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Troubadours Of The Apocalypse * Troy Southgate (editor) (2015)

This little book (130 pages) is a collection of essays published by Troy Southgate through his own publishing house Black Front Press. BFP has a somewhat outdated Blogspot, a more up-to-date Facebook page and a “storefront” at Amazon.co.uk where I linked the cover to. Unfortunately, Amazon does not list all BFP titles and the current title is not (yet?) available there. Ordering from BFP is easy though, each title, whether it has 130 pages or 550, have the same price. When you live in Europe, 15 pounds includes the book and postage, also when you order more titles at the same time. Make a Paypal payment and Troy and Carole take care of the rest. A plus for ordering through BFP rather than Amazon, is that Troy signs the books before shipping them.

On to the book then. The forword fortells the fall of our society, just as the Roman empire eventually fell. Few people dare to speak of this event. Many of those are to be found in the musical scene that the book calls the “neofolk, industrial & neoclassical underground”. 11 Musicians from that scene wrote a few pages. Some of these texts are merely musical biographies; other texts are more interesting and draw parallels to spiritual development and music, one text is more like a spiritual biography and the wonderfull closing article combines all these elements and puts the whole ‘political issue’ in perspective.

The book seems somewhat radical with a not-too-easy thinker as editor who names his publishing house “Black Front Press” which publishes titles by/about men scorned by many and also publishes political books. Does that not make a too easy link between the music scene and unwelcome politics? Some contributors, I figured, would not fear such a connection, but I was surprised to find a nice text of Francesca Nicoli of Ataraxia here. Another surprice, and a very nice one too, is Christopher Walton of the late Endvra and now of TenHornedBeast, with a very personal story about his spiritual path. Also noteworthy is the opening text of Gerhard Hallstatt of Allerseelen who tells us how Allerseelen came to be. The text of Robert Taylor (Changes) tells us a few things about his musical endeavors and early American Asatru. The abolute highlight, though, is for “the only Jew in the village”, Richard Levy, who explains how a Jew can develop a Nazi fetish yet still remain a leftish politician, how he sees the controversial project Death In June and criticise the hollowness that the scene soon developped and plagues to this day.

Do not expect an in-depth investigation of the neofolk scene; neither an investigation of the politics that the scene is so often accused of or even its larger history. The book contains 11 short texts, one better than another, telling you something about a controversial scene and keeping you off the street for an hour and a half.

2015 Black Front Press, isbn 9780993170300

Hell’s Bent On Rockin’ * Craig Brackenridge (2007)

