HAUNTING MUSIC

Black metal

Although black metal bands rarely present anything like systematic philosophical horror, black metal music, lyrics and iconography are important as ways in which they look back to earlier notions of demons and demonicity. According to Thacker, there is no better starting point for philosophical horror than black metal.

Black metal is called black in popular associations for a variety of reasons - its references to black magic, demons, witchcraft, reincarnations, necromancy, the nature of evil and all that is dark. From all these associations, black metal seems to be linked to Satanism and the figure of the devil. And although in the most primitive way we could understand that black equals Satanism, such an approach would be quite primitive.

Historically, the term Satan passes from the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek, where the figure of Satan is often depicted as a malevolent figure, against a monotheistic God rather than against humanity. At various points in the long history of Christianity, the figure of the devil as the universal antagonist of God and humanity has been given different names, Satan being only one of them. And while black metal is not the only genre of music that creates this type of association, Satanism is the conceptual starting point for black metal.

It is true that it is obvious to every black metal listener that not all black metal bands can be classified in this black = Satanic equation. There are many black metal bands that are not based on Christian foundations, but on Scandinavian mythology, ancient Egyptian mysteries, etc. So in this context we can suggest another meaning for the word "black" in black metal, that is: black = pagan. Paganism, as a polytheistic and sometimes pantheistic approach, was completely at odds with the doctrinal sovereignty of the church. Pagan iconography, unlike that of the doctrinal church, can contain images of animistic nature, astral lights and astral bodies, metamorphoses of man and animal, man and plant, and man and nature itself, instead of demonic calls and masses. In paganism, man is always on the side of "nature" and its animistic forces (132).

Despite their differences, both meanings of the term 'black' reveal, at least in part, the viscosity of the theme of the contemporary surreal and, ultimately, its unfilled gaps in modernity can be found in electronic music.

Electronic music

As soon as you talk about hauntological, haunted music, whose sound would simultaneously foretell both the past and the future, the Burial- Forgive soundtrack comes to mind. The oneiric sounds that have been caressing the ears of music lovers for more than a decade, and that have been anonymous for a long time, become prophetic when thinking about the hauntological present. In her book Ghosts of my life, Fisher describes Burial's music as an unidentifiable crunch, as if south London, in the near future, were drowning in rain. "It's like an elegy to a hardened continuum; it's like entering abandoned spaces where rave once reigned. The hushed air is filled with the ghosts of the past. Broken glass cracks underfoot. MDMA memories bring London back to life in the same way that hallucinogens draw demons crawling out of the underground. Sound hallucinations turn the city's rhythms into inorganic creatures, more repressed than malignant. You see faces in the clouds and hear voices in the crackles. What you thought for a moment were muffled basses turn out to be just the rumble of tube trains." (133)

The sounds aptly described are not the only ones that evoke hauntological murmurs. For example, Aphex Twin, one of the most influential artists on the electronica scene, filled with ambient and techno sounds, in track #3, seems to immerse himself in an endless moment, slowly sounding and enriching its harmony, drowning in a timeless space, where shadows of the past and the steely unknown, which fills the being as if through a mist, draws you deeper in. Thom Yorke brings back a similar feeling, albeit in a different harmony, starting with Her Revolution, a collaborative work with Burial, and ending with the demonic soundtrack of Suspirium. As regards the work of Aphex Twin and Thom Yorke, it is worth mentioning that the Radiohead frontman does not shy away from the influences of Aphex Twin, both in his solo work and in his band activities. His flirtation with experimental electronic music inspired his 2000 electro-rock album Kid A, followed by Amnesiac in 2001. Radiohead has acknowledged that Aphex Twin was a major influence on the sound of these two albums.

Apex Twin

Actually, although the Waporvawe movement could also be classified as a hauntological sound, I would like to mention Shoegaze, which reached its apogee at the turn of the millennium. The sound that creates a wall of sound is also reflected in the behaviour of the groups on stage. Usually with little movement, the band members dive into a seamless sound in which loud, distorted guitars reverberate with vocals that resemble a sonic, seamless texture. Slowdive, Placebo, My Bloody Valentine and Mogwai are great examples of such music. Indeed, describing the sound of shoegaze is a bit tricky, not least because a number of artists have shunned this style, including Mogwai. On the other hand, as a sub-genre of the indie genre, it evokes the infinity of the universe, which in the end, in its fantasticality, is transformed into the sound of bands such as Sigur Ros, with all the fantastical myth and unearthly language in which they sing.

Finally, hauntological modernity, shoegaze and horror come together in Deafheaven's Worthless animal, where bright scream vocals are intertwined with the sound of metal and ghosts of the past.

It would seem that we could find a demontological sound in almost every genre if we travelled further, but it should be remembered that one of the essential features of the demontological sound is an experimental sound that contains motifs of the uncanny, the suspended, the familiar past, and the unimaginable future. It is clear, then, that the hauntological sound of experimental electronica becomes a starting point for reflection on demontological music.

132 THACKER, Eugene. In the Dust of this Planet. Horror of Philosophy vol. 1. Winchester: Zero books, 2011. p.179. ISBN: 9781846946769 125

133 FISHER, Mark. Ghost of my life. Writings on depression, hauntology and lost futures.Winchester: Zero books, 2014. p.245. ISBN 978-1780992266