1- What is the End Commune?
"Good question; no one really knows or can put their finger on it. At its most abstract, it is a loosely tied art collective type operation, and at its most concrete, it is a few individuals writing, painting, making art, thinking about the mysteries of the human and of God and the world, and - of course - creating music. Most of all, and on a personal note, The End Commune is a kind of philosophical and artistic "universe" wherein i can do whatever seems appropriate in accord with my artistic and religious self-becoming. I have hoped The End Commune will be, in the future, somehow engaged in or affiliated with some kind of militancy or terrorism, but perhaps that is just an idealistic teenage dream of mine I should let go – and I have. Luckily, I am not 22 anymore. In any case, my ambition with The End Commune is to expand it and make a completely self-reliable record label out of it. Potentially also some kind of book publishing thing. We will see. As for now, all it is, is some weirdos – great friends and existential allies – doing music. It does not have to be any more pretentious than that.
Nej: It is a common expression of a several people that attempt to claim intimacy to individuality, how paradoxical that may seem. No one really knows. Anyone who claims to, doesn't. It is the mutual understanding that chaos reigns and also order rules supreme. Names, names, names. It is communion that reminds me of my isolation. It is fuckyou fuckme holy heresy. It is the social security of the declaration of war. It makes nonsense, if that makes sense. It is a group of people with a tattoo that means a group of people with a tattoo. Regret and sorrow and pride and whatever may come tomorrow it is THE END COMMUNE.
Malkus 9: since I joined the end commune my relationship to it has changed with me. So to say that it is one particular thing is impossible, but looking back, knowing what I know now it has been continuously learning from mistakes. The End Commune is both the mistakes and the learning.
2- What is the relation between Slutet and End Commune? Can you give a brief history of Slutet?
Shabrang Behzad: Slutet is just the primary musical project of the End Commune. It is its greatest, and, thus far, most important and also most appreciated work of art. The "flagship", if you will. The End Commune and Slutet should not be understood as inseparable entities; Slutet can be a cool rock band and nothing else should that be the way you wish to view things. In any case, Slutet was formed in the summer of 2013 after having been conceptualized and dreamt about from around 2010 or so. We started rehearsing in September of the same year, shitting out three demo tapes over the lapse of a year (mostly due to the fact that 80% of the music had already been composed over the years 2011-2013). A guitarist left in 2015; we found a new one. We created "Jihad", and then we created "Love & Beauty". Of course, in the meantime, a lot of curious, depressive, interesting, adventurous, passionate and fucked up things happened along the way, but those stories are for the future (I intend on writing a short book on these matters; in fact, i have already started with it since I just finished my previous filthy excuse for literature – the "Sword of Angst" anthology).
Nej: To put it briefly, MOTHERS CRY BECAUSE THEIR CHILD IS TAKEN BY THE ENDLESS WILD, CHILDREN HAVE GONE OUT TO PLAY IN THE FIELD WHERE TROUBLES LAY.
3. Slutet to me is quite an unique project even within the vast confines of Black Metal genre. Are you into black metal (you can namedrop some faves or not)/ are you connected to the Swedish (or international) black metal scene overall? If not, how did you happen to start expressing yourself through this musical lens.
Malkus 9: Peste Noire, Reverorum ib Malacht, Celtic Frost and Reveal.
Nej: I remember practicing before for our first rehearsals by "singing along" with songs from Burzum's Filosofem in an apartment while in high school. Other than that, an early introduction to Katharsis and Master's Hammer is all that really sticks with me. So much for the namedropping. Association by marriage yes and by screams of the thing in trees that does the growing grasping inside.
Shabrang Behzad: Black metal has been the most important music for me personally ever since my father showed me Bathory, Celtic Frost and Mercyful Fate back when i was a kid. I still remember vividly when I first heard the first riff of "Total Destruction" by Bathory. I think that is the moment when i first "got it". I felt a kind of power and darkness from the music I had not appreciated in anything else before it. However, these days, I listen to at least as much music of completely different genres as I do black metal. I've grown tired with much of it. I consciously distance myself from any "scene" or "community" with regards to black metal. I have contact with only a few other black or death metal artists; I can literally count them on one hand. It doesn't interest me, the whole "community" aspect of it. Generally I find folks to be narrow-minded, quite boring, and often ideologically possessed. And besides, I hate gigs and I am not a fan of getting drunk. And the fake posturing and "Satanic" and misanthropic virtue signaling from many of these people give me a banging headache.
