From Black Metal to Nazis: The Strange Case of Alex Kurtagic
Alex Kurtagic may be an unfamiliar name unless you’ve either: A) heard of his weirdo, UK-based black metal band Benighted Leams or B) in more recent years read of his promotion and writings of Alt-Right and neo-Nazi propaganda. I was in the first category (via an ad for his label in the UK magazine, Terrorizer), and it seemed then no one in black metal or death metal was writing about space (OK, maybe Nocturnus a few years before this). I got a used copy of Benighted Leams’ second album, Astral Tenebrion, which featured a pretty nice, albeit weird style of black/spacey metal. The album has general song titles such as “The Ark Of Infinity,” as well as Bal-Saggoth gone sci-fi ones like “Saturnine Fury Adumbrated The Aestival Castellations Of Iberia.” I later discovered all of the music was created by Katurgic, also the founder and head honcho of Supernal Records and distro, though I would remain ignorant of his downfall for quite some time.
Meet the Dapper Diaper Alt-Right Spokesman, Alex Kurtagic
Around 2003, I bought B.L.’s first album Caliginous Romantic Myth which is similar to the 2nd album, only more lo-fi, has a sputtering drum machine, and features more goofy “are these even real words?!?” vocals. Moreso, Katurgic wrote a number of songs about the depths of Mars which I thought was very interesting. Namely, “Aurora Of Despondence On Valles Marineris” and “Succeeding Departure From The Chryse Planitia”[1]. It all seemed rather innocuous and goofy in a distinctly metal way, and in the waning years I had mostly forgotten about Katurgic aside from the frequent Supernal Records ads in Terrorizer.
Supernal Ad circa: 2003. Maybe there’s some hint about Katurgic’s leanings in there? Sure enough it includes titles by bands like Absurd (DE), Grand Belial’s Key mixed in with Anthrax and Dark Tranquility.
Search results showing Kurtagic’s direct connections to the racist right websites Radix Journal and American Renaissance
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Somewhere in 2007, Alex Katurgic lost his collective marbles. There was an early, albeit vague, hint from the song “Orphny of Arain Blood” off Ferly Centesms, his 2004 album, but trying to find any meaning in this will leave you grasping at straws. “Orphny” isn’t a word, but Orphne means, “A nymph who, with Acheron, had the child Ascalaphus.” Plus, his spelling of Arian could just refer to the the descendants of the Arab invaders to the Indian subcontinent in the year 711 CE/BC. Okeeey. So, I dunno what the fuck this is, but these dollar store Jabberwocky lyrics don’t sound too promising:
Arain blood prilled forth
Bouffage sans gris ort
Wertherian gift sith unsoke
Blored the wit the whist yoked
By 2007 [2] it seemed to indicate this wasn’t a fluke as Kurtagic went full-on batshit. Suddenly more and more neo-Nazi bands showed up in the distro, but the real cherry on the anti-Semitic sundae was the Anti-Geldof Compilation, featuring a comically gigantic black metal corpse painted sourpuss on the cover and a bunch of G20 World Leaders with what I guess is Bob Geldof and Bono (along with other annoying rich pricks) at a “world decisions table.” But this compilation wasn’t a fun and smart critique like, say, Negativland. Instead this was a mix of regular metal bands, pagan metal bands with no other dodgy connections (Forefather), completely unlistenable noise loons (Stalaggh) [Ed. Note: Stalaggh is listenable to at least two of us weirdos], AND several neo-Nazi bands (Der Sturmer, Fanisk, Hammer, Ulfhethnar, and Darkthule) along with bands who record for Nazi labels (Astrofaes, Dark Ages), as well as proto-4Chan creeps (Woods of Infinity). BONUS FUN: there’s a whole thread about this at Our Favorite Dunkable Website which coincidentally connects to a now 404-ed post from Richard “Please Punch Me” Spencer’s website. The CD is also (STILL!) listed for sale at the shell of a site run by white power bonehead label Resistance Records, a history we’ll explain more about in a bit.
Supernal’s Anti-Geldof compilation with a cute dog and various cryptids
Rate Your Music rightfully flags the album as Nazi material and there’s only 2 reviews of it with one just mad the bands are in alphabetical order and the other saying “there’s really only “two new artists (that were memorable)” aka: not even “But the RIFFS, dood!”
Supernal Records Logo aka: Alex Kurtagic while being Mad Online
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According to his website, Kurtagic was awarded the Jonathan Bowden Oratory Prize in 2014. Jonathan Bowden was another white power C.H.U.D. who spent hours and hours and pages upon pages intellectualizing his own bullshit. Said bullshit includes videos on Ezra Pound’s fascism, along with an interview with a very black metal looking YouTube channel called Black Gnosis where he says, “Inequality is the basis for mortality” and “the dang Muslimz!” blah, blah, white birthrates, Western Civilization. Weirder still is the DailyMotion video of Bowden’s one man show on Punch and Judy which is supposed to be a political satire but sounds like a really meth-ed out Monty Python skit.
It seems then that ‘ol Jonny’s tome, Western Civilization Bites Back, whose only praise comes from Alex himself and Croatian race crank, Tomislav Sunić – the author of Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right – bafflingly links Kurtagic to domestic terrorism! Sunic is a supporter of the racist Flemish party in Beligum Vlaams Belang (aka: Flemish Block) as well as a one-time guest speaker at the neo-Nazi terrorist organization The National Alliance’s EuroFest in 2002. The National Alliance, while a shell of its 1990s power was led by William Luther Pierce. Pierce was the author of The Turner Diaries, which – despite being a fiction book – calls for an all-out race war in the US. Incidentally, the book was found in the property of Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh.
