Hunter Hunt-Hendrix

Hunter Hunt-Hendrix was born in 1985 in New York City,[1] the child of two best-selling self-help authors.[3] Hunt-Hendrix grew up in New Mexico, New Jersey, and Brooklyn, New York.[4]

In May 2020, Hunt-Hendrix came out as transgender in an Instagram post, writing, "The love I have to give is a woman's love, if only because it is mine. To varying degrees many already understand this, but I'd like to make a clear statement about my actual gender."[5]

Hunt-Hendrix formed Liturgy as a solo project while attending Columbia University in New York City.[1] In 2008, Hunt-Hendrix released the EP Immortal Life under the Liturgy name, and the band cohered as a quartet with Bernard Gann (guitar), Greg Fox (drums), and Tyler Dusenbury (bass). Liturgy released their first full-length record, Renihilation, in 2009. Shortly after, Hunt-Hendrix published the philosophical treatise "Transcendental Black Metal: A Vision of Apocalyptic Humanism" as part of the Hideous Gnosis Black Metal symposium.[6] Liturgy's second and third albums, Aesthethica (2011) and The Ark Work (2015), were released with Thrill Jockey Records. Despite the critical success of Aesthetica,[7] Hunt-Hendrix stated in an interview with Pitchfork that "I was never happy with any other Liturgy release. I didn’t want to release them. But the aim with this one (The Ark Work) was to take that musical vibe and execute it all the way—and I love it."[4]

In November 2019, Liturgy debuted their fourth studio album, H.A.Q.Q. The album features a new lineup, with original members Hunt-Hendrix and Gann joined by Tia Vincent-Clark (bass) and Leo Didkovsky (drums); on H.A.Q.Q., the band is accompanied by an ensemble including harp, hichiriki, piano, ryuteki, vibraphone, voice, and assorted strings.[8] Hunt-Hendrix also began releasing a series of videos explaining the philosophical system that informed the album and is depicted on its cover.[9]

On November 20, 2020, Liturgy released their fifth full-length studio album, the "cosmogonical opera-album" Origin of the Alimonies; with the release came the announcement of an accompanying operatic film written, shot, edited by, and starring Hunt-Hendrix.[10] As with previous Liturgy releases, Origin of the Alimonies is part of Hunt-Hendrix's larger philosophical and mythological framework. The opera "tells the story of a cosmological traumatic explosion between OIOION and SIHEYMN, a pair of divine beings whose thwarted love tears a wound from which civilization is generated, producing the Four Alimonies of the intelligible universe and the task of collective emancipation."[11] Hunt-Hendrix debuted an earlier version of the video opera at National Sawdust in October 2018.[12] 

In 2005, Hunt-Hendrix’s screamo side project The Birthday Boyz released their debut album The Bro Cycle. Following this, Hunt-Hendrix collaborated with Krallice guitarist Collin Marston and former Birthday Boyz bandmates Greg Smith and Jeff Bobula to form the band Survival, who released their eponymous debut in 2013.[13]

In 2016 Hunt-Hendrix released an electronic album titled New Introductory Lectures on the System of Transcendental Qabala under the band name Kel Valhaal.[14] Hunt-Hendrix describes the release as combining elements of classical music, electronic music, rap, and metal,[15] as well as working "to activate transcendental catharsis using the elements of sound design."[16]

In September 2019, Hunt-Hendrix released the single "Seraphim" with the "trap-djent" band Ideal.

Hunt-Hendrix's chart comparing the properties of Hyperborean and Transcendental Black Metal.

In the treatise "Transcendental Black Metal: A Vision of Apocalyptic Humanism", Hunt-Hendrix introduces the concept, character, and technique of transcendental black metal, an "affirmative" splitting off of the genre marked by the "burst beat".[6] Whereas a "continuous blast beat" is said to lack articulation and range, the burst beat is defined by "acceleration and rupture"; these stylistic features are shown to mirror the values of transcendental materialism embodied in TBM.

Before more thoroughly elucidating the techniques of transcendental black metal, Hunt-Hendrix outlines a genealogy of metal as having followed a teleological trajectory toward maximum intensity, here termed "the Haptic Void". The genre is marked by a satisfaction with its brutality, muscular aggression, and destructive power, but there is an inevitable dissatisfaction when no expression of intensity can reach the "absolute plenitude" of the Haptic Void. The introduction of new subgenres, Hunt-Hendrix says, has not been a "chance series of stylistic shifts", but rather a progression of increasingly escalated responses to this sense of inadequacy.

The Scandinavian and Norwegian tradition largely considered the roots of USBM (U.S. black metal),[17][18] here called "Hyperborean Black Metal", is identified as "the culmination of the history of extreme metal."[6] The failure of this culmination––and the justification for TBM’s "decisive break with the European tradition"––is that a realm of "absolute plenitude" has no space for the oscillations of life. (This equivalence between totality and death is figured in the language of "Haptic Void", a term for maximal intensity that simultaneously signifies nothingness.) Hyperborean Black Metal performs this stasis-of-plenum in the percussive technique of the blast beat: "No articulated figures, no beginning, no end, no pauses, no dynamic range."

Transcendental black metal is described as a new relationship to the Haptic Void and the overcoming of Hyperborean black metal. Instead of embracing nihilism, Transcendental Black Metal is an "affirmation of the continuity of all things." The defining technique of transcendental black metal is the "burst beat", which represents an "arc of intensity." Unlike the static and infinite blast beat, the burst beat is finite and dynamic. It accelerates and decelerates as well as suddenly starting or stopping, never leaving a static tempo. "The burst requires total expenditure of power and its very exercise fosters growth and increase of strength. And yet the burst beat never arrives anywhere, eternally 'not yet' at its destination, eternally 'almost' at the target tempo." Transcendental Black Metal thus acknowledges the Haptic Void but accepts it will not be reached, replacing nihilism with affirmation.[6]

Hunter Hunt-Hendrix has expanded her philosophy through further publications, albums, and her ongoing YouTube series.

• Hunter Hunt-Hendrix YouTube Channel
• Liturgy Bandcamp