Hazeen - anti-racist muslim death metal
Founded by Safdar Ahmed on guitar/vocals and Can Yalcinkaya on drums and percussion, Hazeen's music addresses the expanding field of Islamophobia and bigotry in contemporary Australia. In our songs, as in our performances, we aestheticise prejudice, appropriating the reductive essentialisation of Islam and the paradigm ‘Islamic terrorism’—to highlight and subvert its politically confected nature. Our tunes comment on terror-alert politics, Muslim veil controversies, ‘timebomb’ demographics, refugee panics and taqiyya/halal-food conspiracies. This is no mere intellectual exercise but stems from a deep well of frustration about the incessant stereotyping, racialisation and subsequent dehumanisation of Muslims in Australian and global political discourses over many years.
Hazeen was featured in the ABC documentary You See Monsters (2017, dir. Tony Jackson) and appeared on TV in Australia and Germany. They released their debut album Sovereign Murders through Berlin-based label Piranha Records and participated in Documenta Fifteen in Kassel, Germany in 2022. They performed in a variety of venues including an abandoned theme park, an anarchist bookstore, a Portuguese Club, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and Mona Foma in Tasmania.
Hazeen was featured in the ABC documentary You See Monsters (2017, dir. Tony Jackson) and appeared on TV in Australia and Germany. They released their debut album Sovereign Murders through Berlin-based label Piranha Records and participated in Documenta Fifteen in Kassel, Germany in 2022. They performed in a variety of venues including an abandoned theme park, an anarchist bookstore, a Portuguese Club, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and Mona Foma in Tasmania.