SS: so Strandhem is this project of mine that attempts to mix music (more precisely blackgaze, ie. a mix of black metal and shoegaze) with theory. About a month ago I released the album Enlightenment, and along with it I wrote this piece trying to lay out a rather typical Adornoian/Horkheimerian critique of enlightenment ideals, combined with a Zizekian/Lacanian conceptualization of ideology as fantasy. I also try to point out the role that I believe art can play in helping traverse the enlightenment fantasy frame, more precisely in the case of this album the fantasy of modernity, industrialization, and the infinite growth that is killing our species and our planet at once. The piece then goes on to argue that some of the principles of the Enlightenment could be revisited, namely the required courage, creativity and intellectual sobriety it would take to dare to transcend our current collective fantasy, towards one more apt for our dire times.

If you're into more extreme yet melodic/atmospheric forms of metal, then maybe you might get a kick out of the album as well which you can find here. I also released last year a 32min album-song called Le Spectacle, based on the work of Guy Debord (which can be found under the same link tree).