Reviews list for Ulver - Themes From William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1998)

Possibly too ambitious in scope, Ulver's amalgamation of William Blake and genre blending music is an experience unlike any other.

After the completion of their so-called “black metal trilogy”, I don’t think anyone had any idea what Ulver were going to do next. After all, despite the apparent relationship between their first three albums, the actual content on each varied dramatically. Bergtatt told a haunting fairytale through a mix of black and folk metal, Kveldssanger was an entirely classical acoustic album with no black metal whatsoever, and Nattens madrigal contained an astonishingly raw black metal ferocity that resembled Darkthrone with melodic tendencies. This habitual eclecticism made it next to impossible to predict what this Norwegian outfit had in mind for future outings, but there was little doubt that it would be worth checking out regardless of its genre. A big hint that a massive transformation was underway could be found when inspecting the line-up of the 1998 incarnation of Ulver. Not only were there noticeable changes in personnel, but the remaining members had shed their black metal pseudonyms for either less sinister sounding fictional titles or their actual birth names. Vocalist Garm would now be known as Trickster G., guitarist Lemarchand as Håvard Jørgensen, bassist Skoll as Hugh Steven James Mingay and drummer AiwarikiaR as Erik Lancelot. Second guitarist Aismal was nowhere to be seen, and there was a guy called Tore Ylwizaker listed as “programmer”, along with Knut Magne Valle performing “cables, wires, & sounds”. What the hell was going on?!

As it would turn out, hell was exactly what was going on, along with its heavenly counterpart. Not content with messing around with black metal’s once indelible blueprint, Ulver decided what the world really needed was William Blake’s poetic and philosophical The Marriage of Heaven and Hell recited over layers of electronics, industrial music and avant-garde rock, with a sprinkling of progressive metal and ambience. It’s a completely insane idea which is no doubt why it appealed so much to these musical rebels, and the fact that William Blake himself was considered quite mad throughout his own life would only have added to the appeal. For those unaware of Mr. Blake’s many works, he lived in England between 1757 and 1827, and spent most of his later life creating poetry and illustrations. He is held in extremely high regard for his “expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work”, which is not far removed from the feelings I have towards the band Ulver. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is one of his more famous books and was published as printed sheets from etched plates containing prose, poetry and illustrations, all coloured by his wife Catherine. Its style imitates the biblical books of prophecy, but expresses Blake’s own personal beliefs, while taking numerous digs at other well-known theologians of his time, particularly Emanuel Swedenborg and his work entitled Heaven and Hell.

I won’t feign to understand all of Blake’s writings, but they certainly appeal to my fondness for philosophical and religious based discussion. What initially appears to be some sort of evangelical indoctrination becomes a far more critical and thought-provoking parody of religious thought after repeated readings. Ulver’s Themes From William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was not merely a pathway to an entirely new appreciation of electronic music for me, it simultaneously helped open up a doorway to self-chosen education and thought. It’s no surprise to me that this drastic shift in Ulver’s music and themes was simply too much for a lot of their existing fans, with many of them attacking the band directly for what they considered a betrayal of built up expectations. Somehow, and I don’t wish for this to come across as arrogant, I was not only able to go along for the ride but found an entirely new personal connection with the band that I highly doubt could have been reached had they held their ground. It probably helped that I went into the experience with little to no expectations, after being burnt twice already by the contrasting natures of their previous three releases. All this talk of poetry and intellectual thought, however, is of course no way to base judgement on what is, all things considered, a musical experience. Yet in this instance, it’s difficult to separate the idea from the music, so I can’t help but treat them as one.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell begins with an argument and while each of the book’s six main sections do the same, only the first is titled as such. The Argument also contrasts greatly with most of the remaining sections, being highly poetic and difficult to decipher as opposed to conversational and comparatively direct. Plate 2 of The Argument seems to be mimicking the book of Isaiah, having a similar ominous tone and language, while Plate 3 is where Blake reveals the almost joking nature of what’s the follow. He mocks Swedenborg for predicting the last judgement would occur in 1757, which just happened to become the year of Blake’s birth, and comments on his own age (33 at the time of writing) being the same as Jesus’ at the time of his apparent death and resurrection. Most tellingly, it is here that Blake suggests religion’s tendency to separate good and evil is a silly concept and writes of other contraries such as attraction and repulsion and love and hate. He derides the idea that the mind and reason and being passive is good and will lead you to Heaven, yet the body and being active is evil and will lead you to Hell. Understanding this argument is the key to understanding The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, just as it is the key to understanding why the members of a former black metal band would show an interest in discussions of angels, heaven and other biblical ideas.

