67 minutes, 13 seconds

Westwind & Destruction Flowers
Be Happy to Be Alive

Westwind belongs to that burgeoning fraternity of bands who dabble in fascistic imagery and whose music can best be described as "martial pop." I won't speculate here on this French band's politics--I don't truly know what they are, and any speculation would be just that: speculation--but I think this whole European neofolk phenomenon, which likely began with Death in June about 25 years ago, has been interesting to watch.

Some bands (Von Thronstahl, for example) seem to flaunt a totalitarian ideology, but it's hard to know if you can take it seriously. Other bands seem to cloak their philosophy in euphemisms: "solipsism" (Luftwaffe), "misanthropy" (Boyd Rice), "social Darwinism" (Rice again), "an interest in the history of the Second World War" (Death in June), etc. Again, it's often unclear where these artists actually stand on issues of Nazism, immigration, anti-Semitism, etc., but they clearly thrive amid the ambiguity, which makes them so fascinating on the one hand and so troubling on the other.

I like to call it "uneasy listening."

Also today:

67:08 :Wumpscut:, Music for a German Tribe
67:06 Heimatærde, Kadavergehorsam
67:02 Caul, Reliquary
67:02 Uruk-Hai, The Battle
67:01 Absurd Minds, Noumenon
67:00 Vinterriket, Landschaften Ewiger Einsamkeit
67:00 X-Fusion, Demons of Hate (CD 1 of 2)
66:59 BlutEngel, The Oxidising Angel