Digging into stone (III)

We lacked entertainment up here at 3,000 meters altitude. One of our engineers had brought a deck of cards with him yet I’ve already grown sick of all these parties playing cards. The guy even started to read horoscopes from the cards as he was mumbling something about gypsies while defining the number 8 in combination with a queen of hearts. He was clicking with his tongue every time he realized a new meaning disclosed under his very eyes. This was happening every two evenings in a small tent intended to cover one half of our small expedition. I decided to change tents after the first evening. 

In the other tent I read books dealing with the problem of metal materials in the mountains. We all know that gold is to be found deep below in the galleries. They started in ancient times to dig for the gold in the stones. Some in the US combed the rivers, but let’s focus on the mountains. So while I was reading this book on the Art of Gold Digging, at 3,000 meters above sea level, thinking or rather blackdreaming of men wearing sharp hats on their heads and digging with shovels into loose stone to uncover gold, I understood that bergmetal maybe only existed in my head. All of a sudden my heart muscles cramped and the chambers threatened to narrow. Dangerously narrow. I screamed of angst. Has the whole expedition only started its doleful course because of a crazy idea of mine? My heart pushed hard against the skin. Can we really find bergmetal or just a material I had mistaken for it? Only because I want to find it, my fingers should feel the touch of cold bergmetal. 

Anne Burgess [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The tasty muffy smells of stones when I arranged them for my grandparents to acknowledge my first demonstrations of natural history. I used a room under the rooftop for installing a museum of geology and paleontology, temporarily. There were fossils and minerals, besides stones from Icelandic volcanoes. My father brought some stones with holes from there. He journeyed as lone wanderer through the Land of Fire and Ice. Postcards reached my mom’s mailbox and so the children’s ears. Definitely I remember the adventures. When winds had destroyed his tent and had blown it away so he had to ask around with local peasants to sleep in their haystocks. 

All the memories appeared in the mountain night on the tenth day of our small expedition to gain some bergmetal specimen. Outside was cold, inside the tent as well but I wrapped myself up in a warm sleeping-bag. We planned to reach a lower peak of a whole peak chain. On the left and right slopes of the peak we expected chasms in which bergmetal reservoirs might be found. Still there was not enough material to base a decent research on. Only problem was that the region we were climbing was exposed to heavily capricious weather changes. Today we could walk in sunshine and tomorrow in snowfall and storm. The stones only answered in silence. 

We reduced our talks when we tried to scale the protruding noses and bushy eyebrows in rock. The mountain throws back any echo thousandfold. Surrounded by stones, we felt isolated and so we continued to reach our next mark. All around alone, only the expedition brought some human life into this rather indifferent world. This was the world-without-us reaching me through the night. Could discern some voices in the rolling stones and howling winds through all the mountain nights. Long ago when our earth was shaped by heat eruptions and seismic movements, the stones screamed out. Yet I don’t believe that the element bergmetal was already created back then. Rather it was a newer sidetrack of evolution. One of my assistants suggested bergmetal to be some cultural facet in urban civilization. Couldn’t agree because that seemed quite far-fetched to me. Bergmetal is to be found in nature. The expedition will deliver evidence. After sunbreak the piledriver will drill into stones to tear out bergmetal. I recall a German saying: Im Berg ruhet geborgen das Metall im Schall. Echoes can lead us to this element which is resting in the berg. By violence the geologists enter the inner realm below. In Windischeschenbach (Germany) a Continental Drilling Program (KTB) tried to reach the core of our planet and the machine mines minerals from kilometres beneath the surface. Be sure the coming wars will revolve around resources. Bergmetal can be an element freely distributable and renewable as it is located in the highest of heights. Yet would that geologically mean that it was of rather new origin?

