Burzum

Burzum is the solo musical project of Norwegian musician Varg Vikernes, one of the most influential and controversial figures in extreme metal history. Formed in the early 1990s, Burzum was central to the second wave of Norwegian black metal, alongside bands like Mayhem and Darkthrone, and Vikernes briefly played bass on Mayhem's landmark album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas.

Burzum's early albums helped define raw, atmospheric black metal, while Filosofem pushed the sound toward ambient and depressive territory, influencing the later DSBM (depressive suicidal black metal) subgenre. Vikernes's 1994 conviction for the murder of Mayhem guitarist Øystein Aarseth (Euronymous) and a series of church arsons made him a notorious figure, and he continued recording Burzum material from prison using only synthesizers, shifting the project toward dark ambient music.

After his release in 2009, Vikernes resumed Burzum with several more black metal and neofolk-influenced ambient records, continuing to explore themes drawn from Norse mythology and paganism. Despite the shadow cast by his crimes and extremist views, Burzum's musical output remains widely studied as foundational to atmospheric and ambient black metal.