Der Blutharsch

enfantterrible, Feb 15, 2007

What is Der Blutharsch? what really represents?
Artistically speaking I notice a Romantic longing for a certain period of the past, rejection towards modernity and a political stand now clichéd and anachronic.

Their ideals as a whole may be outdated yet they are interesting precisely because of that. There’s a necessity for nostalgia and a longing for what is lost in Europe, in the world, for our past, and the tragedy behind what is left behind whether it was tragic or magnificent. Things that will never return, That’s the triumph of Der Blutharsch and many of his cloned disciples and contemporaries. They captured a feeling and transformed it into art. Then comes the form. Its syncretism and proudness, its well crafted musical structures that could be the soundtrack for a Riefenstahl film are great on their own. That’s what counts for music. That’s what ultimately counts for art.

Der Blutharsch is great precisely because it had the balls to disrupt the order, to confront the artistic world and the public, yet their music has an almost childlike simplicity, it is almost a tantrum for a lost toy. Marches and more marches, speeches, more marches, entire songs sampled from old recordings no one remember now and melancholic ambient pieces, at some point some European folkloric references.

Aside from the musical aspect, Der blutharsch is just another of the countless number of bands that want to fall into the category of political interpretation and identifiable character, lets call it right wing or fascism (which is no difference these days) people that want to chase a battle for their beliefs and opinions through art. That’s a lot better than bombing the hell out of a country with the backing that comes from a submissive society totally numbed by their political correctness, their oh-so “moral” mentality and the necessity to preserve their comfort at all costs.
As long as the artist remain in the very core of art creation and vision, he will preserve his stability and above all, his credibility. That’s something that Laibach (working in similar political quest) acquired yet at some point of their career they had to clarify their ideological position in order to be “accepted” by the statu quo, something that Der Blutharsch has never done and probably never will.
Der Blutharsch chased a fight for the right to say something through art yet they lost it in two fronts, the personal one (the man behind the project) and artistically. First because Albin Julius ended like a lost soul, a pariah (even thought he should have known that the war he declared with his art should have a tremendous cost for his persona) an alcoholic who now easily retracts from his artistic advancements and entered the more common and comfortable grounds of pop music instead of the irregular and dangerous underground territory he was walking before. Secondly the evident retraction and virulence of their artistic creation was suppressed/censored or declared as banal by the artist himself, that way losing ALL credibility and solid stand of his previous declaration. Their favourite time phrase “wir kapitulieren niemals” is just a bluff now.
On the other hand no real anti-modernist/13-year-old-like-attitude wannabe fascist could have such eagerness for money and capitalistic endeavours such as Mr Albin Julius has demonstrated.
Julius is great for one thing, and that is not his "ideology" whatever that may be (nobody can be sure about that, after all his works are a fuzzy fascism that venerates Julius Evola and D’annunzio) but for his creations, his music. Loathing? Great? That’s the listener choice, if you don’t like the content… Then don’t buy it.

Music has the right to be politic, music proposed as a declaration for the non lineal political social dogma or away from the standard of the political correctness as well.
Above all, this is music, therefore art, and art has no limits even if the reaching of their choosen political premise (the content) in itself contradicts the parameter of the unlimited character of the art and the music in general as it’s stated. That’s why art is great. It’s strongly polemic and has to be free to create admiration or loathing. Restrictions or censoring towards art can only lead to a “good” or “acceptable” art which is not far away from the precedent of the Enterte Kunst displayed by National Socialism as a premise for artistic creation. Another limit. In our now limited and dried land of opportunities and progress named after “civilization”.

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