You can buy this postal card at: www.briefmarkenhaus-dresden.de / keyword: Rumänien

„Mister, we oughta leave now.“

Shit! This cannot be! Overslept ... on an expedition trip where I am supposed to lead. Holy Mother Moses! I mumbled yes yes coming coming, pushing the sleeping-bag away and not really jumping up. In a split second hastened to dress me in half-lying, half-sitting position still in the tent. When I left the tent there was some embarrassing applause by the team. Yoho! Boss! We’re ready to fly! Some members even put their fingers in the mouths to whistle. I waved to my assistant professor of geology and asked him about the weather changes and if we can estimate the smooth running of our today’s route. He shrugged his shoulders and added: Yes surely we can achieve some altitude as of today. The team seems to be really up-to-strength and he calculated the majesty of the places we’re crossing. Now you don’t really know what majesty could be in matters of scientific categories. We both found out that bergmetal needs some element of majesty in its constitution. So most likely at impressing places bergmetal as a pure element can be found. However, what shape does bergmetal actually show when it is unearthed from mountainside? We are anxious to experience it. 

The team members knew I had worked until late at night and so they excused my oversleeping. Some guys continued to giggle a bit while we were pushing the mules upwards. As a breeze came up the guys muted. For breakfast I couldn’t eat anything as I was expecting some turn in our expedition soon. The closer we got to the peak of the mountains somewhere here, the better the chances of extracting enough material for our studies. Strongly do I believe that bergmetal must be some kind of metallic stone – maybe glimmering like an anthracite. 

As of now, I don’t know in what layer bergmetal resides. In the highest bed is to exclude from rational argumentation as it has taken some time to develop. 

Anyway, if we follow the reasoning of my assistant, bergmetal is also a cultural fact. So searching for it in the mountains would be a hardly sensible thing to do. On the contrary, I still believed it lay in rest in rock. Strangely enough, the colloquial term for it appeared in a dream one night and I was already known in the scientific world as Stig Olsdal, a specialist in dubious surfaces. When there was reasonable doubt about a sediment or layer what it could bear inside, I was called upon. Don’t misunderstand my task. 
Naturally, any geology professor could work on the location as he or she was efficiently trained to handle the tools and to be an expert in the history of our earth. Yet I was expected to clarify haunted soils. There were several cases in the United States when old Native American trails seemed to be still haunted by some spirit and I was expected to demystify the place and then extract the specimen for further investigations. Some minerals are believed to hold special powers in ancient myths. So I was trained both in geology and folklore. As in the specific case of bergmetal I nurtured the notion of an elementary resource in the mountainworld. 

As for now I should really focus on the ascent of the mountain. Readily I will elaborate on the cultural facts of bergmetal next time. Just now I heard some screams of surprise from the avantgarde section. I better rush forward to ... later.

Apparently there were no interruptions this time. This blog can only rely on the texts being delivered to the editors here. We have no means to double-check the suppositions made here. It is at the reader's discretion.

Moving forward (II)

We managed to extract some specimen of this new element called bergmetal. It seemd to "grow" in the mountains. At least we found it some few meters under the ground. It was practically new and so Olsdal and his fellows fetched some grams into their bags. Our man Nick was still with the doc and we tried to get some connection to the helicopter rescue yet haven't been successful so far. We keep trying. We keep holding contact to the injured and the doc.

As far as I can remember, I was fascinated at landscapes. How they fill horizons with a multitude of features. If we go back a few centuries, we come across the whole movement of Romanticism where the concept of elegy entered poetry and then later novel-writing too. Sublimity is the keyword in this context.

In metal music landscape is often understood as background for generic stories. You can go check these postings here and find your own theory. However, now with the discovery of the new element bergmetal, there arises the question if black metal and some pagan metal can only exist by the material they feed on. If a musical style goes under the title of black metal, maybe the reason is not only because black relates to satanic and primeval evil but because the matter black metal thrives on, is utterly black. Maybe even some space explorers among the music groups can simulate a black hole effect. Just in case ... I mean, it's all about speculation. Pondering over a music that I've been listening to for years now. Curiously enough, my taste is not strictly limited to these black metal eruptions. Maybe after all those decades of tradition it is time to venture to new territories? Don't you agree?

