Rewind exactly one year. Enter the newly restored 1920s cinema at Frogner in Oslo. On the big screen: John Carpenter’s cult classic Halloween (1978). In the pit: Ulver, performing a reimagined version of the iconic score. After the lights were turned off that evening, the All Hallows’ Eve quartet – Ole Alexander Halstensgård, Kristoffer Rygg, Tore Ylwizaker and Stian Westerhus – went full isolation in their studio below the haunted hill, fantasizing about bygone nights of slasher, exploitation, and giallo. The result: Scary Muzak, on one hand a homage to Carpenter’s themes – five out of twelve tracks are covers whereas the rest comes from the outer realms – and on the other zooming out on the aesthetics of the late ’70s and early ’80s popular culture. Sometimes classy and chilling, other times amusingly smooth and sleazy, and at times outright beautiful in it’s suspense-filled vigor, Scary Muzak is an inspired, goblinesque addition to the ever-expanding Ulver catalogue.
