I am not entirely sure what the story of this documentary is. I do not think I heard of it before I noticed a screening on the 2025 Wave Gotik Treffen program. It seems that the documentary was funded with a crowdfunding and that the people who invested have already received their DVDs. The website of the label that released the film sells a “collectors edition” limited to 200 copies, which are: “a leftover item from our crowdfunding campaign”. Also tickets to a 12 June 2025 screening in Malmö are still available in the webshop, so it seems that the film premiered at the Wave Gotik Treffen (8 June 2025). IMDb.com says that the release date is 8 November 2024 though.
Anyway, a documentary about the rise and fall of Cold Meat Industry. It is mostly the story of Roger Karlsson (later “Karmanik”) (1965-) told by himself (in an interview) with additional information through interviews with people such as Tomas Pettersson (Ordo), both Peter Anderssons (Deutsch Nepal and Raison d’Être), Peter Bjärgo (Arcana), Håvard Ellefsen (Mortiis), Jouni Havukainen (In Slaughter Natives), etc., but also with people whose connections I do not really see.
I was quite in the middle of things, but on the other hand, it seems that I was not. Like I wrote before, I learned about CMI when Mortiis got in contact with Karmanik. I asked Roger if he was not afraid to become part of the black metal trend by that signing. He was not. The documentary shows that he was, but that there is more to that story. Mortiis certainly was a catalyst.
Karmanik originally was not from Linköping (pronounced “LIN-shə-ping” by the way), but he moved there as a punk. Experimenting with electronic music, he learned about other people who experimented with electronic music as well and in the end, he founded Cold Meat Industry. The label grew and the documentary is full of funny anecdotes and recollections of artists. There are stories about the first shows and festivals, growing friendships (“Karmanik family”), etc.
After a while it seemed that some of the artists had more potential than Karmanik could muster by himself in his basement (and later upper floor) and when after the signing of Mortiis the entire label and its artists entered the limelight, things became too much for Karmanik. It was around the same time that I started losing interest in the label and I did not really experience the tensions, bands that left the label or simply stopped and the bankruptcy of CMI in 2011. This was not only a ‘business thing’ though.
The viewer gets a very personal and very heavy look into the life of Karmanik himself. His oldest daughter is one of the interviewees. We hear about Karmanik’s drinking problems, breakdown, depression and his tiredness of living. This coincided with a growing dissatisfaction of some of the bands and in the end, CMI simply ‘bled out’.
It was only a few years later that a young Pole, Vlad Janicek of Death Disco concert promotions, wanted to celebrate his 30th birthday with a CMI reunion and this became the 30 years CMI festival in Stockholm in november 2017. No quarrels, no reproaches, just a party that saved Karmanik’s life and made some of the artists that had stopped, realise that people from all over the world were still interested in their music.
The documentary consists of interviews (in English, dubbed and subtitled), interesting archival material (video and photo) and weird news snippets the reasons for which elude me. There is some information that was new to me, but there are also things that I wonder why they are not included or mentioned.
I do not know how you have to get to see the documentary, but I guess/hope that there will be a regular release sometime soon.
An interesting documentary which gives a not too often seen idea of what goes on in the heads and lives of people involved in ‘dark music’. Recognisable and therefor not an easy watch.
