sabinefr's profile

sabinefr2 @ gmx.de

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The Metal Archives are a huge information collection and I enjoy contributing my little bits here and there to keep the information up to date and as complete as possible. Its the best online catalogue, free and open access, and also is a peaceful haven for archive information of music and artists who had left this realm of existence.

BLACK

I am listening to a lot of music of various kinds, jazz, minimal, electronics, funk, death, doom, wave, younameit, but my heartfelt focus is on Black Metal. It is the music that resonates most with me. When death is all around. Dark, loud, dynamic, free, melancholic. Atmospheric and elegant at times, raw and archaic at other times. Always with a lot of energy. I appreciate selfmade demo recordings with their specific quality of sound. The activity of all small labels and distributors for Black Metal and the creativity and efforts of their owners who are often musicians themselves. Variety of Black Metal ideas, emotion and philosophy. Interesting album covers with carefully drawn images. B/w Xerox-designs. Colour Vinyl. Hand-numbered tape copies. The passion of collectors on the hunt for a specific rare object of desire. The many Black Metal Solo projects. Love all that. It is a unique field of art. I enjoy going to live events. Spending time at record stores that specialize on extreme Metal. And most of all, I love to be surrounded by music and listen with undivided attention.

Black Metal, by its very specific nature, has a bad reputation and is provocative. Violates commonly respected boundaries of cultural taboos, ethics and taste. In these days of political correctness, Black Metal artists, events, labels and zines are subjected to cancellation campaigns and accusations of all kinds. In my neck of the woods, Germany, I come across a lot of this stuff. Strange times. I don't care about popular opinions and try my best to support my favourite genre of Metal, regardless of personal opinions. Listening to good music without applying any filters of censorship. Cherish freedom of art, freedom of speech, free thought without boundaries, open mindedness, free debates - the whole lot. Ideals of a better world. I am always happy to talk about different opinions. Just send me a note.

Discussions about genre, sub-genre, category or definitions etc are not interesting. For me, Black Metal music is an approach to darkness and death, not a category. The music creates an atmosphere and feeling. I don't perceive it as a defined area with precise boundaries, more as a broad space which is open to all sides. A definition is nothing worth the time talking about in detail.

DANKE

My contribution to the Metal Archives is a way of expressing my deepest gratitude for tons of interesting music that has been published over the years. Thanks to the musicians who create this stuff day by day around the world. Black Metal has not the biggest audience but obviously it has an extraordinarily interested and passionate audience.

The ever growing data base of MA is my wonderful personal robotic DJ for music suggestions by random selection, which is a nice way to prevent me sticking to lazy listening habits of already known music. Instead, my mind is nourished by new music via random suggestions of the machine.

There is a lot going on in Black Metal. It is simply impossible to keep an eye on all new releases every day. Very often - and frequently to my delight - the robotic random DJ draws my attention to remarkable artists who had been unknown to me previously. From time to time, something in the work of a band appears special to me: interesting riffs, vocals, lyrics, instrumentation, performances: whatever it is that makes me curious in the moment to find out more about their work. Makes me want to listen further to these records, checking if their Metal Archives information is up to date and complete, browsing the Internet.

METAL ARCHIVES

Today, in June 2022, was one of those days when I stumbled across an old concise farewell message of a Black Metal artist in France, buried under thick layers of data dust. It is addressed to readers somewhere out there. Just a few words by which the artist announced to stop all activity and invited people to freely download all of his music from the site. His farewell message goes through my mind since I have read it.

"(Band Name) cesse toutes activités. Mais le site reste ouvert pour que les gens puissent télécharger librement la musique du projet (Band Name). N'hésitez pas à partager un maximum la musique de (Band Name)."
Published at his blog page in a summer night in August 2014 around 4 o'clock in the early morning. No further information was given about the circumstances or motivation for the decision and the message.

All of the blog texts of this artist had been wiped from the web server at some point after his last message. No traces left over there, only some fragments to be found at Archive.org. The Youtube Channel still has all the music video uploads. Many videos, because the musician was quite productive over almost a decade. And, there is information about this Black Metal band also available at the Metal Archives. I am glad that the data is kept there: safe and sound, neatly organized, open access available for the lovers of Metal music. Big thanks to the many people who make the Metal Archives.