Oakrot
CLVRSKLL or I’ve Got Some Things I Want To Maybe Say About Black Metal
A Smalldoggies column by Matthew Simmons.
Oakrot?
Sometimes I don’t really know what Black Metal is. This is why I am writing a column on it. Because there is no better person to be handed the reins of expertise than the person filled with doubt.
Fun fact: this personal philosophy explains fully my voting record. I can’t stand a candidate filled with certainty. I can’t stand a candidate who thinks they know, without any lingering doubt, that they know what they are doing. Give me doubt. Doubt is nuance. Doubt is that whole heavy crown on the brow of the king thing. Give me a wo/man who might fuck up and send the entire world to its end and doubts her/his decision all the way to the last moment, not some arrogant prick who might fuck up and send the entire world to its end who is sure—sure!—s/he’s made the right call because her/his “gut” tells her/him so. Ruin everything, but let it eat at you, and you are my candidate.
And you are my Black Metal Columnist.
And, sadly for those who do not share my philosophy, I am your Black Metal columnist. (But this won’t take long. And there are other lovely features on this site. You can click away to click away. Check to navigation bars. Something will strike you.)
Like, Oakrot’s not Black Metal, yeah? Sure it’s not. But Oakrot borrows from Black Metal in its presentation.
Note the spiderleg logo: distorted, hard to read. A secret. If you know Oakrot, then the logo means something. If you don’t, it doesn’t. Being let in on the secret is pure Black Metal.
Note the name, a reference to nature in decay. Connecting to the natural world, and recognizing that the beauty of the natural world has folded into it the impermanence of the natural world, the enormous amount of death happening in the natural world, is pure Black Metal.
Note that Oakrot has self-released a couple of things, and one of the releases is available on that great egalitarian throwback of a format, the cassette tape. Think back a little. Realize that there was no better way to distribute music than the cassette. Vinyl albums are lovely and sound warm, but are not portable and can’t easily or cheaply be produced in the small quantities appropriate to a small, secret band. CD’s were an ugly, pointless stop on the way between cassettes and digital files played on computers or digital file players. (They were completely overpriced, too. They were cheaper to produce than cassettes, but cost twice as much.) Further, “sound quality” is, for the most part, a meaningless fetish. Cassettes were a little hissy, but were available in a wide range of lengths, and allowed a person with some inexpensive equipment to mix together any songs or sounds they wanted. Record a song from the radio, record a clip from a movie, record a message from your answering machine, record a song from a 45. Make a tape. Trade a tape. A person could go to a thrift store, buy ten cassettes—Helen Reddy, George Beverly Shay, Learn Spanish, Raiders of the Lost Ark storybook, Christopher Cross, The Commodores, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Jesus Christ Superstar, Richard Marx, Power Rap—cover the write protection notches, and record their own music. They could make a cover, photocopy or just draw ten, and sell them to their friends. And sell them to strangers. And send them to zines. And send them to strangers. Re-purposing something cheaply acquired for one’s own revolutionary act of creation is pure Black Metal. Cassettes are pure Black Metal.
Note that Oakrot’s music is quiet, and droning, and a little hissy. Droning and hissy are often very Black Metal. Drone connotes obsession to me. A drone—a repetition—is produced by an artist who hears something in a looping sound that s/he needs to continue exploring until s/he understands it. A drone sounds like a loop, but a drone has tiny little changes from iteration to iteration. A drone is produced by someone with eyes closed. A drone is produced by someone who wants to slow time. A hiss connotes a spontaneous act. A hiss connotes the creation of something that is probably impossible to recreate. A hiss is a sudden inspiration laid to whatever tape is available. A hiss connotes a lack of ego. If you create something, and then decide to redo it in a clean, less hissy way, you are doing so because sending the unadulterated inspiration into the world embarrasses you. Hiss exists when there is no self-awareness. Clean, hissless songs are songs where the self has decided it needs to step at least one pace away from inspiration, where ego needs to mask inspiration in one way or another. Unfiltered inspiration—which, please remember, can be an utter failure—is pure Black Metal.
(Quiet may not be very Black Metal. But I turn my Black Metal down, not up. I listen to it quietly. So, there’s that.)
Note that Oakrot is just one person. All my favorite Black Metal artists are solo artists. Taking everything in one’s own hands and producing something on one’s own is, in my admittedly limited tastes, pure Black Metal.
Oakrot’s music is available free here.
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Bands I have known: Nostril
Nostril was a controlled riot. At the front of said controlled riot was my friend Paul. Watch things get completely out of control, teeter on the edge of some real danger, and then watch Paul tell everyone to stop. And then watch everyone stop. Watch this video closely and you can see me in it. Watch the other parts of the video and I step in and out of it.
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If you have something you would like Matthew Simmons to listen to, you can drop him a line at his CLVRSKL email here. Experimental one-man (or woman) black metal bands are near and dear to his heart. Paranoid, possibly crazy weirdos are dear to his heart. He says Thanks.
Matthew Simmons is the author of, among other things, a very small book of stories called The Moon Tonight Feels My Revenge. More info here: Matthew J Simmons Official Site.