1,745 words

Here are the young men.
But where have they been?

— Ian Curtis, “Decades”

Everything resembles the truth, everything can happen to a man.

— Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls (more…)

2,035 words

Sol Invictus, fronted by Tony Wakeford, is one of the “neofolk” scene’s best-known groups, alongside Death in June and Current 93. Sol Invictus emerged following Wakeford’s departure from Death in June — and later departure from controversial Above the Ruins — with a sound that progressively became lighter and more classically-inspired than most of what can be considered “neofolk.” (more…)

2,774 words

Origins & Evolution of the Gothic in Film

The gothic is a quintessentially European aesthetic. Moreover, it pertains and appeals more specifically to those of North-West European descent and is to be found in various modes and tropes throughout North-West European culture and contrasts with the Classicism of Southern Europe. Gothic as a term was first applied to medieval art and particularly architecture by Renaissance critics in similar propagandist fashion to how the term Dark Ages was also used to describe the period following the collapse of the Roman Empire. (more…)

1,631 words

Martin Aston
Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD
London: The Friday Project, 2013

Towards the end of Martin Aston’s monumental history of the 4AD record label he claims that one of the label’s later signings was “guilty of lacking transcendence” (p. 550). (more…)

1,505 words

Richard King
How Soon Is Now?: The Madmen and Mavericks Who Made Independent Music, 1975–2005
London: Faber & Faber, 2012

Richard King’s How Soon is Now? is subtitled “The Madmen and Mavericks Who Made Independent Music 1975–2005,” and that is an accurate description of the book’s contents. The idea of charting the history of indie music from the perspective of the record companies and distribution networks, rather than the bands, is an interesting and novel one. (more…)

1,047 words

Insofar as Fire and Ice’s music can be described as “folk” it is the folk music of the ancient skalds and scops, far antecedent to the recent folk revival even if elements of tradition are latently present in that revival. Insofar as it is “gothic” music it is so in the sense described by Edred Thorsson in “The Secret of the Gothick God of Darkness” —  (more…)

1,081 words

After we had dinner at Jupiter pizza, our Sikh cab driver deposited us outside the Greek Theatre in the Berkeley hills. We spread a blanket high on the lawn and looked out past the campanile on the Cal campus, watching our home town across the bay slowly submerging in a sea of fog. (more…)