An interview with Black Lung on technology, governance, and the future
An interview with Black Lung on technology, governance, and the future
In this interview, we sit down with David Thrussell, the Australian electronic music legend known as Black Lung, to discuss his provocative new album, “The Brutal Gardener”. Known for his unique blend of technology, art, and culture, Thrussell delves into themes of global governance, cultural leadership, and the intersection of technology with human life. As he explores the darker sides of our modern world, he offers a stark vision of the future shaped by powerful, unseen forces. Through his lens, we see a world where technology can be both a tool of control and a beacon of possibility. Join us as Thrussell unpacks his latest work and shares his thoughts on the current state of global affairs.
SL: You link technology, art, and culture with population control. How do you exactly see these elements interacting to shape the future?
DT: In the swirling crucible we call ‘life’, many currents and forces compete for ascendancy (or even just survival). Indeed, the occult maelstrom manifests in our realm through mass media (hypnosis), technology (magic), twilight language (word spells), and public ritual (invocation). The neon wasteland of materialism renders all the forces of sorcery as mundane to the unseeing, unquestioning eye, but just behind the veil, the alchemists are busy weaving dark, ancient incantations. For what is magic truly, except the exertion of will (power) over base metal (sleeping souls)? The cosmic clock has struck midnight, and the warlock shepherd has grown weary of herding his flock hither and yon, frightening the cattle from one pasture to the next with dramatic gestures, faux lightning bolts, and shadow plays. The vengeful rancher now yearns to manage, cull, and dwindle the herd.
SL: Your new album explores twelve scenarios for the future of global governance and cultural leadership. Is there any governance existing right now in the world that is the closest to what you’d call global cooperation and technological harmony? Which one is heading in the worst direction?
DT: Nations are a fiction whispered to cowering children in the dark of the night. A lilting lullaby sung softly to a lost man forever dying of thirst in a forgotten, windswept desert. Democracy is the last, hurried dance on the petrified deck of a glacial Titanic, as it ever so slowly sinks beneath the cold waves. In the ancient world, the Colosseum served as the site of mass blood sacrifice to appease the elder gods and keep them at bay. Today, wars, prescribed poisons, infanticide, and other media bloodsports fill the cauldron as the eldritch ones await. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and the dark sages use their conjuring to distract, divide, disempower, and disable the innocent Eloi majority, harvesting their passions and energy to build the very cages they languish in.
SL: Being often described as a conspiracy thinker, I find it kinda odd that trust is a recurring theme in your work.
DT: Free will, trust, and faith are the greatest powers we possess. But they can be used against us. As Doctor Faustus chose to sign away his immortal soul to Satan’s agent Mephistopheles, so too we unconsciously contract with Beelzebub at the ballot box, the motor registry, the mortgage office, and the medical abattoirs. While the eternal heavens deserve our trust and faith, here on Earth we wrestle ‘not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’
SL: You envision the role of culture in achieving a better world. But since humans walk around here, we haven’t really seen culture change anything. It didn’t prevent wars, sure as hell didn’t prevent genocides.
DT: The oldest struggle is good against evil, life against death, the light against the void. Man has always saved his best seeds in ideas, songs, stories, and culture. As the flood wipes away everything before it, a handful of seeds—brilliant seeds—are swept deep under the waves only to sprout long into the future on that dry, final shore.
SL: How do you see Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fitting into your vision of technology transforming lives? I see they have entered the presidential race in the USA already. I personally invested in uranium, gold, and silver mines since I don’t trust fiat money.
DT: I see technology as a lifeform. Humans, the animal kingdom, and the green kingdom are carbon-based lifeforms. Today, technology is largely a silicon-based lifeform. Currently, silicon lifeforms engage in a uniquely parasitic relationship with humankind. Perhaps, in the future, carbon-based lifeforms will be able to form a synergetic alliance with technology. Like the human gut aligns with microbes and bacteria to digest human food, we might form a potential symbiotic relationship with the grey (technological) kingdom.
While it is true that fiat currencies are a complete scam (as is the entire banking system), it is possible, in my view, that what we may be witnessing here with cryptocurrencies is an example of what has been described as a ‘false binary.’ A ‘false binary’ is a situation when both (or all) options that are presented are all essentially a trap. Whereas fiat currencies are a relatively obvious fraud, cryptocurrencies are marketed as the ‘edgy’ alternative to fiat bondage, supposedly offering ‘liberty’ and financial ‘independence’ while possibly delivering (in actuality) omniscient financial control, limitless surveillance, and dubious programmability.
SL: If you look closely at the economy worldwide, there are clear signs there is a huge crisis coming up in 2025. That’s not all; there are geopolitical tensions, environmental degradation, social unrest, health emergencies, cyber threats, resource scarcity, misinformation, and fake news. The 10 ingredients that make up a global crisis.
DT: World War III has already started. The greater mass of the population are still fighting the last war—the noble myths of foreign enemies and Marvel movie villains. But a new war now rages, undeclared by the cable news carnival barkers and empty social media influencers: leviathan forces don the mask of domestic governments and wage a silent war against bewildered citizens who bicker amongst themselves over hot-button issues and occult theatre phantoms. The occult spell of financialization and the black magic of the market will be weaponized.
SL: Can you elaborate on why you believe this moment of time is full of opportunities? We have various totalitarian countries on the outlook to what is possible with the USA and its allies acting like sheep towards Russia, China, and co. I miss the real hawks, to be honest.
DT: Though we are spiritually enslaved, shackled in a materialist nightmare, and chained to ritual subjugation and mass humiliation, we do, theoretically, still possess free will, the ability to reject our overlords or at least question the unquestionable and speak the unspeakable. Though the hour is late, not all is lost. The distant candle of knowledge and light is still flickering… just. We can choose…
SL: Let’s play the advocate of the devil. If you look at the low quality of the political class nowadays, is a (totalitarian?) technocratically run state by definition bad?
DT: That has always been the totalitarian’s (and the colonist’s) best argument, and there may be dark, private moments when it could be tempting to agree, for indeed the people are at best hopelessly innocent or perhaps even haplessly stupid. But, do remember that we are witnesses to incredible systems of control, distraction, and indoctrination. Literally trillions of dollars are spent every year on education, mass media, political and social systems whose primary purpose, I would argue, is to infantilize, divide, distract, and dumb down the population. Incredible resources and energy are marshaled to demoralize and disable people: to separate them from source, spirit, and truth. If we could destroy, neutralize, or deflect those systems…
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