A collection of essays and documents presented at "Hideous Gnosis," a symposium on black metal theory held in Brooklyn, December 2009.

Floating Tomb: Black Metal Theory is a collaborative collection of writings in black metal theory (BMT), an amorphous ‘metallectual’ movement initiated in 2009 with the symposium Hideous Gnosis. According to its earliest formulation, BMT seeks to creatively destroy the boundary between metal and theory, to make something new in the space of their shared negativity: ‘Not black metal. Not theory. Not not black metal. Not not theory. Black metal theory. Theoretical blackening of metal. Metallic blackening of theory. Mutual blackening. Nigredo in the intoxological crucible of symposia’. This volume gathers together previously published and new work on BMT focusing onmysticism, a domain of thought and experience with deep connections both to the black metal genre and to theory (theoria, vision, contemplation). More than a topic for BMT, the mystical is here explored in terms of the continuous intersection of black metal andtheory, the ‘floating tomb’ wherein metal is elevated into the intellectual and visionary experience that it already is.

In basements, dingy backrooms, warehouses, and other neglected places around the world music is being made that doesn't fit neatly into popular or classical categories and genres, whose often extreme sounds and tiny concerts hover on the fringes of these commercial and cultural mainstreams. The term “underground music” as it’s being used here connects various forms of music-making that exist outside or on the fringes of mainstream institutions and culture, such as noise, free improvisation, and extreme metal. This is music that makes little money, that’s noisy and exploratory in sound and that’s largely independent from both the market and from traditional high art institutions. It sometimes exists at the fringes of these commercial and cultural institutions, as for example with experimental metal or improv, but for the most part it’s removed from the mainstream, “underground,” as we see with noise artists such as Werewolf Jerusalem or Ramleh, obscure black metal artists such as Lord Foul, and improvisers such as Maggie Nicols. In response to a lack of previous scholarly discussion, Graham provides a cultural, political, and aesthetic mapping of this broad territory. By outlining the historical background but focusing on the digital age, the underground and its fringes can be seen as based in radical anti-capitalist politics or radical aesthetics while also being tied to the political contexts and structures of late capitalism. The book explores these various ideas of separation and captures, through interviews and analysis, a critical account of both the music and the political and cultural economy of the scene.

Not to be confused with metal studies, music criticism, ethnography, or sociology, Black Metal Theory is a speculative and creative endeavor, one which seeks ways of thinking that count as Black Metal events - and indeed, to see how Black Metal might count as thinking. Theory of Black Metal, and Black Metal of theory. Mutual blackening. Therefore, we eschew any approach that treats theory and Metal discretely, preferring to take the left-hand path by insisting on "some kind of connaturality between the two, a shared capacity for nigredo."Issue 2 focuses on the theme of Inversions in Black Metal: Nailed at the heart of many a logo, suspended from the neck, held out in Satanic blessing: the inverted cross is one of black metal's anti-icons. The antithesis of a revelation of light, it signifies an originary blasphemy. Forsaking ascension and mining a path towards the centre of the earth, black metal finds a satanic stain lodged at the core of being. However, the significance of this movement is not bound by a simple reversal. The inverted cross hangs above a swarming logic of inversion: the overturning of Christianity, but also a mimesis of Christian self-desecration; the rejection of certain forms of religion, but also of modernity's pallid enlightenment; the invocation of strange gods of the earth, even as the earth is cursed. When thought becomes poison, it is no longer so easy to determine which way is up and which way is down. To throw down one's head, to push oneself into the cursed earth, to occupy the place of the inverted crucified: is this to think-by-not-thinking an unconditioned rapture beyond negation and affirmation?

Emília Barna is Assistant Professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. She is a founding member and Chair of IASPM Hungary, editor of Zenei Hálózatok Folyóirat (Music Networks Journal), and Advisory Board Member of IASPM@Journal. Tamás Tófalvy is Assistant Professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. He was the founding Chair and is the current Vice-Chair of IASPM Hungary.

Melancology addresses the notorious musical genre black metal as a negative form of environmental writing that ‘blackens’ the cosmos. This book conjures a new word and concept that conjoins ‘black’ and ‘ecology’: melancology, a word in which can be heard the melancholy affect appropriate to the conjunction. Black metal resounds from the abyss and it is precisely only in relation to its sonic forces that the question of intervention in the environment arises in the articulation of melancology with ethics. That is, in deciding ‘which way out’ we should take, in deciding with what surpluses to dwell, with what waste, what detritus or decay in a process of unbinding with sonic forces that traverse an earth choking in wealth and death. The book thus provides a provocative and challenging contribution both to popular and intellectual debates on ecology.

This important book weaves together trauma, black metal theory and disability into a story of both pain and freedom. Drawing on her many years as a black metal guitarist, Jasmine Hazel Shadrack uses autoethnography to explore her own experiences of gender-based violence, misogyny and the healing power of performance.