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| Misanthropy Records | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Founder | Tiziana Stupia |
| Defunct | 2000 |
| Status | Inactive |
| Genre | Black metal, avant-garde metal, doom metal, progressive metal |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Misanthropy Records was a British heavy metal record label.
The label was founded in 1993 by Tiziana Stupia, originally solely to release an album by Burzum. The background to the founding of the company was that after Varg Vikernes was arrested in August 1993 for the murder of Mayhem guitarist Øystein Aarseth, no record company wanted anything to do with him. He tried to release Burzum's next album himself, but found that running a worldwide distribution from a prison cell was very difficult. Stupia, a fan of Burzum, was upset when she heard this. She contacted several record companies in an attempt to persuade them to release the album, but to no avail. As a result, one of the companies she wrote to replied to her, stating, "If it is so important to you to have these Burzum albums released, why don't you do it yourself?". [1] [ citation needed ] Stupia then decided to do just that, and started Misanthropy Records.
A contract with Vikernes was signed, and soon afterwards, Misanthropy's first record was released. The response was so positive that Stupia decided to continue the company. Two more albums by Burzum were released, and then the company started signing other bands, including Fleurety, In the Woods..., and Ved Buens Ende. All releases from Misanthropy Records were within various heavy metal subgenres. Jeff Wagner in Mean Deviation writes that Misanthropy, along with The End Records, helped usher in a new wave of avant-garde metal music. [2]
The company closed down in 2000, as Stupia was tired of the metal scene and wanted to pursue other areas of life, including studying psychology and goddess mythology. She is now called "Srila Devi", works as a yoga teacher and author, and wrote a book entitled Meeting Shiva. [3] Parts of the company's catalogue was licensed to Candlelight.
Burzum is a Norwegian music project founded by Varg Vikernes in 1991. Although Burzum never played live performances, it became a staple of the early Norwegian black metal scene and is considered one of the most influential acts in black metal's history. Vikernes has also released five dark ambient and neofolk albums. The word "burzum" means "darkness" in the Black Speech, a fictional language crafted by The Lord of the Rings writer J. R. R. Tolkien. Burzum's lyrics and imagery are often inspired by fantasy and Norse mythology.
National Socialist black metal is a political movement within the black metal music scene that promotes neo-Nazism, neo-fascism, and white supremacist ideologies. NSBM artists typically combine neo-Nazi imagery and ideology with ethnic European paganism, Satanism, or Nazi occultism, or a combination thereof, and vehemently oppose Christianity, Islam and Judaism from a racialist viewpoint. NSBM is not seen as a distinct genre, but as a völkisch movement within black metal. According to Mattias Gardell, NSBM musicians see this ideology as "a logical extension of the political and spiritual dissidence inherent in black metal".
Louis Cachet, better known as Varg Vikernes, is a Norwegian musician and author best known for his early black metal albums and later crimes. His first five records, released under the name Burzum from 1992 to 1996, made him one of the most influential figures in the early Norwegian black metal scene. He was convicted of murder and arson in 1994 and sentenced to 21 years in prison, being released after serving 15 years.
Mayhem is a Norwegian black metal band formed in Langhus in 1984. They were one of the founders of the Norwegian black metal scene, and their music has strongly influenced the black metal genre. Mayhem's early career was highly controversial, primarily because of their notorious live performances, the 1991 suicide of vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin ("Dead") and the 1993 murder of guitarist Øystein Aarseth ("Euronymous") by former member Varg Vikernes of Burzum.
The early Norwegian black metal scene of the 1990s is credited with creating the modern black metal genre and produced some of the most acclaimed and influential artists in extreme metal. It attracted massive media attention when it was revealed that its members had been responsible for three murders, a suicide, and a wave of church burnings in Norway.
Thorns, also known as Stigma Diabolicum, is a Norwegian black metal band that formed in 1989 and was part of the early Norwegian black metal scene. They made two highly influential demos in the early 1990s, Grymyrk and Trøndertun, but have only released one full-length album.
Ved Buens Ende is a Norwegian avant-garde metal band. Their sound is diverse with quiet instrumental jazz influenced sections and aggressive black metal blast beats and vocals. Ved Buens Ende means "By the end of the bow" referring to the mythological rainbow Bifröst.
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is the first studio album by Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. Songwriting began in 1987, but due to the suicide of vocalist Per "Dead" Ohlin and the murder of guitarist Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, the album's release was delayed until May 1994. De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is widely regarded one of the most influential black metal albums of all time. It is the band's only studio album to feature Aarseth and Varg "Count Grishnackh" Vikernes.
