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Believe it or not, there was once a time in the now-enviable 2000s in which Midwestern indie bands were considered the epitome of cool. If you wore plaid shirts (sometimes, with a t-shirt over said shirt), could play passable guitar, and had a just-so-slightly off-kilter voice with which you could sing about outsiderdom and ennui, (more…)

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Author’s note: Tomorrow marks one year of my writing for Counter-Currents.

Folklore is Taylor Swift’s eighth studio album. It joined the hallowed halls of other so-called “isolation records” on July 24, 2020, in a surprise release (more…)

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Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

So, there are blacks with beats, heebs with chutzpah, and Swedes with serenity. What is a white dissident to do in an environment in which the talents of his people are so easily turned into springboards for cultural developments that annoy at best and brainwash at worst? (more…)

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“My favorite singer out of all the British girls that ever were.”

— Robert Plant

I first came across the name Sandy Denny on the liner notes of the classic Led Zeppelin IV. (more…)

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Today is a fitting occasion to celebrate the works of Charles Ives (October 20, 1874–May 19, 1954), one of America’s greatest composers. In true American fashion, Ives was an iconoclast who combined old-world influences with adventurous musical experimentation and the sounds of his small-town New England childhood. He could justly be called the musical equivalent of Ben Franklin or Thomas Edison. (more…)

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Arne Nordheim was the most celebrated Norwegian composer of the 20th century. He is known for both his avant-garde electronic works and his large-scale orchestral works and music dramas. Nordheim’s Draumkvedet (“The Dream Ballad”), a music drama based on the medieval Norse poem of the same name, fuses his modernist idiom with folk influences to great effect. (more…)

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Essence! is the most recent batch of material from Douglas Pearce’s Death in June, released on November 30, 2018. Essence! pulls from the earlier output of 90s Death in June, including its eclectic sampling work, noisy elements, and tastefully perverse whip-cracks for its compositions. Pearce brings the Death in June sound into the modern age, however (more…)

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Tanner Elle Schneider, better known by her stage name Elle King, is an up-and-coming musician in the genre of American roots music. Her specific style has several influences, the confluence of which arrives at a triple point between rock, country, and blues. The overall effect often is a bit hypnotic. Her singing voice is even more unique, compelling, and slightly reminiscent of Janis Joplin. (more…)

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Thulêan Mysteries is the 13th album released by infamous Varg Vikernes under his working name Burzum. Mysteries comes after Vikernes previously stated that he was finished recording under the Burzum name. To that effect, Mysteries is a collection of tracks that Vikernes has been working on since his last album that were not intended for release as a cohesive unit. (more…)

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‘I never felt magic crazy as this
I never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea
But now you’re here
Brighten my northern sky’

(more…)

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Igor Stravinsky is justly regarded as one of the giants of twentieth-century music. His influence upon contemporary music has been enormous; composers influenced by him include Carl Orff, John Tavener, Aaron Copland, Edgard Varèse, Frank Zappa, and others. He is best known for his three ballets: The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring, (more…)

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On Saturday February 3rd, in the company of a few friends, I attended Wardruna’s concert in New York City. This was not my first introduction to them: I’ve been using their albums as workout music for months. In case you do not know, Wardruna is a Norwegian “Nordic folk” band who have recorded three albums, and become quite popular in the politically-ambiguous “neo-heathen” scene in Europe and America.  (more…)

Percy Grainger, 1882–1961

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Percy Grainger was a polymath: a pianist, composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, inventor, artist, polyglot, and man of letters. He was one of the most celebrated pianist-composers of the early twentieth century. His work and writings reflect a worldview marked by both racial consciousness and an opposition to modernity that coexisted alongside radical artistic modernism.  (more…)

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Part 3 of 3. Part 1 here. Part 2 here.

‘Now We Rise and We Are Everywhere’ — Nick Drake (1948-1974)

And having now evoked the legend of King Arthur, Merlin, Excalibur, and the Holy Grail, I can clearly recall driving one autumn morning down the A39 as it snaked its way through the Mendip hills. The Somerset Levels cloaked in thick fog with just the Tor floating above the ancient town of Glastonbury. (more…)

John Powell

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The history of American classical music has been shaped by the quest to define the nature of American identity. Lacking the rootedness and history of Europe, we have been forced to mold a new identity as a nation. Likewise American composers have been faced with the task of creating an authentically American sound.

A number of American composers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries held the view that American music must necessarily reflect America’s racial and cultural inheritance. (more…)

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“There’s a feeling I get when I look to the West.”–“Stairway to Heaven,” Led Zeppelin IV

It was with the advent of Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile (1762) that a direct link was first made between national culture and the simplicity of peasant life. (more…)

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I like beer, and I like cheese
I like the smell of a westerly breeze
But what I like more than all of these
Is to be on horseback.

Hey and away we go
Through the grass, across the snow
Big brown beastie, big brown face
I’d rather be with you than flying through space (more…)

Ruuben Kaalep

71:28 / 100 words

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(more…)

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In the summer of 1969 the members of Fairport Convention were gathered together at a country house in Farley Chamberlayne in picturesque Hampshire. There they were to record their most celebrated album, Liege & Lief, the definitive statement in English folk-rock. The country retreat setting was partly therapeutic as the band had earlier that year been involved in a tragic road accident whilst on their way back from a gig in Birmingham. The drummer, Martin Lamble, and guitarist Richard Thompson’s girlfriend, Jeannie Taylor, were both killed. Clearly, the remaining members of Fairport were looking for a new musical direction as they sought to put the past behind them.  (more…)

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I’m very happy to take WN’s suggestion and add a few words to Mr. Colin Liddell’s excellent article on the Rolling Stones’ classic Their Satanic Majesties Request — which I was glad to see since, for some reason, I seem to have not done Satanic Majesties justice in my own past ruminations, although on reflection, inspired by Mr. Liddell, it seems to have a large enough role.  (more…)

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Their Satanic Majesties Request is, to my mind, the most British and therefore the most authentic of all Rolling Stones albums. Their characteristic hard-driving blues is put on the back-burner and suffused through a veil of psychedelia and English whimsy with which the band were seldom associated.

(more…)

time: 3:32

time: 45:22 / 110 words

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Greg Johnson and Michael Polignano conclude their interview with Traditionalist author Charles Upton on his most recent book, Vectors of the Counter-Initiation: The Course and Destiny of Inverted Spirituality (more…)

Scott Walker in 1969

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I’ll Have a White Rock, Please: Implicit Whiteness, Aryan Futurism, and the Godlike Genius of Scott Walker

“Was listening to this during a rocket attack at DaNang Vietnam in 71 . . . what a rush . . . after smoking 3 bowls of Thai Stick. Still get a rush to this day at age 64 . . . there was teeth, hair and eyeballs all around my barracks but we survived.” — YouTube comment on “Jim Dandy to the Rescue” by Black Oak Arkansas

Over the last year or two, the value or usefulness of popular music, and rock in particular, to the struggle to renew White Consciousness has been subject to debate. (more…)

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Übersetzt von Deep Roots

English original here

The Singing Revolution ist ein Dokumentarfilm über den Kampf der winzigen Ostseenation Estland um Souveränität, einer Nation, die das halbe zwanzigste Jahrhundert im Griff des Sowjetimperiums verbrachte. (more…)

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German translation here

The Singing Revolution is a documentary about the struggle for sovereignty of the tiny Baltic nation of Estonia, a nation which spent about half the twentieth century in the grip of the Soviet empire. It’s a thoughtful and informative movie which either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that it’s a rousing story of a White nation’s triumph of local identity over global ideology. (more…)