Welcome to the world of flat-tops, quiffs, hard-slapping and most of all, wrecking. However I have been aware of the music style of psychobilly for a while, for a long time I had the idea that it was a current in the larger rock/punk scene. This is possibly because in the Netherlands this is largely the case. When there is something rockabilly, often a few psychobillies appear. When Peter Pan Speedrock have a party, there are psychobillies present. It never really occured to me that the horror-themed music of psychobilly represents a different scene from horror punk. In my hometown there has been a psychobilly (“and related” I used to usually add) festival and last year my eye fell on a book about psychobilly. I bought it at this years’ edition. Psychobilly proves to be a scene of its own. Psychobillies are very recognisable, but it also proves that this scene has its own labels, mailorders, concert organisers, festivals, etc. Actually, it is much bigger than I would have guessed. Even in the early days when a release came in a 2000 piece edition, this was limited, while my usual music 2000 is quite a normal edition for a regular release. Brackenridge came up with a nice, and in his eyes hardly needed, history of psychobilly. He describes how in the mid 1980’ies there were people in the rockabilly scene who pushed the boundaries of the style, mostly thematically. There appeared what Brackenridge describes as “neo rockabilly” and later when the lyrics became more horror-themed, “psychobilly”. The first psychobilly band who also gave the name to what was to become a genre of its own, The Meteors. Several classic compilations appeared who clearly show the transition in the music style, one of those compilations lent its name to the book. Pretty soon many old-style rockabillies started to distance themselves from the wicked, new form of rock’n’roll and slowly but surely, psychobilly became a genre and later a scene. In the early days the sound was still quite rockabilly, but perhaps sped up. Early bands experimented with other music styles, but the scene evolved to be quite narrowminded initially and there soon grew a typical sound, a typical look and typical themes. Later other people joint the scene with a punk background and psychobilly started to stretch to both extremes of the spectrum, some bands having more of a punk-sound, others more classical rockabilly. Especially when the disease left the UK (it all started in London), the sound became rougher and sometimes closer to rock. All these developments make that nowadays “psychobilly” is somewhat of an umbrella term for a variety of rock’n’roll based music styles. The scene melds with the punk scene on one end, with rockabilly on another and with rock on yet another, but basically it stands on its own. The followers are numerous, the same goes for labels, distros, websites and inspite of a dip in popularity in the 1990’s, especially the USA has rekindled the fire. Somehow the complete scene has been ignored by the main music press only making short encounters of a handfull of bands with major labels. Since psychobilly is (still) mostly an underground scene, many people might have never heard of it and yet, a festival will draw thousands of fans, quite like with my usual music.
Brackenridge wrote somewhat of an encyclopedia with a shitload of bands, labels, distros and individuals covered. He talks about clothing and hairstyles, subgenres, developments, different countries, name it. The problem is that this book should have come with an index, especially because it is mostly unstructured. There are different chapters, which appear to be pieces that the author wrote at some point in time, but the texts just run on an on and without even a white line, you are suddenly reading about another band or even a completely different subject. Also it is impossible to look back band information. Brackenridge uses psychobilly slang like everybody knows what he is talking about (perhaps the book was written for internal use?). It even took a while before I found out that “flat tops” are not shoes and “quiffs” not a psychobillies. Inspite of this, the book is amusing and informative and makes a very nice introduction to an interesting scene.
2007 Cherry Red Books, isbn 9781901447804

Leicht Entflammbares Material * Josef K. (2000)

I was surprised to find a VAWS stand at the 2011 edition of the Dutch gothic festival Summer Darkness. Actually, that very surprise is the subject of this book. If it has any. My copy says “Auflage 2011”, but the book must have been finished somewhere around 2000 and is reprinted as needed. The printing quality resembles photo copying, but the cover looks nice and the book is bound, not too well bound, but it is a ‘real book’. The book tells the story of the German band Forthcoming Fire, but this is not really true. Actually it contains the rantings of Josef Klumb, probably the most hated person in the music scene wherein I dwell as well. I got to know Josef’s music when I learned about his project Von Thronstahl just before the supposed performance of this project at the 9th Wave Gotik Treffen (2000). At that WGT I bought the 10″ and missed what was left of the show. The show was banned just as a few others that WGT and actually this is what this book is about. Von Thronstahl is not written about in the book itself. The project is only mentioned in the discography (up until the debut cd of 2000) at the end, so perhaps that means that the last ‘entry’ to this book is of of a few years earlier. Now why was I surprised to find a VAWS stand at Summer Darkness? About since the time Von Thronstahl was forced to give an ‘alternative performance’ during the WGT, there had been problems with anti-concert activities around other bands and at other places, also within my own country. Meanwhile I have grown used to the idea that I will not be able to just go and see certain bands, that going to other concerts I have to be carefull what I wear and that a label such as VAWS is looked upon with suspision (and still they always have a stand at the WGT and apparently also at Summer Darkness). How all this comes is minituously described by ‘enemy of the scene number one’: JK.Read More »Leicht Entflammbares Material * Josef K. (2000)

EsoTerra, the journal of extreme culture * Chad Hensley (editor) (2011)

