The Weekly Riff – Myrkur, Skøgen Skulle Dø

Last week, we had the pleasure of hanging out with one-woman Danish black metal soulcrusher Myrkur and learning a bit about her musical history and the ideas that fed her debut album M. I tend to have a skeptical eye to modern black metal and didn’t know what to expect meeting her, and was floored by her artistic vision, innate musicality and multi-instrumental talent.

All this to say, you don’t often see this much musical sense in black metal.

While other media outlets have focused on how “controversial” it is that we now have a solo female black metal band, we just wanted to get a better idea of the thought process behind the actual music, so we dug in and asked her to play some of her favorite riffs off the album for us.

The first, “Skøgen Skulle Dø,” is a great example of M as a multi-layered work, featuring multiple guitar harmonies, a choir, and orchestral arrangements, bolstered by Myrkur’s strong musical background in classical – the second she sat down at a nearby piano, she started busting out some Chopin-honed chops on the keys.

Check out the clip below, in which Myrkur shows you the main riff of the song and talks about the inspiration behind it:

M drops on August 21 via Relapse. Pre-order it here.