Featured Essay: A Hymn in the Machine

by Raven Dark

Months after our honeymoon, as I stared blankly into the webcam, a cacophony of disembodied voices flooded my eardrums with techno babble and corporate jargon. Someone was circling back. Another person had unsuccessfully shoulder-tapped their stakeholders about a missed deadline. At least two others were ramping up for an onboarding facilitation that required new hires to digest and regurgitate the corporate mission statement and core values verbatim.

In that bleak moment, realization cracked my mind like an egg, an invisible, divine hand pressing the yoke into my skull: I needed to get the hell out of Corporate America.

The invisible ooze contorted my usually expressionless face, causing my mask to slip, which prompted one of the digital conference meeting attendees to ask, “Hey, RD? Is your screen frozen?” My mouth opened, but no sound came out; inner defeat choked the words.

“I think she’s on mute,” a voice said, “RD, you’re on mute.”

Yes, I was indeed on mute. My soul, my raison d’etre, my psyche was most definitely on mute. I was, as Microsoft Teams would label it, “Away.”

Physically, I was gazing blankly at the camera on my work computer.

Mentally and spiritually, I was back in the Bailey, Colorado cabin, where my husband of just four days excitedly shared details about a new black metal artist he found through an old school black and white print zine, Arcane Archivist [source, https://www.instagram.com/arcanearchivist | https://www.instagram.com/p/CTIIdKKp0vY/]. After arriving from the craggy mountains to our home base, he played the first track of the artist’s debut album as we drove downtown to Austin Rôtisserie.

From the first glint of her icy arrival to the last unholy roar, I was immersed in black metal greatness. In that moment of our shared auditory joy, it became clear to me that Hulder would be a significant part of my musical journey. What I didn’t realize was how vital her work would be during the unceremonious end of my corporate career.

———————————————————————————————————————

Graphic design wasn’t my first career choice. Still, it was a stable one, complete with healthcare benefits, paid time off, home office equipment for productive remote work, and a weekly stipend that included free lunch (and sometimes dinner). It was a sweet gig, to be sure, and made me feel as though my overpriced 4-year Bachelor’s of Applied Sciences degree was actually worth saddling insurmountable student loan debt.

What happened seven years later could have been further from what I wanted. Still, it was precisely what I needed to take the first step into a life that aligned with my personal values, many of which were awakened within me by one of the most influential black metal artists of our times - Hulder. I own a copy of her debut full-length album, Godslastering: Hymns of a Forlorn Peasantry, and a signed copy of The Eternal Fanfare, both on vinyl.

These albums have transformed me at my core and helped me conquer crippling self-doubt in a post-layoff world.

____________________________________________________________________________

Zoom conference calls are meaningless without the other person being on camera. At least, that’s what some worker bees believe. Bewildering diffidence will creep into the introverted heart at the mere mention of ‘everyone, please, cameras on’ after the grace period for meeting entry has expired, as it often did with me.

When not on camera, my eyes tend to wander around our home office, taking in the view of our neighbors’ yards and garage doors, a mundane yet calming sight to behold. My husband sits to my left, focused and intent on finishing his various projects, with a stick of Dragon’s Blood incense wafting above us, headphones gripping my ears. The environment is designed for productive creativity.

It is also home to our collection of tour posters, 90s thrash and death metal band memorabilia, a ridiculously oversized image of our lord of darkness by way of Venom, and soul-stirring pieces by Maya Sokora, Raeghun Buchanan, and Jason Ice. There’s much to take in, but the most meaningful ephemera of all is the handbills we’ve collected during our travel adventures. The one I treasure most is the Lanier Lounge handbill, proudly announcing that they hosted Hulder with Skeleton at the acclaimed Denver venue on July 10, 2022.

Although I did not attend that specific concert, I received the handbill while attending TRVE Brewing Co.’s tenth anniversary party. It was also on this evening that I met the black metal queen herself, ever tranquil after pummeling the crowd with unholy evocations and sacred hymns. Hearing ‘Upon Frigid Winds’ live for the first time stunned me. A voice richly heralding its heritage and defiance, accentuated by sweeping riffs, melodic bass lines, and double kick drumming in the buzzing hall of the Gothic Theatre, is the pinnacle of the wildest black metal dreams.

After their set, enthusiasm spilled from my mouth, an overflowing fountain of admiration and, quite frankly, awkwardness. Everything I wanted to say to Hulder, whose spoken name I later learned, flooded into the conversation in a flash. I felt not only heard and seen, but also relieved to give due praise to the person whose music helped me find my voice in an environment built to diminish my gifts and crush my spirit - a corporate climate designed to mute my voice.

The kindness radiating from the artist and her touring bandmates was just as real as the album she graciously signed, still in its plastic covering. It’s one of those albums you cherish, and no one’s dirty mitts are allowed to touch it. This is one of my favorite memories shared with the love of my life, a rock and roll fantasy, if you will.

———————————————————————————————————————

“RD, you’re on mute, girlfriend,” a laughing, unseasoned voice lassoed my escaped thoughts.

Damn. Back to ‘reality’.

Gentle rattling in my chest as I right-clicked the ‘Mute’ prompt, I laughed and said, “Sorry, everyone. These software updates are a doozy, amirite?”

Polite teehees and hahas fry through the laptop speakers, their compression making the digital audience seem even more insincere than usual. A longing for Colorado, black metal, and genuine conversations hammer-strike cracks in my heart as I explain the merits of one cloud-based software program versus another.

A couple more years pass. Zoom conference meetings are easily replaced by in-person, maskless chats in booked 10-seaters. Laughs shared, feigned. Commiserations, earnest.

All the while, I let ‘A Forlorn Peasant’s Hymn’ blast on repeat while walking miles to and from the employee parking lot for meetings that could have easily been emails. Sparse string plucks, allowing the vocals to lift the listener’s senses with a happy memory before plunging them into a landscape pocked by heartwrenching despair, bloodshed, and a longing for death. The psyche hovers above Hulder’s cavernous bellows, blackened with furious, righteous anger that harks back to a time when the land was treated as sacred, and her people were protected from harm.

Although Hulder’s background is vastly different from my own, I can’t help but feel a sense of kinship in her grief. I, too, long for a world free of cultural erasure, where so-called virtual intelligentsia is ethical instead of draining Mother Earth’s waters, where human, animal, and plant lives are all dignified and respected. That would be grand. That would be perfect.

But my daydreams were only meant to get me through 8-hour workdays. They were never meant to be real.

When the axe shone its silver grin at me in the wee hours of a spring evening, a knowing chill ran down my spine. A meeting invite. A virtual call. Two names, one of which is mine.

A request to be on camera. Hovering off of ‘Mute’ only to be stunned into a muted state.

Swing.

Chop.

This is it, I thought to myself, this is the end. I am free.

———————————————————————————————————————

Raven Dark escaped a muted life and the confines of Corporate America to pursue freelance writing, professional musicianship, animal care, and crafting. Through influences of punk, metal, hip-hop, funk, and jazz, Raven Dark realized there’s nothing more fulfilling than living in the vibrant glow of a well-crafted life. While her existence is political, as being a Black woman and artist in America is to be in a state of perpetual vigilance, she finds moments of escape through songwriting and performance. Hulder is among the many artists who provide a soundtrack to her version of peace.