Ulver

Hailing from Norway, Ulver derived their moniker from the Old Norse term signifying “wolf.” As a collective they rank among the most stylistically expansive outfits in Northern European music. Initially perceived as a black metal act, they have since pursued an array of idioms, each shaped by pre-established conceptual frameworks, thereby establishing an autonomous identity. Since commencing activity in 1994, their earliest efforts, among them the ferocious, blasting, buzzing, blackened masterpiece Bergtatt, gave way at once to the wholly acoustic Kveldssanger and the field-recorded Nattens Madrigal, simultaneously bewildering and captivating listeners and reviewers alike. Entering the twenty-first century they explored electro-acoustic terrain on Perdition City, crafted ambient scores for Lyckantropen Themes, Svidd Neger, and Riverhead, realized the expansive Messe I.X-VI.X with the Tromsø Chamber Orchestra, ventured into Krautrock extrapolations with ATGCLVLSSCAP, and embraced gothic-tinged pop on The Assassination of Julius Caesar.

Under the leadership of vocalist Garm (Kristoffer Rygg), Ulver produced a trilogy of albums that cemented an international reputation for unpredictability. Their debut, the 1995 black metal opus Bergtatt, recounted a Norse legend concerning maidens abducted by underworld beings. Issued the following year, their second album Kveldssanger featured classical guitars, strings, and a chamber choir in performances of original folk and classical dirges. The trilogy concluded with Ulver’s international introduction via the 1997 release Nattens Madrigal, an album thematically centered on wolves that deliberately returned to under-produced, traditional Norwegian black metal form.

Garm initiated a collaboration in late 1997 with keyboardist, conceptual sound architect, and composer Tore Ylwizaker, who subsequently became an official member. Their partnership yielded the blueprint for Themes from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven & Hell, issued in 1998. At first the recording perplexed devotees by discarding black metal conventions in favor of ambient, classical, industrial, progressive metal, and art-rock elements, yet it later came to be viewed as one of the band’s crowning achievements.

The Metamorphosis EP, inaugurating their series of electronic “ambient soundtrack” projects, appeared in 1999 and was followed in rapid succession by four further entries of the same stripe: the 2000 full-length Perdition City (Music to an Interior Film) and the EPs Silence Teaches You How to Sing and Silencing the Singing, both from 2001, together with 2003’s A Quick Fix of Melancholy.

Ulver returned in 2005 with Blood Inside, their sixth studio album, which reinstated conventional rock instrumentation alongside orchestral instruments and arrangements. Another pronounced sonic shift arrived with the seventh album, Shadows of the Sun, for which guitarist and producer Christian Fennesz and Theremin virtuoso Pamelia Kurstin contributed. The release earned the Album of the Year Award at the Oslo Awards.

In 2009 Ulver reconfigured as a quartet when its three remaining members—Garm, Ylwizaker, and multi-instrumentalist Jørn H. Sværen—were joined by British composer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel O’Sullivan. The first recording to document the new lineup was 2011’s Wars of the Roses, succeeded by the radically reinterpreted 1960s covers collection Childhood’s End in 2012, an EP captured at the Roadburn Festival, and a DVD documenting a performance at the Norwegian National Opera.

That same year the KulturHuset Tromsø in Norway, in partnership with the Arctic Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra, commissioned a new work. Entitled Messe I.X-VI.X, it was performed and captured by the band—now featuring Ole Alexander Halstensgård in place of O’Sullivan—alongside the Tromsø Chamber Orchestra. Post-production orchestral arrangements by Martin Romberg prepared the tapes for release in autumn 2013. Also in 2013 Ulver joined forces with Sunn O))) on a full-length issued as Terrestrials in February 2014. During that month the group presented concerts built around “partly new and improv-based material, likely to revolve around motifs already familiar to our familiars.” The subsequent year O’Sullivan, operating under the pseudonym “12,” undertook extensive editing of the multi-track recordings; Garm, Ylwizaker, Sværen, and Anders Møller later supplemented them with fresh studio work. The completed project, ATGCLVLSSCAP, emerged in 2016 on House of Mythology.

An original score and soundtrack for the film Riverhead surfaced in December 2016, extending the improvisational trajectory. In March 2017 Ulver again astonished observers with the dark synth-pop single and video “Nemoralia.” In conversation Rygg characterized the ensuing full-length The Assassination of Julius Caesar as “Ulver’s pop album.” Released in April, it preceded the band’s appearance at the annual Roadburn Festival, where saxophonist Nik Turner (ex-Hawkwind) and guitarist Stian Westerhus guested. The following year Ulver issued the Sic Transit Gloria Mundi EP, containing two newly finished pieces whose early demos had been omitted from The Assassination of Julius Caesar sessions, along with a cover of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “The Power of Love.”

June 2020 brought the announcement of the full-length The Flowers of Evil and the forthcoming publication of Wolves Evolve: The Ulver Story, a 336-page hardcover biography. Functioning as an aesthetic successor to The Assassination of Julius Caesar, the album deepened the “doom dance” aesthetic of its predecessor under the returning production guidance of Michael Rendall and Martin “Youth” Glover. Both the album and the book appeared in August.