Traversing the subterranean passages of the caverns of black metal.

Becoming the Forest is a serial publication about ecology and music edited by Úna Hamilton Helle and Lotte Brown. It is part of a long-running art project by Úna Hamilton Helle, inspired by how the dense spruce forests of Norway defined the aesthetic and philosophical outlook of the musical subculture of black metal. Ever since its inception, black metal has been intimately entangled with its surrounding topography, a relationship which forms the starting point for the publication’s approach. Interviews with bands are mixed in with essays about a host of wide-ranging topics, such as music, myth, philosophy, biology, popular culture and history.

For this issue we have truly gone underground, both in a musical and topographical sense. BTF V has essays on animist Norwegian stone customs, the dark topographies of Table Top Roleplaying, a long form poem about the endless horizons of the Northern hemisphere and eight interviews with musicians and bands who have emerged from the fertile humus of contemporary black metal.