BURZUM Filosofem Cassette 1996 (2022)

If Hvis Lyset Tar Oss was Varg retreating inward, Filosofem is what you find when you follow him all the way there. Recorded before his imprisonment but released in 1996 while he was already serving time, this was the last Burzum album for years, and it felt like it knew that.

The guitars on Filosofem are run through a Walkman headphone jack, an intentional degradation that gives the record its smeared, lo-fi texture, a sound that was deeply unfashionable in 1996 and has since become enormously influential across black metal, post-metal, and experimental dark music. The 25-minute closing track "Rundgang um die transzendentale Säule der Singularität" is synth-only, almost kosmische, and it sits at the heart of why this album keeps getting re-examined. This 2022 cassette pressing is the right format for a record that always sounded like it was being transmitted from somewhere further away than Norway.

Format: Cassette, limited edition 2022 pressing. Original release: 1996, Norway. Genre: Black Metal / Ambient Black Metal.

Fans of: Darkthrone, Leviathan, Xasthur, early Ulver