So how does this baffling chain of racism and poor taste in literature connect back to the metal scene? It seems a former member of a German NSBM band and convicted murderer Hendrik Möbus weaseled his way into the National Alliance’s Hillsboro, WV compound but eventually got arrested for violating his parole in Germany. (Ironic that people who complain about “criminal illegal immigrants” welcome this dickweed into their home). Möbus, as some of you may know, is the founder of Darker than Black Records and frequent posted on Nuclear War Now! Productions’ forum. In 1999, neo-Nazi metal and punk music label Resistance Records was bought by the National Alliance and helped them become the number one racist music label and distributor in the world.
This all leads us back to Katurgis. Benighted Leams’ last album Obombrid Welkins features Pierce himself in multiple appearances. Not only is Pierce’s mug slapped across the album booklet, but Pierce is sampled in the song “The Fame of A Dead Man’s Deeds.” where you can hear him, as one Metal Archives reviewer notes “woffing anbout Ugandan people and cannibalism.” The album also included the super pretentious title “Kevin MacDonald’s Theory Of Eurocentrism As A Group Evolutionary Strategy.” MacDonald is a former psychology professor at Cal State-Long Beach who, among other things says, “Jews, who have typically been in the minority in countries around the world, are compelled by an evolutionary strategy that makes them push for liberal policies, like immigration and diversity, with the intent of weakening the power of the majority that rules them.” MacDonald frequently references the work of “race scientist” J. Phillip Rushton, who was big on the junk science of “black people have smaller brains due to their bigger penises.” Rushton himself was part of the Pioneer Fund whose work influenced Charles “Skull Measuring is Cool” Murray’s The Bell Curve. Predictably, Weird Alex Katurgic wrote a glowing obituary of Rushton on his blog.
Tomas Sunic still spews out his white power wank at various conferences in Europe, but Bowden eventually died on the toilet from a giant turd in 2012, and Pierce died of a pork rind overdose in 2002. Nowadays Alex speaks at Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute conferences which in recent years put the spotlight on these puds shouting “Heil Trump”. Autocrat Alex’s own talks at at this conference include one called “Masters of the Universe” which unfortunately is NOT about He-Man or She-Ra but about some overly pretentious horseshit that, after an introduction from Spencer himself, goes on for a half-hour about “anti-traditionalism”, “something, something how they put lead in chocolate? (?!) “, “the modernity, the globalists” aka: it’s “the Jews are behind everything (double LP length).” Other talks of his include the not-a-tribute-to-R.E.M. “End of the World As We Know It” (aka: “Racists Authors Aren’t Racist Enough!”) and “Wanted: A Moral Critique of Egalitarianism” (aka: Wanted: Weird Alex NOT Talking Out of His Ass).
Would You Trust This Man With YOUR MUSIC?
Not Awesome Alex begins to speak at the 2011 NPI Conference while Dickie “Punch Me” Spencer walks by.
Looking for info on Supernal/Kurtagic’s reputation as a label and music distro, it seems his rep is not always on the up and up. An investigation of the Nuclear War Now forum reveals two threads where posters claim he’s a rip-off and/or terribly slow to send packages out to his 5 supporters (the witless lummox from Darker than Black among them). Hilariously, Supernal’s homepage now takes you to a Japanese website making service (*cue Japanese Marc Maron voice*).
Supernal itself seems to have achieved little more than being the first black metal label to sell drinking horns and polo shirts (according to an interview with Asgard Root zine in Spring 2008). Sure, they once featured bands like Hate Forest and somehow managed to avoid falling for GeoCities in the early 2000’s, but Katurgic himself is more interested in Nazi propaganda than hocking anything of quality. But hey, he sure reviews a lot of neo-Nazi books!
Along with all-out neo-Nazi sites, Weird Alex continues to write in other portals of Satan’s vomit pile[3]. Namely, for the hell pit of the alt-right, the self-described “paleo-conservative” site Taki’s Magazine which features 1990s “shock zine” writer, Jim Goad, semi-celebrity dingus and former Fox News “Red Eye” guest, Gavin McInnes, and moldy fascist grandpa/extremely failed 90’s Presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan (also once the right-wing fixture of CNN’s “Crossfire”). If this weren’t enough, Kurtagic runs a book and music distro named after the Welsh word for Wormwood. Instead of a cool absinthe online store – it’s just more of the same “Aryan History” horseshit he’s been peddling for the last decade. Lastly, to quote Matt Christman[4] from Chapo Trap House “They (Nazis) love these ‘science-y words like ‘human biodiversity and they try to hoodwink followers into believing that bullshit.”
What a long, wild ride it’s been for sad Alex Katurgic.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Special thanks to Gizmodo writer Rae for her help in sorting out the space terminology.
[2] Granted, this really started around 2003 or possibly earlier but it seemed to come off more like “hey, we sell everything in metal – even the controversial shit” instead of it being the prime motivator for Supernal’s marketing.
[3] I’m not gonna name them all because A) They suck dead monkey turds B) I don’t need any more self-punishment after this.
[4] In the episode of Chapo Trap House on 11/24/16; “Who Makes the Nazis”, guest Ricky Rawls talks about the idea of “racial narcissism” which is essentially “if they’re not constantly shifting their hatred on somebody else it’s going to consume them… so it’s a form of mental relief- they’re just constantly off-loading it.” I think this describes the racist right-wing along with their NSBM co-horts to a ‘T’.
