Deep in the pulsating earthen heart of Romania a.k.a. Transylvania, radiates some of the purest inspiration for an array of black metal and ethnic folk bands dispersed across it’ land. One can journey through it’s relic forests or hike the majestic mountain steppes, and spend time in the local village for feasting and ceremonial arts. One particular metal band has injected all this natural stimulation into their lifestyle and their eloquent music, namely Negura Bunget (“Dark Foggy Forest”). Coming out of the shadows in 1996, and reigning for 15 years years thus far, it was to be their primary journey to Canadian Soils. Their past drummer and current keyboardist, Negru and Inia Dinia were also coming with them under the banner of Din Brad (“from the fir tree”). The former of these perform melodious hymns in their native tongue, utilizing a single bass drum, a shaman drum, a panpipe, and keyboards. Inia’s lyrics resonates within those who have an appreciation for exotic language, and her voice has a certain penetrative quality to it, that can heal your inner self if you let it. Together with these two esoteric groups, were two black metal sects from the local and northerly lands of Ontario. Mark Howitt (Lord Defiler) was one who was greatly a fundamental pillar to make this night possible. Wolven Ancestry, and Eclipse Eternal supplied a harsher pagan edge to the evening’s communion.

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As a writer of culture here, I sometimes becomes merely a carrier of ideas, idologies and presentations, and I am using this opportunity to display one of the most pure and grandeur black metal “festivals” that I know of. As most persons I know are already familiar with this, I shall offer it to those who don’t. It is one truly unlike any other in the world, because of its immense organization and concept. I will see if I can not do it worthwhile honor by reiterating the concept and purpose of Gathering of Shadows! It is a collective gathering of thew few and dark adepts, who traverse from different portions of the world to culminate in a ritual held once a year in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Deep in the sylvan woodlands, which the location of is not known to those not attending. It is acausal in it’s nature, in that the bands shall perform whatever material the desire for any time they wish. Here is an unmarked opportunity to disperse black metal art not only through sound and stage, but with atmosphere, purpose, and purity which transcends mere entertainment. Removing the repetitive guise of teenager bands playing in small bars, performing covers from drunken “warriors”. No fucking neon lights, No metal-metal attitude and spastic performances or moshing, and no  bombardment of merch tables and the most blasphemous band shirts to waste money on. Gathering Of Shadows is far away that black metal becomes not the end but the means. The meeting of like minded individuals, bands, and statement is served by the music. The members are clad in filthy grave clothes, and their instruments are sometimes adorned with skulls, and animal totems, bringing the presence of death, while viscous fog fills the aether, forcing you to breathe a thick fumes to alter your conscious state. Personally I hold a reverence for such special attention to Black Metal and would prefer if all black metal concerts at least had something unique about them such as this one. Even if it be in a venue, to create a simulated atmospheric presence, rather than like watching a boring movie.

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Michael W. Ford is known in black metal circles for his contributions within a sect called Black Funeral, one of the pioneering bands from the United States. He also happens to have currents of dark energy spurring from his every fibre, and he spends his time writing books on Left Hand Path Gnosticism, Magick, Witchcraft, Ritual Workings, Olden Mythology, Astral Vamprism, and Lycanthropy. He has obviously found his niche in the dark underworld of literature. All of his writings have been released through an occult collective site luciferianapotheca

His tome entitled The Book Of The Witch Moon caught my minds eye when I was seeking for texts and practices of mental vampirism and lycanthropy. Half of the book is devoted to these concepts along with folkloric stories of werewolves, belief, and the mind on the astral plane which Ford captures with impeccable brevity yet perfect understanding and practicality. The other half is traditional left hand path esoterica, which I don’t prescribe to but will focus on the former here… Mental vampirism is an external practice/output towards others, manipulated in such a way as to aid the individual obtain something in the waking life from others. By meeting with the vampire spirit in the astral plane where reality can be shaped according to desire and will, one procures special traits possessed of the vampire; cunning, power, empathy, seerlike visions, stealth. All of these became vectors for the mortal personality. Through ritual work, sigils, yoga and meditation, the altered states of thought can be achieved, and it is directly here that the mundane realities become abstract.

