Travelling to Mordor (report).

For me, as for a person interested in industrial subculture for so many years, Sweden has always been a country of special interest. First of all, there is that cultish meat factory that has enthralled a lot of music fans not only with the content of their labelled production, but also with the design. Moreover, it has powerful and very particular industrial music scene that often dictates its freakish trends to the rest of the world. Everyone who likes industrial music, even if Sweden itself is unfamiliar to him/her, idealizes it slightly as one of the main forgeries of industrial music. I also was – or even I am still – not an exception. I admit that I have always been attracted to explore this country and to know it better. I just needed some push to make this journey, and I was waiting for it as a patient hunter.

One day the message was spread that Shinjuku Thief was coming to Europe to play live for the first time. One of the concerts was scheduled in Stockholm, and, as chance would have it, that place was the closest to my home. My blood was up as Shinjuku Thief, even if it is not the most actual project now, some time ago was one of those projects that trigged a qualitative change in my musical interests. This formation from Australia was some kind of herald then, inviting me to enter deeper into the labyrinth of electronic experiments that lead me later to the horrible funfair of “Cold Meat Industry”. I evaluated how often Shinjuku Thief plays in Europe and realized that to see him live amounts to a hunter's luck to see a Tasmanian devil. Shinjuku Thief is a Tasmanian devil, so I started out for a place where he had to appear for a short time.

An evening X came. Early in the morning I had to leave for Riga, and then to reach that exotic northern country by ship. I was packing my hunting tools to the biggest black leathern bag I found – my passport, tickets, insurance policy and a whole arsenal of bottles with alcohol – of different bore and shape. As ill luck would have it, one friend came to visit me, so a part of ammunition was destroyed, but even after tripping all night I could hardly raise my bag in the morning. It seemed made of glass. A short journey to the bus station followed, and a taxi driver, when he learned where I was going, announced sincerely that he doesn’t like scraggy women because he likes to feel boobs in his hands, and as Swedish women are big and sportive, the big boobs of Swedish women are ok. Such absolute logic of a self-confident driver dispelled for a little my hangover lassitude. Later there were five hours of lost life in a bus watching a film with now content through a window.

Riga. I don‘t know if I like this city. I just have no opinion. But I like one pub in Riga where they have divine Leffe. Only for this fact a journey to Riga would always bring me strange exaltation. That afternoon I was slipping that divine Leffe ignoring remarks and warnings that we would be late for a ship, and I was thinking that I was approaching that exotic northern country that I always wanted to know better.

Although my bag was full of provision, my eternal anxiety of an alcoholic was whispering to me that it wouldn’t be enough, so we replenished our supplies in the city and also in a duty-free shop. Maybe that was the reason why Latvian frontier officers, feeling my inborn lack of sense of proportion, were dunning me with questions if I know how to tell "spasybo" in Lithuanian and what river flows in my native city. I surprised them telling that there are even two rivers in my city, and an interrogation was stopped.

When I was buying a second-class ticket to a ship, I was sure that I would get a 3m X 3m size double bed with a TV set and a table for placing bottles, and there would also be a porthole to cast a glance at the horizons of the sea. But when a ship hostess opened the door of our cabin, I realized that I had no idea about cruises. 2 X 1.5 meter size red-painted room with two collapsible beds and no windows generated associations with a condemned cell. It was an unavoidable necessity to stick in it for 16 hours as a rat, so I instantly pitched in a big bottle of Leffe. When it emptied, I was overcome with sweet exhaustion and with sleep. I still heard how the captain announced on the local radio station that seven short signals and one long signal meant that the ship was drowning while cheerful music was playing in the background. The voice receded, and I sank into oblivion of sleep. Some signal woke me and my fellow-passenger at the same time. Great force was tumbling the cabin from one side to another. It clicked to me that there was big storm in the sea. I was looking for my watch to persuade myself that it was morning and we had nearly arrived. But that what I saw impressed me seriously. It was only midnight, which meant that everything was just beginning. The cabin was swinging more and more, my head was reeling and was feeling a little sick, and I also saw prophetical dreams.

In the morning we left our rat-cave in search for food. We found a restaurant with huge windows looking into the distance, and I was charmed by one of the most beautiful views I had ever seen. We were going by fiords among uncountable islands with uncountable summer-houses, and each of them meant dissociation, introversion and solitude, the things that civilization had stolen from us. Watching those landscapes passing by I experienced inner catharsis. We were going by fiords for several hours, and later we were explained that Vikings had built Stockholm so deep in the archipelago in order to make their enemies lost without discovering the heart of the state.

At last we reached the heart. Dark red multi-storey houses were standing on the rocks, so distinct and gloomy. Further one could see huge chimneys pouring puffs of smoke into the sky that was grey as lead. A single idea describing the view came to my mind. That is MORDOR. That moment it seemed to me that I had solved the enigma of Sweden.

