Myrkur appeared a few years ago, releasing an EP of Black Metal songs on respected extreme metal label Relapse. The identity of the creator was not revealed, but the promo blurb described the project emerging as from the Scandinavian darkness, and waffled on about isolation, savagery, etc, etc. It was good enough (for an obscure Black Metal EP) to get some buzz about it, and there was much rejoicing in the bits of the internet and music press which concern themselves with Black Metal.
Then it turned out that it was actually all done by a GIRL! A pretty girl! A pretty Danish girl! Who lived in New York! A pretty Danish girl who lived in New York and sang in an achingly twee indie/dream-pop band, but who liked to listen to a bit of black metal in her spare time and decided to have a go at it, and roped some Black Metal chums in to help out.
There was no Scandinavian darkness! It was FALSE METAL!
Somewhat predictably, there were howls of outrage and anguish in the bits of the internet and music press which concern themselves with that kind of thing. Turns out that (some) Black Metal nerds can be just as entitled, misguided, misogynistic and generally arseholey as (some of) the other nerds who get outraged about stuff, and the usual Twitterwhumph ensued.
It doesn't seem to have done her any harm - since then, she's played at a number of suitably metal festivals, released two well-received studio albums and an acoustic live album recorded in a mausoleum in Oslo which is very lovely, and released a load of videos of her wearing Scandinavian jumpers, standing in Scandinavian woodland, singing Scandinavian folk songs on Scandinavian folk instruments. Just a pretty Danish girl, in the woods with her nyckelharpa. Singing songs. Looking pretty.
It was on seeing one of these videos that Gaynor decided she'd join me at the gig.)