Haelegenic Visions Qr
1. …the transcendental black metal band Liturgy.
Here is a 2023 Liturgy performance in London
2. …a music culture historically encoded with a dark and nihilistic vision.
For those first exploring black metal, the starting point is the "Second Wave," which emerged from early 1990s Norway. This scene embodied a potent blend of violent rebellion, suicidal nihilism, and ideological extremism. Bands like Burzum, Mayhem, and Darkthrone led the movement, their sounds evoking the bleak, elemental atmosphere of Scandinavia: cold, foggy, and ancient. More than just a musical genre, it evolved into a youth-driven countercultural movement—a radical rejection of liberal idealism, Christian morality, modernity, and even the instinct for self-preservation. It promoted an extreme way of life for disenchanted youth standing at the event horizon of total psychological annihilation.
Politically, Norwegian black metal was deeply reactionary, embracing nationalism and traditionalism while rejecting the Western hegemony and nearly every element of modernity. It stood against Christianity as a foreign imposition that supplanted indigenous pagan traditions, a defiance reflected in a spate of church burnings. These acts were seen by some in the scene as a Jungian archetype—a symbolic rebellion against spiritual oppression and an attempt to reclaim cultural identity.
Philosophically, the movement embraced a form of transcendental nihilism, best epitomized by Mayhem's lead singer, "Dead." His fascination with mortality—rooted in a childhood near-death experience—manifested in macabre stage antics, such as self-mutilation and the use of decaying animal remains. Dead's eventual suicide in 1991, during which he left behind a note simply reading "Excuse all the blood," underscored the earnestness and bleakness of the movement’s philosophical outlook.
The scene also became notorious for its violent real-life drama. The murder of Mayhem's guitarist Euronymous by fellow bandmate Varg Vikernes is a significant event in the black metal narrative. Euronymous was stabbed 23 times following rumors that he intended to torture Vikernes and make a snuff film of his death. This shocking act of betrayal within a band of young musicians highlighted the intense and chaotic nature of the movement.
For those wishing to delve deeper into this complex and often sensational cultural phenomenon, the documentary "When the Light Takes Us" offers a compelling exploration of the era.
3. Haela’s controversial manifesto, The Transcendental Black Metal Manifesto: A Vision of Apocalyptic Humanism…
Click the cover below to read the pdf.
4. Liturgy, ever-evolving, incorporated symphony, opera, glitch electronics, trap, and more into their music.
Liturgy was birthed with the Immortal Life EP, a work that hasn’t received much love even to this day, which isn’t surprising given its immensely harsh production and alien sound.
Immortal Life feels like an autistic child’s bedroom experiment in sounds channeled from the future, blending hypnotic and aggressive guitar work with classical undertones and high-speed programmed drums that add a futurist flair. The EP debuts the “burst beat”—a rising, falling, and pulsing variation of the “blast beat” that redefines rhythmic boundaries and delivers sonic bursts mirroring the ebbs and flows of life through a dynamic flux.
Although the recording is rough to the point of being completely unlistenable for most (which may be why Liturgy re-recorded the EP in early 2024, resulting in Immortal Life II), it serves as a historic blueprint for their evolutionary path, hinting at the transcendental grandeur of their future sound while signaling the emergence of a new genre.
With their first LP, Renihilation, Liturgy transformed, significantly refining their sound and compositional sophistication. The album is bursting with frenetic energy, an ecstatic intensity that builds and erupts into transcendent bliss. While Liturgy would go on to evolve and reach musical peaks that surpass this initial effort, Renihilation serves as the essential blueprint for what Haela has termed “Transcendental Black Metal.”
With their sophomore album, Aesthethica, Liturgy made a monumental leap, solidifying their place in the avant-garde music world and redefining the boundaries of black metal. This album showcases a greatly polished production and a significant evolution in style, incorporating elements of math rock and experimental art-rock to create a dizzying, glitchy sound that evades traditional genre confines.
Tracks like "Returner" exemplify this innovation; while all the conventions of black metal—blast beats, high-speed tremolo guitars, and banshee-like screams—are present, they are completely inverted. What was once dead now feels alive; the black has turned white. If black metal inverts the cross, then Aesthethica flips it back upright.
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5. Each of its thirty-six concepts correspond to a decan of the zodiac
7. I think I got the term from Northrop Frye’s commentary on William Blake…
6. It lacks a metaphysical foundation but is grounded in ten antinomies that mark the current limits of reason.
8. I was also inspired by the idea of Wagnerian total artwork (Gesamtkunstwerk)
9. You mentioned the album, but Ark Work is also an important concept in your philosophy.
10. Simultaneously, we can avoid dependence on the music industry by promoting music through Substack posts and video essays.
11. The idea of Sacred Labor synthesizes ideas of the Christian faith with psychoanalysis, proposing a new creative process which evades capture by the Armistice.
12. “Lacan calls it ‘insistence.’”
14. …I’m curious about your feelings on the TradCath movement…
15. We also have the Angelicism trend thats happening within Theorygram and New Net Art circles…
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13. The term demiurgic is apt because accelerationism—and nick lands work in particular—leans into what is essentially Gnosticism.
16. The other two major concepts fundamental to Transcendental Qabala: Metaperichoresis and Haelegen.
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