Page:Black Metal, Literature and Mythology. The Case of Cornelius Jakhelln.pdf/8

Nordicum-Mediterraneum Icelandic E-Journal of Nordic and Mediterranean Studies acting as extremely tough, while the blækk metaler has to sit in jail to be extremely tough. And I don‟t mean sitting in jail because you‟ve driven to fast, oh no. Blækk føkking is about sitting in jail because one is bad. Bad and biggtaim ivil.

Here Jakhelln is referring to the murders and church burnings which were committed by members of the Norwegian black metal scene. In fact, much of the international success of Norwegian black metal is due to those criminal offences; without those facts, black metal would hardly have got the coverage in the media and the diffusion it has today. Half seriously, half ironically, Odin (and Jakhelln) seem to cast a critical yet fatherly look at the aesthetics of Norwegian black metal, which have long been focused on an extreme form of „bodily transgression‟, which also included criminal acts. In fact, in the Norwegian scene of the early Nineties, church burnings and other kinds of profanations were often preferred ways of accumulating cultural capital — Vikernes and other scene members who were imprisoned after having committed crimes were often hailed as scene leaders not because of their musical achievements, but primarily because of their criminal offences.

In any case, Norwegian black metal was also Jakhelln‟s primary source of inspiration as a musician — a source which he distorted, changed and finally returned to, releasing two albums of tru nårvidsjen blækk metæll. If one considers the quotations above in the broader context of Jakhelln‟s production, a circle seems to close, intertextuality to have reached its peak. Modern, ancient literature and black metal are one in Jakhelln‟s work. He has been constantly bending towards literature when playing black metal, always towards black metal when writing literature. One could even stretch the argument as long as saying that much of Jakhelln‟s literature gets lost without a knowledge of black metal music: „high‟ and „popular‟ culture have mixed, and black metal has become a constitutive part of a literary project.

32March 2009 Volume 4, number 1