On October 28th we have the pleasure of inviting you to an Inferno kick-off day. In the evening there will be an event at Byens Tak about the topic of the metal city Oslo, how it came to be and how different it can be elsewhere like in Russia who have officially banned Satanism and attacked extreme metal with that.
In the evening Voidspire will be performing live at Vaterland.
Admission for both events are free.
The events are supported by Fritt Ord and Regionalt kulturfond Oslo.
Voidspire
Voidspire is a death metal band from Oslo featuring members from Horrifier, Ruun, Blodkarsk, and Celestial Scourge. The band draws inspiration from the darker reaches of death metal while carving out a distinctly melancholic sound of their own.
Oslo the Metal City
Oslo is an international destination for metal culture. But how did the city get this role?
This evening we will try to find the answer.
Its roots lie in classic bands in the 1990s, church fires and tragedies in a subculture that scared the hell out of society thirty years ago.
Today, metal culture has been taken up by other cultural fields such as visual arts, film and tourism, and as part of our national staging.
The city of Oslo plays an important role as a scene and hub in the mythological landscape of metal, but also as infrastructure and meeting place for a music genre and industry.
In this event, we highlight the most important places, environments and people behind this dark, cultural innovation that continues to fascinate fans worldwide.
Anders Odden, musician (Cadaver) and pioneer in the early Norwegian black metal scene, is a guide and mediator through Black Metal Bus Sightseeing during the Inferno Metal Festival. The concept connects physical places to the sociological development of the genre. The myths of music are placed in a local, historical context. Anders will share both essential music history and small anecdotes from his life on and behind the metal scene in Oslo.
Photographer The TRVE Vildensky has made it an artistic project to document the metal scene with an analogue camera. With a distinctive look, double exposures and subject manipulation, she gives extreme metal a more multidimensional aesthetic expression, often placed in a local context such as the woods outside Oslo. This evening we will showcase some of her images and hear her story as a young, photographic communicator of the genre.
Although extreme metal is now widely recognized, it remains banned in parts of the world as an anti-national form of cultural expression. In Russia, the authorities have specifically targeted punk and metal: concerts are raided, and people with long hair and tattoos are stopped in public. Aage Borchgrevink of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee will provide a timely international perspective.
Knut Schreiner (sociologist, Rodeo architects) draws a timeline and reflects on metal's journey in a musical historical landscape and taste hierarchy: from long-haired working-class youth in the suburbs to a respected cultural expression where Norway has been given a special place in the genre's history.
There will also be the opportunity to win great prizes from the record shop Katakomben on Youngstorget!