Denigrata Cervorum: Interpretive Performance Autoethnography and Female Black Metal Performance Creator: Shadrack, J
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This work has been submitted to NECTAR, the Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses and Research. Thesis Title: Denigrata Cervorum: interpretive performance autoethnography and female black metal performance Creator: Shadrack, J. H. R Example citation: Shadrack, J. H. (2017) Denigrata Cervorum: interpretive performance autoethnography and female black metal peArformance. Doctoral thesis. The University of Northampton. Version: Accepted version T http://nectarC.northampton.ac.uk/9679/ NE DENIGRATA CERVORUM: Interpretive Performance Autoethnography and Female Black Metal Performance Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy At the University of Northampton 2017 JASMINE HAZEL SHADRACK © Jasmine Shadrack. 2017. PhD. This thesis is copyright material and no quotation from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. Contents Abstract Acknowledgements List of Tables List of Figures Denigrata Cervorum: Rationale and Context…………………………………………………..i Chapter 1: Interpretive Performance Autoethnography……………………………………….1 1.a. Autoethnographic Methodological Markers: Exhumation through Catharsis.…………..4 1.a.i. Exhumation: Abuse and Interrogative Autoethnographic Analysis……………….….4 1.a.ii. Autoethnography as Praxis ……………….………………….……….……………..7 1.a.iii. Interpretive Autoethnography: Performance and the Doubling of the Self………..9 1.a.iv. Dialogical Space as Black Metal Performance………………………………..13 Chapter 2: Mapping Extreme Metal………….………………………………………………17 2.a. Gender and Extreme Metal………...…………………………………………………17 2.a.i. Audience………………………………………………………………………….19 2.a.ii. Black Metal Literature Review ……………………………………...…………25 Chapter 3: Black Metal’s Historical Analysis: the Story of Male Metal…………………….33 3.a. Mapping the Black Metal Epochs: Discursive Form and Function.............................33 3.a.i Rages of Sepulchral Fire: the Lords of Chaos and the Second Wave of Black Metal.........................................................................................................................................37 3.a.ii Embracing the New: Third Wave Black Metal and its Musical Rupture................42 3.b. Aesthetics and Ideological Representations: Meaning in the Pyres.............................46 3.b.i. First Wave Archetypes: Anti-Conformity as Conformity........................................46 3.b.ii. From Mayhem and Darkthrone Blooms the Abyss..............................................54 3.b.iii. Mapping the Mythology: Dead, Euronymous and Grishnackh.........................55 3.b.iv. Blackened Ecology: Third Wave Self-Embodiment and Charting the Hinterland…………………………………………………………………………………….62 Chapter 4: Women and Black Metal: Textual and Musicological Analysis…………………71 4.a. Fertile Excription: the Feminine Absent……………………………………………..71 4.a.i. Masculine Musics, Feminine Endings: Hyperborean Masculinity and Transcendental Femininity……………………………………………………….…………..77 4.a.ii. Women’s Representation in Black Metal: Feminine Absence and the Cosmic Womb of the Abyss…………………………………………………………………………..95 4.b. Excription and Performer: Mater Omnium ad Feminam………………………...…105 4.b.i. Malefica: the Witch Archetype as Restorative Feminism in Female Black Metal Autoethnography……………………………………………………………………..115 Chapter 5: Denigrata: Performance Analysis……………………………………………….121 5.a. Deterritorialising Black Metal Signifiers……………………..………………….…121 5.a.i. Denigrata as Perichoresis…………………………………….…………….….123 5.a.ii. Missa Defunctorum as Apophatic Liturgy……………………………….….124 5.a.iii. Aesthetics in Denigrata………………………………………..……….….132 5.b. Denigrata: The Parallax View………………………………………………………134 5.b.i. Butler and Denigrata: Subject Representation……………………………..…135 5.b.ii. Giving an Account of Oneself: Butler and Autoethnography…………...…139 5.b.iii. Performativity and Corporeality……………………………………...…142 5.c. Denigrata as Abjection: Fear and Loathing in Black Metal…………………..…….145 5.c.i. The Corpse…………………………………………………………………….…146 5.c.ii. She who can Wreck the Infinite: Jouissance and Sublime Alienation………….148 Conclusion: Liber Sum: Restorative Visibility and the Feminine Present…………….……155 Appendices i. Denigrata. Missa Defunctorum: Requiem Mass in A Minor (Northern Darkness, 2015; Carvetii Productions, 2017)………………………………….………..…..158 ii. Metal Press Reviews and Interviews for Denigrata…………………………………………………...…………………….159 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………...…166 Discography………………………………………………………………………………...176 Filmography………………………………………………………………………………...178 Glossary of Terms…………………………………………………………………………….