http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=130056

Where can I get the demo called "Gloom" of this enigmatic funeral doom project from Germany? Being a fan of funeral doom I can't find any info about Flittering apart from webpage on MA and one review here. I sent an e-mail to the reviewer and the person who updated these pages but didn't get any answer. It seems that a label called Huldraslaat doesn't even exist, because it was deleted from the archives. They were supposed to re-release "Gloom". Anyone have some info about Flittering?

YES! Spread the word!

I discovered Flittering when the review was first posted. I said to myself, "You've got to hear this". I emailed both the reviewer and the guy who submitted the band to the archives. The reviewer never responded, the submitter said he had no means of copying the tape for me.

Also, there used to be a website for Huldraslaat. It was one page, and had a picture and said "Flittering's Gloom demo to be re-released in 2008". Earlier this year, they apparently stopped maintaining/paying for the site, and it was deleted. Flittering also had a band website, with just a picture on it; this too was deleted around the same time.

...and that's what I know about it. If anyone knows more, I'll be glad to hear it as well.

I can't believe that this band is so difficult to find for the lovers of funeral doom. "Gloom" could be as important as the works of Thergothon or Skepticism.

So I am asking especially European collectors: anyone owns this demo or at least knows the history of Flittering?

This is not the first time I have seen someone jumping up here and begging people for this demo. Something about this seems like it is a fake. I mean, a handful of people claimed to have heard it and say it is awesome, but NO ONE will provide sound samples. The lyrics are listed as 'evangelical depression...' and all that fancy pseudo-transcendental jargon but there is apparently no listed lyrics in the demo.

I'm lead to believe that this is just some individuals trying to jack up a cult-phenomena either just for the fun of it, or in order to jack up the future 're-publication' of their shitty music.

'More amazing than Paradise Lost or My Dying Bride'...? That's an insult to those who developed doom metal.

If it does ever turn up, I would like to hear it as it sounds awesome, but I also smell a hoax. It all sounds a bit too kult for its own good, and somehow it just doesn't fit in 1993 if that makes sense.

Well, I think I might be able to help. There are certain people who belong to die hard tape trading circles- they have pretty much every tape/dub/mp3 of any demo. These are the people who withhold certain demos from ever being spread, like in the case of Salem(Israel)'s first two demos and even an unreleased demo that is not even listed on the archives. I'll see if I can get a dub of this demo and rip it to mp3.

^Indeed

Honestly, this stuff that disappears into nowhere generally disappears for a reason, in my opinion. It might be okay, but if it were half of what it's been made out to be, it would have influenced other bands and have some sort of existence outside of being music that traders won't trade to you.

You would be surprised....I have a bunch of tapes in my collection that most people have never heard of but the music is just incredible(I ripped the music though- I don't hog my tapes). Many underground bands have been influential, but usually bands don't talk about their influences or if they do they say something like "sodom, destruction, slayer" because those are bands people are familiar with.

If you do that, I WILL worship the ground you walk on.

Tried to find it a year ago and failed.

this thing is as fishy as this one:
http://www.metal-archives.com/release.php?id=96117

the 100% review for the f/d band does support this argument further.

'True Tanzanian Black Metal' sounds pretty fucking awesome.

Yeah, that's another one I wouldn't mind hearing if it ever does turn out to be true.

No, I believe the Tanzanian band was actually a "joke" band of Velvet Cacoon.

Flittering has a chance of being real, and I'll do some more research into them in the coming days....I know a couple people who might have heard of them.

Like I said before, many people withhold tapes from the internet or limit the distribution so as to retain a "cult" value or as the reviewer said it was personal. I would not write off the band as fake.

There is also this death/doom band I'd like to check out someday. I can't find any info about 'em outside MA:

http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=126378

Hear O' Israel "A Frolic Thru The Pandemonium" 92 (doom/death)

First time I've ever heard about this and now you assholes have got me hooked! This sounds amazing even though it would be some of the most poorly recorded stuff ever.

Tenebrum Infectus from France while their stuff not being rare, I would have loved to hear more from them but they broke up. It seems very few people know of them too.

Huldraslaat isn't a proper Norwegian 'word' as far as I'm aware.

