Myrkur is a solo black metal project by Danish singer Amalie Bruun. Initially, the real-life identity of the person behind the project was kept unknown. Her identity has since been made public. Myrkur has released three full-length studio albums to significant critical acclaim, as well as a live album and two EP. Her album Folkesange was released in March 2020.
The name of the project comes from an Icelandic word meaning “darkness.” The musical influences of Myrkur range from traditional Scandinavian folk to the black metal genre. New releases from Myrkur have tended towards embracing folk music traditions, with Bruun’s most recent album Folkesange being overwhelming folk-inspired and lacking the black metal sound that characterized the artist’s earlier releases. Folkesange contains narrative “story-songs” performed on instruments appropriate to the ancient pagan folk music that Bruun included within the album, alongside modern original compositions as well.
Bruun formed the project and signed to Relapse Records in 2014. In September that same year, Myrkur debuted with a self titled EP on which Bruun provided the vocals, played all guitars and bass and produced the album. Drums were performed by her friend Rex Myrnur. In June 2015, Myrkur announced the release of her debut full-length album, entitled M, which was released in August 2015 via Relapse Records to critical acclaim.
The album was produced by Kristoffer Rygg of Ulver, and featured Teloch of Mayhem and Nidingr on guitars, with Øyvind Myrvoll of Nidingr and Dodheimsgard on drums. In August 2016, she released a live album titled Mausoleum, which was recorded at the Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum in Oslo, Norway. The album featured acoustic and choral reinterpretations of her previously released material with the assistance of the Norwegian Girls Choir and Havard Jorgensen, former guitarist in Ulver. Her second full-length album, Mareridt, was released in September 2017. In 2018, the album won the non-fan voted “Album of the Year” award at Metal Hammer’s Golden Gods Awards.
Myrkur’s new album, Spine, starts in recognisably epic, Scandic style, the title of the opening instrumental track, Bålfærd, is Danish for a “Viking funeral’, marking a break with the past as well as the emergence of something new from the flames. Marked by the birth of her child, and a means of making sense of the storm of emotions in that wake, Spine charts a new course for Myrkur through the most turbulent period of her life to new territories beyond, free from genre constraints, and giving rise to a new range of emotional and sonic contours.
