Blood axis

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Blood axis
General information
Genre (s) Neofolk
founding 1989
Website welcome.to/bloodaxis
Current occupation
various instruments
 Michael Moynihan
Robert Ferbrache
Annabel Lee

Blood Axis is a project by Michael Moynihan , which musically belongs to the Neofolk . In addition to Moynihan, Robert Ferbrache and Moynihan's partner Annabel Lee are part of the cast.

Band history

After touring Japan with Boyd Rice in 1989, Moynihan founded the Blood Axis project, which he had been planning since the mid-1980s. In 1991 the first two pieces appeared on the compilation The Lamp of the Invisible Light by Cthulhu Records from Germany. In 1994 appeared on Im Blutfeuer , another legendary sampler by this label, a cover version of the Joy Division classic They Walked in Line and The Storm Before the Calm, Part One . Both pieces were composed with the participation of The Electric Hellfire Club front man and Church of Satan member Reverend Thomas Thorn (Alfred Thomas). The cover also appeared as a split - single with the Austrian neofolk band Souls .

In 1995 the debut album The Gospel of Inhumanity was released , the cover of which shows the painting Der Krieg by Franz von Stuck . The album contained various samples of some classic pieces, various poetry readings by, for example, Klaus Kinski and Ezra Pound , as well as excerpts from the films Uhrwerk Orange and The Wicker Man . Some songs also seek to be close to rock music . Robert Ferbrache was responsible for the production . The Denver-born artist previously worked with bands such as 16 Horsepower .

Shortly after the album was released, the violinist Annabel Lee joined the group, who had previously worked in various experimental films by Richard Kern . In 1998 a live recording was released under the title Blót: Sacrifice in Sweden on the Swedish industrial label Cold Meat Industry . The live album comes from a performance in Linköping, Sweden on November 15, 1997 and contains three new songs.

In 2001 a collaboration with the French band Les Joyaux de la Princesse appeared under the title Absinthe - La Folie Verte , a concept album about absinthe . In 2002 a box was released that also presented a live recording in Portugal and contained various gimmicks . In 2004 the live album was also released individually under the title Absinthia Taetra . Blood Axis is also featured on some compilations of the Neofolk scene.

In the run-up to their respective albums, Blood Axis and Andrew King released a split single limited to 500 copies in 2010 with alternative versions of songs that appeared there, both of which are based on medieval texts. Moynihan sings the lyrics to Owê war sint verwunden (in Blood Axis The Dream ) in the Middle High German original (albeit with an accent), although he does not hit all notes cleanly. The texts are both in the original and Moynihan's English translation. In March 2010, the project's second studio album was released under the title Born Again . The album includes poetry settings in Old English , Middle High German and New High German, which Moynihan also translated into modern English and printed in the booklet.

In 2011, a scrapbook of all singles and sampler contributions from the band's twenty-year history from 1991 to 2011 was released under its original working title Ultimacy .

criticism

Used approx. 1996
symbol of the flag of Austrofascism
Used around 1998
Symbol of the  Ordo Novi Templi

According to critical analyzes, Blood Axis and in particular Michael Moynihan refer positively to fascist or national socialist ideologies and their occult environment. Many clues can be found in his work. So he used the sound of marching soldiers and excerpts from a Hitler speech as background music for the Joy Division cover version . He also changed the text of the original, so Moynihan's critically distanced refrain They walked in line from the original becomes the affirmative We walked in line . Other pieces by Blood Axis use samples by the British fascist Oswald Mosley , refer positively to National Socialist ideologues such as Alfred Rosenberg and Karl Maria Wiligut . Moynihan also had himself photographed in front of Wiligut's grave for the supplement to Im Blutfeuer .

The band name Blood Axis also refers to the Axis powers and Moynihan uses a cross as a band symbol , whereby he exactly took over the designs of the Neutempler order of the Ariosophist Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels , as well as those of Austrofascism . It also includes other symbols such as the swastika in a left- and right-handed variant and four Thor's hammers .

