Burzum

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Burzum
Burzum2010.svg
General information
Genre (s) Black Metal (until 1996) , Dark Ambient (from 1997) , Metal (from 2010)
founding 1991
resolution 2018
Website www.burzum.org
Founding members
Varg Vikernes
Guest musician
Tomas "Samoth" Haugen
Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth (†)

Burzum was a black metal and dark ambient project by the Norwegian Varg Vikernes , who initially used the pseudonym Count Grishnackh in connection with the band .

history

After Vikernes played in the bands Kalashnikov and Uruk-Hai in the late 1980s and left Old Funeral in 1991 , he decided to make music on his own. The name Burzum used for his one-man project, like Uruk-Hai (after the fictional race of Uruk-hai ), came from the black language of JRR Tolkien (to be found in The Lord of the Rings ). Burzum literally means 'darkness' ( Bûrz 'dark' and nominalization suffix -um ):

“The 'darkness' of the Christians was of course my 'light'. So all in all it was natural for me to use the name Burzum. "

“The 'darkness' of Christians was of course my 'light'. So it was natural for me to use the name 'Burzum'. "

- Varg Vikernes : A Burzum Story: Part I - The Origin And Meaning

According to Vikernes, the band, whose message was limited to the song Feeble Screams from Forests Unknown , was an occult or magical concept; on the debut, for example, there are references to the Cthulhu myth and Sumerian mythology .

Although Burzum was a one-man project, guest musicians were also involved in the first two releases; the background noises in Dungeons of Darkness and Den onde kysten as well as the guitar solo in the Bathory-based song War was played by Mayhem guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth , who released the debut Burzum and the EP Aske on his label Deathlike Silence Productions ; on this Tomas played "Samoth" Haugen from Emperor Bass. In the meantime, Vikernes planned to set up a line-up to give concerts; as a drummer he named Jan Axel "Hellhammer" Blomberg (Mayhem, Arcturus ) in an interview , in an article on his official website he mentions that Erik Olivier "AiwarikiaR" Lancelot (ex- Valhall , ex- Ulver ) was to be the drummer.

The cover for Burzum albums was, among other things, a photo of the burned down Fantoft stave church in Bergen (for the EP Aske , referred to by Vikernes as a "rock 'n' roll album" with a lighter with the cover printed on it) and pictures by the Norwegian painter Theodor Kittelsen . The artwork of the first two albums is inspired by an AD&D module, the third and fourth by Scandinavian fairy tales. All albums up to 1996 were recorded in the same studio ( Grieghallen ) and produced by Eirik "Pytten" Hundvin. The album Hvis lyset tar oss was dedicated to Vikernes Fenriz from Darkthrone and Demonaz from Immortal . According to Vikernes, the singing on the Filosofem was recorded using the microphone of a headset.

In 1993 Vikernes considered moving from Deathlike Silence Productions to Earache Records . He therefore met with the label owners in England; In the course of the conversation, he uttered racist and right-wing extremist statements, which the label owners initially dismissed as an attempt to appear “evil”; after his return trip, however, they decided against working together, as the points of view he expressed were incompatible with the label. In the same year Vikernes murdered Aarseth. Tiziana "Diamanda" Stupia founded the Misanthropy Records label in Suffolk , England, specifically to release further Burzum albums .

In 1994 Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the murder of Aarseth, arson at several Norwegian churches and possession of explosives and turned more and more to the right-wing extremist scene . For the neo-Nazi wing of Black Metal, the " National Socialist Black Metal " (NSBM), which is particularly popular in Eastern Europe , Vikernes has become a symbol and Burzum a band with cult status. Regarding the assignment of Burzum to the NSBM, however, the black metal scene and external reporting argue: This often classifies Burzum as an NSBM band. The scene itself does not count the project as part of the NSBM, because there are no open racist sentiments or political statements in the texts: The accompanying texts to the instrumental albums published after his turn to right-wing extremism, which take up topics of Germanic mythology , are also “Not openly neo-Nazi. Rather, they reflect his pagan beliefs and deal with characters from Norwegian folk tales and legends. ”A reference to Nazi ideology, on the other hand, is the Burzum T-shirt with an SS skull and the imprint, which was published in connection with a liberation attempt by a group of Norwegian right-wing extremists "Support your local task force ". In an article that Vikernes wrote in 2000 for the All-Germanic Pagan Front , he states that the spirit of Burzum was National Socialism.

