Taken from artofolivegreen.wordpress.com
My interest in Luxembourgish band Rome providentially coincided with my participation in early Occupy Wall Street. I was looking for cultural products that bore witness to, examined and problematized past revolutions. Rome’s latest release, “Die Aesthetik Der Herrschaftsfreiheit” (The Aesthetic of Anarchy), is a 3-album epic that opens with the statement: “Art Holds a Unity that History Does Not.” On the facing page is a pointillized image I suspect is from Spanish Civil War-era Barcelona. Like the image at left, the rendering hearkens to both newspaper-printing and the yellowing of time, while making indistinct the revolutionary image portrayed.
Though founder Jerome Reuter is from Luxembourg, Rome has been based out of Germany for some time. This changed recently, and I wonder if it had anything to do with Germany’s understandable sensitivity towards any talk straying beyond reformism. The music is very European: lyrics are in English but extensive samples and commentary are in German and French with the occasional Italian and Spanish. Reuter says English is “neutral.” As far as I can find, Rome is the only band in the European underground “neofolk” movement that is not crypto-/fascist in its iconography and lyrics, although it doesn’t shy away from confronting the ideological past and its legacies. (UPDATE: England’s Sieben is also clearly opposed to right wing use of “Blood and Soil” aesthetics, which I write about at this post.)
I recently ordered the European edition of 2011′s Die Aesthetik Der Herrschaftsfreiheit (3 CDs in three beautifully-bound booklets) to better understand and translate the lyrics; entire passages of this album are in German and my German is not strong enough to translate by ear. In the booklets, Rome credits its inspirations to “Bertolt Brecht, Peter Weiss, Pablo Neruda, Abel Paz, H-M Enzensberger, Georg Büchner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Reinaldo Arenas, Bertrand Russell, P-J Proudhon, Gustav Landauer, u.a. [und andere, and others]“.
The ballad “To Each His Storm” is a suitable introduction to this album. Though it uses the singer/songwriter format that Rome has increasingly used over its career, Die Aesthetik includes many fine examples of all styles and voices used by Rome across its prolific release calendar since 2006. Look for further translations and perhaps critiques as I proceed.
This is close, far too close
You just might
Be blinded by this crown’s golden light
You just might
Be putting yourself in the flame
Which can only burn and shame
Our lawless life
Just seems so compelling
Because you too
Could ennoble yourself through rebelling
But what good are they
Ideals soaked in blood
What good are they
Buried in the mud
To each his ground on which to flourish
To each his storm in which to perish
Now that we’ve shed our clothes and shared our oaths
There’s no way back for you
Don’t kid yourself
We’d rather be mad than delighted
You’d rather be entertained than enlightened
There’s no way back to you
(ref)
This is too close… (cont)
Die Keller versiegelt
Die Bücher eingestampft
Die Bibliotheken verriefelt
Die Schriften verbrannt
Die Zeitungen geschwärzt
Die Portraits gewechselt
Die Vorstellungen gestört
Die Theater geschlossen
Die Filme zerstört
Die Spiegel erblindet
(trans.:)
The cellar is sealed
The books are shredded
The libraries are locked
The newspapers are redacted
The portraits are swapped out
The beliefs are deranged
The theaters are closed
The films are destroyed
The mirrors go blind
UPDATE:
I thought I’d not cause offense in uploading “To Each…”, since many other Trisol releases of Rome are on Youtube with thousands of views and comments. It was a considered decision.
But within 12 hours of posting a link to the video I made of this image & song, copyright owner Trisol Music Group GmbH had it removed. Fair enough. I’m sure they’ve put some money into developing Rome as a talent and {shudder} brand and it’s their right to manage their “content.” If you’re interested in Rome after this post and the 30-second clip I linked to on Amazon, much of Rome’s work released on the redoubtable Swedish independent, Cold Meat Industry, can be heard in its entirety on Youtube. (See Querkraft, a more industrial early release, with this chilling fan video.) It’s easy enough to buy the individual tracks from eMusic and Amazon/Google Play (or, if you must, iTunes), and for “Die Aesthetik” be aware that the U.S. edition is almost as costly as the EU hardcopy, for what appears to be very little: 3 individual CDs, priced around $31 apiece.
I’d hoped my translations might bolster Rome’s appeal in the Americas and may yet contact Trisol, but despair of an outcome consistent with what seems to be established precedent.
†
Link: facebook.com/romeproject