Moynihan sees himself as a free thinker and describes such allegations as "perverse [e], psychological [e] projection ". In return, he sees Blood Axis as a total work of art that is free from any dogmas:

“Blood Axis celebrates free thinking and rejects all totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century. Blood Axis is and will remain a band of eternal outsiders whose primary interest lies in the creative arts and who are not in the least interested in politics. Blood Axis encourages iconoclastic thinking instead of complacent guesswork, mindless conformism, and sociopolitical, moral or religious dogmas. Blood Axis represents the gray area of ​​ambiguity far from simplistic categories or utopian fantasies. "

- Michael Moynihan : concert announcement 2005

The cultural scientist and author Alexander Nym describes the musicians as " hippies " who play folk music. Moynihan's right-wing phase was limited to his “preoccupation with the esoteric foundations of the Nazi era in the early to mid-1990s”. In his assessment, Moynihan was "one of the anarchist [P] east industrial artists [...] who were hip at the time, the politically correct everyday Nazis - that is, censors and concerned philistines as well as the alleged ' alternative culture ' - in the US to provoke the specter of Nazi Satanism ”.

Discography

  • 1991: Lord of Ages and Electricity on The Lamp of the Invisible Light ( Cthulhu Records )
  • 1994: Walked in Line and The Storm Before the Calm, Part One on Im Blutfeuer (Cthulhu Records)
  • 1995: Walked in Line / Ernting ( split EP with Allerseelen; Storm)
  • 1995: The Abattoir Eternal on The Electric Hellfire Clubs Kiss the Goat ( Cleopatra Records )
  • 1996: The Gospel of Inhumanity (Cthulhu Records, Storm)
  • 1996: Eternal Soul (Germania Mix) on The Pact: Flying In The Face… (Asafoetida)
  • 1996: Bearer of 10,000 Eyes / Lord of Ages on Mysteria Mithrae (Athanor)
  • 1997: Life on Souvenirs from Hell (Cthulhu Records)
  • 1998: Blot: Sacrifice in Sweden ( Cold Meat Industry )
  • 1998: Käferlied / Brian Boru (split EP with Allerseelen; Stateart)
  • 1998: Herjafather on Cavalcare la tigre - Julius Evola: Centenary (ice and light)
  • 1998: The Hangman and the Papist on The Nitha Fields (Ultra!)
  • 2000: The Fallen Angel on Saturn Gnosis (Loki Foundation) and The Pact:… of the Gods (Strangeness)
  • 2001: Witch-Hunt: The Rites of Samhain ( CD-R with In Gowan Ring )
  • 2001: Absinthe: La Folie Verte (split CD with Les Joyaux de la Princesse ; Athanor)
  • 2002: Special DTS CD (Split DTS CD with Robert N. Taylor)
  • 2003: We call your wolves on We call your wolves (aorta)
  • 2004: Absinthia Taetra (split CD with Les Joyaux de la Princesse; Athanor)
  • 2005: Surrounded (CD-R)
  • 2005: The Ride on Looking for Europe - The Neofolk Compendium ( Auerbach Tonträger )
  • 2007: Legends of the SS on The Appeal of Discarded Orthodoxy: A Tribute to David E. Williams (Old Europa Cafe)
  • 2010: The Dream / Fröleichen so well wir (Split-7 "with Andrew King; Storm)
  • 2010: Born Again (Storm)
  • 2011: Ultimacy (Storm)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Diesel, Dieter Gerten: Looking for Europe . Neofolk and backgrounds . 2nd Edition. Index Verlag 2007, p. 33.
  2. ↑ a b Dornbusch, Christian : From Landsertrummeln and noise orgies. Death in June and collaborators.
  3. ↑ Jean Cremet: Beyond “Böhse Onkelz” and “Screwdriver”: About (neo-) fascist tendencies in independent music . In: Analysis & Criticism , No. 389, 04/1996, page 11ff.
  4. ↑ BLOOD AXIS . AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL MOYNIHAN . In: The Heretic , No. 10, October 1994.
  5. ↑ a b Blood Axis. Mandrake. Waldteufel in: Diesel, Andreas / Gerten, Dieter: Looking for Europe. Neofolk and backgrounds . P. 188
  6. ^ Daniel Thalheim: Controversy even before the performance: Neofolk band Blood Axis live on August 20 in Leipziger Theaterfabrik ( Memento from October 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).

Web links