Early Years

Radical Ecology

La Foret Noire

End of the World Committee

The Bloody Band

Depression, Betrayal, New Beginnings

The Malice Cycle

Anarchist Writers Bloc

Anarchistes Anonymes

Erotica

Other Writings

Active Nihilism and the Anti-Civilisation Critique

Biography

-Updated August 22nd 2011-
-In progress-

My name is Bruno Masse - also known as Raven, Nox or Havelock - born 1982 in the Laurentian Mountains, Quebec. I am an author, researcher, musician, activist and publisher. I've written several novels and poetry collections, as well as five plays, four of which were enacted during the annual International Anarchist Theatre Festival of Montreal. I've been co-founder and active part of such collectives as The End of the World Comittee, La Foret Noire, Liberterre, the Anarchist Writers Bloc and Anarchistes Anonymes. I make regular contributions to Subversify Magazine.

I am the former lyricist and synth player for horror-metal ensemble The Bloody Band. And yes, some of my stuff is in French and some is in English. In spite of being a native francophone, I have constantly been drawn to English, an attraction to which subsequent trips to the Emerald Isle and the rabid idiocracy of mainstream Quebecan culture greatly favored. C'est la vie.

Besides many ongoing projects, I'm currently working on a new novel, work title Malice. You can visit the development diary for weekly updates.


Early Years

I was born and raised in the Laurentian Mountains where I developed a profound affection for Nature and Chaos. At fourteen years of age, economic difficulties extricated me to the greater Montreal to be acquainted with the gray lifelessness of Western World suburbia. Shortly followed a move to Quebec City where I studied forestry at Sainte-Foy College, hoping to work in forest management, on which I soon turned my back and later heavily criticised.

During that time I (sadly) became involved in mainstream environmentalism. Though I ascended to a position of Vice-President at the Quebec Green Party Association, I became quickly disgruntled with parliamentry politics and institutions in general. This is when I started to focus on countercultural praxis and grassroots organization.

Radical Ecology

Deeply affected by the 2001 Summit of the Americas, I abandoned the Green Party and grudgingly moved back to Montreal where I began to study social geography at the University of Quebec in Montreal.

In the meantime, it became quite clear that my reflexions were leaning towards anarchism. After some four months of relative exile in Ireland (namely, for the composition of L'Aube Noire) a significant shift in my existence occured. I understood the unification of both means and end to liberation through the practice of anarchism. I can honestly say that my life would have been really different (and certainly duller) had I not taken this path. Yet my subsequent actions stem from this one epiphany. Even my dealings in nihilism and anti-civilisation critique can be considered 'interpretations' or 'variations' on the primordial theme of anarchism.

Whilst I remained involved in various radical ecology projects in Montreal, I focused most of my time on a two-year study of the radical ecology movement in Quebec through a master in social geography. I portrayed the entire movement between the 2001 Summit of the Americas and the fall of 2007. The bulk of the study consists of interviews from members of ten of the fourteen eco-radical groups active in that timeline. The study focuses on the socio-spatial representations of said groups, their critique of mainstream environmentalism and the articulation of their theory into practice. After eight months of editing, the final document, "Écologie Radicale au Québec: pratiques et représentations sociospatiales des groupes écologistes radicaux du Québec, de 2001 a 2007", was published at the 9th Montreal Anarchist Bookfair in 2008, which coincided with the visit of one the leading authors of green anarchism and co-editor of Green Anarchy, John Zerzan.

I've hosted countless workshops, conferences, speak-ins on the subject... in the Fall of 2009, I was invited twice to national radio (Radio-Canada) to talk about radical ecology as a researcher and activist, and did an interview with La Presse in 2010.

La Foret Noire

In 2005 I founded La Foret Noire, a dark art collective and underground publisher. Seen as a bridge between the Goth Subculture and the Anarchist Movement, the collective organized several 'darkly themed' open-mic nights that featured poetry, painting, music and performance art. The group also enacted two theatrical plays, written by me and based on two of my novels, L'Aube Noire and The Noxious and the Daemon Flower. The latter was played at the Second Anarchist Theatre Festival of Montreal. In the fall of 2007 the collective, comprised of some ten members, disbanded, claiming that conflicting representations as to the political role of Art convinced the members to "'put the axe' to the collective".

End of the World Committee

Shortly after the dissolution of La Foret Noire, I moved on to co-founding the End of the World Comittee, an artistic affinity group with other Montreal-based anarchists such as long-time partners Laemas and Fleur de Lune. The group wrote and set on a new play with five other artists, entitled The Beginning of the End (translated from french, Le Début de la Fin), which received tremendous success at the Third Anarchist Theatre Festival of Montreal, alongside Vermont's famous Bread and Puppet performers. The Committee crumbled under drama before anything could be put together for the Fourth anarchist theatre festival.

The Bloody Band

The Bloody Band was founded sometime in the winter of 2007 following a proposal by my brother Benoit (Von Bloody Ben / Bloody Benedict). He's been doing music forever and needed lyrics to some new compositions. We imagined a sort of undead crooner-like punk themed project, really DIY but also inspired and dark. The man's a brilliant musician and can play just about anything, and he's also got a very intuitive composition method, we are very much alike in this. So he gave me his demos and I wrote some songs (Chtulhu Ftagen, Bitten and Carmella) The result was astounding and the first couple tunes were much cooler than we anticipated. With that, we showed it to some of our closest friends at the time (Laemas, Lydia, Guillaume Louis) who got the same impression and we got a bunch of gear and started rehearsing. The more songs we wrote, the more we arranged them together the more we got psyched about the whole project. I worked a midi controller, arranging synth parths for the songs, mostly with theremin, harpishcord, piano and strings. Playing with a controller enabled me to mix a bunch of old horror movie samples into the songs, to give it that creepy 50s feel. I have retired from The Bloody Band in early 2010 due to conflicting schedules and differences regarding the work dynamic. Some of the songs were recorded without synth and a post-mortem album is reported to be on the way.

