Photos That Perfectly Capture the Brutality of Extreme Norwegian Music
By Oliver Lunn, Photos: Jonas Bendiksen
Aleksander Ilievski from Imagination and Empty. Norway, 2016. (Copyright: Jonas Bendiksen / Magnum Photos)
The most Norwegian thing ever is black metal. Just hearing someone say “Norway” conjures up the image of a man-troll screaming in a dark cave and the ear-bleeding sound of double-kick drumming at hyper-speed. Which is hardly surprising, given that black metal is Norway’s largest musical export.
When I hear “Norway” I think of bands like Mayhem, Burzum, and Darkthrone; of the 1993 murder of Mayhem guitarist Euronymous by Burzum’s Varg Vikernes; and of the series of church burnings in which some of the bands were caught up. It’s been over 20 years since all that happened, and now black metal is more mainstream than ever.
That enduring association – between Norway and black metal – is what interested Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen, a Norwegian himself. For his new series “Singing Norwegian Singers”, commissioned by Leica, Bendiksen rounded up a bunch of local black metal singers and photographed them screaming directly into his lens. The shots are uncomfortably close: nostrils flare; saliva glistens on their tongues, everything captured in the cold glow of the camera flash.