Alex Kurtagić

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Alex Kurtagić
Born1970 (age 53–54)
CitizenshipUK
Occupation(s)author, editor, publisher, artist, musician
Known forAlbum cover illustration
Supernal Music (record label)
Mister (novel)
Websitealexkurtagic.info

Alex Kurtagić (born 1970) is a British artist, musician, novelist, and publisher. He is the founder of Supernal Music, an independent metal label. He was a far-right speaker and writer.[1] He was a speaker at the 2011 and 2013 conferences of the National Policy Institute, a now-defunct white supremacist think-tank and lobbying group.[2] As late as 2017, he was writing for multiple neo-Nazi websites and zines.[3]

In 2019, Kurtagić said that he has disengaged from political extremism.[4] His writing has dealt with topics relating to culture, society, politics, and music.[5][6]

Life[edit]

Kurtagić was born in 1970 to family of Spanish and Slovenian ancestry.[7] Due to his parents' jobs, he spent part of his youth in South America.[8] In 1995, he founded the Black Metal music project Benighted Leams, which has since released four albums between 1996 and 2006.[9] In 1996, he founded Supernal Music.[10][11]

During the mid-to-late 1990s, his illustrations appeared on albums by black metal artists, such as Dimmu Borgir, Deinonychus, and Tormentor, among others. His cover of Dimmu Borgir's Stormblåst is featured in the book Heavy Metal Thunder: Album Covers That Rocked the World.[12]

Writer[edit]

Kurtagić's dystopian novel, Mister, was published in 2009. From then until 2013, he was active as a far-right intellectual figure.[13] In 2011, a collection of articles and essays was published in book form by Unitall Verlag in German translation, with the title Ja, Afrika muss zur Hölle gehen. A second collection, also in German, was published by Antaios in 2013 as Warum Konservative immer verlieren.[14][15]

In 2019, a book collecting his artwork was published, containing also anecdotal, fictional, semi-fictional, and satirical texts. In the preface, he distanced himself from political extremism.[4]

A second novel, Angel, was published in 2022.

Supernal Music[edit]

Supernal Music offered a mail order catalogue of underground music throughout the late 1990s,[16] particularly extreme metal and black metal. Its later roster included bands such as Astrofaes and Drudkh from Ukraine, Fleurety and Mayhem from Norway, and The Meads of Asphodel from the United Kingdom.

Discography[edit]

Benighted Leams[edit]

  • Caliginous Romantic Myth (1996)
  • Astral Tenebrion (1998)
  • Ferly Centesms (2004)
  • Obombrid Welkins (2006)

Bibliography[edit]

  • Mister. Iron Sky Publishing, 2009; ISBN 978-0-9561835-0-7
  • Ja, Afrika muss zur Hölle gehen. Unitall Verlag, 2011; ISBN 978-3-905937-43-5
  • Warum Konservative immer verlieren, Antaios (2013); ISBN 978-3-944422-35-0
  • The Art of Alex Kurtagic. Spradabach Publishing, 2019. ISBN 978-1-9993573-0-6
  • Angel. Spradabach Publishing, 2022. ISBN 978-1-9993573-7-5

Translations[edit]

  • The Golden Tread by Miguel Serrano. The Palingenesis Project, 2017.
  • The Veil Lifted for the Curious, or the Secrets of the French Revolution Revealed with the Aid of Freemasonry by Jacques-François Lefranc. Spradabach Publishing, 2022.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Dreaming of a Parallel Culture Searchlight (April 2012) p. 5-8
  2. ^ "Racists in Europe and the United States Increase Cooperation". www.adl.org. 22 October 2013. Retrieved 28 February 2024.
  3. ^ "From Black Metal to Nazis: The Strange Case of Alex Kurtagic". The Toilet Ov Hell. 30 August 2017. Retrieved 28 February 2024.
  4. ^ a b Kurtagic, Alex, The Art of Alex Kurtagic: 1989 - 2017 (London: Spradabach Publishing, 2019) p. xi-xii
  5. ^ Wegner, Nils. "Ein Essayist des Eigenen", Junge Freiheit, 24 April 2012.(in German)
  6. ^ Spracken, Karl. The Meaning and Purpose of Leisure: Habermas at the End of Modernity (Basingstoke and New York, 2009) p. 127
  7. ^ Alex Kurtagic: Mister
  8. ^ Lichtmesz, Martin. "Alex Kurtagić: Mister" Archived 10 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Sezession.de, December 2009.(in German)
  9. ^ "Benighted Leams – Encyclopaedia Metallum". The Metal Archives. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
  10. ^ Terrorizer Magazine No. 38 (January 1997)
  11. ^ Terrorizer Magazine No. 126 (December 2004)
  12. ^ Neil Aldis and James Sherry. Heavy Metal Thunder: Album Covers that Rocked the World, Mitchell Beazley (2006); ISBN 978-1-84533-195-5
  13. ^ "Who's who | The International Alt Right". hopenothate.com. Archived from the original on 20 September 2017. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  14. ^ "Der Funke" über Alex Kurtagić Archived 7 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Sezession.de, 7 May 2013. (in German)
  15. ^ Kleine-Hartlage, Manfred. "Kurtagić: Warum Konservative immer verlieren", Pi, 13 April 2013. (in German)
  16. ^ Keith Kahn-Harris, Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge (Oxford: Berg, 2007) ISBN 978-1845203986, p. 64

External links[edit]