(originally published in Finnish 09.07.2019 by Anti-fascist Network Varis)
Please note: this article contain imagery, links and quotes that are strongly racist, violent, misogynist and antisemitic.
Pasi Markkula is a noise and power electronics musician living in the Helsinki metropolitan area and influencer in the Finnish nazi music subculture. Like so many of the other influencers we have written about, he is a multitasker: he plays in fascist bands, co-operates with fascist bands and other influencers of the NS music scene, publishes and sells records. In this article, we will write about some of his projects, connections, political views and releases. It is important to notice that there exists a multitude of political views, ideologies and aesthetics within the musical genres of noise, industrial and power electronics (PE). Several key influencers especially within the power electronics genre are however middle-aged white men with a bleak outlook on life and preference for nihilism, extreme individualism, provocation and transgression. Just like within the black metal scene, this genre is a fertile breeding ground for far-right influencers and bands.
Pasi Markkula is best known for his band Bizarre Uproar, but he has also a one man power electronics project called Xenophobic Ejaculation (XE) which has been active since 2008. The “songs” are mainly focused on themes such as white supremacy, crude racism and glorification of nazism. The records have titles such as “White Power”, “White Will” and “Hang the Nigger”. Aside from the usual Third Reich imagery, XE takes a lot of their inspiration from the violent racist American white supremacist organization Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The artwork is made by Markkula himself and is mainly collages of Jewish mass graves, concentration camps, white supremacy symbols and pictures of KKK member lynching and disgracing African American victims. The records are also shipped in pages taken from white power propaganda magazines. In short, Xenophobic Ejaculation is racist and fascist propaganda presented in the form of noise music. Their artwork and releases are listed on their Discogs page.
Xenophobic Ejaculation has played only a few concerts in Finland, to our knowledge only at secret neo-Nazi arrangements. One of the concerts (with noise/grindcore band Intolitarian) took place in 2015 at the underground noise venue “Obscurex Kontti” in Hakkila, Vantaa. Another concert was held in Helsinki with NSBM bands Goatmoon and Der Sturmer on the 5th of December 2012.
Markkula has been secretive about the Xenophobic Ejaculation project and tried to stay anonymous. In an interview with the webpage Pure Nothing Worship he denied being the man behind the band and claimed to only be releasing the records.
Pure Nothing Worship: You also work under the name Xenophobic Ejaculation. This project is more extreme in themes. What is the story behind this project?
Markkula: No. its a anonymous project. I have only released XE.
Other times Markkula has admitted to being the man behind Xenophobic Ejaculation. In a 2010 interview with the blog Plaguehaus, Markkula spoke about his band projects as well as his political views:
Interviewer: And the project that really seems to work people into a frenzy and is also very near and dear to my heart, Xenophobic Ejaculation. I take that as pretty tongue in cheek, but how serious are your “political views” on those releases?
Pasi Markkula: “Fetishized the things that shouldn’t be done or are they in for real” I believe I did put that line to somewhere…
I am very serious about anything I do. Then what is it what I do? That’s a hard one. How would I put this… Some of my thoughts about this matter: if you go left you got dreadlocks, tree hugging, unshaved cunts, naive confused kids etc. if you go right there is some silly things for sure but overall there is realism and common sense.
When there is a picture of crushed black face w/steel capped strength or white Aryan flesh hammer giving urine to black cunts mouth.. what it is? sex & violence. I like discord, chaos, tension between races. Of course whites, blacks, yellow, brown won’t get along ever. I am not a political person that much I just lean back and enjoy the decadence. enjoy the show. XE is about racial issues, KKK hanging black trash, whites humiliating black whores, steel cap execution, White Power, 3rd Reich – glorious REICH, concentration camps, racial hygiene, white supremacy, xenophobic hate, black whores eating excrement, xenophobic ejaculation etc. etc. etc.
