Nicholas Diak
Review & Analysis: TSIDMZ – Ungern von Sternberg Khan
Itaca
Review
The proclamation of “we’re sailing to Ithaca!” starts this track with a blast off, and a cascade of looped noises, piercing shrieks and sequences follows. “Itaca” is an extremely hard track to review. This is Ungern von Sternberg Khan at its most noise oriented and noise just isn’t my genre. However, this track doesn’t fail like “Ungern Khan, Le Cavalier Du Vril” does. “Itaca” is not an amalgamation of different sounds that doesn’t mesh together. On contrary the song has a flow and is decently cohesive and the layer of spoken lyrics underneath has promises of being interesting.
The vocal delivery of short sentences in a precise and dark manner recalls the song “WAT” by Laibach off their seminal album of the same name. Both songs actually have a lot of in common and they take of stance of being proclamations of sorts – the difference being the Laibach track is more accessible to listen to. It’s actually a shame the noise is at the forefront of the song instead of the lyrics.
In a weird sort of way, when I close my eyes, I think of this song as a signal being sent through space. A message from a black star (to continue with the Laibach simile). There is an encoded message in the song, but transmission decay renders it muddled. The static, the shrieks and the noise is just that – noise from space that is obfuscating the message (lyrics) underneath. When I view the song this way, it is extremely successfully executed and it’s a brilliant idea. It’s still a tough and challenging song to listen, but I least can verify that there is a method to the madness.
Verdict – Average track unless you’re into noise then it’s a brilliant track
Analysis
This is one of those tracks I wish the lyrics were more accessible or at least printed in the CD. Lucky for us, the original author of lyrics for “Itaca”, Boris Nad, has the English version of his lyrics under the title “Ithaca” at his personal blog, so a proper reading into them can proceed.
For Solimano, “Itaca” is a “symbol of the primordial and not-physical motherland. Symbol of the first and spiritual origin.”26 There is much more to this song than this though. I had made the statement earlier that the lyrical content and delivery was reminiscent of the song “WAT” by Laibach, and I want to dive further in a compare and contrast between these two songs. Some of the commonality is pretty uncanny.
The major body of the song “WAT” goes as such:
From Moses to Muhammad
From Kapital to NATO
Acropolis to Opus Dei
From Marx and back to Plato
From the Golden Age to the Age of Steel
From the beginning to the end
From zero to infinity
From first to the seventh continent
From no solution to revolution
The red star to Star Wars
From the turning point to the point of no return
New Order to a Brave New World
Mechanical to Digital
From Poltergeist to zeitgeist
From God’s will to evil
And from Superstars to the Anti-christ27
The major body of “Itaca” goes:
Through the chaos and anarchy, in which there is no one below or above that
Through sickness and eclipse
Through the meantime, in which nothing is close or far away anymore.
Through the confusion and through the error.
Throughout the long night and short day.
Throughout the war that still is not freedom and through the peace that is not peacefulness.
From Golden Age to the Iron Age, from Christ to Antichrist.
From the beginning to the very end.
Some call it progress, advancement, but it is a progression in death, because we are dying every day, going from the dawn of the Golden Age to the full eclipse, in the deep night of Iron Age28
To begin with, both bodies of text closely follow a similar structural formula: from X to Y or through X to Y. Secondly, there is a lot of overlap in drawing from the same metaphors. Both bands reference going from the Golden Age to either the Age of Steel or the Age of Iron (it’s commonly called the Iron Age, but it was the age both iron and steel gained widespread use). Nad goes from Christ to the Antichrist while Laibach goes from Superstars to the Antichrist, but in this case Superstars is a reference to Jesus Christ Superstar, so in the end both sets of lyrics have the same origin. Both sets of lyrics also references going from the beginning to the end. A final similarity, (although less overt), Laibach references going from mechanical to digital while this sentiment is echoed in Nad’s verses referencing progress and advancement. Both songs also have a hint of misanthropy, a brooding feeling. These are not optimistic verses!
A side bit of trivia. In regards to Laibach, the song “WAT” stands for “We are Time”. TSIDMZ released an album in 2011 called We are Time. Possible connection or coincidence?
So while textually the lyrics are quite identical, they both veer into different paths. Laibach’s verses take on an additional element of parody, with self referential lines about their catalog. At the time when WAT came out, Laibach had been missing in action for numerous years, so “WAT” was a song they needed to reinforce who they were and what they stand (or not stand) for. TSMIDZ doesn’t have the discography nor the history, so such self reflection isn’t in their cards.
Another facet that both songs seem to have but actually different on is the “who”. In Laibach’s “WAT”, the song is purely about them as a band, their deeds, their intent. The torch is passed at the final verse to be about “You”, and in this case the “You” is the listener of the song, a consumer of it, or maybe even an audience attendee at a concert.
The “we” in “Ittaca” however isn’t about TSIDMZ the band (although perhaps it could be weakly argued it has been appropriated as such). And there is no “you” at the end of the song, but there is a “they”. Instead the “you” is part of the “we”, if that makes sense. Another way to put it, the Laibach song was about Laibach verses the listener; the TSIDMZ song is about a group of people of which the listener is a part of in contrast to a different group of people, the “they”.
Still with me?
So who are the “We” and the “They”? Whomever “We” belongs to, they have been though a lot. Whomever “they” are, have not acquired the worldly knowledge that “we” have, and in fact are antagonistic of “we”. The “they” are ignorant, and hence why they are powerless to articulate concepts of truth, or fathom other concepts and principles as is hinted in the final verse of Nand’s text.
I feel this track is one of the most far removed tracks from exploring Ungern von Sternberg as a person, and only a broad net of loose connections can be made between the lyrics here and Ungern. No, I think this song has been more or less appropriated to Eurasian concepts, of which Ungern has become a symbol of. The “we” could be the artisans, scholars and common folk, enlightened by some other ideas, standing fast against the “they”, which could possibly be concepts of the West, harbingers of modernity. I know myself, as an Occidental American, I can hardly fathom the goings on, or even articulate the complexities of that area of the world.
The author of the text, Boris Nad, adds his thoughts on the piece:
The text can be interpreted in various ways, the author's interpretation is only one of many. I guess that's TSIDMZ chosen Itaca because of the atmosphere. Atmosphere is key. It is a journey through time, through the modern era and more - on the other side of the modern era. Through war, through anarchy. So it can be associated with adventure of Ungern Khan. TSIDMZ did the music for another one of my text (War song). It is much more directly related to this topic.29
Extracts from the article: „TSIDMZ – Ungern von Sternberg Khan“ by Nicholas Diak
Source: heiligetod
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