ANDREAS DIESEL & DIETER GERTEN
'Looking For Europe: The History Of Neofolk'
PROPHECY
As the pathetic, deplorable habit by ego-manic, power-tripping fractions of the revolutionary armchair/keyboard left to persecute and slander individuals and bands more libertarian than they are, belonging or associated with neofolk, based on a poor, sad mix of a total inability of distinguishing artistic language from political one, the impotency of marking and attacking scapegoats instead of those with real shady intentions and the power to determine policies I.E. the real enemy, and outright lies, the translation to English of the 'Looking For Europe' book, now published alongside the release of the compilation bearing the same title on vinyl (five of them to be precise!) is a welcome and crucial source of information, serving as a long-needed case for the wrongly or maliciously accused, and an indictment of who (behind dated ideological veils) are the true authoritarians in this ongoing quarrel. The sexual harassment scandal within the ranks of the Trotskyite SWP, and the appalling way it handled it internally is but one example of just how unsavoury the left's backyard can be (FYI, I despise the political right and consider myself a boring social-democrat politically, and a nihilist philosophically).
'Looking For Europe: The History Of Neofolk'
PROPHECY
As the pathetic, deplorable habit by ego-manic, power-tripping fractions of the revolutionary armchair/keyboard left to persecute and slander individuals and bands more libertarian than they are, belonging or associated with neofolk, based on a poor, sad mix of a total inability of distinguishing artistic language from political one, the impotency of marking and attacking scapegoats instead of those with real shady intentions and the power to determine policies I.E. the real enemy, and outright lies, the translation to English of the 'Looking For Europe' book, now published alongside the release of the compilation bearing the same title on vinyl (five of them to be precise!) is a welcome and crucial source of information, serving as a long-needed case for the wrongly or maliciously accused, and an indictment of who (behind dated ideological veils) are the true authoritarians in this ongoing quarrel. The sexual harassment scandal within the ranks of the Trotskyite SWP, and the appalling way it handled it internally is but one example of just how unsavoury the left's backyard can be (FYI, I despise the political right and consider myself a boring social-democrat politically, and a nihilist philosophically).
The analysis of neofolk's ideas and
aesthetics fills the concluding part of the book, the majority of
which is a low-down of band histories and description of album
contents, influences etc. This at times gets a tad tedious and is
helped when a band member is interviewed to provide extra insight.
Still, when next to the obvious Death In June, Sol Invictus et al
some of the bands are very obscure, the Wikipedia-style overviews are
welcome.
What crucially transpires when going
through those overviews, band by band, is that neofolk as a
sub-culture and musical genre is not different to any other, both in
terms of the staggering musical diversity (demonstrated fully on the
compilation: from freak-folk to industrial to abstract
experimentalism; from musical masterpieces to cringe-worthy,
irritating whining) sharing a single genre tag, and in terms of
content, messages, aesthetics, ideologies and beliefs. Every
sub-culture includes within it both left and right leanings (as well
as a-political and nihilistic ones, and ones that defy polar
categorisation), including industrial, punk and metal. Therefore, the
blanket attack of neofolk is ignorant, hypocritical, malicious,
arbitrary, or indeed all of the above. Indeed, there are neofolk acts
out there that do not subscribe to a liberal democrat ethos, but,
what of it? How weak and helpless should one feel to be so easily
threatened by that? More importantly, it will be more difficult to
find actual, implicit or explicit racism within neofolk than it would
be within punk (I.E. racist skin bands) or metal (I.E. NSBM).
If there's one weakness to 'Looking For
Europe', it is that in a handful of instances where dealing with
bands who, while nothing remotely close to fascism or nazism are
nevertheless openly not followers of the 'Judeo-Christian' legacy of
the enlightenment (yet at times sharing more with humanist
neo-paganism than with the outright political right) the authors seem
to try and underplay it a bit instead of freely discussing it. This
is less a result of a sinister nazi conspiracy to infiltrate
(un)popular culture, but more the fact that every shred of
'confession' for such sins encourages yet more disproportional
persecution. The atmosphere into which the book launches itself is
therefore not one of real democratic dialogue, and it is sad that it
sees fit to be defensive and less honest as result. Neofolk might
have been more self-criticising if it didn't have to constantly fend
off witch-hunts based on lies, moral panics and misinterpretations.
