On Tyranny: Black-Metal Band Qasu Says Release of Anti-ICE Song the Day After Renée Good’s Murder Was ‘Chilling’
Is it redundant to say that black-metal bands don’t fuck around writ large? If that question is bouncing around in your brain, try to shake it out of your ear – or at least save yourself a punishing amount of embarrassment, and maybe even your life, by never posing that question to Qasu. Well, at least when they’re not draped in cloaks. The British/American trio refer to their harrowing sound as “ancient future black metal,” the most badass name for the subgenre of another subgenre.
If the above pic doesn’t make it abundantly clear, Qasu take their music very seriously. That fact is evident over the entire duration of A Bleak King Cometh, Qasu’s recently released debut LP created by Aldous Daniken (the trio’s so-called “instrumentation” pro), Rahsaan Sagan (voice and electronics) and Nikhil Talwalkar (drums). Phantom Limb, which is rapidly becoming one of The Bad Penny‘s favorite labels, issued the tour-de-force in conjunction with Apocalyptic Witchcraft.
As with their music, Qasu appear to be equally serious about politics – that is, if the term still has any meaning given the existentially terrifying times in which we live. Mega props go to Qasu for speaking their mind about today’s unprecedented social ills, and refusing to self-censor or obey Trump America’s fascist authority figures in advance. And while we’re at it, shame on the artists, entertainers and Hollywood executives who aren’t addressing the most important debate of our lifetimes: what is right and what is wrong, not what is left or what is right. Their cowardly calculations to not stand up for their neighbors and defend civil rights are making it all the more difficult for those of us fighting the good fight.
When we came across Qasu earlier this year, we knew right away that the band gets its. And yet, for all the seriousness with which Qasu treat their music and beliefs, we discovered Daniken to be a ye olde merry jolly good fellow. (That’s how they talk in the United Kingdom, right?) Lucky for us, he carved out some time to speak with The Bad Penny for our ongoing series called On Tyranny. And now we bring you our conversation with Daniken (which we didn’t videotape this time around).
Have you always been politically engaged? When we swapped messages before this conversation, you seemed especially excited about it. I take it you have either a strong affinity for, or a strong loathing of, tyranny.
Yeah, it interests me. The primary theme of our record is tyranny and particularly U.S. tyranny. The Bleak King [referenced] in the title of the record, and the [message of morality] in the story is a personification of the rise of the far right. Coincidentally, we had the title and theme way before this administration was described as a monarchy. It was way before No Kings too. It was foresight on our part that it was going to turn out like this. That was what we’re talking about with the Bleak King. And so, in that respect, it’s very, very close to the creative intention for the record.
How far back did you predict what would happen?
It was right at the start of the life of the record, which was toward the end of the Biden administration, where things were starting to look a little bit scary from an electoral point of view.
Did the record evolve at all, such as taking on a different shape, given your prognostication?
Creatively, yes. We have the luxury of being primarily a studio band, and we all work remotely, so that allowed us a great deal of flexibility to continue making changes structurally, with the timber and harmonically.
There were moments when a couple of songs survived fairly wholesale from inception to completion. But there were also moments when [wholesale] changes were made, and a song turned inside out to reach its eventual completion.
Can you specify some of those songs?
The first one on the record, “The Bitter Waters of the Abyssal Sea” … the body of that track was born from a loop. It took us recording the initial demo version of the track to find that it sounded so dissonant and nauseating that we ended up rebuilding [a] better [version of the] song.
Did you encounter any challenges or bumps in the road when you made the record?
The idea for the band and the record [happened in conjunction] with me breaking my hand and not being able to play my guitar. So, in that sense, there was already a challenge built into the structural formation, the architecture, of the band.
[While I was injured,] I started creating MIDI [Musical Instrument Digital Interface] black metal with the intention of replacing those programmed lines with real recordings, and bringing in the other guys to complete it.