We got of the ferry. Spring smelt in the air. An extremely elegant SAAB of 1973 arrived to pick us from the port, and I took great pleasure in riding it through the old town of Stockholm that left me quite strange impression. It seemed to me that Stockholm was very different from other European cities with its antique solidity. A district of prestigious shops reminded me of communistic Vilnius, and the shops – of the old shops in Vilnius. But the content of the shops was obviously very different. They savoured of grave luxury. And there was one other important detail that remained a mystery to me. Stockholm was weirdly radiating and shimmering. No, not the windows of the shops, but the very space sensed by retina of an eye. I felt euphoria as if I had eaten Mexican mushrooms. Everything was twinkling in blue and in the colour of strontium. It made me joyful and calm.

We came to a house in a suburb surrounded by cemeteries, in which we were planning to stay for several days. The content of a bottle of Campari was breaking communication barriers with the master of the house, and we were creating plans what we could do until the concert. There were so many things that we wanted to do that at last we decided to act spontaneously. Spontaneously meant to go to a pub first and then - as God would let us. We went to a pub of Stockholm where familiar and unfamiliar characters were preparing for a concert. An acquaintance with Swedish prices began in the pub. A mug of beer, a little worse than Lithuanian beer of medium quality, costs 10 Litas, nuts, a few salty nuts – 8 Litas. It‘s not expensive because we stayed at a place owned by an Arab, and everything is cheaper here. Later we went to another, more solid place. A hamburger costs 40 Litas, a mug of beer – 22 Litas. These prices are medium. It may seem nothing special, but one mug is not enough. Then you start noticing that big difference between well-developed Mordor and the place that we came from. Mordor is austere for strangers and less austere for locals. Nevertheless, it is austere for everyone. Travelling hunters must not forget that.

After rinsing our mouths with liquids classified as "ale" and "stought", we started for Fylkingen - the club where the concert was going to start. Fylkingen itself deserves several separate lines as a cultural phenomenon. First of all, it is a well appointed hall in the centre of Stockholm, and it somehow reminds of a cinema. Secondly, on the way to the hall you pass a bar, modest, but decorated in good taste, probably with the cheapest beer in whole Stockholm. And the third thing is that Fylkingen is fully supported by the state, and it is intended for demonstrating art that hardly brings financial success. That is a ground where representatives of all subcultures can suitably express their most weird ideas, and the state even imperatively controls that beer in Fylkingen would not be expensive. Generally, Fylkingen is a realized dream of every underground, and I will never consider a state developed if it hasn‘t got such a club.

About 80 people came to Fylkingen, and the organizers of the event seemed proud and satisfied as in Sweden the number of people coming to an industrial concert rarely exceeds 40. To tell the truth, a half of the audience were musicians themselves who immediately forgot their Scandinavian temperance and were quickly consuming resources of the bar. That was absolutely logical as it is prohibited in Fylkingen to sell drinks during performances. Synchronically sipping Tuborg, drown in smoke, the whole bar was humming, and nonsense was spreading from the mouths into the space, until the door of the hall opened inviting to listen to the first project. Swedish people steadied down and waddled into the hall as royal penguins, I followed them and soon I realized how it was going on in Sweden. I mean the concert. First of all, everybody took a chair that were in the back of the hall, placed it in front of the scene, sat down and froze. Deadly silence was lingering in the hall. No one seemed to breathe. I felt very uncomfortable drinking beer in that silence. The action started. Images appeared on two screens, and dark and dense drone ambient started playing from the speakers. Moljebka Pvlse were playing first. The synthesis of music and images immersed me in a weird, aseptic and cold world that was declaring gloomy urbanistic forebodings of future. Music reinforced images on the screens, and images intruded into my consciousness. Deep drone of Moljebka Pvlse was slowly surging, intensifying and then flooding back again, and cold bright geometrical forms projected on the screens in a dark hall generated associations with other worlds.

Everything ended in deadly silence as it had begun. The light went on, and Swedes hurried to the bar to use a break purposefully and to spend their Kronas skilfully. The same ritual was repeated again. Someone gave an invisible signal; everyone returned to the hall, sat down and froze. When I came back to the hall, the second project Diskrepant was already playing. I felt in the wrong box again as I trod inside with a bottle of beer, and Swedes were sitting stock-still as pupils at school. I found the music of Diskrepant featureless and dull, so I left the hall for a nearly empty bar and submerged in contemplations about Swedish people. Their excessive temperance and their behaviour as if Fylkingen was a national theatre irritated me a little. In such concerts I am used to contemplate music standing and drinking beer, and now I feel like in a nobility‘s party where everyone submits to restrictive unwritten laws. That moment I thought that it was a result of capitalistic vanity, but I immediately objected to myself because shallow people are unable to create such powerful music that Sweden is famous for. Nevertheless it seemed to me that I grasped the nature of those people. They are not shallow. Their external temperance is a result of great egocentrism. Egocentrism that allows them to concentrate on themselves so profoundly and to draw the deepest inner codes that are used for creating. It seemed to me that Swedes reserve their strength and don't waste it. While I was contemplating, the bar got crowded again, and that was a sign that Diskrepant finished playing.