Since Slutet is centered around authenticity (authenticity being sacred a virtue for the whole Endcommunean enterprise), I have waded about in the black metal swamp with the hopes of finding authenticity for a long time now... on some days I find it, but mostly, I really don't. What one encounters instead is often an extreme form of collectivist groupthink and tribalism (the worst part being that they often conceptualize themselves as being free and ranging wolves, mighty predators, strong-willed Nietzschean individualists, misanthropic Satanists against "the whole fucking world", etc.)
I think this nonsense is prevalent even more so in black metal than in other sub-cultures or counter-cultures or whatever. Just their average attitude to life is extremely boring and often irritating to me. I do not hate the world, and neither do I intrinsically hate humanity. So I guess i'm life-loving poser to the truest necro-warriors within the genre. And I find much of this culture to be decadent, Godless, filthy and fucking dishonest – yes, i say it: most of it is pathetic and makes me cringe. That said, I concede that there is a very fiery core, much alive, at the center of the genre, and that core to me is highly important even to this day. Except for Slutet, which is obviously the best and most interesting and unique black metal band today, I would like to mention Nimbifer, Yohualli, Skravl, El-Ahrairah, Forgotten Spell, Këkht Aräkh, Rivers Like Veins, Axis of Light, Duszę Wypuścił, Maquahuitl and Voidcraeft as some rather new and rather unknown bands I think really makes something worthwhile, standing out in this ever-self-devouring cesspool of contemporary black metal music and culture, rising, I think, like some obelisks above the forsaken rest.
All this said, i must concede that black metal art is extremely important to me, and that is very contributing as to why i become so mad and annoyed when i find it to be done in a "wrong" manner. In fact, i have been meticulously monitoring black metal for about 15 years now, and I have probed its past with ardency and focused passion to find the hidden gems; I still go through lots and lots of the new releases and most of it i find to be soulless, untalented garbage. Most of it looks and sounds... uninspired. If i have to see one more band photo with Finnish teenagers in leather vests making hand-triangles and singing about "Luciferianism" and the "Left Hand Path", I think I have to kill myself. God fucking damn I despise these people, to be honest. I am spiritually allergic to this trending. These kids, while portrating themselves as some illuminated "go your own way" Satanist militant wolf-men, would not be able to fucking wait to kiss the boots of Watain, Deathspell Omega and their likes should the chance appear before them! "Are we doing a good job replicating you, masters?". "Please, affirm us!". I do not understand this behavior; it angers me. Why do they choose to look exactly the same?! No soul, no personality! And Black metal without soul, what is that exactly? God damn. I think these people should maybe try to put their soul into creating something authentic, instead of fanboying around a candle and a table, cosplaying Hells Angels. Just answering this question brings annoyance and spite to my mind, haha. And oh, while at it, black metal warriors around the world, heed my words: Jesus Christ of Nazareth was more of a strong-willed individual badboy subversive rebel than you will ever come to be. So take your fucking plastic spellbook, light up your eBay incense, sit back in your favorite chair, pretend to read Hebrew occultism you do not really understand nor care about, and invoke Wikipedia demons. The "social club" aspect of black metal is so ugly to me. Spewing anti-cosmic curses against the universe from your Instagram account does not impress me at all. My countrymen in Mephorash I dislike exceptionally much (they perfect a kind of black metal I despise), but basically everyone LARPing their way through black metal as some kind of elevated lvl 218 Qliphotic Wizard can suck some very average-sized but authentic Endcommunean dick. You are fake! Fake, fake, fake. 99.8 % of you at least. I know serious people are out there, and I respect them with heart and with spirit, as I do with every truly religious individual, but they do not very often pose with their tomes and grimoires on Facebook, do they? So get the fuck out. I have no respect nor patience for these things, and it is a huge part as to why I am not really engaging with the black metal subculture. It is not a culture for me, but it is art(!), which is different and a much more solitary pursuit. Culture is about belonging... but I do not belong to black metal - I create it. Big difference there. So naturally, with this being said, Slutet is a huge dong in the face of these bands and these people.
I like bands who show humanity and personality. Because it does not matter how much you say you want to be an anti-cosmic fairy buzzing around some red dragon in some forbidden dimension somewhere - you are still human, and you have a personality, haven't you? So why do you continue the corruption, commercialization and homogeneization of this potentially boundlessly powerful genre of art and style of music? I shall never understand it... I stand on the outside as if watching a house burning down, I have already saved my shit from there - let the rest fend for the house itself, I do not care anymore.