In 2009, Vikernes was paroled. He announced that he had written nine tracks for a new Burzum album entitled Den hvite guden ('The White God'), which he would like to release in 2010. This should include, among other things, two unpublished pieces from Burzum's early days. In connection with this release, Vikernes again distanced himself from today's black metal scene, which in his eyes has nothing to do with Burzum or the early Norwegian scene. According to Vikernes, the title is not to be understood racially, but stands for Balder , who is known as "the white god" because he is a solar deity and pale because of his stay in the realm of the dead . After he was accused of glorifying racist ideologies with the title, he renamed the album Belus , which is supposed to be the Indo-European name for Balder. Belus was officially released on March 8, 2010. The successor Fallen has been announced for March 7, 2011 . Vikernes also announced that after the promotion of Fallen he would like to work on an album with newly recorded songs by Hvis Lyset tar oss , Filosofem and possibly Aske . He also wants to publish new recordings of songs from the first two albums under the title From the Depths of Darkness . After the release of From the Depths of Darkness , Vikernes announced the album Umskiptar for May 2012 , which he recorded in September 2011 and whose lyrics are all taken from Vǫluspá . In contrast to earlier albums, this “has also split the actually quite loyal following of the Norwegian properly: the third album of the post-prison era is received poorly to moderately by the audience; The alleged boredom and above all the lack of wailing screams, which have always been the main characteristic of BURZUM, are criticized. "

At the beginning of June 2018, Vikernes announced that he had completed the Burzum project. Burzum was a painful past for him in a stinking bog, from which it took him many years to get out. "Burzum was never my choice of life," he said. “I didn't even want to be a musician. It was just something I did while waiting for something that never came and that could never come. I left all the stinking bogs and moved on. "

style

The driving guitar riffs and drums are typical of the Burzum albums that were made before Vikernes' imprisonment . According to Vikernes, the latter were improvised in the studio; at the time of recording the debut album, which was completed within 19 hours, he had only been playing drums for three months. Monotonous and recurring sections often create a hypnotizing atmosphere. The early works already contained purely electronic titles, the two albums that were created in prison were recorded exclusively on keyboards and are therefore no longer assigned to Black Metal, but to Dark Ambient . The vocals are screeching high on some albums, deliberately overdriven or distorted on others. Vikernes cited pioneering Thrash Metal bands of the early 1980s such as Destruction , Hellhammer , alte Kreator , Celtic Frost and Bathory , but also the bands Thorns , Darkthrone and Mayhem , who were part of his group at the time, as musical influences . Euronymous also described Burzum as a mixture of Bathory, Hellhammer and Mayhem.

Burzum's style, especially on Filosofem, is considered a source of inspiration for the so-called Blackgaze , a combination of black metal and shoegazing elements, which emerged in the 2000s .

On the albums that Vikernes released after his release, he moved away from the style of his early albums. Vikernes increasingly also used clearly spoken passages and clear vocals and thus divided the followers of his music. The characteristic screams are completely absent on Umskiptar , Vikernes alternates between whispering, speaking and clear singing. Vikernes' pronunciation of Old Norse has been criticized as "bungling".

Discography

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Belus
  NO 23 10/2010 (3 weeks)

Demo recordings

  • 1991: Burzum I
  • 1991: Burzum II
  • 1992: Burzum ( Promo )

Albums

Singles

  • 2015: Thulean Mysteries
  • 2015: Forgotten Realms
  • 2015: Mythic Dawn
  • 2015: Veistu

EPs

Music videos

Compilations

  • 1995: Burzum / Aske
  • 1998: 1992-1997
  • 2002: Anthology
  • 2008: Anthology
  • 2011: From the Depths of Darkness (new recordings of songs from the first two albums)

