Speculative Cartography: Deterritorialization in Extreme Metal

 "Deterritorialization is the movement by which one 'leaves' the territory. It is the operation of the line of flight." (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus)

0. INTRODUCTION

What is "territory" in extreme metal?

- Territory consists of conventions: riffs, block structures, established sections (intro - riff - verse - solo - bridge - outro). Territory is any element within a composition that has a function, a place, a proportion... in a logical and balanced form.

Zdzisław Beksiński

1. DETERRITORIALIZATION: A PROCESS

In A Thousand Plateaus (1980), Deleuze and Guattari distinguish between two types of space: smooth space—open, continuous, and non-hierarchical; and striated space—organized, metric, structured. This distinction, originally spatial, can be applied to music—and, in particular, to Extreme Metal—as an opposition between the fractal and the modular in order to describe a phenomenon that has gone unnoticed: deterritorialization in Extreme Metal.

In traditional Extreme Metal, tracks are constructed using a striated-modular logic: delimited riffs, formal blocks (intro, verse, bridge, solo), repetition, hierarchical transitions, and a temporal structure that progresses linearly. This is the striated space of metal: each part has a place, a function, a fixed identity. Examples could include Reign in Blood by Slayer or Human by Death.

But Speculative Metal, in its visionary and experimental impulse, has produced a vanishing point by initiating a process of deterritorialization. Alongside formal and structured elements, it incorporates components that move into the smooth, the fractal, the expanding with no center or edge.

As stated in the Noctis Nebula Glossarium:

"Deterritorialization is a frontal attack on the established musical form of the song. Tracks begin to grow more abstract, incorporating unpredictable sonic landscapes that can branch in multiple directions. Riffs are no longer modular units but hyper-riffs—code-like structures that mutate and disperse. Texture takes the place of form, and time is no longer linear but begins to curve in unforeseen directions." (Noctis Nebula Glossarium, El Enjambre, Various Authors, 2024)

Where there once was metric organization, a vibratory anarchitecture now rises. Where there was structure, now there is multiplicity. Where there was territory, we now delve into a cartography of the unknown, where fragments emerge as clusters of intensity, as sonic fractals, without axis.

Using architecture as an analogy, we shift from contemplating a Gothic temple with naves, domes, and apses to entering a cave that expands rhizomatically, with zones that remain hidden and defy rational logic.

Speculative Metal bands use deterritorialization as a fundamental tool to make their music escape formal construction and transform into an unknowable sonic entity.

Before analyzing specific techniques such as "environment accumulation" and "zones of indiscernibility" (in a second part of this text), let us first establish the theoretical foundation by analyzing how deterritorialization has emerged chronologically in rock, heavy metal, and eventually extreme metal.

Roberto Matta

2. ORIGINS OF DETERRITORIALIZATION

With the emergence of Progressive Rock and Heavy Metal, it became common to include intros, interludes, and outros in albums—often associated with concept works. This practice continued in Thrash Metal and extended into Extreme Metal.

The goal of these usually brief compositions was often to enrich the musical narrative, to introduce a mood or state of mind, to place the listener on a mental platform that allowed them to complement what was expressed in the album's songs, developing its aesthetics on a sonic level and the concepts set forth in the album's lyrics.

These pieces have gained importance and weight within albums in a process that has increased abstraction and timbral and stylistic variety within each style. We call this process "deterritorialization," extrapolating the terminology of Deleuze and Guattari.

Francis Bacon - Figure (1951)

3. SMOOTH SPACE vs. STRIATED SPACE

Deterritorialization in Extreme Metal can be understood as a shift from striated space (metric, ordered, linear, teleological) to smooth space (fractal, nomadic, indeterminate).

In the former, each riff has its place, each part has its function, each variation follows a formal scheme that defines hierarchies, intensities, and progressions. In the latter, elements dissolve, propagate, repeat without identity. Space is no longer traveled from one point to another, but drifts without destination.

As Deleuze and Guattari write: "Smooth space is occupied by intensities, by events rather than by objects and forms." (A Thousand Plateaus)

In traditional extreme metal, striated space dominates: even when aggressive or challenging, it obeys a blueprint. But in speculative metal, structures are no longer mapped routes but layers of eroded terrain—zones of indiscernibility where forms blur and the ear loses its bearings.

