Ulver

There’s no simple narrative running through Ulver’s musical evolution, and that’s how vocalist and composer Kristoffer Rygg wants it. The original group emerged from Norway’s black-metal scene in the mid-’90s, but after releasing folk-inspired classics like 1995’s Bergtatt and 1997’s Nattens Madrigal, they would devote the rest of their career to ceaseless reinvention. By the mid-2000s, Rygg and Ulver (who had become more of a collective than a band) were filling releases like Blood Inside with murky electronic music. Jump forward to 2014’s collaborative set Terrestrials, and Ulver are creating blackened drones with sunn O))). Arriving three years later, The Assassination of Julius Caesar finds them writing darkwave songs catchy enough for modern-rock charts. When Ulver initially split with black metal in the ’90s, the move ignited controversy in the scene. But Rygg (who has also produced boundary-breaking music with Arcturus and Aethenor) was ultimately vindicated. In the 21st century, the dark fringes of heavy music are home to artists like Deafheaven and Zola Jesus who practise precisely the kind of post-genre experimentation that Ulver helped to innovate.