I would say right now, the most played black metal albums are: "Заревом над прахом" (1997) by Forest, "Teocalli of the Sacred War" (2017) by Maquahuitl, "Le Fleau de ton Existence" (2009) by Quintessence, "Mocking the Philanthropist" (1997) by Grand Belial's Key and "Assiége" (2014) by Véhémence That is my top five this summer at least, but it often changes
4. One of the stand-out features of Slutet are the magnificent lyrics. How's your lyric writing process?Are they pure stream of consciousness pouring out or carefully thought out poetic craftmanship? Are there poets / writers that you could name as a source of inspiration?
Nej: I have attempted to craft a language of language, language about language and the teasing unsatisfactory event in every word I add to the story. But this is only recently relevant. For the past I leave it to another to answer.
Shabrang Behzad: First of all, thank you. No, they are far from stream of consciousness actually. I started writing more or less seriously around about 2009-2010 after discovering Edith Södergran (we are still married and we love each-other). Later I discovered the Les Poètes Maudits of France, folk like Rimbaud, Baudelaire and Artaud, but especially Comte de Lautreamont whom changed my life. I do not think any book has had a greater effect on my writing than "Les Chants de Maldoror". I can not praise that filthy, slimy book enough. But no, they are rather carefully crafted and a decent degree of time has been put into them. Slutet rests on three legs - music, words and aesthetics (as most bands, to be honest), so it is naturally important that the lyrics are on par with everything else. The lyrics for Slutet between 2014-2017 are just a mere percentage of everything I wrote back in those days. You can find the rest in the "Sword of Angst" book if you would be curious. For "Love & Beauty" though, we have shifted focus with the lyrics and I no longer write them, but our vocalist do. Certainly, there is a great degree of difference between our styles, which I absolutely love. The new stuff is way more abstract, dreamy, metaphorically personal and stream-of-consciousness-like, but not quite. Find out for yourself.
5. To continue with the lyrics are there recurring lyrical themes? I don't want to input too much of my own reading, but to me there seems to be quite often a violent, even brutal expression of femininity within the words, quite uncommon in most things Black.
Shabrang Behzad: In the first era of the band, it was much centered around my personal angst, hatred for the modern world, passion for militancy and terrorism, spite against the perceived weakness of humans, etc. They are very personal in the sense that it emanates directly from dearly held values, ideals and thoughts of mine. I do not feel at all distanced to the early lyricism - rather the opposite; they are indeed a part of me. And the femininity aspect is interesting. I think a large aspect of it is in the fact that our vocalist happen to have a cunt and not a cock, so i think people will almost with automation ascribe to our overall "feel" as feminine. I have personally no problem with this whatsoever; I am quite passionate about femininity and the strength and beauty of women. What that really means you can think about for yourself. As I have stated, we are authentic, and as we have femininty in the band - not only in one member but in all of us - naturally that will seep out and contribute to our band personality and our aura. All good, it is how it should be.
Nej: I am a violent and brutal expression of femininity. That is my theme. My vagina is real and I make it a point just for shits and giggles to claim that it is realer than your identity.
6. Your existence seems to be quite inspired by the superior nordic cinematic master Bergman. Can you describe your feelings towards his work? Which films are your favorites?
Well, for me, together with Andrzej Żuławski and Gaspar Noé, he is the master of cinema. The religious existentialism of "Det Sjunde Inseglet" and "Nattvardsgästerna", the almost Jungian and experimental exploration of relationships, psychology and femininity in "Persona", and so on. Masterful. I would rank them as follows: "Det Sjunde Inseglet", "Persona", "Nattvardsgästerna", "Jungfrukällan", "Så Som i en Spegel" and "Vargtimmen". The rest I have not seen. I can't stand Bergman in colour.