Just as William Blake set the tone with The Argument, Ulver did the same thing with their aural rendition, revealing the sounds and atmospheres that they would then tinker with for the remaining two discs. Plates 2 and 3 are split between three tracks running less than nine minutes in total, and it becomes immediately apparent that Themes From William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is not even remotely close in style or substance to anything Ulver had produced to this point. A highly industrial feel, with shamelessly electronic beats are bizarrely combined with Trickster G.’s numerous vocal variations and more traditional metal instrumentation jumping in and out of proceedings. When I first experienced the album, it was unlike anything I’d ever heard, and I can’t say I’ve experienced anything since that resembles it in the slightest. It does become obvious early on that the music was not created with the lyrics in mind. To put that another way, the mood of the music does not necessarily match the tone of the subject matter, and I’ve always had the impression that Ulver created two discs of music separately before making the lyrics fit as well as they could. This does result in the vocalists involved either scrapping to fit in pages of dialogue or drawing out just a few lines to fill a seemingly pre-recorded piece of music, but it also gives them the opportunity to let creativity rule completely, utilising numerous techniques and effects to keep things interesting.

The second section in Blake’s work is called The Voice of the Devil. This is not, as the title would suggest, a section where the devil’s thoughts are professed. Instead, Blake labels himself as he would have been viewed by the orthodox religious community at the time, given his rather blasphemous suggestions. He ironically calls himself the devil and the religiously inclined “angels” while using their own vocabulary when describing things both good and evil. During Plate 4, “the devil” then reinforces the ideas of The Argument by suggesting that the bible has incorrectly caused people to believe that there is a separation of the body and the soul, that evil comes from the body, that good comes from the soul, and that if man follows his evil body he will be tortured in hell forever. The devil argues that body and soul are not separate, and that energy is in fact “eternal delight”. Plate 5 takes it one step further by suggesting that Christians are told from birth to repress everything that they desire, which often results in passive, unhappy lives watching all the “sinners” around them having a good time. The only consolation to these people is that they think these sinners will go to hell while they themselves will go to heaven. He finishes by calling Milton (the author of Paradise Lost) part “of the Devils party without knowing it” due to his writing about Satan being of far higher quality that his writing about the Messiah.

Ulver convey the message of The Voice of the Devil through two short tracks, the first of which (Plate 4) contains the heaviest section on the album from a metal point of view. After the recital of Blake’s errors and truthful contraries the listener is thrown into a maelstrom of swirling guitars, sharp riffs and heavy beats that help to remind us that there are traditional musicians taking part in this epic piece of work. I should mention at this stage that Trickster G. (in case you were wondering, yes, my Internet pseudonym is a small celebration of my respect for this talented individual) is not the only vocalist taking part on Themes From The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Excellent female vocals are added at regular intervals by Stine Grytøyr. After initially finding it difficult to find much else about her, I’ve now discovered that she has since performed vocals for a chill out band called Nood, as well as having an album released under her own name called Her Songs. She has an exceptionally pleasant and cool voice that works wonderfully in contrast to Trickster G.’s low, emotionally charged tones, while displaying a considerable amount of talent in her own right the few times she gets the chance to take centre stage. Plate 5 is dominated by Håvard’s classical guitar that made the Kveldssanger album so easy on the ear, yet the small outbursts of electronics that interject throughout give it an unpredictability and intrigue that was sadly missing from that release.