In January 2015 Bizarre Uproar were interviewed by Jarno Alander (member of the neo-fascist groups Suomen Sisu and Sarastus). The interview was published in another neo-fascist music website, Heathen Harvest on February 12th, 2015. Alander have also made interviews for the website with other Finnish NS influencers such as Mikko Ilmari “Riimu” Pöyhönen (of fascist neofolk band Pyhä Kuolema) and neo-nazi musician Mikko Aspa.
While it had already been revealed by then that Markkula was a member of the project, the inteview was done anonymously under the aliases of Latex Mask (LM) = Pasi Markkula & Pig Mask (PM) = The other member of Bizarre Uproar. During the interview Markkula reveal that Xenophobic Ejaculation is his band:
Jarno Alander: […] If we think of the ugly and terrible stuff, with Bizarre Uproar you deal with the whole gamut. But with your other project Xenophobic Ejaculation you reserve your hatred for a more particular topic, may I ask why?
LM: Yeah, well, that is an anonymous project, no one knows who put it together in the first place. I would rather not discuss it, but well, okay. Everybody knows it is my project, so there. It is focused on racial issues, but through a twisted and perverted perspective also. It is not quite as straightforward as it may seem at first.
JA: I take it the…let’s call it the ‘Afro-Nilotic genetic megacluster’, is not your favourite?
LM: Yeah, I guess so. You could say so.
In the same interview Alander, Markkula and the other member of the band discuss the ideology that transcend genre boundaries, which is interesting to those researching the far-right and the audience for NS music.
JA: I discussed this with [Mikko] Pöyhönen the last time I was here—that noise and black metal, as well as neofolk, have the same audience, to a point at least, although in purely musical terms there’s little similarity.
LM: The format the music comes in does not really matter, what is important is the mentality behind it. Isn’t that right?
PM: Indeed, and once someone becomes involved in some marginal genre, other genres become more approachable.
LM: In other words, the gateway theory!
PM: In a manner of speaking, yeah.
Bizarre Uproar
Markkula´s main project is Bizarre Uproar, one of the most famous names within the Finnish power electronics scene. Markkula founded Bizarre Uproar when his former noisecore band Aunt Mary disbanded in 1993 and originally the band played both noise and noisecore, until it evolved into the more extreme power electronics sound that Markkula became interested in. In the previously mentioned Plaguehaus interview, Markkula mentions being mentored by Mikko Aspa and in particular Aspa’s power electronics project Grunt (another of the most famous Finnish bands in the genre). Bizarre Uproar function as a studio project for a long time but began performing live in 2006. Nowadays another unknown musician (“Pig Mask”) performs along with him, as well as some stage show performers. Regardless of this it is Markkula´s project and he is in his own words the “dictator” of it.
Markkula claims that Xenophobic Ejaculation focuses on “racial issues” and Bizarre Uproar focuses on sex and violence themes but it is a bit more complicated than that. On the artwork for Bizarre Uproar´s 2009 record “Purification”, he featured antisemitic concentration camps, mass excecutions and Third Reich imagery together with coprophilia and similar paraphilic sexual deviations. The band have also recorded music that can be interpreted as fascist, like the 2008 composition “Sieg Hail” where slogans such as “White Power” are shouted on top of cacophonic noise.
Bizarre Uproar has also made split records with openly fascist noise/power electronics groups like Deathkey and Pogrom as well as NSBM bands Goatmoon and Sonnenrad. Some Bizarre Uproar recordings have been relased on NS labels such as Barbatos Productions and Audial Decimation. The band has also recorded covers on songs originally written by RAC bands such as No Remorse and Mistreat. Bizarre Uproar also performed at a Obscurex Kontti concert 16.5 2019 together with Mikko Aspa´s RAC band Vapaudenristi, RAC cover band Liittoneuvosto and Reptile Womb, the noise band of his friend Sami Kettunen.
