The Soft Pink Truth - Rundgang

In 2014, I loved no album more than I loved The Soft Pink Truth's Why Do The Heathen Rage, a collection of disco/EDM covers of Black Metal songs. Drew Daniel recorded this Burzum cover but left it off the album so as not to give Varg royalties, as well as pointedly dismissing his ideological stance. Burzum's musickal influence is kind of the ultimate opposition to Varg's political identity. Not only did the musick he played derived immediately from African musicks (both his metal and his techno/ambient, but the emotive and aesthetic power of his musick appeals to various people regardless of creed or color or religion, most of whom find Varg's shtick both pathetic and hateful and unworthy of serious thought. This makes him sort of like if Richard Wagner had, you know, murdered his best friend as an adolescent and gone to jail for a long time, long enough to make ambient techno albums and think up the world's boring-est racist-est role-playing game. I say this as someone who really does love Burzum's musick and feels the howls of isolation and layers of guitar and synth noise, and wishes that Varg himself could have understood that that was where the power in all of us lay, rather than in murder and screed and church-burning and endless amounts of official drivel. I could not let this post pass without including The Soft Pink Truth's awesome video for their cover of 'Black Metal' by Venom. Let it be known I ADORE that MERZBOW jacket.