First of all, kudos to Aspherical Asphyxia Productions for putting
together this near three hour Ulver tribute featuring twenty six bands
from all over the place (obscure though they may generally be) and
making it available as a free download. If you are interested, go to
http://panacea.msk.su/ulver/ -- but be warned that at the time of
writing, they are only able to provide file sharing rather than direct
download links due to bandwidth limitations.
Some time after this digital version became available, _My Own Wolf_
is now being commercially released on a rather nicely presented double
digipak by Cold Dimensions. Assuming Ulver themselves are OK with it,
this seems like a perfectly justifiable alternative for those who are
more inclined to keeping nice physical copies in their collection, as
the packaging is indeed quite good.
The line-up of bands on this tribute is eclectic, to say the least.
Styles range from black metal to folk, ambient and electronica; some
acts have been around for barely a year, others more than a decade;
and while most bands are European (predominantly from Russia or
nearby, Scandinavia and France), you will also find Australia, Brazil,
Canada, Israel and the USA represented. Given how Ulver's own extreme
shapeshifting nature has been evident throughout their career, this
diversity seems only logical and appropriate for the task at hand:
assembling a tribute worthy of bearing the adventurous subtitle of "A
New Approach to Ulver".
The vast majority of songs on _My Own Wolf_ are completely new
versions, several of them virtually unrecognisable from the original
material, rather than standard covers. The "New Approach to Ulver"
subtitle is therefore justified, although it is certainly best to
expect "new" to just be different and hopefully interesting, rather
than necessarily better -- which would not exactly have been easy to
achieve, and is unlikely to have been the aim of these acts anyway.
The resulting concoction will require a rather eccentric taste to
fully enjoy; you need only imagine the entire spectrum of Ulver's
discography being reinterpreted through such diverse artists to
recognise that. You don't necessarily have to enjoy all of it though,
and as such you will probably find enough to keep you interested
according to your taste. Likewise, there isn't much point in
dissecting each of the twenty six tracks individually, since so much
of the success of this compilation as a whole hinges on each
listener's musical preferences. Even tracks you may find yourself
skipping after a while will often provide an interesting first listen
for the sake of discovering new angles, if nothing else. On the other
hand however, the compilation would have benefited greatly from some
stand-out tracks to make you want to go back to it some more. Overall,
_My Own Wolf_ well worth a try if you like more than one phase of
Ulver's career so far.