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My Own Wolf: A New Approach

A Russian record label had released a tribute album to the Norwegian eclectics known as Ulver--you know, the band that released a Trilogie of primal, classic black metal with Norwegian folk sprinked, slathered, and sandwiched throughout--only to abandon the metal aesthetic and begin rapidly exploring what electronics could do. They're no less atmospheric--if anything, the desire to create atmosphere, a hallmark of black metal, educates all their experiments. And yet, it can be quite accessible, even tuneful. They can layer minimalistic drones until the sounds breathe on their own, or they can go into complete glitch overload, overwhelming your capacity to make sense of it with ahuman fury.

And it is not as if they completely abandoned metal--Ulver mastermind Garm (AKA Trikster G, AKA Kristoffer Rygg) continued to sing in Arcturus until fairly recently; one of the tracks off Blood Inside bordered close to metal at moments; and the most recent, low-key album Shadows Of The Sun, featured a cover of Black Sabbath's "Solitude". But they are no more bound to metal's conventions than they would be to, say, religious ones. (While I have never seen any indication that Ulver recanted their earlier statements of Satanic belief, if you look at the works in which they are interested, a pattern of gnostic searching does arise. Never mind the song called "Gnosis", there's the whole of Themes From William Blake's The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell--which is so gnostic it makes the pineal gland hurt with joy. And "Christmas", off Blood Inside, is practically a gnostic hymn.)

Anyhow, I recommend using the SendSpace links, unless you pay for RapidShare, or you have an eMule client.