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Blood Axis

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Blood Axis
Blood Axis performing in 2016
Blood Axis performing in 2016
Background information
OriginUnited States
Genres
Years active1989–2016
LabelsStorm
MembersMichael Moynihan
Robert Ferbrache
Annabel Lee

Blood Axis were an American band, made up of journalist and author Michael Moynihan, music producer Robert Ferbrache, and musician and author Annabel Lee.[1]

History

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Early Blood Axis (1989–1999)

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Moynihan had founded Coup de Grace, a multimedia project that produced live performances and cassettes and also released booklets of images and texts, the last of which was Friedrich Nietzsche's The Antichrist.[2] The first output from the new appellation were two songs, "Lord of Ages" (employing lyrics from Rudyard Kipling's poem on Mithras[3]) and "Electricity", which appeared on a German music sampler. These tracks were well received in Europe and were followed by two more songs that appeared on the compilation, Im Blutfeuer.[4]

In 1995, Moynihan released the first full-length studio LP, The Gospel of Inhumanity with the help of Robert Ferbrache.[5] The album wedded the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Sergei Prokofiev with modern electronics. Moynihan implemented a recording of Ezra Pound reading from his The Cantos.[6] He also included lyrics from Nietzsche and Longfellow[7] as well as his own to the work.

The band consisted of Michael Moynihan (vocals, bodhrán), Annabelle Lee (melodeon, electric violin), and Robert Ferbrache (guitars, keyboards).[8]

Contemporary Blood Axis (2000–2016)

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In 2005, Blood Axis played the German Flammenzauber festival, showcasing reworked live versions of several previously released songs, a number of Irish folk songs, and the live debut of a few new songs.[9] April 2006 saw further live activity from Blood Axis, as well as a new medium for the duo's folk-oriented material entitled Knotwork at the Swiss Triumvirat festival.[10]

Beginning in 1998, Moynihan began saying that Blood Axis was at work on a second full-length album, at one time said to be entitled Ultimacy.[11] On 2 January 2009, Blood Axis played in Sintra, Portugal, with members of Portuguese band Sangre Cavallum. Moynihan stated on stage that the new album, now titled Born Again, was to be released the following Easter.[12]

Blood Axis makes references to neopagan and völkisch concepts and figures such as Ludwig Fahrenkrog and Fidus. Moynihan is interested in rune mysticism.[13] Beginning in the 2000s, he has been influenced by the neofascist movement Nouvelle Droite and Alain de Benoist.[14]

Discography

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Albums

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  • The Gospel of Inhumanity, 1995
    CD and 2×LP. Released by Cthulhu/Storm.
    CD rerelease on Elfenblut/Misanthropy/Storm in 1998.
    CD rerelease with deluxe packaging on Tesco Distribution/Storm in 2001.
  • Blót: Sacrifice in Sweden, 1998
    CD and 2x12" LP limited to 600 copies. Released by Cold Meat Industry.
  • Born Again, 2010
    CD released on Storm. STRM12
  • Ultimacy, 2011
    CD compilation of all the singles and compilation tracks. Released on Storm. STRM13

Collaborations and split releases

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Witch-Hunt: The Rites of Samhain

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Witch-Hunt: The Rites of Samhain
Live album by
Blood Axis / In Gowan Ring

Witch-Hunt: The Rites of Samhain is a recording of a 1999 live collaboration of Blood Axis and In Gowan Ring, performing as Witch-Hunt. The album was not released on a label. Limited to 100 CDR copies for private distribution, it was sold only at select Blood Axis concerts in Portugal. The album came in a special hand-made fold-out sleeve with a leaf.

Track listing:

Witch Hunt recorded live on Samhain, 31 October 1999
  1. Welcoming By Harold McNeill
  2. I Lay Stretched On Your Grave / Morning Dew
  3. Two Magicians
  4. Sea Ritual
  5. Dead Men's Slip-Jig
  6. The Rolling of the Stones
  7. The Black One
Bonus tracks:
  2. The Rolling of the Stones - In Gowan Ring, from the compilation The Pact of the Gods
  3. The March of Brian Boru - Blood Axis, from the compilation 10 Years of Madness
  4. Follow Me Up To Carlow - Blood Axis, previously unreleased

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ Liner notes of the Ultimacy compilation
  2. ^ An interview Archived 30 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine by Jan R. Bruun
  3. ^ Kipling, Rudyard. "A Song To Mithras" Archived 13 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Interview from the EsoTerra #5, 1995
  5. ^ the album notes read "The Gospel of inhumanity was [...] entirely performed, recorded and engineered [...] by Michael Jenkins Moynihan and Robert Ferbrache".
  6. ^ Pound, Ezra. "The Cantos"
  7. ^ Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth—The Challenge of Thor"; Pitt; .
  8. ^ from the notes of the album Blòt: Sacrifice in Sweden
  9. ^ from the interview for the Heaven Street magazine, Issue 3, spring 2006, available online on Heaven Street website.
  10. ^ the flyer of the festival is available on soleilnoir.ch event page[permanent dead link]
  11. ^ from “Goodmorning Europa!”, an interview with Michael Moynihan made by Occidental Congress during winter 1998/1999
  12. ^ from the Blood Axis archives
  13. ^ Schnurbein 2014, pp. 254–255.
  14. ^ François 2007, pp. 35–54.

Sources

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  • François, Stéphane (2007). "The Euro-Pagan Scene: Between Paganism and Radical Right". Journal for the Studies of Radicalism. 1 (2). Translated by Godwin, Ariel: 35–54. doi:10.1353/jsr.2008.0006. ISSN 1930-1189. JSTOR 41887576. S2CID 144508250.
  • Schnurbein, Stefanie von (2014). "Germanic Neo-Paganism – A Nordic Art-Religion?". In Schlehe, Judith; Sandkühler, Evamaria (eds.). Religion, Tradition and the Popular: Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8376-2613-1.
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