Imp of the perverse

"Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it."
-- Vladimir Mayakovsky
If the above is true, then English-born musician and writer Karl Blake has been swinging nine-pounders in both hands for the past two-and-a-half decades. Not that he has necessarily had any substantial impact on the herded masses. No, it's the depth and quality of his amassed trove of work encapsulating his manic, aggressively uncontaminated vision that gives evidence of his relationship with blunt instruments.
The bulk of Blake's distinct body of work is heard via his personal projects the Lemon Kittens, the Underneath and, primarily, Shock Headed Peters. But as a member of "apocalyptic folk" legends Sol Invictus, he's equally known for the company he keeps. He's also been a member of Alternative TV, recorded and toured with Current 93 and collaborated with Lydia Lunch, among others.
"Zoologist my analysis is slipping down against her leather boot"
-- Karl Blake, "Dreams of the Lichen Tester"
It was in the late-'70s/early-'80s, with Danielle Dax as the Lemon Kittens, that Blake put his first sounds to record. Over the course of two-and-a-half albums, the art-damaged duo embraced with childlike innocence the twin pillars of absurdity and chaos as allies of sonic exploration. Buzzing keys and off-kilter drums rattled around Blake's incongruous guitar, topped off by fragmented, rhymeless vocals — some serious mental-ward melodies.
But things got really frightening about the time Blake decided to harness his fondness for Black Sabbath and poet William Blake. With the Shock Headed Peters (the name of which comes from a book written in the 1800s to scare children into proper behavior), his nihilistic guitar playing — not to mention attitude — are fully harnessed for a more pointed attack. At its heart a heavy rock unit, what the Peters exactly are depends on which song from which record you hear, yet an identifying air of the joyously perverse, melancholic and dreadful runs through the entire catalogue in distinctly Blakian (that is, Karl) manner. This is rock elevated to an art form, one that actually propagates rather than dilutes its inherent power.
From grinding riffs over industrial jackbeats to sloth-like dirges orchestrated with brass and strings, the music sucks on the brain like a jet engine. Then there's Blake's vocal work, by turns inviting and feral, and unyielding in its delivery, be that a tense growl or a pained croon. He's got a way of turning a phrase to send feelings of betrayal, loathing and misery into some outer realm of intrigue, giving them unprecedented shape and texture.
Additionally, each record is littered with quotes like the one below, which set the proper tone. "As far as the quotes I use," he says, "we turn everything to our own meaning, twist it just the same as Charlie Manson did with the Beatles. It's like, 'How can I get this to apply to that?' If I can't, I discard it. If I can, I use it."
"I hate and love; perhaps you will ask me why I do so. I do not know, but I feel it happen and I am in agony."
-- Gaius Valerius Catullus

"There's a saying that goes if you scratch a nihilist," Blake says, "you'll find a romantic underneath." It's a quote that not only points up the vulnerable man beneath the imposing surface, but the diametrically opposing qualities that define much of Blake's work. Repulsion and attraction, empowerment and defeat, subtlety and overkill — all are aggregated into one complex form.
Indeed, despite his good heart, Blake, sort of a misanthropist humanist, easily taps into a spirit enraged with the human condition.
"In broad daylight dragging me off by a leash/But who's wearing the collar/And does it restrain the neck with studs?/Or does it illuminate the space above my head?/I fear the former/Most of the time I'm somebody else's problem/And what's more I like it"
-- Karl Blake, "Thumbs of a Murderer"
Since 1996's Tendercide CD, Blake has had the Peters on hold while focusing on Sol Invictus. In Blake, Invictus leader Wakeford has found a moody bassist with a suitably enigmatic voice to compliment his own. But even though he's been nudged off of the World Serpent label, Blake isn't through with the Shock Headed Peters. He's found an American label interested in not only issuing a double CD retrospective of the band, but new recordings as well, a sort of rebirth.
Most recently, he's been drawing up plans for his latest side project that more literally combines his pet interests: a semi tongue-in-cheek homage dubbed Blake Sabbath. "We'll do Sabbath songs but different to how Sabbath did them, plus other subject-related group's songs in a way Sabbath might have done them." This includes infamous obscurities by overtly sinister English units Coven and Black Widow. "I'm interspersing the poetry of William Blake in amongst the music as well," he says. The project, a duo, is set to include some of Blake's cohorts as guests.
Whether it's his work with Sol Invictus, Shock Headed Peters or Blake Sabbath, it appears we haven't heard the last of the ardent Karl Blake. u