EsoTerra (“arcane earth”) was a magazine that had nine issues between 1991 and 2000. I knew it, since the magazine also featured extreme music, flyers were also spread in the music scene that I go around in. I thought I might have a copy somewhere, but I guess that was wishfull thinking. I have never been much of a magazine buyer. EsoTerra started four years after the first publication of Adam Parfrey’s Apocalypse Culture and deals with similar subjects. Parfey’s book and also EsoTerra were quite controversial in their time, but the fact that Apocalypse Culture is available from Amazon and also this ‘best of EsoTerra‘, the shock has made room for curiosity. I must say that Apocalypse Culture looks more extreme to me than EsoTerra. When you look at my review of the book and the subjects features, EsoTerra comes as easy reading with perhaps an interview with a necrophiliac (like in the other book, but this time also a ‘light one’) and quite a few pages about different sexual preferences, but by far the larger part of the book are interviews with artists and some not too sensation-seeking articles about The Process Church Of Final Judgement or a man that visited John Wayne Gacy on death row a couple of times. The book is mostly enjoyable for historical interests. The interview with Genesis P-Orridge gives a nice insight in the early industrial/noise scene, the interview with Strength Through Joy some of the earlier ideas of the popband Ostara, Merzbow speaks about his early noise efforts and the sex-culture of Japan and H.R. Giger about his art. There are interviews with Albin Julius, Roger Karmanik, David Tibet, Boyd Rice, Mother Destruction, Women of Sodom, Trevor Brown, Joe Coleman and many more. All amusing, but not really groundbreaking or shocking. I had a fun time reading through this ‘best of’ over 300 pages with quality printing with people with weird interests read like a breeze. The only thing I would have liked is when the dates of the interviews were mentioned or at least the issue of original publication would have been mentioned to be better able to place the text in time.
2011 creation books, isbn 9781840681666

Battlenoise

Battlenoise is a book about the musical current called “martial industrial”. The review got the length of an article though, so I published it there.

Die Zauberflote. an Alchemical Allegory * Tjeu van den Berk (isbn 9004130993)

Quite some books have been written about Mozarts famous opera “The Magic Flute”. The story is so symbolic and full of mysteries, that many have broken their heads to explain it. It is known that Mozart was a freemason, so the opera is often depicted as a masonic story, while others see an initiation-story and more others just a loose romantising with symbols to please the public of the late 18th century.

The Dutch scholar Van den Berk (1938) was first intrigued by the music and later by the story and he spend years to investigate the characters, story, history of Vienna in Mozarts time, etc. This resulted in a magnificent work that was first published in Dutch in 2002. Two years later the fifth pressing saw the light of day and every pressing has had corrections, expansions and general editing. Readers brought things under the writers attention, for example freemasons noticed something that he overlooked, or opera-experts knew of something in the score (the written music) so now we have a four-times-made-better massive investigation of “Die Zauberflöte”. There is also an (expensive) English version).

Van den Berk did not really find a Masonic symbolism in the opera, also not really Rosicrucian, but an alchemical; the whole opera is the course of ‘the great work’. To found his theories, Van den Berk extensively investigated Hermetism, alchemy, Freemasonry in Vienna in Mozarts time, Rosicrucianism, mythology and towards the end of the book the writers of the libretto Emanuel Schikaneder (1751-1812) and Karl Gieseke (1761-1831) and the “homo esotericus” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) himself.

Of Hermetism you get a quick overview and how a ‘renaissance’ appeared with the coming of Rosicrucianity and Freemasonry and especially Hermetism and the art of alchemy. The history of Freemasonry in Austria is interesting. You learn how fast it grew and how fast the decline was when someone else got power over the country. Mythology was still important in Mozarts time and most of the characters have elements of mythological figures. Of course alchemy is treated most extensively. Van den Berk did his utmost to explain how alchemical symbolism can be found in the characters of the opera, in the general story and even in the music itself. This investigation is sometimes tiringly detailed, but fascinating for treating with both practical and spiritual alchemy and giving a very nice picture of alchemy in practise in the 18th century. Van den Berk used a massive amoun of illustrations too. However of course Van den Berk writes about the opera, this book is also interesting for anyone interested in alchemy, Freemasonry and Rosicrucianity, also (or maybe especially) people who are new to this area.