………….179 Abstract I am concerned with the performance of subversive...narratives...the performance of possibilities aims to create...a...space where unjust systems and processes are identified and interrogated. (Madison 280) If a woman cannot feel comfortable in her own body, she has no home. (Winterson, J; The Guardian 29.03.2013). Black metal is beyond music. It exceeds its function of musical genre. It radiates with its sepulchral fire on every side of culture [...] Black metal is the suffering body that illustrates, in the same spring, all the human darkness as much as its vital impetus. (Lesourd 41-42). Representation matters. Growing up there were only two women in famous metal bands that I would have considered role models; Jo Bench from Bolt Thrower (UK) and Sean Ysseult from White Zombie (US). This lack or under-representation of women in metal was always obvious to me and has stayed with me as I have developed as a metal musician. Women fans that see women musicians on stage, creates a paradigm of connection; that representation means something. Judith Butler states ‘on the one hand, representation serves as the operative term within a political process that seeks to extend visibility and legitimacy to women as political subjects; on the other hand, representation is the normative function of language which is said either to reveal or distort what is assumed to be true about the category of women’ (1). Butler references de Beauvoir, Kristeva, Irigaray, Foucault and Wittig regarding the lack of category of women, that ‘woman does not have a sex’ (Irigaray qtd. in Butler 1) and that ‘strictly speaking, “women” cannot be said to exist’ (Kristeva qtd. in Butler 1). If this is to be understood in relation to my research, my embodied subjectivity as performative text, regardless of its reception suggests that my autoethnographic position acts as a counter to women’s lack of category. If there is a lack of category, then there is something important happening to ‘woman as subject’. This research seeks to analyse ‘woman as subject’ in female black metal performance by using interpretive performance autoethnography and psychoanalysis. As the guitarist and front woman with the black metal band Denigrata, my involvement has meant that the journey to find my home rests within the blackened heart of musical performance. Interpretive performance autoethnography provides the analytical frame that helps identify the ways in which patriarchal modes of address and engagement inform and frame ‘woman as subject’ in female black metal performance. Acknowledgements I would first like to thank Sonya Andermahr and Lorna Jowett who have steered me through the course of my PhD, who have been honest, blunt and kind throughout. Their patience, understanding and professionalism have been unswerving, necessary and remarkable. Having two brilliant women as my supervisors is something I wish for all doctoral candidates. Thank you both so much. My thanks also goes to Jane Callaghan, Niall Scott, Rosemary Hill, Heather Savigny, Karl Spracklen, Amanda DiGioia, Joan Singh, Salem Yafuz and the Metal Music Scholars community who have supported me. My unending love, gratitude and joy go to Denigrata and our Deni-Family, who have helped me more than they know. I love you all. To my Mum and Dad who without really knowing it, raised a fierce feminist. To my friends, thank you for loving me and for being patient. To my husband Matt, words can never do justice to your constant love, support and understanding. I would not have been able to do this without you (and Belly and George). I love you. Lastly, I dedicate this research to all women everywhere. Do not settle, never be quiet and never do as you are told. We are the women who can wreck the infinite. List of Tables 1.1.............................................................................................................................................78 List of Figures Fig. i.........................................................................................................................................12 Fig ii.........................................................................................................................................19 Fig iii........................................................................................................................................23 Fig iv........................................................................................................................................49 Fig v and vi...............................................................................................................................51 Fig vii.......................................................................................................................................54 Fig viii......................................................................................................................................56 Fig ix........................................................................................................................................61