2. HBO's Rome
Before Game of Thrones, how could you get that sweet "violence in movies and sex on TV" all in one place? That's right by putting a movie screen and a TV screen and doing some scandalous shit in the room. But barring that, you had one of HBO's best shows, Rome.
While I'm not disputing the quality of HBO's recent releases, I think Rome's age and relatively short run has people sleeping on it and that's a shame. A more lively and vivid depiction of the Julius- Augustus period would be hard to come by. The cast has that LOTR quality that while you probably haven't heard of them, (I sure didn't,) you cannot easily mentally dissociate them from their roles here. Ciarán Hinds, Irish actor and man I was genuinely surprised to find out isn't Alfred Molina, is still, after 15 years, the face of Julius Caeser in my mind
The dynamic of moving between the legendary figures and the populous lets the show tell interesting stories on both the macro and the micro levels. An episode or two in, the stories of Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson) and Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) become just as interesting as the bigger historical events on display.
The only drawback is that the show was discontinued after two seasons because it was super expensive to make, but while it lasted it was glorious.