The third project in the evening programme was Des Esseintes. Magnus Sundstrom was showing a provocative, erotic, tasteful video projection in the background of majestic, massive and extremely expressive Scandinavian industrial as usually. The show was very dynamical in comparison with the first two projects, Magnus was beating an electronic drum straight from a shoulder, but Swedish audience were passively sitting on their chairs as British aristocracy and staring at the screens. That moment I saw clearly that even if I would ever go to Stockholm again, I would surely go not a concert. I was offended by this passive reaction of the audience to that expressive music of Des Esseintes. To vindicate Swedes, I must confess that I was also sitting quietly as a mouse but only because I didn't want to rebel against the local customs.

A break, a bar, and beer followed again. I felt crushing exhaustion. Beer didn't work because of great tolerance. Strained, I was waiting for the culmination of the concert – the performance of Shinjuku Thief. Maybe because of my exhaustion, or maybe the organizers arranged that on purpose to intensify agiotage, the break was extremely long, but at last we all returned to the hall again. Darren Verhannen, the creator of the Shinjuku Thief project, was standing in front of his laptop preparing for the set. He made me smile. Unlike other guys of CMI that like dressing in black and demonstrating absolutely indifferent maniacal faces, Darren reminded me of a veteran of a rock band. One could associate his haircut of the eighties, very tight and rather short jeans, and – that was totally unbelievable – his white sport shoes with the scenic image of Def Lepard or Scorpions, but not with the industrial trend. The lights in the hall went off, and Darren‘s silence was interrupted. A set of Shinjuku Thief began. The first projected images and music that accompanied them foreshadowed something extraordinary. Shinjuku Thief worked in its special way. The power of music and images was transmitted not with the help of the performer‘s charisma or the performance itself – Darren controlled his computer drown in darkness – but with the interplay of music and images, and with the depth and subtlety of the transmitted symbols. Very high quality of sound and images also contributed to that. During the whole set Shinjuku Thief had hypnotized the audience and guided it through the worlds of the most different and most subtle feelings. Darren captured the emotions of his audience with unbelievable subtlety, and held that inner tension until the last second. Shinjuku Thief reminded not of a concert but rather of a perfect, masterly work of art, the creator of which stayed in the background. The set was very cinematographic. The audience were watching a very interesting and mysterious movie, the end or even the next situation of which was impossible to guess. I was stunned how nicely that gripping mysterious atmosphere was constructed with the help of sound and images. Everything I heard from the speakers and saw on the screens seemed very deep and clear, but it didn‘t yield to verbal explanations. That was an extraordinary contemplation of beauty, and I felt absolute aesthetical catharsis. And perhaps not only me. When the set was over, Swedes were applauding a lot, which I didn‘t expect from their temperance. Shinjuku Thief has really left an unforgettable impression, I felt as a hunter that had seen a Tasmanian devil.

The concert was over.  When we stepped out to the street, it was snowing really hard. I was sad, catharsis invoked by Shinjuku Thief was fading away, abstinence started, and Stockholm in snowstorm reminded me of the movie "Legend". A unicorn was killed, and the whole world turned into eternal winter and the realm of the forces of darkness. Snowstorm lasted for two days, and Stockholm prevented me from exploring it. The most memorable of my impressions was pitch-black water of the ice-free sea flowing menacingly around the island of the royal palace. That view associated with something very cold and penetrated to the bones. February crossed swords with the coming spring.

The provision of alcohol was over, and that was a sign to evacuate from Mordor for the East. We had one more unforgettable adventure in the ship on the way to Riga. That was a winter storm in the sea. The element was striking with awe and horror. Huge waves were so violently knocking on the iron broadside of the ship that it seemed as if somebody was tearing metal into pieces, and I swear it felt as if the end was coming. The ship was heavily swinging, and everybody was drinking to excess not because of debauchery but because of consternation. All paper bags for vomit disappeared. A cabaret dancer at the restaurant urged everyone to dance and was helplessly stomping herself wishing to vanish from sight to the backstage. She looked so miserable. A drummer barely caught his drum sliding on the ground. And one could see through the windows how waves swallow a lighthouse hardly visible in the jet-black horizon. It was funny in the evening as panic was hovering on board, and everybody was feeling so bad, especially at night. In the morning, when the ship slid into the frozen gulf of Riga, I experienced catharsis for the second time. The ship was lightly gliding on the glassy surface of the frozen sea, and the day was so bright as in childhood. Shivers were caressing my breast when I was thinking of divine Leffe for the prices of Fylkingen that was waiting for me in Riga. McShein‘s pub meant the happy end of the journey, and when I touched that sweet and mystical drink with my lips, I thought of my trip to Mordor. I felt that a lot of adventures associated with it were still waiting for me, and I would definitely come back because the gates of Eden that make all the desires of the world come true are exactly in that austere Mordor. The gates of Eden that are called “Systembolaget”.

Written by Lashisha, translated by Alwyda, 2005-09-13