Also, there were challenges that came with working during COVID. It’s quite difficult to explain ideas theoretically to someone over Zoom or email, and expect the [desired result] to come back. But fortunately, we have Nikhil, the drummer. He is such a phenomenally talented player that he didn’t really need much direction. He just played. He’s a very intuitive player.
I think pretty hard about a physical injury actually having an impact on the creation of a record. I guess Sabbath is comparable.
You mean how Tony Iommi has lost the tips of some of his fingers in an accident?
Yeah.
After you wrote the album, did the news mirroring the Bleak King story surprise you? Were there any points where you were like, “I didn’t see that coming. I didn’t believe this could happen”?
There are specific moments on the record that were designed as speculative warnings that things could get this bad, if they’re not checked. The track “Faith in Violence” is about the Bleak King arming his thugs. The lyrics are the repetition of catechism. That single landed the day after Renée Good was murdered. It was completely unintentional but chilling.
That is intense. How did you arrive at the word “bleak” to describe the king?
Because we seem to be living in an endless winter. It’s also derived from the sense of, “We are unprotected and hungry.” That is a bleak place to be.
How much news do you consume? Do you get obsessed or passionate? And do you doomscroll?
I’m trying really hard not to engage with that on an emotional level. I read fairly recently that the ubiquitous news cycle is actually doing far more harm to us emotionally than the [supposedly newsworthy] events themselves. The murder of Renée Good doesn’t actually affect me on a personal level. But I couldn’t sleep for a week.
The human brain doesn’t have fail-safe devices that could distinguish [the impacts of] bad news. If we’ve read about it in the news, it feels like it happened on our doorstep. I try to fulfill my civic duty to being informed and understand what’s going on, but I stop myself from doomscrolling. And I never get into arguments with strangers on Twitter.
What a fruitless pursuit that is.
I wish it would work. Jack White posted this really great [comment] about Trump in the last couple of days. It was really eloquent and strongly worded in a patriotic and righteous way. There were a lot of comments on it, because Jack White’s a really visible musician. But a lot of [the comments] were about Jack White suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome” [TDS].
The best response I’ve heard to somebody accusing someone else of having TDS is that it’s actually the Trump cult that has it. They really are the ones who are deranged. They can’t make logical judgments or see reality for what it is. So, back to the Bleak King, is it at all possible to take him down? Or is he omnipotent?
Our story doesn’t extend that far. It’s more about the expression of the bleakness. There’s another track on the record called “The Long Knives of the King,” which is about how far control reaches. That’s [basically] omnipotence. Power. What we’re lamenting is the extent of the power. It’s not a peasant-revolt record. The story wasn’t intended to be true [but rather] a speculative anxiety, a future anxiety.
I’m surprised that someone who doesn’t live in the U.S. is so knowledgeable and concerned about what’s going on here. Is that because there’s still the belief that what happens in America goes around the rest of the world for 20 years or something? Do you feel like you’re going to be personally affected by what’s happening in America? Is that your biggest fear?
No. The biggest fear is that there will be a knock-on effect, which we already see in the UK and Europe. American-style politics have become more favourable than in decades past. The politicians never spent their electoral campaigns just mudslinging. It was always the strength of policies that the politicians platformed. Now, it’s, “Well, we’re not the other guy.”
My biggest personal fear is not in the individual sense. The biggest fear is that [tyrannical takeovers] could happen in other countries.
For more on Qasu, hop over to their Bandcamp page or the profile created by Season of Mist, the label to which the band is signed.
Familiarize yourself with more brave musicians resisting the actions taken by Trump’s criminal enterprise; refusing to capitulate or cower to fascists, Nazis and others intent on destroying democracy; opposing the growing number of war crimes committed by Trump and his cabinet; using all their might to prevent the rich from eradicating the lower class; and preventing ICE, Trump’s militia squad, from terrorizing all Americans:
• Nixil Insist Black Metal Bands Are Fighting Harder Against Fascism Than Veteran Punks
• Hungarian Black-Metallers Sear Bliss Lost ‘Freedom’ In Orbán’s Autocracy
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