Ulver
Ondes Triumph

I can't hide my embarrassment at the attempt to review a work that corresponds, more or less, to the Holy Grail for all black metal enthusiasts: "Ondes Triumph", a bootleg cassette from 1993 in which the debuting Ulver, with a slightly different lineup from the one that would bring them fame during the folk-black boom years (Grellmund and Eide on guitar and drums, Garm occasionally on vocals, Malmberg on bass - no legendary Haavard, Aismal, Skoll, AiwarikiaR who exploded on the first full-length "Bergtatt"), mixed on side B what would become their official demo, the relatively famous "Vargnatt", and on side A an early version of their recording, including two extra tracks ("Rehearsal 1993").

The mystical aura surrounding this work, if not precisely in the musical value of many parts, probably resides almost entirely in admiring the raw and frigorific side A, consisting from track 1 to 5 of the "musical bases" of "Vargnatt", recorded, however, only via guitar and drums, evidently with an ultra-antiquated two-track recorder; if the wintry "Vargnatt", in its unpleasant and lycanthropic aggression on the ears through a very distorted and almost lysergic growling that overlapped a track often dirty but occasionally mesmerizing, has the effect of a cocktail of alcohol and heroin on the brain, the autumnal, November-like "Rehearsal", partially loses the few listenable characteristics of its "son", but gains an energy, a life of its own, an aspect all its own, which often turns out completely different from how the pseudo-melodic track could separate from the vocals in "Vargnatt".

Notably, the audio quality here is undeniably terrible.

"Ulverytternes Kamp," the opening of side A, respects all the features we knew in "Vargnatt," however, freed from the burden of that voice which, in this context, absolutely doesn't deliver as it should have (just re-listen to the counterpart on side B). "Vargnatt" (which on side B, however, becomes "Nattens Madrigal"), is the only one to effectively lose some merit points - from the third minute, after the ultra-compressed and energetic soundbase, where the frequency change corresponds to feeling the icy water droplets in the bones, the clean vocal doesn't overlap to elevate the "drunken prayer to the sky of the dead, impotent on the February night".

"Tragediens Trone" (actually "Vargnatt") remains at demo level, acquiring, however, some fragments of that misty and merely dark aura belonging to all of side A. "Her Begynner Mine Arr" ("Tragediens Trone"), with its playful and almost jazz base, doesn't get lost in the almost silly and parodic "Tragediens Trone" of "Vargnatt," remaining stably on the cold and gray tones of the release; it continues with "Nattens Madrigal ("Her Begynner Mine Arr," probably the best soundtrack of "Vargnatt"), hypnotizes and thrills with its mist to the point of freezing.

 It will have been noted that, compared to the final "Vargnatt," the magnificent folk instrumental "Trollskogen" is missing.

The atmosphere completes with the entry of the sixth track, "Enser du Vinter" (Attention to the winter): eight and a half minutes of intense, yet relaxed, journey into the night. The guitar partitions, simple and eerily "empty," without bass, never accelerate beyond the limit, guiding from start to finish in a black-and-white vision of nature, fallen leaves, woods from which even trolls are currently absent, wolves' dens, the transition between autumn and winter. Ultimately, a track as hypnotic as the preceding "Nattens Madrigal," but enjoyable and light as "Trollskogen".

Slowly, it reaches the end, with the cover of Celtic Frost's "Babylon Fell." Dirty, fast, mobile, clearly distinguishable from the rest of the release... perhaps the least successful piece, or rather, the least fitting.

In any case, discovering in 2008 the bootleg father of the early Ulver years remains an unmistakable thrill. Unmissable. Invaluable. A MASTERPIECE.