A breath-taking vantage point invites to new perspectives. Ever been to a mountain peak? Then enjoy the view and start to think the valley conditions over. To stand on a mountain and feeling like ... Emperor sending guitar hooks to the night sky. A blaze in the Northern sky. Ablaze flames growing higher. Sitting on the bergthron. The metaphors abound and by the course of time they will lose their grip. Grinning mouths lacking in teeth. Grown old and then the bodies just crumble and fall down to a hole six feet under. Earth claims her creatures again. Curtains closed. Thank you. Party's over.

So bergmetal as a new element to metal circuits can open our eyes for the materiality of the music. The melodies and the high-pitched guitars always seem so aetherial, only hard to grasp, flipping through our fingers. Yet without a body to inhabit, we cannot produce any music. We need bodies to receive and resonate to sound.

So, a repeating pattern helps to stabilize the black metal stereotype. A sub-genre to be easily recognized and labelled. Consumers will show grateful support. You won't be disappointed. Even more, you can be deadly sure about the results, if you want to spend your money. For proper accord with scene regulations, any metal release owns a rebellious touch to it and by being perceived as belonging to metal community, this music practices opposition to no-matter-what. This perception is rather incorrect as any music release appears in a certain context. By repeating patterns a sense of community can be sustained. Social groups with a definite set of values guarantee safety to a certain degree. Apart from those metal scene structures, if the explorer team we're following in this report decides to map new territory, we can easily guess that their mission might differ from the gros of metal scene activists. Following their trip to the mountains entails a degree of turbulence we should become accustomed to. It's not only for the thrill. You can limit your interest to new releases and gossip talk. You will certainly miss some underground movements in the material of metal music.

Now return to the exploration.

Is there a binding relation between scaling mountains and collecting grams of bergmetal?

The question is: at what places can we find bergmetal? In mountains? Most probably.

Yet, have you ever heard about a studio located on rocks? Mostly, we find them in cities and some in Sweden's countryside. So when Immortal stand high above valleys, they use their guitar-axes without any wires to electricity. Imagining, their guitars are fed by the atmosphere. Bergmetal appeals to a thematic approach: it is the lyrics that build up the phenomenon of bergmetal. If we experience sound on a mountain slope, sound can escape in any direction as there is apparently no "close room" where sound could be geborgen (past participle of German verb bergen which owns berg of bergmetal yet means to hold sth. or to recover respectively to rescue). There is no room to hold the sound. It can evade and fall down or rise up what- and where-ever it likes to. 

My argumentation holds the fact that there is a material aspect to music, too. I presented this approach at the Second BM Theory Symposium in London in January 2011 – so metal follows rock, in history of popular music and there is a material transformation process involved in this development. A country abundant with mountains might produce a high percentage of qualified black metal, doesn't it? I followed this question in another article (to be published sometime in 2012, keep you posted).

Bergmetal could also be a sort of black metal emulating the geological phenomenon of berge (read: mountains). How can mountains – accumulations of rock, ice, earth and grass – be put to sound? Tough question that needs some digression. Answering to that needs time, some detour.

"The fact that the universe is fundamentally alive, spontaneously self-ordering at all levels – from the very small to the very big – is a shock to those who thought it was based on a matter that was boring, determined and fundamentally dead." (Charles Jenks, 'The Post Modern Agenda', in The Post Modern Reader. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. 35)

Readers are fond of receiving shocking breaking-news from mountain trips: there were accidents, incidents or even casualties. Any serious explorer won't deliver that, only dime novelists find their pleasure in coming up to the expectations. The explorers won't deliver such items of news as they are naturally interested in the success of their endeavours. That's that. This exploration in search of the new element bergmetal proved to have been planned quite carefully. It saw years of advanced research before the actual start of the mountain conquest. That was due to the mission's delicacy. We effected several explosions in the mountainside and had only a half-hearted permission from the local authorities. Normally, they asked for a decision in parliament yet we directly addressed this concern to the Ministry of Energy and Resources and by sharing the exploits with the Ministry we could avoid a debate. They don't possess the capacities to exploit this new element themselves so they bought in our mission. Ph.D. Olsdal was not really fond of this peculiar loss of independence yet for the greater cause, he accepted. Without explosives we would haven't been able to discover the element as it needs a second glance beneath the surface to discover bergmetal. Putting it into the right angle and then still having enough time to take cover always verged on the brink of disaster. Fortunately, our specialist was able to put the explosives in safe places and the exploit of bergmetal was satisfying enough.