Burzum is the debut studio album by the Norwegian black metal solo project Burzum. It was released in March 1992, through Euronymous's label Deathlike Silence Productions. Six of the songs were later re-recorded in 2010 and released on the album From the Depths of Darkness, as Varg Vikernes was dissatisfied with some of the original vocals and production.
Aske is an EP by Norwegian black metal solo project Burzum. Though recorded in April and August 1992, after Det som engang var, it was released before that album in March 1993, through Deathlike Silence Productions.
Hvis lyset tar oss is the third studio album by Norwegian black metal solo project Burzum. It was recorded in September 1992, but not released until April 1994, through Misanthropy Records and Varg Vikernes' own record label, Cymophane Productions.
Det som engang var is the second studio album by the Norwegian black metal solo project Burzum. It was recorded in April 1992 and released in August 1993 through Burzum's own label, Cymophane Productions.
Fleurety is a Norwegian avant-garde metal band. The band was formed in 1991 by Svein Egil Hatlevik and Alexander Nordgaren.
Filosofem is the fourth studio album by Norwegian black metal solo project Burzum. It was recorded in March 1993 and was the last recording before Varg Vikernes was sentenced to prison in 1994; the album was not released until January 1996, however. It was released through Misanthropy Records and Vikernes's own record label, Cymophane Productions. A music video was made for the song "Dunkelheit" and received airtime on both MTV and VH1.
Dauði Baldrs is the fifth studio album by the Norwegian solo act Burzum. Unlike Burzum's previous work, which was mostly black metal, this is an ambient album. It was recorded using a synthesizer and a normal tape recorder by Varg Vikernes while he was in prison, as he was not allowed to have any other instruments or recording equipment. It was completed in a few months due to his limited access to synthesizers, which was also the case with the following album, Hliðskjálf.
This is a timeline documenting the events of heavy metal music in the year 1993.
Until the Light Takes Us is a 2008 American documentary film about early Norwegian black metal, directed by Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell. The film premiered at the AFI Film Festival in 2008, a year before it was released in theaters.
Belus is the seventh full-length album by the Norwegian one-man band Burzum. Released on 8 March 2010 through Byelobog Productions, it is the first Burzum studio album to be recorded after a near 11-year hiatus.
The Ways of Yore is the eleventh studio album by Norwegian musical project Burzum, released on 2 June 2014 by sole member Varg Vikernes' label Byelobog Productions. The album retains the ambient and medieval music sound Vikernes started with Burzum's previous album, Sôl austan, Mâni vestan, albeit introducing vocals.
Lords of Chaos is a 2018 biographical horror thriller film directed by Jonas Åkerlund and written by Dennis Magnusson and Åkerlund. Adapted from the 1998 book of the same name, the film is a historical fiction account of the early 1990s Norwegian black metal scene told from the perspective of Mayhem co-founder Euronymous. It stars Rory Culkin as Euronymous, Emory Cohen as Varg Vikernes, Jack Kilmer as Dead, and Sky Ferreira as Ann-Marit.
...Einer dieser Musiker, ein junger Mann namens Varg Vikernes, wurde inmitten meiner Tätigkeit als Reporterin festgenommen, da er seinen Plattenlabel-Boss erstochen hatte. Die Musikwelt war schockiert, und kein Plattenlabel wollte mehr etwas mit diesem Musiker zu tun haben. Mir tat das leid, da der Musiker äußerst begabt war. Und so setzte ich mich mit verschiedenen Plattenlabels in Verbindung und hoffte, ihm so einen neuen Deal zu verschaffen. Ich hatte damit allerdings keinen Erfolg – im Gegenteil. Man lachte mich aus. Bis der Besitzer eines sizilianischen Plattenlabels irgendwann zu mir sagte: ‚Wieso machst Du es denn nicht, wenn es Dir so wichtig ist?'[...One of these musicians, a young man named Varg Vikernes, was arrested in the middle of my work as a reporter for stabbing his record label boss. The music world was shocked and no record label wanted anything to do with this musician anymore. I felt sorry for him because the musician was extremely talented. So I contacted various record labels in the hope of getting him a new deal. But I didn't have any success - on the contrary. They laughed at me. Until one day the owner of a Sicilian record label said to me: ' Why don't you do it if it's so important to you?']