Find out what goes on in his mind here

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Blackmeat is an artgroup consisted of two russian artists Konstantin Tarasov and Pavel Lyakhov, whom I have not been able to collect very much converse from, yet have spurned my imagination to places I have not bothered or perhaps not been able to think about yet with their manifest of weird dark art. This only hungers my palette for further invocation of paint, and pencil produced from the temporally diffused sections of this man’s mind. I came across his exhibit entitled ПОD. Displaying a commerce of occultic and deathly incipit art in the confines of a cave, illuminated by horrifying glows and the halo of candles. A peer into his collection, if unknowing of the creator, one might suppose a reliquary tribe of aghori, venting their altered perception of the world and using the pictures as ritual shrines. This might be one even to fool anthropologists if they were to stumble on its array of dark displays of death, blood, and form. Sometimes the pictures seem at one with the eerie atmosphere of the cave, and other times a stark aberration of life and physicality of hallucination. The Existence “ПOD” meaning (“UNDER”) took place in a cave in February 2011. It is considered that it was the first exhibition in history of modern dark art which took place in a real cave (artwoks are still there) which means that it was really “underground”. Despite its expressiveness and gloominess the project took your attention to the relevant social problems. Cult of violence and a fear of being “not perfect” accompany the mankind in its way from cave existence to nowadays and uncover a disappointing reality: a human being in his historical aspiration for better life fights with his environment forgetting of where he has come from. Disharmony in humans environment leads to physical and mental mutations. We return to our backgrounds and realize that “we didn’t leave our caves, we just have made them more comfortable created seas of blood around us”. The collection seems to be suppressed in such a way to show on a 2 dimensional screen, but one might be able to transcend the value of this art and immerse their mindset at least into it’s outpouring…

But this are not the only things spewed out by Константин Тарасов & Pavel Lyakhov, not content with just bending the perceptions of imagery, but somehow philosophizing on it as well with acts of provocative augmentation. One of their other exhibits transforms the mere looking of, and permanence of ar,t into a window of experience wherein as the paintings become destroyed by fire after they have been seen…

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Technology continues to advance beside nature, and often times the two concepts come into conspiracy with one another. It is known to any naturalist that one can determine the year of a tree by counting the rings from its disc. To biologists or archaeologists, this would be an immensely useful tool for dating fossils in relation to the rocks found in it’s vicinity. To others and particularly this neo-classical artist. The aesthetics of the tree ring itself is manipulated to play music on a record player. The tree ring is cut into it’s disk about the size of a 12″ LP and the weight/color/and space between each ring is analyzed by a camera on a bar instead of the needle. The images transmitted to the camera are corresponding to separate notes on a classical piano. Mechanical aberrations like knots in the tree ring produces deeper low octave notes, and closer ring produce higher notes. The following piece is nothing like Prokofiev or Penderecki, but perhaps a new form of avant-garde noise. In time, maybe the biological aesthetics of the tree will be reinterpreted in different ways to produce an entirely different composition.

YEARS from Bartholomäus Traubeck on Vimeo.

To mark this one year evolution of Cvlt Nation, I will unveil to anyone willing to enter the astral art real of Azat Psy Tantra. He is the prolific spiritual mind behind Alien Deviant Circus, a name that invoked even cosmic awe and confusion. Their form of projections is that of industrialized black metal, in a metaphysical vein. He is responsible for [theta waves, annunciation, fraktals and guitar] and besides this, somehow spends the rest of his time in meditation or forming these scientifically dark and eerie visions into his art. The nekrospiritual; pertaining to nothingness, and other ethereal planes beyond the mortal veil. Personally the representations of the abandoned landscapes, or left hand path manifestations would not be my first choice of art, but my level of understanding for such concepts and respect for the individual behind them goes beyond mere appreciation. There is injected a heavy sense of allegory and symbolism into each work, that if given the chance to commerce with Azat Psy-Tantra i’m sure he would not hesitate to give immensely detailed metaphorical meanings to them. I have collected a small portion from his portfolio here for viewing of the mind’s eye. Best looked at while sleeping, yes that’s right.

From a speech with Azat Psy-Tantra
“I have a preference for strong hallucinogens to cross the borders of dimensions and perceptions, and to know other modes of existence … Thus ayahuasca, datura, peyote and other plants and ointments can philosophers and researchers to increase their vision of what is commonly referred to as reality … and allow them to understand the limited world in which we evolve!”
On his art “I work on esoteric and philosophical concepts and I set out my vision and in galleries. They are A to Z of my concepts and emanation of my entelechy”

