Popular Culture Review Vol. 19, No. 1, Winter 2008 | Page 53

Nietzsche and “Das Ich” 49 more mature. Ice cold electronic sounds contrast with warm atmospheric ones, providing the perfect sound track for Stefan Ackermann’s chilling vocal performance. In some instances, Bruno Kramm sings as a kind of chorus to Ackermann’s voice. Apparently, Das Ich combines in Antichrist what Kramm and Ackermann have learned from experimenting over 10 years, producing eight other successful singles during this time. In the following, we will examine Antichrist's 10 tracks in order to find out more specifically what made Nietzsche’s ideas in Antichrist so relevant for Bruno Kramm and Stephan Ackermann. The first track is “Engel” (“Angel”). It sounds like a typical Goth-club dance song. Its minor tones are expected, and the dominant musical theme is uncomplicated with a descending passage from the dominant key through the sub-dominant and finally ending at tonic. The lyrics describe a demonic invitation to dance. This death-dance, according to the lyrics, is considered the last time Das Ich can resist “him,” probably referring to the Christian God. The refrain simply states, “the angels of the earth are deaf, blind, and dumb,” expressing the band’s apocalyptic view of the world. Interestingly, the last few measures of this song sound much like an 1890s cabaret piece with the violin solo and saloon piano-sounding melody. That this orchestration is a reference to Nietzsche’s century is certainly not a coincidence. The song “Keimzeit” (“Time of Germination”) (track 2) has faint similarity to 17th century European church music. The synthesized instrumentation represents a piano, chimes, strings, and an organ. There is a constant beat throughout the piece which sounds like the snap of a whip. The lyrics mimic this pattern as Stephan Ackermann’s voice cries out: “It drives me crazy that everything is colorful/That all can laugh about nothing.”4 While Das Ich, in its former song “Gott ist tot,” commented ironically on the indifference of society by quoting over and over the popular saying “life will go on,”5 in “Keimzeit” this irony becomes fury. Furiously, the band complains about the triviality of life around them and seems to confirm Allan Bloom’s observation that in Western society after God’s death “everyone spends his life in frenzied work and frenzied play so as not to face the fact, not to look into the abyss” (143). Towards the end of the song, referring to its title “Keimzeit,” the way of thought changes to a bitter complaint about human beings’ mortality: “I must die, I will be dead.”6 However, as pessimistic as this end seems, having to die without the illusion to go to heaven, there is a positive, almost pantheistic touch when Ackermann’s voice states: “Let germinate the tree, afterwards I will be ready/The years counted, soon I will be decayed/Let germinate the tree, I want to be its soil.”7 He will die, but nature continues to create life, using the singer’s remains as the means for it. This song is an example of why critics call the band’s philosophy konstruktiver Nihilismus (constructive nihilism) (Manegold). We will discuss later why this positive touch fits well in Nietzsche’s line of thought.