Melancology: Black Metal Theory and Ecology. Ed. Scott Wilson. Winchester: Zero, 2014.
Melancology addresses the notorious musical genre black metal as a negative form of environmental writing that ‘blackens’ the cosmos. This book conjures a new word and concept that conjoins ‘black’ and ‘ecology’: melancology, a word in which can be heard the melancholy affect appropriate to the conjunction. Black metal resounds from the abyss and it is precisely only in relation to its sonic forces that the question of intervention in the environment arises in the articulation of melancology with ethics. That is, in deciding ‘which way out’ we should take, in deciding with what surpluses to dwell, with what waste, what detritus or decay in a process of unbinding with sonic forces that traverse an earth choking in wealth and death. The book thus provides a provocative and challenging contribution both to popular and intellectual debates on ecology.
TABLE OF CONTENTS: Catena // Introduction to Melancology – Scott Wilson // Corpsepaint as Necro-Minstrelsy, or Towards the Re-Occultation of Black Blood – Drew Daniel // Black Sun – Aspasia Stephanou // Blackening the Green – Niall Scott // WormSign – Nicola Masciandaro // Shuddering: Black Metal on the Edge of the Earth – Steven Shakespeare // Black Metal In the White Tower: Metal’s Formless Presence in Contemporary Art – Amelia Ishmael // In the Abyss of Lies: A Short Essay on Failure in Black Metal – Liviu Mantescu // To the Mountains: The Implications of Black Metal’s Geophilosophy – Dominik Irtenkauf // The Irreversible Sludge: Troubled Energetics, Eco-Purification, and Self Inhumanization – Ben Woodard // Musca Amusica – Scott Wilson // Black Metal Theory – Dominik Irtenkauf and Nicola Masciandaro // Discography.