ULVER

"Svidd neger" is a soundtrack album release and the seventh full-length studio album by Norwegian experimental music act Ulver. The album was released through Jester Records in September 2003 and it´s the soundtrack to the original motion picture "Svidd Neger". It´s the successor to "Lyckantropen Themes" from November 2002 (also a soundtrack album release), although the two full-length studio albums are bridged by the August 2003 "A Quick Fix of Melancholy" EP.

Try and imagine how the music style found on the "A Quick Fix of Melancholy" EP would sound if the tracks were more ambient, subtle, and repetitive and you´re halfway there describing the sound of "Svidd neger". It´s a pleasant, atmospheric, and ambient soundtrack release, but it´s also apparent that the music is made to be used as the soundtrack to a film. Because as pleasant and calming it is listening to "Svidd neger" it´s obvious that the music would function better while watching the movie. The dramatic climaxes of "Rock Massif Pt. 1" and "Rock Massif Pt. 2" which are placed around the middle of the album are some of the few examples on the album featuring anything but mellow, subtle, melancholic, and ambient music, although the intriguing "Waltz Of King Karl" arguably also falls under the catagory of being different from the remainder of the album. A few shorter noise tracks also help keep the album varied, but the overall feeling after listening to "Svidd neger" is still that it´s predominantly a mellow, subtle, and melancholic ambient music release.

"Svidd neger" features a well sounding production, and especially the programmed orchestral/string parts sound really well. Upon conclusion "Svidd neger" is a good quality ambient music release from Ulver and it´s obvious that it would make an effective soundtrack too. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

"A Quick Fix of Melancholy" is an EP release by Norwegian experimental music act Ulver. The EP was released through Jester Records in August 2003. It´s the follow-up release to the November 2002 soundtrack album release "Lyckantropen Themes" and it was released only a month before the release of Ulver´s seventh full-length studio album "Svidd neger" (also a soundtrack album released in September 2003).

Ulver had been experimenting with drone, noise, and ambient music since "Perdition City: Music To An Interior Film" (March 2000) and some experiments worked better than others. With "A Quick Fix of Melancholy" they hit one of their better quality ambient moments. While still being pretty experimental and diverse, the four tracks on the 23:09 minutes long EP have more shape, form, and direction than the more experimental ambient releases which directly precede it. The programmed orchestral parts and the semi-operatic vocals (the fact that there are vocals at all) are a relief after being subjected to the shapeless ambience of the preceding releases. I´ll dare say that "A Quick Fix of Melancholy" is at least occassionally an inviting and easily accessible ambient electronic music release.

Featuring a well sounding production job, intriguing songwriting ideas, and a perfect execution of those ideas, "A Quick Fix of Melancholy" is arguably the most interesting and well made Ulver release from this period of their career. A must listen for fans of Ulver´s ambient output. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

"Lyckantropen Themes" is a soundtrack album release and the sixth full-length studio album by Norwegian experimental music act Ulver. The EP was released through Jester Records in November 2002. It´s the follow up release to the two 2001 EPs "Silence Teaches You How To Sing" (September 2001) and "Silencing The Singing" (December 2001). "Lyckantropen Themes" is the original soundtrack for the short film "Lyckantropen" by Steve Ericsson.

After the two relatively experimental ambient EP releases, "Lyckantropen Themes" is slightly more inviting and easy to digest. It´s of course still an experimental and slow building ambient music release, but the generally shorter song lengths make this soundtrack album an easier listen than the longer and more directless ambient experiments of "Silence Teaches You How To Sing" and "Silencing The Singing". Especially the former is a demaning listen. I guess you could describe "Lyckantropen Themes" as a continuation of the most subtle and ambient moments featured on "Perdition City: Music To An Interior Film" (Ulver´s fifth full-length studio album from March 2000).