The Iranian musicologist Druj notes in Chapter 7, "On the Shape of Cthulhu," from Corpus Mutatio:

"Smooth space is not empty: it is filled with forces of tension, of potential energy. Deterritorialization is not arbitrary chaos, but a molecular dynamic, a line of flight that turns form into texture, structure into drift, and the theme into a vibratory surface."

And she includes the following table:

Smooth Space	Striated Space
Non-metric	Metric
Extensive	Qualitative
Decentered	Centered
Rhizomatic	Arborescent
Directional	Dimensional
Distance	Size
Non-Euclidean	Euclidean (measurable)

Smooth space vs. striated space

4. THE FRACTAL VS. THE MODULAR

The fractal tends to associate with the smooth because it lacks rigid hierarchy. It follows an expansive, rhizomatic logic. It allows infinite internal variation at different scales. It is not organized from a center nor governed by metric rules or fixed divisions. Just as smooth space implies non-hierarchical multiplicity, the fractal in speculative music represents an infinite opening of possible ramifications: truncated rhythms, acyclic dynamics, distorted repetitions, patterns that dissolve.

The opposite of the fractal in this context (which aligns with the striated) would be the modular, metric, and hierarchical, which responds to an economy of predictability: well-delimited blocks assembled according to learned rules.

According to Relgneps Razalas, "this logic is incompatible with speculative expansion:

• Modular structures where each part is delimited and serves a specific function.

• Regular metrics: fixed time signatures, constant tempos, predictable rhythmic organization.

• Clear formal segmentation: verse, chorus, solo, bridge.

• Temporal linearity: everything progresses chronologically, step by step."

(Relgneps Razalas, Liber Semitarum, chapter 3 "Statics, Alchemy, Dynamics," 2020)

In music, this translates to squared forms, binary divisions, exact repetition, and cause-effect relationships in compositional development. That is, everything that in traditional extreme metal still survives in the form of central themes, repeated riffs, and block structures built around an introduction-development-ending logic. Speculative Metal unfolds its irrational logic to break with the modular mindset of Spectral (traditional) Metal.

Menger Sponge

5. ATMOSPHERE AS EXCEPTION AND LIMIT

Traditionally, atmosphere has been a margin, a liminal space that frames the “real” song. Ambient intros, synthesizer interludes, field recordings as sonic parentheses.

But in speculative metal, that margin overflows: the ambient no longer remains outside but begins to infect the very core of the track. Atmosphere is no longer the prologue or epilogue but becomes the internal structure of the piece.

This implies a contamination of metal by the formless, the abstract, the phantasmagoric:

“Deterritorialization begins when that atmosphere ceases to be a margin and begins to contaminate the center… A blast beat wrapped in a cloud of white noise… a riff absorbed by a granular loop… a track that vanishes midway through, as if it had dissolved into a zone of indiscernibility.” (Relgneps Razalas, Metallorum Mutatio: Corpus Theoreticum, Chapter 3, “Time and Fate; Space and Causality,” 2022)

Esteban Francés - Arrangez-vous (1939)

6. RHIZOMES AND NON-LINEARITY

In the classical organization of an album, progression is chronological: from the first track to the last, following a narrative.

In speculative metal, this linearity dissolves, generating a rhizomatic network of internal connections that multiplies the layers of listening:

"The album’s structure is not a line; it is a mesh, a rhizome where the past returns without warning and the future looms in shadows." (Druj, Corpus Mutatio, Chapter 6, "West of Arkham," 2023)

Listening becomes archaeological and ghostly. There is no path, only multiple entrances and multiple exits. The sonic experience becomes a labyrinth. Deterritorialization is delirium. There is no center. There is no origin. Only destabilizing lines of flight, irrational patterns launched into the outside...

Piet Mondrian - Horizontal Tree (1911)

7. SPECIFIC TECHNIQUES OF DETERRITORIALIZATION

Some concrete examples will be addressed in the second part of this text.