Klassisch und Traditionell

Today is the release day of the two-tracks EP from Einar Selvik, containing an acoustic version as well as the complete studio version of his much requested piece "Snake Pit Poetry", written for Vikings - History Channel and Ragnar Lothbrok's fatal encounter with a Northumbrian Snake pit.
The studio version features the stunning talent of Icelandic singer Hilda Örvarsdóttir.

OSI AND THE JUPITER ist dem nordischen Paganismus gewidmet und beschäftigt sich thematisch mit dem Leben, dem Tod und allen weiteren Aspekten der Natur.

Also known as Baldrs Draumar, this poem tells of Odin’s ride to Hel, where he wakes a sleeping Völva to demand insight into his son Baldr’s troubling dreams.

A Viking war song about Úlfhéðnar, wolf warriors and Odin's elite fighting forces.
Úlfhéðnar were totemistic combat heroes who were feared for their unique martial skills and their ecstatic fierceness, which they would fuel by performing shapeshifting rituals and weapons dances.
Úlfhéðnar considered wolves as sacred, and their spirituality consisted in incarnating the spirit of the Wolf in order to acquire its power and primal wisdom.
Surviving in the wilderness, fasting, resisting extreme temperatures, living in the manner of the Wolf and learning its ways was part of the Úlfhéðinn shamanic and military initiation.

This song was 100% self-composed with REAPER. Every single vocal sound you can hear was made with my own voice (singing and throat-singing, whisperings, shouts, growls, percussive breaths, etc). I am greatly inspired by Wardruna, one of my favourite band.

Most of the lyrics come from the Haraldskvæði, a 9th century skaldic poem, and from the Völuspá, first poem of the Poetic Edda.

Note: I'm by no means a speaker of the Old Norse language and I know my pronunciation is certainly quite flawed, but please note that I tried to educate myself as best as I could for the song.

"Long is one night, longer are two;
How then shall I bear three?
Often to me has a month seemed less
Than now half a night of desire."

These are the words spoken by the god Freyr as he longed deeply for his love, the giantess Gerð (earth). Their union brings the spring, it brings the thaw and fertility to the earth once again.

"Strong" is an original song we wrote based on the Vikings. It is taken from a larger original story entitled, "Chieftain." We hope you enjoy it:)

Description of the Song:

Scene 1: The Vikings sail from Iceland to Scotland to raid where ever they may land. Leading them is the chieftain’s son Bjorn Erikson who sings the first solo. He is tall, blond, strong, but has an innate sense of compassion that makes it difficult for him to lead this mission. His inborn sense of leadership has made him wonder at the path that he would take were he ever to become the chieftain. The next solo is sung by Erling Haroldson, a menacing, strong Viking who adheres to the old Viking ways as a pure disciple of the gods. He is dark and cold hearted. The Vikings are fit for battle.

Scene 2: The Women lament the departure of their men. They stand on a windy, rocky cliff above the shore, watching in a mixture of pride and sorrow as their loved ones sail away.

Scene 3: The Vikings row to the shore. They see a monastery on land.

Scene 4: The monks chant prayers in the Monastery.

Scene 5: The Vikings march to the monastery. They are ready for battle.

Scene 6: As the Vikings besiege the monastery, One monk, Father Edvard, kneels in prayer, unafraid that death might take him. He pleads for God’s mercy upon his attackers, revealing a twist on what it means to be “strong.” Fr. Edvard’s story is that of a chieftain’s son who was once left for dead in a raid on a monastery years ago. He was taken in by the monks he was trying to raid. And so now he prays for the Vikings who seek to attack him. He is meant to mirror Bjorn, as they are both chieftain’s sons.

Scene 7: The Vikings attack and plunder, and Bjorn is seen facing off with Fr. Edvard, but an angel appears between the two, stopping him in his tracks. Bjorn experiences a profound change, though his journey has only begun. The other Vikings finish their raid and bring their ill-gotten gains to the boat.

Scene 8: The Vikings sail homeward back to Iceland.

We wrote the lyrics, composed, and arranged the piece. My family sang it.

Amalie Bruun has always paved her own path, challenging underground preconceptions of heavy metal ever since the release of her debut Myrkur EP in 2014. Her first two full-length studio albums, 2015’s M and 2017’s Mareridt, recast black metal in the most personal yet expansive of terms, their blending of Amalie’s Danish folk roots with tempestuous internal struggles breathing new life into a subgenre whose followers can be rigidly possessive.

With the release of her new album, Folkesange, Amalie Bruun has set out to journey into the very heart of the Scandinavian culture that marked her childhood. Folkesange relinquishes black metal for a refined yet far-reaching evocation of traditional folk, combining songs ancient and new to sublimely resonant effect.

After the nightmare-induced visions that wrought themselves throughout Mareridt, Folkesange offers an emotional sanctuary, a means to reconnect to something permanent and nature-aligned. It’s an awareness that’s become deeply bound to the album’s organic, regenerative spirit, from the opening track Ella’s heartbeat, frame-drum percussion and crystalline vocals that become the grounding for a rapt, richly textured awakening, to the gentle carousel of the closing Vinter, with its nostalgia-steeped connotations of seasonal, snowfall-bewitched awe.

Storytelling, rites of passage, and the invocation of a continuity that passes through time and generation are all part of folk music’s tapestry, and Folkesange taps into all these currents in their most essential form. In part a purist’s approach to the genre, free from over-interpretation and fusion, the use of traditional instruments throughout, such as nyckelharpa, lyre, and mandola offer a deeper, more tactile connection to their source, an unbroken line of communication back to the past.

But the album is no museum piece; it resonates in the here and now, aided by the spacious production of Heilung member and musical collaborator Christopher Juul. Cinematic yet intimate, Folkesange exists in a state of boundless reverie, bourne by string-led drones, cyclical, elegiac rhythms and Amalie’s frictionless voice, all carrier signals for deep-rooted, ancestral memories, and associations felt on an elemental level.

It’s a binding of the otherworldly and the earthy that echoes the the subject matter of many of the tales themselves. Written by Amalie, Leaves Of Yggdrasil’s medieval cadences bind tragic love story and mythology, full of both fairytale wonder and deeply human foible. Tor i Helheim, its dreamily persistent rhythm redolent of both innocence and encroachment, is based on a poem from the Icelandic Eddas, relating a journey into the underworld of Hel where the sparse nature of the accompaniment becomes the medium that carries you along in its thrall.

An immersive experience in its own right, but also belonging to a wider, pagan folk-based renaissance that has attracted a devoted following worldwide, Folkesange answers a need that has become ever more pressing in turbulent times. A zeroing in on a resonance that is both intrinsic and enduring, it’s a rediscovery of personal grounding, and an experience that reaches beyond culture to remind us of a shared, deeply rooted inheritance. A tuning fork that binds the personal and the universal, Folkesange is a reminder that the most transcendent experiences are those closest to home.

(Words by Jonathan Selzer)