"Lyckantropen Themes" is a much less dramatic but unfortunately also less interesting release than "Perdition City: Music To An Interior Film", but for an ambient soundtrack album, it´s certainly a pleasant enough listen. Dark, melancholic, and ambient music, designed to make the listener chill out and float away. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

"Teachings In Silence" is a compilation album by Norwegian experimental music act Ulver. The compilation was released through Black Apple in March 2002. It´s a compilation featuring all material from the two 2001 EPs "Silence Teaches You How To Sing" (September 2001) and "Silencing The Singing" (December 2001).

Featuring only four tracks and a total playing time of 52:59 minutes, "Teachings In Silence" is a compilation which is rich in quantity. The 24:05 minutes long title track from "Silence Teaches You How To Sing" opens the compilation and it´s a fragmented ambient electronic oriented track, featuring both drone/noise sections and more melancholic atmospheric sections. The three tracks from the "Silencing The Singing" are slighly more easily accessible and predominantly consist of repetion and subtle dark and melancholic melodies, glitches, and other atmosphere enhancing features.

It´s obvious that Ulver at this point in their career experimentet wildly and dipped their toes in a lot of different genres and stylistic elements. It´s certainly bold, but not necessarily their finest hour. A 2.5 star (50%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

"Silencing The Singing" is an EP release by Norwegian experimental music act Ulver. The EP was released through Jester Records in December 2001. It´s a sibling release to the September 2001 "Silence Teaches You How To Sing" EP, and along with the material found on the sibling release, most of the material featured on "Silencing The Singing" was recorded during the recording sessions for "Perdition City: Music To An Interior Film" (Ulver´s fifth full-length studio album), which was released in March 2000.

The EP features 3 tracks and a total playing time of 28:55 minutes. Stylistically this is electronic ambient music, featuring a lot of repetition and slow building songwriting. Not much happens during the playing time, but it´s a relatively pleasant ambient release, with some subtle melodies to maintain the listeners attention under the layers of glitches and dark ambient elements of the music. "Silencing The Singing" is well produced too and if you enjoyed the dark ambient nature of "Perdition City: Music To An Interior Film", you may appreciate this release too, although it´s a bit more minimalistic. A 2.5 (50%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

"Silence Teaches You How To Sing" is an EP release by Norwegian experimental music act Ulver. The EP was released through Jester Records in September 2001. It´s a companion release to the December 2001 "Silencing The Singing" EP, and along with the material found on the companion release, most of the material featured on "Silence Teaches You How To Sing" was recorded during the recording sessions for "Perdition City: Music To An Interior Film" (Ulver´s fifth full-length studio album), which was released in March 2000.

"Silence Teaches You How To Sing" features only one 24:05 minutes long ambient electronic oriented track, which opens with 4 minutes of drone/noise, but after that pretty harsh opening to the track moves into much more melodic and easier to access ambient music territories, but after 4 minutes of that returns to ambient noise territory again. And that´s pretty much the story of the whole track. ambient droning parts are counterpointed by atmospheric melancholic parts. The emotions of the music therefore range from dark and disturbing to subtle and melancholic. "Silence Teaches You How To Sing" is well produced and it´s overall a decent quality release. A bit more direction and less of the feeling that the track is put together almost at random, would have made the listening experience a bit more satisfactory, but the track certainly contains some interesting parts. A 2.5 (50%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

Dear Tore, one day we'll float together.

It is not easy for me to define what Ulver's music is, but at least I am sure of one thing, that they are/have been/were free to explore their creativity with no boundaries at all.

And yeah, in my musical (and emotional) soundtrack Ulver has made a deep impact in the last years, and I am sure its importance will prevail until I reach eternity. That impact was developed by the band's colorful palette of sounds, which might be ironic because most of their atmospheres lie in a gray scale, however, though Kristoffer Rygg's iconic voice command the ship, this multifaceted project has been capable of reinventing themselves over the years, so through their discography concepts such as folk, black metal, drone, electronica, prog rock, ambient, trip- hop, avant-garde or even pop, have fulfilled our senses.

