Icelandic E-Journal of Nordic and Mediterranean Studies
acting as extremely tough, while the blækk metaler has to sit in jail to be extremely tough. And I don‟t mean sitting in jail because you‟ve driven to fast, oh no. Blækk føkking is about sitting in jail because one is bad. Bad and biggtaim ivil.[1]
Here Jakhelln is referring to the murders and church burnings which were
committed by members of the Norwegian black metal scene. In fact, much of the
international success of Norwegian black metal is due to those criminal offences;
without those facts, black metal would hardly have got the coverage in the media and
the diffusion it has today. Half seriously, half ironically, Odin (and Jakhelln) seem to
cast a critical yet fatherly look at the aesthetics of Norwegian black metal, which have
long been focused on an extreme form of „bodily transgression‟, which also included
criminal acts.[2] In fact, in the Norwegian scene of the early Nineties, church
burnings and other kinds of profanations were often preferred ways of accumulating
cultural capital — Vikernes and other scene members who were imprisoned after
having committed crimes were often hailed as scene leaders not because of their
musical achievements, but primarily because of their criminal offences.
In any case, Norwegian black metal was also Jakhelln‟s primary source of inspiration
as a musician — a source which he distorted, changed and finally returned to,
releasing two albums of tru nårvidsjen blækk metæll.[3] If one considers the
quotations above in the broader context of Jakhelln‟s production, a circle seems to
close, intertextuality to have reached its peak. Modern, ancient literature and black
metal are one in Jakhelln‟s work. He has been constantly bending towards literature
when playing black metal, always towards black metal when writing literature. One
could even stretch the argument as long as saying that much of Jakhelln‟s literature
gets lost without a knowledge of black metal music: „high‟ and „popular‟ culture have
mixed, and black metal has become a constitutive part of a literary project.
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