A very interesting book, even when the music of the opera itself does not appeal much to me. Maybe I should not only hear it on cd, but see it on stage (or DVD) some time.

Ästhetische Mobilmachung * Andreas Speit (ed.) (isbn 3897718049)

“Ästhetic Mobilisation – Dark Wave, Neofolk and Industrial under pressure of rightwing ideologies” is what I would make of the German title of this book. There are more books about gothic/darkwave music in Germany, simply because this genre is much larger in Germany than anywhere else. Also there are more books from leftish circles about several subject. This book is of course about the neofolk/industrial scene. It is released by “RAT” or “Reihe Antifaschistischer Texte” (“series of antifascist texts”) of the “Unrast Verlag” (“unrest publishers”). It is a compilation of six articles.

The book opens with an introduction by Speit. It speaks about the Wave Gotik Treffens and the problems with rightwing elements at the 2000 edition. Speit says that gothic/darkwave music has long left behind its exclusive character, but subscenes keep popping up. Now there is a scene with extreme right views with its own magazines (Sigill/Zinnober, Ahnstern/Aorta, Occidental Congress, Letters From The Nuovo Europae). However the gothic scene in general could long be regarded as unpolitical, Speit sees a tendency to the right in the whole of it, mostly caused by an uncoming genre promoting extreme right ideas and the acceptance of this tendency by the ‘normal gruftie’. Speit also answers a few simple objections that ‘we’ use.

The first real article is called “The wonderful and frightening World of … Gothic, Grufts und Industrial – die Schwarze Szene und deren Musik im Überblick” and is written by Hans Wanders. As the title suggests, this is a introductionary article about gothic music. Wanders gives the history of the music, the underlying philosophy of it in different times and shows how big the music is nowadays. Here and there he misses the point or forgets things, but overall his article is an alright read. Going from shock-goth-rock to industrial, noise and accoustic music with a slowly growing piece of “fascist esthetics”, this article leads the way for the rest of the book.

“L’art du mal – vom antibürgerlichen Gestus zur faschistoiden Ästhetik” of Andreas Speit and Jan Raabe is next. The title gives the undertone of the article “from anti-bourgeios attitude to fascistic esthetics”. In this article you can read about the 6/6/99 concert of Death In June, antimodernity and then a whole lot of information about (extreme) rightwing history, Italian fascism, Julius Evola, new-right, etc., I would almost say: “everything that a newborn neofolker wants to know.” After this a few compilations are spoken about in detail: Lucifer Rising, Riefenstahl, Thorak, Im Blutfeuer, Le Jardin des Suplices and Za Dom Spremni. Much information about individual tracks, artwork, etc. It is quite amazing how many samples and things in the artwork the writers are able to trace back.

After this follows Christian Dornbusch’s “Von Landsertrommeln und Lärmorgiën – Death In June und Kollaborateure”. This article speaks about the career of Douglas P. and how he moved from leftisch thinking to rightwing ideology. Oldtime friends such as Sol Invictus and the like are also mentioned. Separate chapters are there about Der Blutharsch, NON and Blood Axis. Also obvious reactions from the scene like “P. is homosexual so how can he be a nazi?” are easily disproved. The article is quite well written and relatively balanced. Of course the well-known points are much highlighted.

Next up is “Von der CD zur >Lichtscheibe< – Das Kulturmagazine Sigill" by Thomas Naumann and Patrick Schwarz. This time you can read abou the career of Stephan P. of Sigill/Zinnober, but also of his collaborators. Of course bands mentioned in previous articles again pass the revue, but this time the non-musical contacts are also investigated. Lateron the writers focus on Eis und Licht Tonträger and the bands on this label.