Depression, Betrayal, New Beginnings

In the summer of 2009 I fell under an episode of depression and admitted to being the victim of an abusive relationship, after five years with former lover Fleur de Lune. All projects were halted. After a few months' hiatus I relocated with long-time partner Laemas and started to recover from the trauma of psychological violence. In March 2010, the decade-long relationship ended in betrayal when Laemas and the abuser became romantically involved. I issued this statement in response. All books were re-published with visuals from Candace Barbieri, Kayleigh Graham and Julie Brouillard.

The Malice Cycle

The Malice Cycle is a trilogy of noir post-apocalypse fiction. The project began in 2009 and is currently in the works. The first book, Necropolis, is set in a Victorian-inspired dystopia centuries after the collapse of Civilisation, a young woman struggles to maintain her sanity as the secluded society turns against her. When she discovers terribles powers at her disposal, Malice must unveil a plot to subvert the foundations of this last society.

After releasing a promotionnal trailer featuring the music of Nox Arcana. The band's main composer, Joseph Vargo, described the book as a "Neo-Gothic milestone that stretches the boundaries of dark fantasy to challenge the flawed conceptions of conventional society."

No publisher has yet signed the project.

Anarchist Writers Bloc

I have been actively involved with the AWB since the founding in May 2010. With 18 authors, we have released the world's first anthology of anarchist fiction. Go to Website for more info.

Anarchistes Anonymes

After performing solo in May 2010, a new theatre troupe came together for the 2011 6th International anarchist theatre festival of Montreal. Les Anarchistes anonymes, named after the sketch comedy of the same name, was an original text of mine which the troupe of six adapted and was met with outstanding applause.

Erotica

In Spring of 2011, publisher Guy Saint-Jean Éditeur signed the first of a series of erotica books. The series, which is planned to be a trilogy, is a side-project from my more political novels. It stands as an attempt to create sexual representations in accordance with sex-positive "third-wave" feminism, or Queer. The novels take place in Romania and are a comedic take of themes such as classic horror and faery tales.


Writings

My novels, plays and poetry could be described as sharing a signature blend of gothic aesthetic prose and sheer cynical critique about the world we live in. My use of dialectics is prominent, influenced mostly by nihilist authors such as Emil Cioran and Arthur Schopenhauer as well as Theodor Adorno of the Frankfurt School. The opposition of shriven, unmediated wildlife versus the symbolic urban culture of modern man is an underlying theme in all my works, coupled with the belief that radical deconstruction and relentless revolt are the pathways to free ourselves from the chains of oppression, thus mending the broken link to Nature and, as Nietzsche once wrote, finally "become what we are".

In recent years my writtings has displayed a significant shift from more dramatic lyricism to a more - though not necessarily lighter - humoristic approach. For example, in L'Aube Noire, Erinye Yano, one of the main characters (also portrayed on the cover), is partly inspired by the Erinyes of Aeschylus, one of the darkest playwrights of ancient Greece. In the following novel, The Noxious and the Daemon Flower, the narrative draws from the dark humor of Bill Hicks, the carelessness of Diogenes and the bottomless cynicism of Emil Cioran.


Active Nihilism and the Anti-Civilisation Critique

My interest for active nihilism and the anti-civilisation critique stems from a profound dispassion from traditional Left-wing politics and its related methodology of historical materialism in general. Most of my articles have argued that any discourse or practice based on binary opposition (gender, race, nation, class, species, etc.) reproduces the excluding categories and thus ensures that the aims of anarchism will not be met. In other words, struggles that only encompass certain manifestations of authority fail to assess the need to abolish Authority as a whole and thus also fail to attain the basic principle of anarchism.

Consistent with active nihilism and the anti-civilisation critique, I've argued that one of the main problems with the Left and social movements in general is the lack of radical thinking. Division of labor, reification of linear time into History and the constant abstraction of the struggle for freedom have made most activist experiences into different forms of the same oppression. In the hope of transcending human condition by the construction of an invincible doctrine the Left has committed the same existential crime as Religion: it has grounded itself in metaphysical dogma instead of looking to the origin of human suffering, which stems from negation of nature.

In mediating revolt the means betray the end and the end betrays the means. To counter this 'Eternal Return', I suggest that every symbolic device - be it imagery, language, culture and such - must be deconstructed, destroyed, and otherwise rendered transparant. Otherwise, the senseless horror of reified Time - the racket we call History - continues its infinite march in an increasingly finite Earth. We conjure up impossible visions of the future because the present is insufferable. Yet in denying the present we deny ourselves and the very Earth the right of dignity. Hoping makes us miserable, and as the days go by we become absent witnesses to the corruption and 'slumification' of life. Our instincts cry out for change but change never comes.

In this sense, I've often spoken out against the notion of Hope, arguing that it serves to deflect immediate revolt against oppression. Hope is 'hope' because it promises what hasn't yet come to be, and in that sense serves as mediation for a sense of loss which, instead of empowering, disables because it distanciates the subject from its potential. Also, the device of Hope is most efficient at the negation of the self and of immediate existence: it is better at creating smoke screens than actually delivering what it promises. And once you realize that Hope turned false, the only thing you are left with is the deception of everything you've denied and fled from (be it yourself, your loved ones, moments or entire years) waiting for Hope to fill the gap you created. Hence, because of its abstract nature, I often stated in my novels that "there is no hope", usually coupled with the assertion that "everything is possible".