It’s at this stage that Blake introduces us to his first Memorable Fancy. Once again it is Swedenborg that is the focus of Blake’s biting humour, with the title making fun of his Memorable Relations found in Apocalypse Revealed. These regular stabs give the impression that Blake never took himself too seriously, although the one-upmanship does suggest a highly competitive streak. When first listening to Ulver’s album, I recall being baffled as to why William Blake would speak of visiting hell to collect proverbs, but the “key to understanding” I mentioned earlier makes total sense of it. The Christians of the time suggested that most of the delightful elements of this world are evil and would therefore be found in hell. Blake of course disagrees, and so he speaks of willingly visiting this so called hell to collect these harmless delights, which he describes as displaying “the nature of infernal wisdom better than any description of buildings or garments”. The mighty devil he speaks of is of course he himself and the writing “with corroding fires” represents his pioneering engraving technique. He closes this memorable fancy with “how do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way, Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?” This statement is an attack on the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, who in his opinion placed too much importance on the five known senses. Blake was willing to look beyond scientific reasoning, believing there was more to the universe than taste, touch, sight, sound and smell could possibly reveal.

This first Memorable Fancy is represented by one four and half minute track on Ulver’s version. It’s another example of how these musical visionaries managed to combine the usually fusion-resistant worlds of metal and electronic music. The sweeping guitar licks in union with some cool beats and Trickster G.’s pressing vocals give this track a real sense of urgency. While the majority of the beats, ambient elements and effects on Themes From William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell are very clearly artificial, it can often be difficult to figure out what is organic and what is purely electronic, which I guess is testament to the production. For example, I would guess that some of the percussion on plates 6 to 7 are performed by Erik Lancelot using a real kit yet Tore Ylwizaker’s influence is very heavily present throughout. Despite the vastly different techniques used by these two musicians and the unique result of the combination, it was not at all surprising to find Erik no longer with the band after the album’s completion. With the sudden lurch in direction Ulver’s music was taking, he must have seen the writing on the wall and packed his bags in preparation for departure. As for where Tore originated, I can’t find much about him, but it’s apparent that Trickster G.’s newfound fascination with using computers to assist in creating music led to him connecting with Tore, for whom computers and music clearly go hand and hand.

It should be apparent by now that Blake thought it wise to think for oneself, and not necessarily listen to scriptures and other out dated authoritarian documents. In the prior A Memorable Fancy, he described searching for the “proverbs of hell” and it’s in the next section that he reveals his findings. The Proverbs of Hell is basically a long run through of what he considered sensible advice. It’s unquestionably the most famous part of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and the most fun to decipher. Some are easy such as “What is now proved was once only imagin'd”. In other words, a crazy idea may one day be considered a fact. “The nakedness of woman is the work of God” suggests that we should not be ashamed of our sexuality and desires. Others are a little harder to come to grips with such as “Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.” To the uninitiated it may appear that Blake is suggesting both prisons and brothels rightfully remove breakers of law and religion from society when in fact he is suggesting that both prisons and brothels are restricting the nature of man, with men forced into prison by unnecessary laws and forced in brothels by unnecessary religious dictates. The Proverbs of Hell finishes with Blake discussing how man no longer worships God and instead worships words on a page. “Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.”

Just as the Proverbs of Hell are the centrepiece of William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, the same can be said for Ulver’s own account. Considering the sheer length of Blake’s list of proverbs, and Ulver’s apparent wish to include every word, the over nine minutes of Plates 7 to 10 could have resulted in an incredibly tedious slog. It’s testament to Tore and Trickster G. in particular that the outcome is as interesting as it is, although it doesn’t completely escape monotony by its close. Trickster G. runs with every variation he can come up with, moving from an effects riddled chant to a distorted preach, onto a rapid-fire shout before settling down into his usual pleasing voice. The track builds alongside him into a climax which unfortunately is only halfway through Blake’s lengthy plate of life improving advice. This is clearly the biggest flaw of Themes From William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. When one of the band’s ideas has already run its course, they are forced to go on for the simple reason that there are more lyrics to get through. Plate 11 doesn’t suffer from this problem at all however, being a superb two-minute track that showcases Stine’s talents better than any other section of the album. It’s no discredit to Trickster G., as he clearly takes on the more difficult portions of Blake’s work, but Stine makes these lyrics sound just a bit less awkward, probably due to her natural subtlety.