"Synergie Effekte – Bewegungen zwischen Schwarzer Szene und braunem Spektrum" is written by the trio Dornbusch / Raabe / Speit. I personally found this the most 'disturbing' article. It speaks about people from rightwing scenes who found out about the upcoming (light?) conservative tendencies in the gothic scene and tried to exploit this and win people for their own movements. An 'infiltrator' with Zillo magazine or Verlag und Agentur Werner Symanek (VAWS) for example. Also spoken about is the growing interest of the skinhead scene in 'darkwave music' and bands having interview with their magazines. The efforts of the 'outsiders' failed, but we all know what is left.

The last article is "Der Tabubruch von Heute ist der Mainstream von Morgen" and is written by Stephan Lindke. This article isn't too interesting. It speaks about "Neue Deutsche Härte" with means something like "new German hardness" and is a not a kind of music or a scene, but a collective term for German-languaged (metal?) music. Most interest goes to Rammstein with their fascist esthetics and Joachim Witt (who I don't know) , but also Laibach and Weissglut (the band with which Joseph Klumb "alias Jay Kay" almost signed to Sony Records) are spoken about. Also here the interest of skinheads in the music and the disassociation of rightwing philosophies of most "Neue Deutsche Härte" bands are dealt with. Most concerns of the writers are ventilated about the disconnection of (fascist) esthetics and politics and the potential of big bands like Rammstein when they openly portray their interests in fascist esthetics in videoclips (Riefenstahl in the "Stripped" video).

All in all I can suggest this book to everyone who feels attracted to the 'faulty images' of neofolk and kindred bands. The writers of this book find way too much in their images, texts and artworks to be coincidental and several bands seem to be more than just 'playing with fire'. On one hand this could make the music less enjoyable, on the other hand I don't think it is wrong to know what you are dealing with. The writers are very well informed (a bit too much actually) and their texts come with an impressive amount of notes. Some people (like Klumb) are of course mentioned much more than others, but you find information about quite a few bands.
A strange point with this kind of releases I always find the fact that people who already have an interest in the music and/or philosophy will read it and find out things they didn't know or pointers to new bands, movements, magazines or whatever. This will also happen with this book I expect.

A few points in the other direction though. No matter how wrong some bands and the people behind them may be, I personally would grand them the freedom of speech upto a level that for me hasn't been reached yet. I have never bought a cd or visited a concert in/on which anyone has tried to oppose a certain ideology on me. Artwork may have a dubious symbology, but I don't believe that exposure to that would turn anyone into a fascist. You can rent "Triumph des Willens" in videostores and I can recommand it to anyone, just to find out how boring it really it. Don't worry, you won't be a fascist after you have seen it.
Another thing. All articles in this book except the last one, seem to make no difference whatsoever between rightwing philosophy and extreme right philosophy or actions. I don't recollect any band that is mentioned in this book to have stimulated their readers to attack foreigners, grow hatred against other people in general, demolish other peoples properties or philosophies or exclude people from buying their material or visiting concerts. The 'darkwave public' in general is too hetergeneous for all that. It listens to bands they like for the music and will rarely be able to find out the precise philosophies of the bands from their artwork. I do admit that I don't read many magazines though.

To speak for myself, I listen to the music I listen to for the music. If there are people who have problems with some of the bands, so be it, I don't. I have music from many of the mentioned bands, also of Goethes Erben and Das Ich whose frontmen are often quoted with anti-fascist statements as counterpart for the bands that get most attention. I have often wondered what I would do if a skinhead band made a good cd, but I think I wouldn't buy it (should I already know where). For me there is a difference between a band with subtle hints that I mostly don't understand anyway and a band openly proclaiming 'white power'. Maybe neofolk bands indeed are "Tabubrechend" (taboo-breaking) and disconnect certain esthetics from a philosophy it has always been connected with. I agree with Oswald Henke (Goethes Erben) that some people treat the symbology too naively and "unreflecting" (p.111), but that doens't mean you can simply whipe such people on one heap with rightwing extremists. And would a person who (unlike myself) likes war-movies automatically see him-/herself as a soldier? Or does a deathmetalhead who likes lyrics about death, destruction and serial killers (often also visually in the form or horror-films) automatically become violent? I don't think so. Too much danger is ascribed to an interest in things that you are not supposed to be interested in.

