Tony Wilson: I’m by no means an expert on black metal but from my skewed perspective as a Jamaican-British-Norwegian of 5-years, I’d say it was born of the same economical frustration and under representation of the underclass that gave way to hip hop in the 80s (I don’t say punk as I think that had as much to do with fashion as anything else). It was the realest music in the era of “keeping it real”. I think I was initially more in love with the idea of it than the music itself at the time.
Genius gangsta rap made me do it plus#
Plus Mads Bjerke, a recording engineer I was working with a lot was from Bergen and talked a lot about going to school with Varg Vikernes, so I was always very aware of black metal although I wasn’t checking it out so much. Around the same time, my friend Nathan Bennett (formerly of the band Capricorns) started going to Black Metal shows with Duncan John Dinsdale who had just set up the label Prosthetic and who I knew who from working at Selectadisc.
Genius gangsta rap made me do it movie#
It was later in 1997 through being a fan of Harmony Korine’s early films that I really started to take notice (he featured Mayhem and Burzum on the Gummo soundtrack as well as clips of them in the movie itself). Tony Wilson: I was kind of aware of Norwegian metal in 1991 with the murders, church burnings and what-not but didn’t take too much interest in it. When did you first hear black metal and what were your first experiences of it like after emigrating to Norway and going to gigs? Now, you're far from the only black guy in the world who listens to black metal but I'm guessing you're in a minority as a black hip hop fan who lives in Oslo taking an interest in BM as well. We were talking about black metal in that bar in Oslo which was playing dubstep and then all of Ulver and Necrobutcher came in for a pint, it triggered off a really interesting conversation about your theory on why NWA and Mayhem are similar. On returning to London, I started thinking that there was something in this and ended up having this following email chat with him. This prompted Tony to tell us his theory about how he thought there were big parallels between N.W.A. While we were catching up over a few drinks we noticed that also present in the small hipster bar were all of Ulver, Necrobutcher from Mayhem and Svart Greiner all nodding along to ‘Tarantula’ by Zomby. We had time to kill before the 1349 gig so we went to a nearby dubstep bar and met up with our friend Tony F Wilson, aka DJ Spykidelic and member of the Oslo avant collective Necessary. While Ulver often make an admirable and luxurious sound, they are similar to Massive Attack and UNKLE in that they also produce slightly bloodless and over polished music. A time served BM unit featuring Daniel O'Sullivan who have moved further and further away from the traditional sound, incorporating trip hop, electronica, classic rock and musique concrete into their sound. Next up was the far more familiar but no less exciting 1349, who are firmly in the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it camp. Then we saw Svart Greiner, an electronica artist who was one step further removed from BM, connected to the scene via the finest of ambient strands. First up were Quietus favourites Årabrot who had a tangential relationship to the genre through the parched, necrotic vocals of Kjetil Nernes but who, really, have more in common with Jesus Lizard and Melvins than they do with Emperor. Then we took in Helvete Records (now a very nice Vietnamese run coffee bar) and finally, the still thriving Noseblod extreme metal record store.Īfter spending three hours on a coach listening to Mayhem, Burzum and Darkthrone we travelled round various city centre venues watching bands.
We took a ride up to Holmenkollen where one of the 50 churches that were set ablaze in black metal arson attacks in the early 1990s had been rebuilt next to a symbol of national pride, Oslo’s ski jump. Our tour guide, Anders Odden of Satyricon and Cadaver was the ideal person for the job funny, irreverent and knowledgeable.
On the Saturday morning I went on the first ever Black Metal Coach Tour of Oslo as I was covering it for The Word magazine and Totally Dublin. Recently The Quietus travelled to Oslo to work at the By:Larm music conference and were given a handy insight into exactly how much black metal has changed in Norway over the last 20-years.
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