In the second decade of 00s this band of wolves started to release some music recorded live in concerts, some of which were actual compositions, some others improvisations, but most of them were re-worked on studio, which helped the band and the involved engineers make some improvements and deliver releases with the highest quality. One of those records is this entitled 'Hexahedron' which features a one-hour non-stop concert permormed by Ulver back in 2018, divided in five pieces where, of course, they offer a mixture of sounds, emotions and atmospheres.

With the first track 'Enter the Void' the experience might be multidimensional, one can listen to it with eyes closed and feel a lot of things, and though the drone music is what prevails here, the effect is not necessary dark, it might also be celestial, bright, foggy, uncertain, profound and indefinite, all at different moments but all at the same time. Fifteen minutes of a cathartic atmospheric trip that, all of a sudden, morphs into quite catchier and friendlier sounds, meaning we are already listening to 'Aeon Blue', an 11-minute episode where an 80s feeling with some new-age nuances, electronic winks and endless keyboard layers rule. Rumors say that this tune was a preview of what the band's upcoming sound would be, which was materialized in 2020 under the name of 'Flowers of Evil', an album some of my friends and I love.

'Bounty Hunter' is like music for a silent film, I don't know but sci-fi would suit the best. The first part has some softcguitar distortion and a feeling of uncertainty. Then after three minutes the rhythm and the path become clearer, some synthesizers a la new wave, with great and delicate drums and percussion that add a richness of figures and textures that will make your move your head and enjoy the ride. Then it becomes gentler, I love the soft bass lines while keyboards produce some new age atmospheres, taking us into a trip through different universes until it fades out.

OMG, after just a split second of silence the band take us to another universe with 'A Fearful Symmetry' whose danceable rhythm I am sure led some attendants to stand up and shake their bodies a little bit. The bass sound is so addictive, but I really love the percussion, quite delicious here. After four minutes in this track (and after 38 minutes in that performance) the vocals appear for the first time, and yeah, since the very first time I listened to this live record I immediately recognized the rhythm and lyrics, because people at that show (2018) didn't know, but this part would be released in 2020 under the title of 'Little Boy', one of the singles of the above-mentioned and acclaimed Flowers of Evil.

The last part is a long one, 19 minutes of 'The Long Way Home', which makes me question myself about what to consider home, a place, a feeling, a utopia? Well, this track represents another contrast in their music, because after that dancing moment, the obscurity returns here in so many forms, we can find it in forms of folk, trip-hop, experimental music, noise and a long etc. Listening to this experience make me envious of the audience, because it is evident that there is a trance full of cathartic moments in a performance where the sounds were not the only important elements, I am sure the visual production was carefully chosen, as well as the venue, in order to offer a multisensorial and I have no doubt at all, an unforgettable memory.

I feel sad, yeah, I would have loved to see them onstage once in this life, and though I ignore Kriss' decisions regarding Ulver's fate, we can deny that part of their essence has just left this world and hopefully, entered to a brighter one.

Ulver is not only music, is art, and I think we should embrace these words by our beloved Tore Ylwizaker: "doing whatever we want, not knowing what it's supposed to become or where it will end up."

Good to know their heaviness and rockability back to themselves. The previous studio-based work "Scary Muzak" possesses "dreamy but scary muzakish electronika" but this live album, on the contrary to that, is filled with a slightly post-y but fully heavy-crossover atmosphere that we can easily get familiar with (except the epilogue "Coming Home"). Guess it would have been better for the audience to accept their soundscape especially on stage in a natural and smooth manner, and even if this soundscape was launched 5 or 6 years ago, it is worthy for ULVER to release such a heavy live material as an official album. And the live performance was held just after one of their landmark albums "The Assassination Of Julius Caesar" and an ep "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi" were out in 2017. "Grieghallen 20180528" symbolizes they should cherish and treasure their creativity in those days. Sounds pretty fantastic and pleasant for us.