Looking For Europe, neofolk und hintergründe * Andreas Diesel & Dieter Gerten (isbn 3936878021 * 2005)

A week ago I got this book and also the accompanying 4 cd compilation, which is reviewed in the music section. Two writers claim to have written the definate history of the musical genre of “neofolk”. The compilation cd makes you familiar with predecessors, old and new bands in a variety of styles that the writers caught under the name “neofolk”. Diesel seems that have listened to the music for quite a while, also he is a writer on a variety of subjects. Gerten is a scientist who also seems that have known the music for a while. So this would make the writers ‘insiders’ but with a background which should make them able to properly investigate things and write subjectively. This is true, so the book definately is about as good as a book about the ‘phenomenon’ neofolk can be.

“Neofolk” is a subsubgenre of “gothic music” and more precily came forth from the “industrial” branch of gothic music. Both the musicians and the audience of neofolk often have a background in either industrial and/or wave music (both “gothic”) or metal. In large parts of the gothic scene, there is an interest in more than just music, in a smaller part of the metal scene this is also the case. This other-than-music interest concerns art, literature, philosophy, religion and often esotericism. It is funny to see how certain subgenres and their audiences seem to have similar other-than-music interests. A simple example, people listening to black metal are often interested in satanic, anti-Christian and occult subjects. This can work in both ways. People like a style of music and get an interest in ‘its philosophy’, but also people into certain subjects may find that there are musicians with similar interests. This is also the case in “gothic music”. Diesel and Gerten describe that early industrial artists used certain subjects for shock-value, while there was in interest in certain thinkers. As this developed and while getting mixed with other ingredients, a scene started to grow with an interest history (World Wars, Napoleon, etc.), totalitarian regimes, pre-Christian beliefs, certain thinkers and philosophers, etc. Of course there is as much variety in the subjects as there are individuals. A musical style that also developed was simple, acoustic guitar based music with harmonious elements (violins, flutes, etc.) (later also with a more bombastic is militant sound) and lyrics and artwork with the subjects that I named. This music is called “neofolk”. Within the same scene there are other, often purely electronic, projects, but with similar preferences for lyrics and artwork (this can be “industrial”, “noise”, bombastic (orchestral) music, “military pop”, etc.). The writers decided to put all of that under the banner “neofolk”. I do not agree with it, even when I can understand that if you call some music from that scene “neofolk” and other music “industrial” (like I do, see my music section), there is no term left to describe the subscene as a total. So far the information for people being unfamiliar with my musical tastes.
Both on the cd and in the book, the writers give a history of the genre with predecessors (it is in the book that I learned that some of the bands on the cds had more influences than I thought myself), describe developments within the scene and then dig deeper into the philosophical background. This is done by very readable texts (in German of course), interviews and descriptions of the scenes of the UK, the USA, Germany and Austria, Southern Europe, France and Belgium, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia (I miss my own country which has maybe but a few, but some of the better bands; quite a fixed scene and many of the problems described in the book!). Because of the dubious mix of concepts (world wars, nazi-symbology, paganism, conservative writers, etc.) in artwork and lyrics, the scene often seen as a bunch of fascists and there have been problems with concerts for many years (activists from the extreme left often make objections when there is a concert, which are consequentally often cancelled). Publications and actions against the genre, bands, fans, organisators, magazines, mailorders, etc. are still daily reality. Naturally (and justly) this issue is written about at length and musicians and other persons from the scenes are questioned about it in the interviews. The artists are of the opinion that this issue falls under their artistic freedom, they show both sides of the medal (but of course the ‘faulty elements’ are always highlighted) and that they do not make politics at all. Diesel and Gerten clearly share the views from the scene. With detailed descriptions of the layered symbology of the music (they have been searching for the sources of samples, asking difficult questions to artists) and the background (part III is about the spiritual backgroundss, postmodern romanticism, playing with fire and the cultural criticism of the artists, there are appendices about Nietzsche, Evola and Jünger (three popular thinkers), hypocrisy, etc.) they show what is really ‘on the scenes mind’. This is almost entirely opposite to the findings of the writers of Ästhetische Mobilmachung (see book reviews archive) which is written purely to show how extreme right the whole neofolk scene is. Diesel and Gerten agree that the mix that is made is sometimes lightly inflammable, or at least dubious, but none of the bands are trying to force ideas upon listeners of anybody, call for racism, make nazi ideas right or anything, just to make people think for themselves, investigate and being not afraid of taboos (you can only judge Mein Kampf when you read it, not when you read about it).
I agree with this approach. There has never been a band that tried to force their convictions on their audience, not even to show them. When certain symbology (for example a “black sun” on a cd or on stage) makes you wonder what they mean, you wonder! When lyrics or interviews lead you towards writers as Julius Evola or Ernst Jünger, you can decide for yourself whether or not to read them and form your own view on them and their writings. I do the same with Monas.nl. You can get ideas here to read books, try to find a certain cd, read an article and catch an interest in some subject, and after that it is upto you. You don’t have to agree with my view of Auf Die Marmorklippen, my Evola article is not to convert you to Italian fascism (maybe just to warm you when you want to read Evola), my music and film reviews are not to make you spend money on music and films you may not like. All of these things won’t even tell you where I stand (or if you read well, some may; but you can of course always ask).
A few things that I do not agree with in Looking For Europe. Like I said, the term “neofolk” is used differently from how I would use it, that is a detail. Further I think some bands are out of place and other bands lack (also see music reviews section). For example, why Von Thronstahl / Forthcoming Fire only mentioned in half a line? Forthcoming Fire and later Von Thronstahl have put a massive stamp on the scene as a whole (in my view of course) with their image, musical style and extraordinary well-readedness. Is it because they openly give their non-neutral political colour in interviews? Because he does, Josef K. become the ‘consciousness of the scene’. In interviews (and also in Looking For Europe) Josef has become the example of how ‘bad things can be’. “I am not like Josef K.”, “he certainly is no Josef K.”, meaning, “I may play with nazi symbology, but I am not a fascist”. Whether or not Josef K. is a fascist, Von Thronstahl has never been the vehicle to spread the (possible) ideas, so this band is no different from any other band in this book, regardless his (possible) political ideas.

Conclusion: Looking For Europe is your ultimate book about neofolk music, the scene and the philosophy. The book is interesting for people who have listened to the music for many years. I enjoyed reading about Current 93, Death In June, the minutious description of TMLHBAC and Der Blutharsch, etc. and also the essays about Nietzsche, Jünger, Evola; the neopagan part, the interviews, eurocentrism, etc. etc. People who are not familiar with the music and its concepts will get a very descent introduction here. The writers are critical, honest and come to the conclusion that conservatism and nationalism (hardly touched upon btw) or even “rightness” is not the same as fascism or extreme-rightness such as some people want us to believe. The neofolk scene mostly consists of intelligent, individual and well-read people with a wide scope of interests and a critical mind. Anti-activists also get a place in the book and all the rest of them who may read this book, will get a more wide-ranging view on the music, the scene and its symbology than in their own publications which only highlight what is thought to be dangerous. Read the book, then read Ästhetische Mobilmachung and then draw your own conclusions like a good “neofolker” should!