7. What is your relationship with drugs?
Shabrang Behzad: Earlier, a more destructive relationshop, although never anything catastrophical, just coupled with a generally bad lifestyle, it was a hazard and not mature or responsible. A few emergency room visits made me reconsider my ways. Nowadays, conservative but with bad discipline on many days. I have an allowing attitude when it comes to certain cases of rather serious, routined, well-researched self-medicating practices. Also, drugs for positivity. I do not romanticize or glorify drug ause and drug sickness, addiction and the nightmarish plights of recovery. Drugs as spiritual and psycho-motivational "performance enhancers" to take on life, I am about. Not so much about self-pitying or hedonistic abuse of drugs. That is not something I condone or am interested in at all. I condemn it and I would like to encourage a positive, constructive use. God bless the men and women wrestling those demons, though. God bless their struggles. For me, all the youth party drugs and basically all the psychedelics is in the past . Basically no more alcohol, no more coke or speed, no more ecstasy or LSD. Fuck that shit. It got old, to be honest. And its not good for you. Nowadays, health is the most important thing. Running on pregabalin for example, is great. Or weight training on a mild dose of any opiate combined with weed. (I don't know if that is just me or why that feels so great?). Or using drugs for creative endeavors I might cede as positive, but everything can of course be overdone pretty easily. One must delimit oneself. But sometimes I am just a pig, I will admit. I welter in sin and indulgence on some days, God knows it and I know it too. I still smoke way too much cannabis, for example - thats a fact.
Nej: High and low. Experimental and conservative.
Malkus 9: I don't do them anymore and I am opposed to drug use.
8. Your feelings about cats?
Shabrang Behzad: I really don't like them and house cats are extremely overrated. They are cunts and I do not understand the hype around them. Dogs I can understand, they have been our ears and eyes for ten thousand years. They actually like you. I am a huge fan of cats in nature though. I just don’t understand why you would want one in your house at all times. Each to their own, I guess. I wouldn’t hurt one, and I have many friends who love them dearly, and I am not a cunt about it.
Nej: Aaha! My feelings about cats are traumatic and severe. Cats are everywhere in excellent narratives. Cats remind me that I am an animal. I have engaged myself in several heartfelt excursions into the truly WILD nature of nature. Each one of these stories has made me feel entirely animal and horny, alongside very ethereal and asexual. Personally, cats always remind me of the gazing eye of godintrees staring at me. They force me to contemplete the body, the eye the outlook, the irate and wholly independent, the on humanity dependent. My feelings about cats are fuck you for keeping them indoors to protect them, let them kill themselves with curiosity.
9. Side Varg or Side Euronymous?
Shabrang Behzad: Burzum is arguably the most important band of my life.
Nej: AH go fuck yourself.
10. Is there a future for humanity? If so how do you vision it?
Malkus 9: I believe there is. But I think we have to rediscover what it means to be human and I think the only way to do that is through God.
Shabrang Behzad: No idea. I'll focus on myself and the ones I love. The others can play it out for all I care.
11. As *********** is a cultural journal, educating people about the finer, or at least different, aspects of human existence is there any kind of experience you would recommend for our readers to try out (work of literature, cinema, food recipe, mind altering substance or any that sort of thing)?
Shabrang Behzad: I would like to recommend Clifford Brown & Max Roach's "Study in Brown", recorded in 1955. Swingin’ and boppin’ jazz from the legends themselves. Also, the songs "Ill Mind of Hopsin 5" and "Ill Mind of Hopsin 7". Also everything Tristan Tzara (the band, not the guy) ever made. Oh, and you should read "Kallocain" by Karin Boye. And while I’m at it, "Divine Darkness" by Damnation is arguably the best black metal demo cassette of the whole 90's. These are my recommendations; a few things I have been obsessing over the last weeks. Oh, I can not forget, “I am Servant of Your Voice”, the complete recordings of Armenian singer Zabelle Panosian from 1917 (Some of the earliest music recorded; it is immeasurably beautiful and serene I think).
Nej: Exercise and explore your body. Learn what it is to be in the body. This is my recommendation "as a woman". FEEL THAT YOU ARE IN A BODY: THIS OPPOSES COMPLACENCY. I know it is digusting. Have some cancer. Eat and shit. Hail TLAZOLTEOTL forgiver of sex offenders; eater of filth. Pay attention to synchronicities. Pay heed to the passing of time and hard work of woemen before you. Enjoy the fuck out of your fear of death. Spread your legs and deliver.
Malkus 9: Celibacy, a workout routine and inner and outer silence.
12. Your first demo recordings were only available by sending blood, hair or things like that. Did you make some kind of use of these personal human pieces you received, or was it just a thing to show some true commitment?
Shabrang Behzad: It is all saved and stored in various ways, but yes, you are right. We wanted to separate the wheat from the chaff, you know. Getting a piece of hair from fucking Indonesia of all places what a blast to us. Still have it in my room.
13. Any last words / statements etc.?
Shabrang Behzad: "Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you." - Deuteronomy 31:6
Malkus 9: Be ever watchful because the end will not be what you think it will be and you might miss out.
Nej: Not yet.
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