Ulver

Century Media Records is an Independent record label with offices in the United States, Germany, and Australia. Century Media was founded by Robert Kampf in Dortmund, Germany in 1988 and has gone on to launch the careers of bands such as Divine Heresy, Eyehategod, Nevermore, Moonspell, Diecast,... Suicide Silence, Winds of Plague, Iced Earth, God Forbid, Lacuna Coil, In This Moment, Warbringer, and Shadows Fall. The label specializes in many different styles of heavy metal music. A number of artists listed are licensed to Century Media for the American market from labels mostly based in Europe. Century Media is also home to legendary acts such as Napalm Death, Celtic Frost, and Trouble. From 1995 to 2007, Marco Barbieri was the label's president. The label’s most popular band is Lacuna Coil. Shadows Fall experienced its greatest success during its time with the label. Iconic hardcore punk band Sick of It All also resides in the Century Media family. Lacuna Coil’s 2002 album, Comalies, became Century Media’s first act to crack the Billboard 200 album chart, peaking at #178 two years after its release.
more

The End Records is an independent record label, founded in 1998 in San Diego. Founder Andreas Katsambas initially wanted to bring attention to some underground bands he admired. In 2002, The End moved to Salt Lake City, when his wife took a job at the University of Utah. The label moved... definitively to New York in 2006. The End has two sublabels: Unruly Sounds, specialized in extreme metal, and Infinite Vinyl Series, specialized in the publication of limited edition vinyls. Through much of the company's history there has been a major focus on mail-order distribution. The label's CEO is founder Andreas Katsambas. In his 2010 book Mean Deviation: Four Decades of Progressive Heavy Metal, Jeff Wagner, a former editor of the magazine Metal Maniacs, described The End Records as "perhaps the most welcoming label home for the late-'90s/early-2000s wave of new avant-garde metal".
more

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can... be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, and the electric guitar. Purely electronic sound production can be achieved using devices such as the Theremin, sound synthesizer, and computer. Electronic music was once associated almost exclusively with Western art music but from the late 1960s on the availability of affordable music technology meant that music produced using electronic means became increasingly common in the popular domain. Today electronic music includes many varieties and ranges from experimental art music to popular forms such as electronic dance music. The ability to record sounds is often connected to the production of electronic music, but not absolutely necessary for it. The earliest known sound recording device was the phonautograph, patented in 1857 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. It could record sounds visually, but was not meant to play them back.
more

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and in the... United States. With roots in blues rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are generally associated with masculinity and machismo. The first heavy metal bands, such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, eventually attracted large audiences, though many were critically reviled , a status common throughout the history of the genre. In the mid-1970s Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence; Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility and an increasing emphasis on speed. Bands in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal such as Iron Maiden followed in a similar vein. Before the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as "metalheads" or "headbangers".
more