Hunter Hunt-Hendrix - Part II – The Affirmation of Affirmation lyrics

Transcendental Black Metal represents a new relationship to the Haptic Void and the self-overcoming of Hyperborean Black Metal. It is a sublimation of Hyperborean Black Metal in both its spiritual aspect and its technical aspect. Spiritually, it transforms Nihilism into Affirmation. Technically, it transforms the Blast Beat into the Burst Beat. Spiritually we acknowledge Nihilism, and we refuse to sink into it, impossible as the task may be. Transcendental Black Metal is a Renihilation, a “No” to the entire array of Negations, which turns to an affirmation of the continuity of all things. Transcendental Black Metal is the reanimation of the form of black metal with a new soul, a soul full of chaos, frenzy and ecstasy. A specifically American joyful clamor which is also a tremor. Or maybe it is the opposite act: a peeling away of the husk of convention, the dead skin of clichés and a fresh exploration of the living soul of black metal, with the aim to reactivate its purest essence and produce something that grows from it but does not resemble its earlier incarnations because it is built from the ground up in a different time and place. Built in America. An America that has never existed and may never exist. The America that represents the apocalyptic humanism of William Blake. The America celebrated by Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring or Ornette Coleman's Skies of America. This America is a metaphor for pure unrestricted creativity, the courageous exercise of will and the joyful experience of the continuity of existence. A celebration of the hybrid and of creative evolution. THE BURST BEAT The backbone of Transcendental Black metal is the Burst Beat. The burst beat is a hyper blast beat, a blast beat that ebbs, flows, expands and contracts, breaths. It replaces d**h and atrophy with life and hypertrophy. This transformation is accomplished by two features: acceleration and rupture. The first feature of the burst beat is acceleration. The burst beat accelerates and decelerates. It has an ebb and a flow. This flow both mirrors life and stimulates life. It expands and contracts like the tide, the economy, day and night, inhalation and exhalation, life and d**h. The second feature of the burst beat is rupture. The burst beat features sudden ruptures or phase transitions. Just like all natural systems, it breaks suddenly from one state to another. Consider the horse as it switches from walk to trot to canter. Consider water as it switches from ice to liquid to gas. The moment of the rupture is the moment of transcendence. What is holy if not the moment that water turns to steam? Or the moment that a walk turns to a run? The burst beat expresses an arc of intensity. It responds to and supplements the melodic flow rather than providing a rhythmic container or backdrop. The rate of change of the tempo, whether positive or negative, corresponds to a level of intensity. Any static tempo is a zero degree. The burst requires total expenditure of power and its very exercise fosters growth and increase of strength. And yet the burst beat never arrives anywhere, eternally “not yet” at its destination, eternally “almost” at the target tempo. Like a nomad, the burst beat knows it will never arrive. By mirroring life, the burst beat stimulates and fosters life. By fostering life, Transcendental Black Metal affirms life. PROPERTIES Transcendental Black Metal exists as a unity, but in thought it can be an*lyzed into seven properties. Why is Transcendental Black Metal affirmative? Transcendental Black Metal is in fact nihilism, however it is a double nihilism and a final nihilism, a once and for all negation of the entire series of negations. With this final “No” we arrive a sort of vertiginous Affirmation, an Affirmation that is white-knuckled, terrified, unsentimental, and courageous. What we affirm is the facticity of time and the undecidability of the future. Our affirmation is a refusal to deny. Why is Transcendental Black Metal hypertrophic? Growth is life, stasis is decay. We are committed to striving eternally, living a sort of permanent revolution. Just as a well exercised muscle is beautiful and powerful, so we will be beautiful and powerful. In truth, there is no stasis. The only choice is between atrophy and hypertrophy. The celebration of atrophy is confused, weak, and neurotic. The celebration of hypertrophy is honest and alive. Why is Transcendental Black Metal solar? Transcendental black metal is solar in three respects, following three aspects of the sun: periodicity, intensity and honesty. The sun lets things be born and grow, so that they may die. The burst beat is periodic because is rises and sets like the sun. The sun mesmerizes and burns. We participate in intensity because we are not sentimental and we know that d**h comes. But why not follow a goal, follow the sun and chase after its flairs? Why not go up in flames rather than dwindle to a speck of sand? The sun represents Truth and reveals all that it touches. We are honest because we refuse to lurk in the shadows, we refuse to point fingers, we refuse to perform our rites in secret. We are not sickly, spiteful, hateful. We do not hide behind costumes or esoterica. Why do we revere the finite rather than the infinite? What is sacred is the taking of each concrete step. Each honest decision. The infinite is obvious and everywhere. To engage the finite takes courage and produces hypertrophy. God is infinite, nature is infinite. The infinite is everywhere and cheap. It is the finite that is rare. It is the finite that is peculiar to humankind. Finitude means confronting what is present at hand authentically and doing what is honest with the means one has at one's disposal. The solar nourishes the finite. The finite is born, strives, and dies. Why do we revere penultimacy? Transcendental black metal sacralizes the penultimate moment, the “almost” or the “not yet”, because it has been found that there is nothing after the penultimate moment. The penultimate moment is the final moment, and it takes place at every moment. The fabric of existence is open. There is nothing that is complete; there is nothing that is pure. Why is Transcendental Black Metal courageous? Courage is open and raw. Courage means flying towards the horizon with no guarantee of a place to land. Courage is the active, honest leap from one moment to the next. No dissimulation, no excuses, no irony, no complaints. Courage has no object of attack. Courage is not jaded, disappointed, disaffected. Courage is not a flight into fantasy or nostalgia. It is the opposite of Depravity. Depravity is false freedom. A poison dart shot from the shadows. A retreat that seems like an advance. An attack that is really only a shield. Depravity is dissimulation; courage is authenticity. Courage has no image of itself. It is trailblazing. It has no path before it. Its only trace is the wake it leaves behind.