This band is findable. I went to firestream or whatever their label name was and found out the site has been taken down because someone attacked the site and in the "doom metal spirit" the guy gave up and took down the site. He gave a link to a christian metal forum, and I am very sure that if you join the forum and make a topic you will get results.

http://christianmetalrealm.niceboard.com/

That's the forum, good luck!

I am solely interested in Flittering, as I am not the biggest fan of funeral doom.

I writ it off as fake because it is too fucking modern for the early 90's scene. It bears no similarity whatsoever to what was around at that time and most importantly it is exactly in the style of the pseudo-cult extreme doom you see in the current scene.

That's why I do not believe it. If someone does provide sound samples and they again bear no resemblance to the early 90's and sounds like the last Portal or Beyond Black Void release, then I will just laugh.

I mean seriously! The bandmembers are listed as 'bereaved brothers'!! It is so obvious that some asshole is trying to jack up the cult status of this recording. Don't delude yourself over this. Lavishing cultness on any piece of fancy looking crap you come across is what resulted in worthless bands like velvet cacoon.

Yeah, for me the seemingly-photoshopped band image and logo was too suspicious. This gimmick of 'fake artists retroactively inventing genres before the genre was around' has been done to death recently:

Death - a 'forgotten' African American rock band claiming to have "invented punk rock's sound" in the early 70s, who released their 'lost album' this year;

Ursula Bogner - the invented female alter-ego of the German producer Jan Jelinek, claiming to have been recording analogue electro songs years before Wendy Carlos/Delia Derbyshire etc. 'Rediscovered by chance' and released this year.

Chapman Bros(Artists)/Yuri and Konstantin Shamanov - invented Russian peasant personas of two trendy Brit artists, claim to have pioneered conceptual art ideas in rural Russia. First exhibited this year.

All of these have been exposed as fake. That said, these were all this year and Flittering was added to the archives last year. If they are a fake band, then at least they can hold some claim to inventing this current trend of artists with false histories...

Its incredible to think there are people who would actually put effort in doing such a thing. Lame.

Well the thing is I checked the submitters profile and all the bands he listed were real, including Hear O Israel. I'm trying to contact both the reviewer and submitter, but I have other bands I'm looking into so I won't give Flittering much of my time anyway. My goal is to get one of them to take pictures of the demo and then I'll post the pictures here. The picture of the demo so far looks very sketchy....

Can't see how a photo of a cassette cover would prove anything one way or the other really...

Well so far all we see is a black cover with no band logo or anything. It would make the demo less suspicious, even if only a little bit. As far as I am concerned, the demo does not exist as some people have brought up good points here and some of my friends/contacts(old school tape traders) also have reason to believe the demo is fake. It never appeared on any trade lists- this has been confirmed by myself through my research and that of others.

In that case even a complete scan of the cover is unlikely to change your mind, surely? I mean, most people could cobble together a demo tape cover in 30 minutes, print it out and then re-scan it for authentic lo-rez effect. It wouldn't prove that the thing had existed for 16 years though.

I think you're right to be skeptical; it sounds like a hoax.

It honestly does. The only reason why I believe the band has a remote chance of existence is because of the submitters(catblack_wizards) knowledge of doom by mentioning bands like Unburied and Hear O Israel and Dusk among others. I even have the tape for Mordor(on dub)so the guy really does know his stuff.

The reality is, it probably does exist... and it's just nowhere near as good as people say. Until it gets a rerelease or someone nabs a dub and proves without doubt it exists, I personally would think it's a new band pulling a Nargaroth...

Fine with me, though; my Thergothon CD still plays and the first Worship album isn't too shabby either, so...
Prove yourself, Flittering.

Well I got this reply. I hope he doesn't mind me posting this:

"hello
sorry I can't dub it and back in the day
if you were seriously into extreme Doom of the early 90's you either have this demo or at least heard about it and like the early mordor and unburied stuff which at one time or another was also thought to not exist??? well whatever
I have very limited access to computers (only at work) and no way to rescan the cover more or less dub this thing
hopefully that label will re-release this thing
sorry if I seem in bad mood but I keep getting emails to make a copy and I can't.
I had to hunt this thing down and pay for it and quite frankly I paid a crazy amount plus I traded some really rare shit for it
plus I waited like 3 months for the asshole to send it to me (back in the letter writing days)
try asking the person who posted the review or in the forums I guess.
sorry but it deserves to be released officially
and I assure you that it does exist but I know how you feel because I've been trying to get the skepticism actual 7inch and Ive never been able to find the actual record besides the downloads but I wanna see the real thing."

