“A Fatal Acquaintance”

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Varg Vikernes uploaded another black metal history video to his ThuleanPerspective Youtube channel. In A Fatal Acquaintance (Euronymous, April 1991 – August 1993), the Burzum creator summarizes his relationship with Euronymous prior to their fatal fight on August 10th, 1993. Varg explains how the Mayhem guitarist was a fat Communist who stole the money used to preorder Burzum records and sunk it into his money pit Helvete record shop in Oslo.

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Varg’s Black Metal History Video

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Varg Vikernes has started posting a series of black metal history videos on his ThuleanPerspective Youtube channel. “About a day in 1993 that changed Black Metal forever” summarizes how Euronymous was completely unfit to run a business as a communist, bungled the release of the Burzum self-titled album, and how Euronymous’s clownishness ended his reign as the media’s go to spokesperson for the Norwegian black metal scene follow Varg’s arrest in connection with the church arsons.

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#Metalgate: Vince Neilstein Calls Out Varg Vikernes’ “White Privilege”, Reneges on Apology to Destroyer 666, and Attempts to Cover His Tracks

Metalsucks Varg Destroyer 666 original

Vince Neilstein (Ben Umanov) of scenester social justice warring metalcore blog MetalSucks called Varg Vikernes of Burzum racist for stating that the Western liberal media do not feature the heroism and cultural achievements of white men, specifically Alexandre Migues who helped stopped the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist truck driver in France last week, as it doesn’t their promote their multicultural agenda. Neilstein then reneged on his apology to K.K. Warslut from Destroyer 666:

But what else should we expect from Varg? Perhaps he should invite his buddy from a certain Australian black metal band for a weekend at his home in the French countryside so they can lament the struggles of white men everywhere as they drink their fine, white privilege wine and kiss and cuddle by the fireside.

Not only did Vince/Ben go back on his word to not call Destroyer 666 cock rock stage banter racist again, he made a gay joke which surely won’t endear him to his overly-sensitive social justice warrior hipster readers. Later, Vince tried to backpedal on the current version of the page:

Metalsucks Varg Destroyer 666 edited

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The Mythic and the Mystic

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Article by Lance Viggiano.

Burzum and Beherit each represent two summits of black metal’s many perspectives – in particular its looking back to look ahead ethos. The work of Laiho is exploratory and spiritual while the work of Varg is seeking and religious. Each composer followed a similar trajectory of mapping this landscape through metal first, then ambient. Each phase reveals strengths and weakness in each of their aims which results in a somewhat complementary synthesis between two highly individual bodies of work.

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Possessed by the Moon

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Article by David Rosales.

A legendary time and place for underground metal, the Norway of 1993 is an esoteric landmark (1994 being the exoteric) in time and space in black metal history. It saw the rise of a mythology of its own, the mythology of black metal, and an eventual catastrophic demise worthy of a saga of its own.

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Defending Belus

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Article by David Rosales; read yet another (negative) contemporary review of Belus here

After an incursion into ambient metal that lasted for a few albums, Burzum was seemingly trying to make a comeback to metal instrumentation. But appearances can be deceiving, and what seems like a failed attempt at creating streamlined metal music may be, in fact, an attempt at riffing-up ambient music. There is also a hint that it is packaged into an integral release that has to be listened to as a whole. This does sound an awful lot like the premise of post-rock, and while there is a good deal of wallpaper repetition, there are also plenty of good ideas in what is the closest heir we have to Vikernes’ seclusion.

The old DMU reception of the album when it had just come out is spot on in its criticism, but much may be added that redeems this understated album. A very clear line of evolution can be traced from Det Som Engang Var through Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and the anti-black metal ambient expansion of Filosofem to Burzum’s 2010 release. For all intents and purposes, an album like Belus is the next logical step. That it cannot harness the energies of black metal while it attempts to spread like synth ambient is proof of the impermeability of distinct genres.

This shaky, middle-ground positioning was resolved marvelously with 2013’s Sôl austan, Mâni vestan, whose incomprehension by black metal fans shows it as a next filter in the practical evolution of transcendental metal as it maintains its ideals. The filters before them can be seen in the commencement of different underground metal genres, with Black Sabbath being the first obscure revolution, Slayer and Metallica on their debut leading the second, and the waves of speed-going-on-black as intermediary steps towards the third explosion of death metal, which in its technical fetish gave way to the more musical black metal. The next great purge takes place after 1995 as several of the best black metal musicians lean heavily towards minimalist ambient-focused projects, which in some cases turn into affairs that are more electronic than metal in instrumentation (Beherit’s Electric Doom Synthesis is one of the crown jewels of this very select group).

Weakened as it is in its most objective sense, the soft, layered and simple cadences and droning melodies unique to Vikernes’ mind are still more full and less candy-coated than the likes of Drudkh. And where, in Belus, the music seesm to drone on, the choice in length is never as much as the likes of Sunn O))) so that it falls completely into the background. Hvis Lyset Tar Oss was a trip to another dimension, each moment pushes forward, but the next album was a trance with subtle pulsations and bumps, breathing in and breathing out in a quality that cannot be measure quantitatively but qualitatively at an abstract level, admitting no materialistic distinction. The repetition scheme here is a compromise and application of what was learned in Filosofem, relying on a certain quality of endurance that Vikernes’ simple but multi-layered riffs focus on and uniquely shine for.

At worst, Belus is solid ambient music played on suboptimal instrumentation, and at best, a unique chance at perceiving these landscapes through metallic lenses which distort and bring to the fore particular contours and colors. When positioned at the right place and at the right time (having the right mentality), the listener may find himself submerged into dense forests, fuzzy with the brume of unreality. The vision that Belus presents is not that different from Burzum’s early efforts, but where the quick underground fan may detect watered-down content, others may see a matured and spiritually refined thinking.

This is not objective music, this is a secluded path for those who have digested Burzum’s music beyond its atomic particles and into the very essence, flow and nature of it. This fourth filtering-out of profane minds certainly leaves most behind, and though these words may seem spurious, those with a balanced and logic mind, a strong and idealist heart, and an avid curiosity may find themselves on the right path to this shrouded grove.

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Burzum’s Filosofem turns 20 today

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This is the sort of recording that could very easily displace the already accomplished works of Kvist from your memory. Filosofem, while released 20 years ago this day, was recorded in March 1993; meanwhile, the first track (“Dunkelheit” or “Burzum” depending upon the pressing) was the first track ever written for Burzum. As part of the initial burst of Burzum’s material, Filosofem sticks to a language of black metal that Varg Vikernes helped define, but is arguably closer in spirit to the pure ambient works that followed it. The internet overflows with discussion of the circumstances surrounding this album, as well as its excursions into a sort of streamlined “Odinpop”, but like its illustrious predecessors, Filosofem‘s influence is immense, even if most who try to imitate the ideas on display here kind of miss the point.

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