Ulver

Ulver is a Norwegian experimental music group. While the group's first albums, such as Bergtatt, are characteristic of a black metal tinged with folk influences, his musical style evolves over the years and gradually integrates sounds rock, electronica, symphonic, noise, progressive and experimental. 1997 is marked by the international release of a third album, Nattens madrigal under the German label Century Media. However, because of differences with the production, Kristoffer Rygg, the creator of the group, founded his own label, Jester Records in 1998>. British composer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel O'Sullivan joins the collective in 2009>.

Ulver has more than 500,000 copies sold, and more than 11 million listeners at Last.fm>, is twice nominated at the Norwegian Grammy Awards and at Spellemannsprisen in various categories>, wins the Oslo Awards in the category "best album of the year" for Shadows of the Sun in 2008>, then the Natt & Dag prize of "best band live" in 2011 >, and since then has experienced a resurgence of popularity, especially for its rich musical approach as unpredictable>.

Kristoffer Rygg formed Ulver in 1993 in Oslo, Norway, with Grellmund, Robin Malmberg, Carl-Michael Eide, Håvard Jørgensen, and A. Reza. Together, they publish their first demo audio tape, Vargnatt, in November 1993. Their music sticks with the Norwegian black metal scene of the 1980s >>>. However, we can note some avant-garde elements, jazz, rock and gothic>. The archaic Danish-Norwegian lyrics are inspired by Scandinavian folklore and Baroque poets like Ludvig Holberg and Thomas Kingo.

The following year appeared Ulver's first studio album, entitled Bergtatt , the first part of what would become the "Black metal trilogy" , at Head Not Found label. This album is a continuation of Vargnatt, but much more successful. The folk side is more developed. At this time, the members of the group do not hide their interest in occultism, they put on the pictures booklets adorned with pentagrams, inverted crosses and other typical attributes of the genre. It should be known that Ulver's primary occultism is greatly influenced by Garm's pronounced taste for the English group Coil. In 1996, Ulver surprised by recording Kveldssanger, published in March 1996 on the label Head Not Found, an album entirely played on acoustic guitar with folks tunes and sung in chorus with clear and clear voices. After signing with Century Media Records, the group made a radical new change of direction in 1997, as they decided to return to their roots and released the powerful Nattens Madrigal, better known as Nattens Madrigal, an album. pure black metal very raw, aggressive and saturated>.