The second of Blake’s memorable fancies describes a meeting between himself, Isaiah and Ezekiel. Blake questions them about whether they were ever concerned about how others would react to their apparent conversations with God. Isaiah explains that he did not literally see or hear God, but instead “discovered the infinite in everything”, and was convinced that “the voice of honest indignation” he heard within his own being was somehow the voice of God. The mere fact that he believed this to be true was truth enough. Ezekiel answers that his original intentions were to speak out against priests and philosophers of other countries, hoping to convince them that their Gods were simply derivatives of the “poetic genius”. These two words come up repeatedly in Blake’s work, and he uses them to describe a buried part within each and every human being that he believes would come to life if given attention. The source of truth can be found within each of us rather than being found in some external divine authority. Plate 14 revisits his beliefs about the restrictive thoughts of the Enlightenment, which in his words are “finite and corrupt”, and he predicts that it’s only a matter of time before the world reject such constraints. He says, “the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at the tree of life”, meaning that people will be free to have fun and enjoy the pleasures of life the way they always should have been.

Ulver tackled this fancy in three parts, the first of which is an entirely instrumental ambient intro. This two-minute piece doesn’t add a lot to the album overall, but it does give insight into the direction the band would further explore on later recordings. There is quite a bit of ambience to be found spread out across the two discs, but these moments are rarely given the breathing space required to have their full effect. I’m sure the guys understood that too, yet the structure of this release just didn’t allow for it. They wouldn’t fully follow through on the suggestions made here until 2001’s Silence Teaches You How to Sing and Silencing the Singing EPs. Plates 12 - 13 presents another side to Ulver that would gain momentum in later years, which is the use of strings. It’s all symphonic of course (as opposed to real instruments), but the violins combined with effective beats and the words of Blake make for a heady mix indeed. It must be said that Plate 14 is one of the more forgettable out of the nineteen tracks on offer. Not only is it basically two minutes of the same repeated industrial sounding beat with minimal change, but the all-important words of Blake are all but lost in the mire, strangely low in the mix in comparison to the rest of the album. Most tracks have either a focus on Ulver’s music or on Blake’s words with a few managing to bring both to the fore, but this one sadly does neither.

Blake’s third memorable fancy begins in “a printing house in hell”. Not literally of course, as he’s merely describing his own printing house that the religious zealots would no doubt view as evil. It’s worth pointing out that Blake’s printing process was revolutionary for its time. It is commonly thought that he created colour-printed impressions of his etchings by passing them through his rolling press twice, once to print the text in ink and a second time to colour print the design on the same sheet of paper. This theory has detractors however who are not convinced that he would have been able to achieve the quality and precision he did with a “two-pull” system. Modern computer enhancement and magnification back up their argument. Understanding the clearly revolutionary techniques that Blake accomplished, it becomes easier to accept his seemingly arrogant discussions of it within The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. He uses fantastic (in a literal sense) imagery to describe his process in this fancy including a dragon-man and lions of flaming fire, but in the end, he is poetically describing the formation of a book. Plate 16 is challenging to decipher yet becomes clearer once you think of the “giants” Blake mentions as primal energies and passions, and the chains as the church with their moral laws, holding humanity back from the abundance of life. It’s here that he once again talks of God as part of man himself rather than a separate being. “God only acts and is, in existing beings or men”.

If Ulver had decided to take up the almost impossibly ambitious task of matching each track’s tone and themes to the plates they represent, this third fancy’s “printing house in hell” imagery would no doubt have aligned with the band’s more industrial tinged qualities. Regardless of that lost opportunity, both Plate 15 and Plate 16-17 are amongst the best this release has to offer while contrasting in style dramatically. While Plate 15’s echoing ambience, which recalls some vast chasm, and strange broadcasted spoken word effect doesn’t by itself make for a hugely memorable experience, it’s low-key and immensely dark ambience leads perfectly into the brilliance that is Plate 16-17. Unquestionably the highlight of Themes From William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, this track is a truly awesome example of Ulver at their electronic best. Once again, it’s the combination of the classical and modern electronic instrumentation that creates the atmosphere of grandeur, with Hugh Steven James Mingay’s twisting bass line, Trickster G.’s creepy-crawly vocals and Falch’s vinyl scratching making it quite possibly the highlight of the album. If the idea of vinyl scratching makes you shudder in disgust, you might feel differently after hearing this track, particularly the magnificent fade-out-kickback that occurs towards its close. This memorable fancy ends disc one on a high note, encouraging the listener to continue onto the second to continue the journey.