That was from catblack_wizards so please don't email him anymore.

I am betting this is fake. I also bet that the person who uploaded the band info and the lone album reviewer are the same person using different account names.

Also, there is really no way to prove that this is real unless it's re-released on a real label.

As others have already mentioned, a scan of the album could easily be faked.

Also someone could upload music from some other obscure funeral doom demo and claim that it's Flittering and 99% of us wouldn't know the difference. So yeah, I will consider this fake unless I see a re-release...

There's a lot of bands with material you cant track down. Point taken?

I've been trying to track down the release from Gas (Dnk), does anyone know anything about that?

I doubt Flittering is fake, it's just not as common as other releases. There are probably other bands from the early 90s that played extreme doom that have fallen completely into obscurity. Back then, there was no Myspace or online CM Distro or whatnot, so it is possible that Flittering is one of many bands that have fallen so deeply into obscurity that they are almost completely forgotten.

All the more reason why he could invent up such crap. Tell me if this does not seem possible: After having spent years and years researching great doom bands and fawning over lost cult recordings, he decides he wants to feel that pride of having created his own cult band. But rather than work hard for it (or better yet, just write the music he likes), he creates a bunch of hype about a very artistically modern doom act that put out a demo on the very moment of the genre's creation. Then after the embers of underground scenester worship have flamed up high, he publishes stuff that he made just recently as the 'long lost seminal demo'.



Oh don't worry. I wont. One man's word is not worth much at all.



Look I know waht it is like to find something totally amazing that has long been overlooked or hard to get. That is a powerful thrill, but I have found had it can oftentimes backfire badly. Often the results are not nearly as thrilling as we had thought they would be. Do you sometimes find yourself having to try and psych up yourself when that little tape or EP turns out to be less than you expected? In reality, we may often loose quality in that quest for the ultimate cult tape. We also miss out on CDs from other groups which though not as limited or obscure as these 'cult' acts, actually do morething intersting and unique with their music. Just remember that what your are looking for is superior music and all the fancy wordplay or sinister looking j-cards cannot provide that.

That is very possible. I sent a couple emails to massive doom traders from the early nineties, so if they have not heard of the band I will say it is fake, and leave it at that. The lyrics seem a bit uncommon for 1993, as well as that the band is from Germany, known for its Suicidal black scene and hipster bands...Well I guess I'll find out soon enough.

If it were merely 'very' obscure, that would be one thing, but the fact that apparently nobody at all had anything to say about this thing for 15 years... come on, really?

And even taking all of this at face value... Nortt sucks anyway, so if it sounds like that, screw it.

It ain't surprising that he can't provide us with the scan of the cover. He is not very helpful. I am slowly more and more convinced that Flittering is indeed fake. No review in any older zine, no other info about the project apart from MA, sudden deletion of fishy Huldraslaat label, no music samples, nothing.

I am just wondering how many 'fake' bands are on MA. Thanks a lot norilor for your research.

The user who posted Flittering to the archives (CatBlack_WizardsHat) knows that we are on to him.

"I can only use the internet at work!" Please...

Actually I have a few contacts who don't own computers and only can use the internet at work...

I just think it's a little too convenient that this CatBlack_WizardsHat person has a metal archives account, has posted reviews, and has created a Flittering profile and then as soon as someone asked him for more info about the demo all of a sudden it's, "I....uhhh.... um..... I don't have the internet!"

Sounds a bit fishy to me...

And while I realize that some demos are very obscure the only information about Flittering on the internet (as far as I can tell) is on the Metal Archives. I have a found a few other sites with info about Flittering, but on close inspection one realizes that it was simply copied and pasted from this site.

The demo is fake.

This isn't KoЯn, I don't see why that would even be brought up. Why would the mods be in on something like this?