Experimental thread: Post music or other cultural things that is (partly) rewilded/decolonized.
It can be anything that’s kind of ritualistic, experimental or …
I wanted to share a short piece (1 minute) from the band Ulver from the album Spellbound – A Fairy Tale in 5 Chapters. You could say the music is part of the black metal culture, which is mostly in Europe and the US, mostly white aswell. I’d say it fits or reflects the atmosphere of European nature and the heavy black metal music could be used to heal white trauma I think but don’t really know. I’m from Belgium in Europe and I love the vibes I get from this music.
This is a folk album of Ulver titled Kveldssanger (translated as ‘twilight songs’): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzeSWEcZ8HE
Other artists that come to mind are Sun Ra and Slipknot because of their use of costumes which could have a ritualistic function to some degree.
The band Slipknot repeatedly talks about some people being worthless and the act of killing people. Clowns and mimes dress up too. If Slipknot is to be considered wild then I do not want to be associated with the word in any way shape nor form.
I have read about some Native Americans covering their enemies in honey and placing them over anthills and things of that sort. I wonder if there are any cultures out there with a purely peaceful history? I doubt it. Some level of corruption seems to have seeped into every single people.
I, for one, want to be peaceful. I do not want to kill anyone. Ever. I would be loathe to find myself in a situation where it seemed to make sense to choose to kill someone.
Yet we have groups like Slipknot fronting like they are on some sort of evil killing spree and popular songs saying things like ‘I’m tryna kill these haters’. It makes me sick.
I think it’s an important question to what degree violent tendencies should or can be expressed for safe healing.
Isn’t it so that everybody could be taken to the point of killing? I think about killing sometimes and I used to fantasize about shooting up my school 
I’d rather acknowledge and even express these things than suppress them so they can’t find an expression elsewhere.
Some kind of ritual could be used to express the evil tendencies we all have in a safe and healing way, that’s what I’m thinking about and so I thought about slipknot, because they use masks which can be used to enhance the temporary role you’re playing I believe but I’m not sure.
I would prefer to acknowledge and transform any evil tendency into a non-evil tendency by whatever means possible. That would be safe and healing.
The band Slipknot and other bands like it are not interested in changing. They have very obscene and hostile things to say towards the idea of changing / people who try to change them.
I have watched two interviews with this band about a decade ago. In one a member of the band explained one of the core beliefs of his group. That being: there are two types of people, goats and sheep. Sheep are followers and goats make their own decisions. Fair enough. But I think they are of the belief that goats are the ones they identify with, the ones who like the lyrics about killing people, people being inferior, not giving a crap about the inferior people, etc. and the sheep are the inferior people, the ones who do not fit into their agenda as artists.
The other one shocked the hell out of me. One of the members of the band said something to the effect of “Someone is going to die on this tour. If one of us doesn’t die, we’re going to take a victim.”
Sensationalism. Perhaps. But there is a fan base that eats that stuff up. I have heard people talk about how cool the movie Natural Born Killers is. I have seen the cover with the reviewer saying it is possibly the best movie made in the 90s.
Fiction, yes. Also influential.
I saw a book while I was in Barnes and Noble the other night, it was in the philosophy section. The title was something to do with sociopaths. It said 1 out of 25 people do not have a conscience. They have absolutely no remorse and given the opportunity will cross any line to get what they want out of life.
That kind of scared me.
Now I see about 3 main types of people out there, although each person is unique and clumping them together is kind of silly. The ones who choose virtue, the ones who think they choose virtue but choose evil, and the ones who wallow in some sort of gray zone without making doing any serious delving and developing in the areas of values and purpose.
I think the majority of these musicians and famous people we see probably fit into the second one. And they do not want to live their lives differently. They like the evil that they think is good. They are rather attached to it. Maybe someday they will have some sort of epiphany and change, but I do not see much of a history of that sort of thing happening.
Now if someone in my community came to me and said, “Friend, I am sick with evil thoughts” I would take that very seriously and help them in any way I can. Like I said, I doubt these people are like that. They will continue to have negative opinions of those who do not fit their mold of how a person should be, continue to condemn them, and continue to say very shocking (to me) things about them.
I saw that interview and thought it wasn’t so bad, in another interview he tried to speak about the transformation of his rage for his alcoholic parents with as much love as possible, so I thought they were pretty loving actually.
I do like some of the things you’re saying. I just thought of slipknot because they use masks so I thought that was kind of interesting, I assumed they used it for safe expression and healing of pain. I thought that was a step in a more ritualistic direction culturally.
What would be safe and healing to you?
Safe and healing for these guys : working on loving ALL people, not just their chosen niche. They are, as I mentioned before, given to separating people into ‘goats - those who are approved of (the strong)’ and ‘sheep - those who are not approved of (the weak)’.
Safe and healing for these guys: Not expressing evil things in a supportive light… instead rebuking and fighting against evil.
Some lyrics from the song Eyeore (why it is named Eyeore I do not know…)
…
Good riddance - though I’m sad to say
I didn’t get to kill you
…
I don’t give a st, bh
I don’t give a fk, b**h
I don’t understand, b***h
You don’t matter
…
–
Sound loving? Sound healing? Not to me. I would rather see rage expressed than bottle up inside… but the subject matter explored leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
I do not want to come across as someone who does not support everyone’s unique journey and the choices they make as they travel through the contentious terrain that is modern living. I want to forgive, I want to understand, I want to support, and most of all I want to be a force of inspiration.
But… when people start killing each other and think it’s cool and fun because, hey - that person was worthless anyway, I think the wisest choice might be the same choice I would employ for a naughty child. A long ‘time out’ to think about what happened. And as awful as I think prisons are and as much as I think prisons need reformation in order for them to be humane and effective in any way, I think maybe a removal from society would be good too.
In this world I think evil ought to have consequences. I think that is the way things were meant to be for us humans.
Even if Slipknot only sounds evil and does not do anything evil - they are influential. There are people out there who are going to go deeper into that ocean of darkness because Slipknot helped take them there.
Wearing masks is cool though. I have drawn dozens of masks that I want to someday carve out of wood. I have also looked at quite a few masks done by tribal peoples. It could be said that I love masks.