In that sense alone, certain self-proclaimed anti-fa circles (this
text will not go down the same anti-democratic path and deny the
existence of anti-fa groups and organisations who are doing
important, positive work fighting the real enemies: the people in
suits behind the scenes, or indeed in cabinet offices, as well as
their foot soldiers) is doing more harm than good and as such is part
of the problem and not a solution and should start persecuting
itself! Ha!
On a personal note, and to demonstrate
that I do not emerge from circles the ignorant might automatically
associate with supporting neofolk, I feel it relevant to state that
I'm Jewish, offspring to Holocaust survivors, and that a large chunk
of my critique of the dogmatic extreme left is based on being
involved with it since I was a teenager in Israel, inspired by
anarcho-punk, which I still listen to and deeply respect as part of
my ideological upbringing. It is in fact the powerful, aggressive
gestures and aesthetics of anarcho-punk which allowed me to
understand that an idea becomes potent carried on sound and vision,
and in many ways that sound and vision are the message, before
a single word is uttered. This prepared me for the challenges posed
by a band like Laibach, but it still took me years to be able to
articulate what at the time I understood intuitively: that what is
nowadays considered 'fascistic aesthetics' were used equally by the
left before (and in socialist states also after) WWII, and are more
broadly part of human cognition and expression since the dawn of
civilisation. I found a more suitable term: monumental aesthetics.
The taboo on the monumental, I discovered, can be bigger than the
taboo on the satanic or sexually 'deviant'. Still, upon my first
encounter with neofolk heroes Allerseelen (who are of course covered
in the book) , sometime in the early '00s, I wrote a review which
parroted the same lefty accusations that are still bandied around to
this day. It's perhaps no wonder that my uninformed moralist
arrogance manifested when I was living in Berlin and coming to terms
with the somewhat strange ways Germans cope with their past. I've
since met Allerseelen's frontman Kadmon, interviewed him, and changed
my opinion 180 degrees. Allerseelen can be at worst accused of
artistic and cultural romanticism, but more so of boldly dealing with
taboos (political, sexual, artistic), and as such following a legacy
of outsider art, undetectable on the radars of those limited to a
one-dimensional political analysis (either left or right, in this
case). I own a copy of Allerseelen's controversial 'Gotos=Kalanda'
album, based on poems written by occultist Karl Maria Wiligut,
'Himmler's Rasputin', who headed a department for early history
within the SS, and got kicked out after his earlier hospitalisation
in a mental institute was discovered. There is nothing in this album
suggesting glorification or support of Nazism. It is a study of a
madman which is no different than the interest by Allerseelen in
outsiders like revered filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, for example.
Safe subject matter? Definitely not! Proof of nazi sympathy?
Definitely not!
What this book proves beyond all doubt
is that the neofolk scene is self-aware and thinks about its
aesthetics and messages in-depth, in a way which is often lacking in
the safe confines of some punk-by-numbers scenes. The interview with
Paul Poet and his case for neofolk is probably the highlight of the
book and worth its cover price alone for anyone who dares to
challenge their own misconceptions of the scene.
As every music journalist will agree,
not all musicians are verbal. Not all are well-versed in articulating
their art in words, and for sure not all of them are as
discourse-savvy in post-colonial and post-structural literature as
those aforementioned armchair ego-tripping geeks who have
sharpened their debating-society claws since they were lonely teens
and therefore win arguments yet perpetually lose in any sort of
engagement with the complex and contradictory nature of art and
indeed life itself. If, after reading 'Looking For Europe', you still
think neofolk is worthy of condemnation, fair enough – then, at
least, you will be able to form one that is informed.
Avi Pitchon
Looking For Europe - book and
five-vinyl box set available separately - are out now Prophecy.
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