First explosion brought ---

again a disturbance of transmission. Excuses. We depend on some prototype wireless connections in high altitudes. Sometimes there is too much noise and distracting signals. In such cases we only receive fragmented texts, filled up with strangest characters. We're trying to fix that situation until next time.

Dominik Irtenkauf

Movements in Mountains

While I was hanging on the mountain wall, I heard a movement far above. Was it Epikryton who has always been so fast in scaling? It seemed like cracking of stones or rather losing grip in a field of pebbles. Some slopes running down towards the valley. Any feeling of gravity is unearthed as we’re climbing towards the peak. I remember one trip to South Tyrol still in schooldays, when we climbed up on the so-called home mountain of a village where the whole class stayed at. There was no awe as I started joking around with mates but I still recall the breathtaking panoramic views on the landscape. All in all, I was more concerned about what girls I’m going to kiss at the top of the peak as part of the old tradition. We ended up exchanging cheek hugs with the whole class.

The next big step towards the mountain world was when I received an invitation to Georgia in the Caucasus region. Yet it took three stays there to finally reach the Higher Caucasian Range. I paid a visit to the mountain where Prometheus was allegedly shackled to. And it is called the Snow-Crowned. I could hear shrilling Immortal guitars as escort to the top. When there is much decay and demise in black metal, there is Erhabenheit too. Can those warriors factually excel in mountaineering? Have they undergone special learning? Can they handle the techniques? Those questions rushed through my head while I was reaching for the next step. It is known that warriors of black metal enjoy day-long trips into forests and mountainsides. Reminding somehow of a Walden ideal to get lost from the spoils of urban culture. Consequently, bands who live close to mountains are among strongest exponents of mountain music. Have we ever heard stones sing?
In ulterior states of fear oh yes or in excesses of joy, we have heard stones sing.

When this expedition started, all seemed in routine. Here, it was different to the Alps where it is often easy to get by car almost until the top of a mountain yet here we had to rely upon mules. The mountain was said to offer some breathtaking chasms and I was experienced enough to go for views rather than techniques. Never been the sort of climb nerd. In fact, it had cost me quite some courage to eventually starting mountaineering. That was mostly due to curiosity. Plus I wanted to feel the experience myself – the experience of bergbesteigung. Scale the mountains, conquer masses of stone and become emperor of Montana.
I already told how I was hearing some noises from above, some sixty meters something in a diagonal stretch from the position I held on the grip. It sounded crispy, like forks scratching over tinplates. And it was cold hier oben. Fucking cold, as if Norway’s blizzard sons blowing brass. No North in my position – hanging on stone walls at the fringes of Europe. Was on tour with a group of friends who wanted to discover new territory. Caucasian territory where we ensembled high nigh to the sky.
“Hey“ I yelled over to Jens ”have you heard this sound from above? What could it be?“
”Goats.“
”What? Here?“
”Yes. Why not? Maybe they have some duel over who’s got to be the boss at the roof.“
Goats? Could that be possible? What I knew was that Georgia‘s mountains surely bore bears and wolves. Goats played a seminal role in myths in those regions. The screeching came from another source, definitely. This obscure noise couldn’t be traced to any living animal, I was deadly sure about. We started ---

The grandeur of tall monuments, the will to persevere, evolving to a Zarathustra of Nietzschean coinage, to become elite, to stand above human beings – mountains deliver a ready-picture for that impulse. So the bands get their grip on the box of mountain images to evoke altitude.
The height of sound, the high-pitched guitars shrieking in such stark contrast to the bowel-shaking bass guitars of death metal, that black metal seems to be predestined to represent images of mountains. It loses touch to the ground and reaches for the dissolution of corporeal matter. Higher and higher to the sky. However – and that is a big but – always glue your boots to the earth, that means don’t fly around like butterflies. Conquer mountains, reach the sky yet keep your feet to the ground. Climb and scale leave the valley but always feel the solid surface of stone beneath. In the end, the warriors reach the peak and the guitars throw shrill ropes to protrusions. In between you hang freely in air (of course always connected to the carabiners). Then, when all is fixed and double-checked for safety, you can leave your position and advance to the next on your way to the top.