Fusion ov dark currents and a gnostic visionary here
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This tome of black metal. I think it deserves to be known. For those unfamiliar with the murky depths of the black metal underground, one comes upon certain prolific individuals and circles of information wherein a wellspring of black energy comes out from. Infamroth ov Throne of Katarsis is one of these individuals. He is also a prominent member of Myrkraverk, and operates a small label entitled Daudings Gjenklang. This is the zine crafted for the latter’s bands, as well as some other sinistral sects dispersed across Europe. Contained within the photocopied and handwritten pages are the black speech ov; Tomhet, Prest, Frostskogr, Hinsides, Vemod & Aetergap Prod. dispersed with grainy photographs that don’t resemble the bands in person at all. (a sign of quality), and a compilation of reviews ov Mare, Dodsengel, Cultes Des Ghoules, Prest, Vemod, Panphage and other initiates. This is completely done by him, and was a heavy inspiration for my own zine, Die Hard, in concept and aesthetics. If you are an avid reader, or lust for knowledge of these elusive acts, this would be worth your money, your time, and probably some other things. The essence of Daudings Skript is bare bones, the questions are straight forward and insightful, something lacking for zine quality. I have enclosed photos of some of the pages, if you can’t read them and are still inclined with interest, there is a reason, maybe this is for you.

Look at them through here

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Sarina Brewer is an experienced naturalist that has over the course of her later years started to craft unique taxidermy specimens. Her portrait is more resemblance of a Victorian sorceress and her philosophy is to “let nothing from nature go to waste, and use all of an animal even after death”. Her finished are but different from the rest of the taxidermy circles in a morbid, but beautifully interesting way. She fuses different parts of animals together. Some are mammals combined with birds, or the flying type with horned creatures, nocturnal animals with those who occupy the waters, etc. She first started sculpting and painting with the animal remains, creating some eerie visual canvasses that would probably not be accepted by most galleries. Her mediums were oil, and found products. Gradually this evolved into what is her immense skill and collection today. She volunteers her time as a biologist (fuck yea!), and participates in conservation of the fauna and flora or wildlife rescue on the side. None of the animals she uses were killed by humans, they either died from other predators, disease, age, etc. Her appreciation of death is quite close to mine and recognizing how different cultures honor the dead and connect with them in unorthodox ways. I would love to do something similar by building skeletons for a museum or cleaning found bones and dead animals for preservation and study. Animals are beautiful in death and life! Unlike human are rarely either of these. This is her homage to the animals by giving them artistic meaning in postmortem.

Sarina ““I call it art, you can call it whatever you want.”

Read about some of the processes and look through a portion of the gallery here

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I’m not an avid follower of metaphysical satanism such as the Temple of The Black Light or cultic sects of the black flame, though I came across this tome some time ago and finally decided to peer into it. I approached this book more as anthropology study than one of a doctrine or sacred book of myth. Thus I only was interested in the first half of the book entitled The Argentinian Cult of Senor La Muerte. This section is entirely true and based on several retellings, evidence, current practices and totems still alive today. It recalls the arcane rituals by the Argentian cult who are comprised of hundreds of thousands of members. The object of the adoration is the grim scythe bearer whom they called Senor La Muerte, represented as a skeleton clothed in black. The intentions revolving around these practitioners use special invocations to cast magic or transfer positive or negative energies to themselves and unto others. Such as cursing the dwelling place of enemies, preventing sickness, attraction, money and status, or deflective hexes. As man evolved it was evident that they developed a sense of spirituality*. I use this word to mean a subjective spirituality and not a fixed one. To them, the immense magical working of their master of death had powers to instill all of their wishes if the respect and rituals were carried out in accordance.

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Such formulations of shading, blackness, obscurity and detail on paper have rarely been so disturbing and fascinating to me. I am writing this not to impress or say anything which does not seem fitting. After “discovering” Maxime Taccardi’s art, I initiated several funeral doom and depressive black metal albums and stared at these for a solid 2 hours. I wanted to study each manipulative detail and it’s textures, the metaphorical meanings behind the subversive imagery, and then make an inquisition to herr Taccardi about what I couldn’t find out myself. This is kind of art I lust to make when the time feels right, and if I can fit myself into this niche would love create such ugly drawings like these. I received some select words of 6 of his works, where a decent array of mediums have been preserved in these two dimensional masterpieces. It reads in his photoalbums that ‘crayon’ was used, he’s French, and I assume this to mean pencil crayon but perhaps the eyes deceive.

^^mr. taccardi after someone told him they didn’t like his drawings

“The child who was dreaming he was a tree”, it’s old, i did it in 2006, i wanted to express the tree of knowledge. When you taste the forbidden tree, the futility of existence appears like a straight vision: Death, the silent cry of a deathborn. Like the circle of ouroboros…

Enter here for more, the end is embedded in the beginning… READ MORE…