The Filth and Violence label and contacts to the NS music subculture
Markkula founded his label Filth and Violence in 2008 and have since then released over 200 recordings which makes it on of the most active noise labels in Europe. Only Mikko Aspa´s label Freak Animal Records is the only other Finnish noise label that could compete in releases. Filth and Violence have released Markkula´s own projects as well as a bunch of other NS noise projects such as Hakaristi, Pogrom, Zyklon SS, Lämpimät juutalaiset, Iron Clad and Garden of Power. The Filth and Violence webshop sells records from several fascist genres such as white power-industrial, nazi skinhead music, NSBM as well as more marginal subgenres.
The NS music subculture in Finland has for a long time been a small genre defying network of friends. The influencers of this scene release and sell each others records, do musical collaborations and perform at the same concerts and club houses. The RAC record label Europa Erwache Productions, founded in 2015 by Finnish neo-Nazis sell nazi skinhead music in their webshop but naturally include many NSBM and white power industrial records. Bizarre Uproar and Xenophobic Ejaculation are also featured. This shows that the fascists have no problem associating themselves with the “decadence” they claim to despise in their propaganda, but instead embrace when it gives them economical or ideological gain in the “cultural struggle”.
Markkula has several affiliates in the Finnish NS music scene. Besides the hyper-active Mikko Aspa, Markkula has collaborated mostly with his band mate Pekka Perä-Takala (alias Pekka PT). Perä-Takala is a Turku resident and one of the key influencers of the Finnish noise scene. His projects include Sick Seed, SSRI and Gelsomnia. Perä-Takala also supported the Nordic Resistance Movement when he joined the organization as a support member and ordered stickers on December 21st 2015. This information was leaked from their webshop on August 24th 2017.
Perä-Takala was interviewed by Mesikämmenen blogi (a website focused on Finnish nazi occultist Pekka Siitoin and conspiracy theories, run by Vesa Iiti) in 2013 and there he expressed sympathy for the so called Third Position of neo-fascism. It is not surprising that Markkula and Perä-Takala have found similar interests in music and politics.
Markkula and Perä-Takala have had several band projects throughout the years, like Chains of Death Command and Funeral Mongoloids. Markkula have appeared in Sick Seed´s live lineup and Perä-Takalas projects have made split releases with Bizarre Uproar. They also have a band called Snuff which focus on misogyny and sexual violence. Like Xenophobic Ejaculation, Markkula tried to stay anonymous in the project, which is not easy in a tiny scene in a small country. In an interview with webpage Terror he claimed not to be a member of Snuff, but later on he admitted to it in an interview with Noicereceptor in 2016.
Markkula has also collaborated with another influencer in the Finnish neo-Nazi music underground, the noise/black metal musician Sami Kettunen (Ride for Revenge). Kettunen and Markkula have made several projects together such as Flooded Church of Asmodeus and Ritual Violence. Bizarre Uproar and Ride for Revenge have released few split records as well as performed together. The most infamous concert is probably the Steelchaos concert at Nosturi, Helsinki on November 11th 2017, which made national headlines when Bizarre Uproar began throwing feces on the stage and at the crowd. Kettunen also made the “Romua, ruisketta ja rutinaa” documentary which focuses on the noise music scene in Finland.
Let´s not give Pasi Markkula and similar racist and misogynist hate-mongers space in musical subcultures, record stores or anywhere for that matter. Let´s stop NS music from becoming mainstream and normalized. Fascist values are fascist values, and should´nt be tolerated even in provocative genres like noise and black metal. Freedom of speech and artistic expressions is not a free pass to spread nazi ideology, racism and sexism.
See also:
- The influencers of the Finnish NS music scene part 3: Mikko Aspa of Northern Heritage, Clandestine Blaze, Vapaudenristi & Sarvilevyt
- NSBM band Necropole on a minitour in Finland – first gig with nazi bands in a secret venue in Jyväskylä
- The performers of Steelfest 2019, part 1: Seigneur Voland, Evil and Kroda
- Steelfest 2019: Nazi bands in Hyvinkää city facilites