Mortiis

[xStephanx]

You have to love Mortiis. While a lot of the popularity of Mortiis was built out of his outrageous image, he still churned out some great music.

His dark ambient stuff was cool, and the industrial rock stuff he does now is cool, but what I liked most was his darkwave, etherealy stuff on The Smell of Rain, one of my favourite albums of all time.  

[GilAskan]

I've always been intrigued by Mortiis' work. I haven't gotten the chance to hear much, but I like what I have. I want to get more of his work when I can.

On an odd side note, he's one of multiple black-metal artists I know of who moved into ethereal/ambient. Sort of an odd transistion. I wonder if there's some conection?  

[xStephanx]

I heard Varg Vikernes did it with Burzum. Its like going from one extreme to the other.

In Mortiis's case it was Emperor, with extreme metal, then Mortiis Era I with really floating ethereal stuff, then Era II when he produced The Small of Rain which is your standard EBM/synthpop/darkwave mashup but done with skills, and then you've got The Grudge onwards, where he's gone all NIN.