Anyway "Grieghallen 20180528" consists of the songs in the two albums mentioned above, but their performances on the stage sound more qualified and straightforward than the two underlying creations. No dissonant effect nor quirky processing is needed in a venue but a sense of unity or affinity developed between performers and the audience should be important and essential. From the prologue "Nemoralia", we can feel such a rigid solidarity amongst their sound launches featuring fundamental rock instrumentals and additional synthesizers or electronics. The epilogue "Coming Home", much longer than the original one, is drenched in drastic post-rock, psychedelic texture, improvisational shoegaze-y development, melodic rhythmic flexibility, and especially infatuation around the audience. Cannot help listening carefully to the serious movement until the end of the track. We will be immersed in their real rock performance in 2018, for sure.

"Perdition City: Music To An Interior Film" is the 5th full-length studio album by Norwegian music act Ulver. The album was released through Jester Records in March 2000. It´s the successor to "Themes From William Blake's The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell" from 1998, although the two full-length albums are bridged by the 1999 "Metamorphosis" EP.

The "Metamorphosis (1999)" EP is important to mention here, as it marked a significant stylistic change for Ulver being an experimental electronic music release. "Perdition City: Music To An Interior Film" continues down the same electronic music path (although much more structured and featuring more memorable moments), featuring an experimental, ambient, and atmospheric electronic music style. There´s an Angelo Badalamenti (composer of the soundtrack for the Twin Peaks tv-series) influence here, when it gets most lounge jazzy, but combined with a dark, melancholic urban atmosphere. The subtitle to the album "Music To An Interior Film" is a very accurate way of describing the music and its impact on the listener. It is the type of music which creates cinematic images of dark, rainy urban environments, sleazy back alleys, and noir type settings.

The music is predominantly instrumental, but does on occasion feature subtle melancholic male vocals, which reminds me a bit of the most quiet vocal parts on the latter day Talk Talk/Mark Hollis albums (and sometimes "like on the opening minutes of "Hallways Of Always"" appear a bit more mainstream accessible). There are also some female vocals on the album, but they are even more sparse. Saxophone is used on opening track "Lost In Moments" and on "Dead City Centres", and to great effect. The sound of the saxophone creates a feeling of desolation, isolation, and longing for companionship in the decayed urban atmosphere created by Ulver.

"Perdition City: Music To An Interior Film" features a well sounding electronic oriented sound production filled with programmed drums, synths, piano, bleeps and bloops, samples, and other effects. Upon conclusion Ulver have created an intriguing, dark, and melancholic electronic music album, which at times may drag a bit too much while building atmosphere (tracks like "Tomorrow Never Knows", "We Are The Dead"), and "Dead City Centres"), but other times shine quite a bit with great atmospheric moments of gloomy cinematic beauty. A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)

Ulver's spookfest? 2021's 'Scary Muzak' is a surprise album by the Norwegian electronic and art rock band, essentially a pretend-soundtrack/score, posing as a celebration of the band members' love for the horror movie genre and the Halloween spirit - all good, but this recording could briefly be disregarded as a boring collection of spooky tunes, scooped up after an unsuccessful Halloween teen party. Well, there might have been a slice of exaggeration here, but the truth is that this so-called studio album is uneventful, absolutely forgettable, unimpressive and quickly tiresome, with all of its dry and already-heard instrumentals (they make them the same in every scary movie).

Moreover, it is a fabulous disappointment if we take it as the follow-up to the previous two synthpop releases by the band, 'Flowers of Evil' and 'The Assassination' - while 'Scary Muzak' might have some glimpses of these aforementioned release, it is the very pale, much weaker and severely less entertaining brother of theirs, and while this one tends to fit the synthwave label more, the fact that it fails to keep the listener attentive is a certain sign that something is wrong. I imagine that if this was to be reduced almost half in length and released as an EP, it might have been received better. Some of the songs are fine, but most of 'Scary Muzak' is just filler and really sounds like leftovers from previous recording sessions.