Laster – Wijsgeer & Narreman (cassette release 01 June 2012, CD release 01 August 2012; both via Dunkelheit Produktionen)
Good afternoon, readers! Are you having a good day so far? I hope so. I know it’s still Monday, but at least it’s almost over, right?
Anyway, I’ve got an excellent serving of black metal I’d like to share with you all. Laster (“libel” or “defamation” in English) is a two-piece band from the Netherlands. Each of the members is also involved in other musical projects, but they both use initials as pseudonyms (and both are credited with “vocals and all instruments”) so it isn’t much use trying to discuss that.
In fact, outside of their city (Utrecht) and country of origin, pretty much everything else about this band is mysterious. They don’t even have a Facebook or Myspace page (as far as I have been able to discover). In a way it’s a shame, because I do like to find as much information as possible so I can be more knowledgeable about what I’m writing about.
At the same time, isn’t part of the allure of black metal its arcane nature, that sense of mysteriousness? Perhaps sometimes the ease with which the internet has put nearly limitless information at our fingertips can actually detract a bit from the magic? Turn the extraordinary and unique into something familiar and commonplace?
In any case, that’s the extent of the details I am able to share. Even the EP title and each of the three song titles have aluded my translation (via Google) abilities. I’ve been able to pick out a few words, but not enough to decipher anything meaningful. For example, the record is called Wijsgeer & Narreman; apparently the first word means “philosopher” or “sage” but the second part has no results however hard I try searching. Perhaps one of my helpful Dutch friends will want to offer some assistance?
Wijsgeer & Narreman features three songs, each somewhere around seven minutes in length. “In Levenskollen, in Dadenstorm,” “Tot Eenheid Verweven,” and “Wijsgeer Ende Narreman” all bring a lovely black metal vibe, along with an abundance of dark atmosphere. In addition to the ceaselessly ringing cymbals and the hoarsely shrill vocals, the various layers of guitars tend to intermingle with the background string parts, creating a series of overtones upon overtones — perhaps the aural equivalent of a hall of mirrors?
The way the sonic spectrum is constantly almost saturated throughout this EP seems to give the listener a feeling of warmth — despite the frosty rasp of the vocals. This feeling, combined with the warm guitar tones (warm, as in sounding like glowing overdriven vacuum tubes), seems to mime the overall impression produced by shoegaze-style music. Shall we say, blackened shoegaze, or perhaps even blackgaze — that’s a thing, right? For reasons I can’t quite articulate, after listening to this trio of songs, I’m left feeling uplifted. That’s not an emotion that people often use to describe black metal or shoegaze — and like its couterparts in either genre, the sound of this EP seems rather bleak and depressing, yet it tends to put me in a more positive and hopeful mood nevertheless.
Perhaps my impressions might be influenced by the thematic material, if I were able to translate the titles or had access to the songs’ lyrics, but in this case my ignorance allows me to be free to react naturally, however the music itself affects me. Maybe “uplifting,” “positive,” and “hopeful” aren’t the most accurately descriptive words — maybe it’s more like a sense of numbness, an absence of pain, or ultimately a resignation or giving up a tormentous struggle?
Keep calm and let the blackness overcome you.
For your listening pleasure, the band is kindly offering this EP for FREE at Bandcamp…
…and in the event that the Bandcamp downloads are no longer available, they have quite graciously set up a secondary FREE download option right here.
Furthermore, for those who would like to purchase the music in a physical format, it can be ordered from Dunkelheit Produktionen on CD here, or on cassette here.
—————————————-
Laster: Bandcamp
Dunkelheit Produktionen: website, Facebook, webstore
Valley of Steel 
Dear Denizen of the Valley,
Thank you for your time and kind words. It’s nice to read so many different musical interpretations about our demo and I really enjoy your enthusiasm. Now, let me help you with that archaic Dutch you’re struggling with.
First of all, you’re not going to find ‘narreman’ in a Dutch dictionary. Our language is very playful which gives us the possibility to scramble words together in order to express ourselves more clearly or have a more poetic approach, if wanted. For example: ‘Nar’ means jester or joker. ‘Man’ simply means ‘man’.
The same goes for ‘ln levenskolken, in dadenstorm’. ‘Leven’ means ‘life’, ‘kolken’ means ‘to wirl’ and ‘daden’ means ‘deeds’. The proper translation would therefor be ‘in the swirls of life, in a storm of deeds’. ‘Tot eenheid verweven’ is a lot easier. The correct translation would be ‘interwoven into unity’.
I hope it makes a bit more sense now.
Thank you once more!
LikeLike
Hi, N., I’m glad you stopped by — and thank you for reading!
So if I’m understanding correctly, I guess the title here would be equivalent to something like, “The Philosopher and the Fool”?
Still, I appreciate the inherent sense of vagueness, because the listener is still left to decide for himself, whether the title refers to two different people or whether it gives two different names for one person. I think I might prefer the second interpretation, particularly when considering the mentions of unity and interweaving.
LikeLike
You are spot on with the second interpretation. Not only does it portray Faust, but it might, most possibly, be a portrayal of you and me as well. The philosopher and jester are characters that are found in most of us and (if you’d ask me) have much more debt than plain good and evil, angel and devil other common antipoles.
LikeLike
I like it. A lot is written about polar opposites, as you say — portraying aspects of people as “black” or “white”. But things are rarely so simple and easily classified. Your philosopher and jester character traits might be considered as lighter or darker shades of grey…
LikeLike
BONUS – ADDITIONAL REVIEW MATERIAL!
———————————–
Looking over what I wrote yesterday, I realize that I completely left out one other thing I wanted to touch upon.
The third song here, “Wijsgeer Ende Narreman” is done in 3/4 (sometimes referred to “waltz time” in contrast with 4/4 which is called “common time”). It’s a frequent practice in black metal, to have a song in 3 — with the drumming and tremolo-picked guitar styles common to the genre, each beat is further subdivided, so each bar might be broken into groups of 12 or 24, for example, but taken as a whole, the major emphasis is placed on groups of 3 beats.
Anyway, what really grabs my attention in this song is the fact that, like I mentioned earlier the layers of music sort of seem to wash together into an oversaturated mass of sound, but the overall impression here (with all the individual components of the sound added together) is of a simple and lovely waltz melody that floats above all the harshness and ugliness. In a way, that melody almost resembles a song like “Edelweiss”…
I’ve been listening to this EP for a few weeks now, although I’ve only just had the chance to write about it and share it with you (the readers), and I have to say, this song in particular has embedded itself into my brain, popping up randomly, at least a few times a day.
LikeLike
Personally I think Northward is a bit more interesting. But a very enjoyable release nontheless! Looking forward to more material!
LikeLike
I’m not familiar with that — but thanks for sharing! I believe I’ll need to seek that out now.
LikeLike
Pingback: NEWS: Laster Signs with Prophecy Productions; New Album in the Works | Valley of Steel