Filosofem

Filosofem
Studio album from Burzum
Publication (s)	1996
Label (s)	Misanthropy Records
Format (s)	CD, LP
Genre (s)	Black Metal , Ambient , Dark Ambient
Title (number)	6th
running time	64 min 34 s
occupation	all instruments: Varg Vikernes
Studio (s)	Breidablik Studio
chronology Hvis lyset tar oss (1994) Filosofem Dauði Baldrs (1998)

Op under Fjendet toner en Lur by Theodor Kittelsen

Filosofem (Norwegian for ' Philosophem ') is the fourth album by Varg Vikernes ' music project Burzum . It was recorded in 1993 but was not released until 1996 due to Vikernes' imprisonment.

Emergence

The album was recorded with the simplest means. Vikernes used a fuzz pedal and a 1/4 "line input for the guitar and a headset for the vocals. The guitars have an extremely sawy and dry sound. Nevertheless, the album is of good production quality. The title Dunkelheit became a music video produced, which in the meantime could also be seen on some music channels, including the British VH-1 , which used to be downloaded from the mirror servers listed on the Burzum homepage .

layout

The album cover shows an excerpt from the drawing Op under Fjendet toner en Lur by Theodor Kittelsen . It shows a girl with a wooden trumpet. Further illustrations by Kittelsen can be found in the booklet .

Track list

There is a version with Norwegian and English titles (which Vikernes sees as the original) and the better-known German version, which was specified on the first pressing. Otherwise the albums are identical.

1. Burzum (darkness) - 7:05
2. Jesu død (Jesus' death) - 8:39
3. Beholding the Daughters of the Firmament - 7:53
4. Decrepitude I - 7:53
5. Rundtgåing av den transcendentale egenhetens støtte (Tour of the Transcendental Pillar of the Singularity) - 25:11
6. Decrepitude II - 7:53

Music genre

Filosofem differs from the previous Burzum releases because of the relatively strong amount of ambient and the unusual sound . The vocals are also no longer plaintive, but rather reminds of dark electro- typical screams due to the distortion , which don't have much in common with the high screeching typical of Burzum before.

The first three titles can be assigned to Black Metal . Drums, guitar riffs and keyboard passages are extremely repetitive. The ambient piece Rundgang around the transcendental pillar of the singularity, for example, essentially consists of two parts, each of which consists of keyboard passages that are almost unchanged. The rest of the 6 songs are still stylistically Black Metal, even if the overall tempo (especially the chord changes on the guitar) remains low for this genre. Darkness and Behold the Daughters of the Firmament are examples of this slow pace. Other examples of typical stylistic elements of the album are the song Jesus' Tod [sic!] With an almost continuous double bass , or Frailty I and II, which contain guitar tracks but no drums ; the titles range between Black Metal and Dark Ambient . The song Dunkelheit ( Burzum is a word for 'darkness', see Languages ​​and Scripts in Tolkien's World ) was the first Burzum title that Vikernes wrote. It was originally intended to debut, but Vikernes was unsatisfied with the sound quality and re-recorded it six months later.

Reviews

Filosofem had a relatively high sales success for a black metal album, which is mainly due to the popularity of Vikernes. The reviews were mostly positive. Robert Müller from Metal Hammer described the tour around the transcendental pillar of the singularity as “an almost endless keyboard composition that I can't discover anything about that would be worth writing about”, but the album also contains the “four best Burzum songs so far”. He gave Filosofem five out of seven points.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Varg "Волк" Vikernes: A Burzum Story: Part VI - The Music . Retrieved November 4, 2009.
2. ↑ Downloads ( Memento of January 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
3. ↑ Marc: CD Review: Burzum - Filosofem ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) 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. accessed on November 4, 2009 .. 
4. ^ Burzum - Filosofem review . Retrieved November 4, 2009.
5. ↑ Myrn: Burzum - Filosofem - Review . Retrieved November 4, 2009.
6. ↑ Björn Springorum: Reviews - Burzum Filosofem . Retrieved November 4, 2009.
7. ↑ Robert Müller: Burzum . Filosofem . In: Metal Hammer , March 1996, p. 63.