While Blake’s fourth memorable fancy continues with similar themes to earlier sections, it’s the way in which it is presented that is of most interest. He describes a great scene, complete with dramatic imagery and epic scale, where an angel approaches him, filled with pity for the inevitable hell that awaits Blake for all eternity. Now we know from earlier writings that the angel he speaks of is simply a member of the church, condemning Blake for his blasphemous views, and his arrogant statements will be recognised by many. “O pitiable foolish young man! O horrible! O dreadful state! Consider the hot burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself to all eternity, to which thou art going in such career.” Blake declares that the angel and he should compare eternities to see which is in fact more desirable, from which point the angel leads him through numerous religious locations such as a stable and a church before settling above a great void of horror. To the angel our narrator’s future appears as hell, but as soon as he flees with fear, the scene becomes one of tranquillity, with Blake “sitting on a pleasant bank beside a river by moonlight, hearing a harper”. The angel’s future looks even more horrible to Blake, which is his way of suggesting that things look very different through another’s eyes. Plate 21 requires very little explanation, being a very direct attack on Swedenborg, who Blake labels as perhaps a little wiser than a monkey.

One look at the massive amount of text in this fourth fancy must have made Ulver, particularly Trickster G., question their decision to follow The Marriage of Heaven and Hell word for word. After the Proverbs of Hell had already well and truly pushed the boundaries of repetition, the over a thousand words that make up this section was no doubt cause for concern. They sensibly decided to break it into three tracks, yet the first of these is the massive eleven and a half minute Plates 17-20. Like Proverbs of Hell in both structure and result, the track has some very nice ideas but simply runs out of steam well before its conclusion. Thankfully, the two tracks that make up Plates 21-22 are of a higher quality, with the two-minute intro being particularly stunning. Both the lead and the breathtaking acoustic guitar are flawlessly performed and moving beyond words, and while Håvard is clearly responsible for the latter, I’m not completely certain about the former. As mentioned earlier, Knut Magne Valle (the guitarist for Arcturus) is listed as taking part on the album, yet I can’t say I know exactly what “cables, wires, & sounds” implies. I have seen him listed on many sites as playing guitar on this album, but nothing authoritative. The intro leads into one of the more metal tracks on the album, yet the focus is still very much on percussion and vocals, with the unremarkable riffs merely filling out the sound.

The fifth and last memorable fancy finds Blake discussing with an angel how properly to worship God. Blake’s devil says that it has nothing to do with prayer or going to church, and instead all about honouring and loving the greatest men best. Since in his opinion, there is no God but the one we find inside ourselves, to hate and envy the greatest of men is to hate God himself. The angel clearly disagrees with this statement, labelling Blake an idolater, typically professing that all men are “fools, sinners and nothings”. Blake counters that if Jesus Christ was the greatest of men, then he should be loved the best, yet not even he could abide by the Ten Commandments. He goes on to describe numerous instances where Jesus broke commandments and suggests that “no virtue can exist without breaking these Ten Commandments. Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.” This argument was enough to convince the angel who was immediately converted into a devil (apparently this is based on a friend in Blake’s life with whom he shared theological discussion). Blake ends the fancy by promising a “Bible of Hell”, which is clearly referring to future books that he will write and illustrate in the future. Technically this is where The Marriage of Heaven and Hell finishes, yet some of the copies of his work (including Ulver’s obviously) contained another section called A Song of Liberty.