Sampler contributions

  • 1998: Et hvitt lys over skogen on Presumed Guilty

literature

swell

  1. ↑ a b c d Varg Vikernes: A Burzum Story: Part I - The Origin And Meaning. 2004, accessed on March 2, 2010 .
  2. ↑ Josh: Interview with Varg Vikernes . In: Abrupt . February 1998 (English, burzum.org [accessed March 4, 2020]).
  3. ↑ Werner "Nyar" Left: Mayhem . In: COTIM No. 3 , 1991 (English, burzum.org [accessed March 4, 2020]).
  4. ^ A b c Varg Vikernes: A Burzum Story: Part VI - The Music. 2005, accessed March 2, 2010 .
  5. ↑ Karl Milton Hartveit / David Horn: Unholy Wars . In: Sounds of Death . No. 4 , 1994 (English, burzum.org [accessed March 4, 2020]).
  6. ↑ Anonymous: Burzum - Aske. (No longer available online.) In: CultMetal. March 28, 2005, archived from the original on May 13, 2016 ; accessed on March 4, 2020 (English).
  7. ↑ a b c Interview with Burzum in Terrorizer # 28
  8. ↑ Burzum signs with Earache?
  9. ^ Thuringian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution : II. Right-wing extremism. (No longer available online.) In: Verfassungsschutzbericht 2003 des Freistaates Thüringen. 2003, archived from the original on January 9, 2010 ; accessed on March 4, 2020 .
  10. ↑ a b styles. Right skirt continued to evolve and open to other styles. (No longer available online.) In: Brandenburg State Center for Political Education. Archived from the original on April 17, 2012 ; accessed on March 4, 2020 .
  11. ^ Stieg Larsson, Devin Burghart, Justin Massa: Catching a Wave: William Pierce, Cymophane, and the National Socialist Black Metal Underground
  12. ^ Rainer Fromm : Racist hatred in the World Wide Web. The worldwide networking of neo-Nazis on the Internet.
  13. ^ Christian Dornbusch : Unholy Alliance . Black Metal between paganism and neo-Nazism . In: analysis & criticism . newspaper for left-wing debate and practice , No. 428, July 8, 1999.
  14. ↑ Schwarz-Braun Metallic: a racist black metal band and their "non-political" environment. (No longer available online.) In: Turn it down . Archived from the original on October 27, 2009 ; accessed on March 4, 2020 .
  15. ^ Unholy Alliances , p. 39
  16. ↑ Varg Vikernes: Concerning the www.burzum.com. 2000, accessed on January 2, 2020 (English): "And yes, the Spirit of Burzum is the same as National Socialism (see article with this title)."
  17. ↑ a b article on Powermetal.de
  18. ↑ VARG VIKERNES Says He Has Written Nine Songs For New BURZUM Album. In: Blabbermouth.net . July 6, 2009, accessed March 4, 2020 .
  19. ↑ Varg Vikernes: A Burzum Story: Part X - The White God. November 14, 2009, accessed November 19, 2009 .
  20. ↑ Varg Vikernes: A Burzum Story: Part XI - Birds Of A Feather Flock Together. November 19, 2009, accessed November 26, 2009 .
  21. ↑ Varg Vikernes: A Burzum Story: Part XII - Belus. December 2, 2009, accessed December 3, 2009 .
  22. ↑ Burzum - Discography - Official Releases - "Fallen" 2011 .
  23. ↑ Cosmo Lee: Interview: Burzum .
  24. ^ Burzum and Varg Vikernes news and updates .
  25. ↑ "umskiptar" 2012 .
  26. ↑ a b c Thomas L .: BURZUM: Umskiptar. Nonpop, August 29, 2012, accessed August 30, 2012 .
  27. ↑ Varg Vikernes Declares "Bye Bye, Burzum" After Losing ATV "Duel" . In: Revolver . June 4, 2018 ( revolvermag.com [accessed June 5, 2018]).
  28. ↑ Martin Wickler: Naer Mataron . River at Dash Sealding . In: Metal Hammer , June 2003, p. 104.
  29. ↑ BURZUM in "Orcustus - The Shadow Of The Golden Fire" mag in early '92.
  30. ↑ Interview in close up
  31. ^ Wolves in the Throne Room. (No longer available online.) ANUS, archived from the original on May 5, 2014 ; Retrieved May 4, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.anus.com
  32. ↑ Thomas L .: BURZUM: Umskiptar. Nonpop, June 5, 2011, accessed August 30, 2012 .
  33. ↑ Burzum in the Norwegian album charts, accessed on November 3, 2010

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