Nobody could understand or reconstruct when the free fall of our record keeper Nick had started. He fell down rocks on ice. We hoped for him to fall rather softly on some new snow yet ... we could spot some red on the white. Red for Fire, Black for Death. Is he dead? Does he respond to our calls? We decided to lower our bodies to his location and we had some medicinally trained guy with us. He might check if. Slowly he approached Nick on the pure white snow, little red spots dripping from the climber‘s forehead into snow. His helmet absorbed the shock. Thus it got a little bent. Nevertheless – the doc guy gave us a sign: still alive. Thank heavens! Only red for fire. The fire that was still burning inside Nick. We had some ideas about installing a flag on the roof plateau. Nick nearly dying made us think differently, feeling awkwardly thrown behind all energy. So he was not able to carry his way alone. Someone had to stay with him and check his condition. We decided the doc should stay. He built up the tent which Nick was lain into. Some luftmatratz helped to store Nick’s hit body. He received some smaller contractions and needed most of all rest.

It’s plain old mountain music. Same stuff they’ve been singing for more than a hundred years. Really? It all sounds so utterly depressing to lay ears. Hard to distinguish the different traits in the overall impact. True, like a cannonball smashing into your beloved housing. How could you dare? How could you start to muse over this matter? Futile fugitive flattery. Only those who are inside, might gain some knowledge from analysis. Experience ladies'n’gents, experience I’d like to remember you it’s the entrance to soul. Songs of innocence and experience hide behind clouds and only if those clouds are trying to steal by the mountain peaks, they can be caused to open up for heavy rain showers. Castles in air feel disturbed by opening clouds. They pour down to reality, to stone ice and snow. Mountains might be reasons for drifting clouds to stop by sudden disturbance. Unimpressed the peaks scrape the sky and tear it open.

Image courtesy of MODIS Rapid Response Project at NASA/GSFC

Mountains bring clouds to grounded theory. Grounded by practice. Easily to fly with your thoughts to any places imaginary or real, no matter. Climbing step by step and never losing sight of your safety, you can reach the vantage point. That’s why bergmetal exists. Impress by express movements. To stand above the daily worries, leave for the mountains. Bergmetal feels, the material they’re walking on, builds their own walls of sound.

We left Nick with the doc. Hauling winds accompanying our decision to continue the expedition. (Reminding the readers here of immortal guitar shrieks skywards!) This mountain range belonged to the last few challenges left for men to accept and triumph over. Its position is hard to communicate. It lies beyond the civilized regions, somewhere in the steppes yet beyond towns and known roads. Our travel took long enough even though we used airplanes to get there quickly. We heard ... well myths and legends. That some rare explorers encountered a strange folk in the height of the mountain world. Fully bearded light hair (some guessed it was due to heavy sunlight) and tall bodies. I thought that had to be a fairy story. Anyway, we had a team of geologists with us who were interested in rare earth metals. They were highly paid and just by random chance I happen to have known their leader: Ph.D. Stig Olsdal. He wrote his thesis on the rare earth metals‘ abundance in the Earth’s crust, by focusing on Scandinavia. (Some chemists from among others Sweden had discovered several of these elements in the 19th century.)
He planned some excursion and needed men competent at mountaineering. So he sort of “rent“ me and my team to get to the Inner A*. While probing the surroundings we ventured upon bergmetal which hence has been unknown to Olsdal and his colleagues. In the run of our mounting we couldn’t expect the dramatic turn to our ---

At this place, the report elapses and this blog waits for further notes on later occasions. The lines reached from this far-off corner. They seem to mix up two accounts of mountain conquest.
The blog’s editor excuses the delay in exploring into the movement’s origin.

Dominik Irtenkauf