Ulver dropped the ball slightly on this last fancy. While they can’t be blamed for the odd miss when writing an hour and a half of highly experimental music, the second disc contains less of the hits that made the first disc so consistently remarkable. In this case, the single track that makes up Plates 22-24 lacks any sort of energy until its rousing finale which suddenly bursts into life. Trickster G. puts in a very monotone performance and neither the repetitive electronic effects nor the half-hearted guitar input manage to convince either. Speaking of experimentation, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at Century Media Records the day Trickster G. (aka Krystoffer Rigg) informed them of his intentions for Themes From William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. After dropping a serious bomb on the record label with the intentionally under produced Nattens madrigal (their first Century Media release), I don’t imagine Krystoffer’s genre defying William Blake double CD sales pitch would have gone down all that well. Unsurprisingly, Ulver were dropped from their roster and Krystoffer decided to create his own label called Jester Records to release it. The label has since gone on to release all subsequent Ulver albums, as well as material by a range of other experimental bands including When, Bogus Blimp, Virus and Star of Ash.

Blake’s A Song of Liberty was purposefully written in a very similar style and language to the book of Revelations in the Bible. Given the above, combined with its apocalyptic tone, it’s quite certain that he included it at the end of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell to match Revelations own position at the end of the bible. The poem implores nations to act against dictatorships and religious despotism. “France, rend down thy dungeon; Golden Spain, burst the barriers of old Rome; cast thy keys, O Rome, into the deep down falling.” He also speaks directly to the people of London and Africa, pleading with them to “look up”, which could be taken as advice to look up to the heavens, but given Blake’s belief that God is found within rather than above, is more likely a call for them to see the governments and monarchies that rule their lives for what they are. This extended version of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell concludes with a Chorus, which in typical Blake fashion, criticizes anyone or anything that restricts the capabilities and imagination of man. It’s a snapshot summary really that brings this work to a resounding close. There’s no doubt that Blake repeats the same themes and messages repeatedly in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, but his technique of delivery fluctuates throughout, with the result being one of the more impressive and thoroughly intriguing pieces of literature to come out of Britain.

Ulver took the opportunity with A Song of Liberty to try something a little bit different. After another great, atmospheric intro, the band launch into what could very well be labelled a dance beat. I highly doubt that anyone out there has ever felt the desire to pop a few pills and pull out the glow sticks to groove to this beast however, as the same eerie, apocalyptic quality that pervades the rest of the album is present in full. A cast of infamous Norwegian black metal performers also get involved in the track, with Ihsahn (Emperor), Samoth (also Emperor) and Fenriz (Darkthrone) all taking turns behind the microphone throughout. The resulting track is better than you might expect given the above description and a lively way to bring this massive undertaking to a close. A quick look at the track listing might give you the impression that this final track is a twenty-six-minute epic, but I’m afraid that’s a case of false advertising. This is one of those annoying instances where a band feel the need to fill a CD at any cost, with the result being twenty minutes of absolutely nothing before the chorus that completes Blake’s work pops up out of nowhere. It seems a shame to me that the band spent so much energy and creativity making sure no part of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was left unsaid, only to displace Blake’s final words completely out of the moment. That being said, Ulver’s recital is so full of reverb that the effect is entirely lost in any case.

Giving a rating to Themes From William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is no easy task. On the one hand, it’s a fascinating and at times brilliant mash of genres, resulting in a totally unique and entertaining experience. On the other hand, the musical structures often suffer from the complexity and length of the subject matter, and a small percentage of the experimentation just doesn’t quite gel, with the finished product being somewhat inconsistent. Throw in the sheer ambition of putting William Blake’s work to music and the invaluable education that offers and things become even more unclear. I’ll settle on four and a half out of five, whereas realistically it’s probably only a four if I judge it the way I would any normal album. This was an important step for Ulver and one that would lead to further releases of note down the track. It’s not an album you’ll likely listen to all that regularly due to how demanding it is, but it is one that given the time and effort, will pay you back in spades. If you’ve read this far then it’s likely you’re a fan of either Blake or Ulver, if not both, but while it’s unlikely anyone not already familiar with Themes From William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell would bother with such a lengthy essay, if you fit that bill I highly recommend you go in with an open mind and try to experience this album from every level. There are very few albums I would use the term life-changing to describe, but this is unquestionably one of them.