Wardruna - "Løyndomsriss" (video)
Wardruna – “Løyndomsriss” (video)
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Wardruna is the pagan/drone/ambient project of Kvitrafn, ex-drummer of Gorgoroth, Dead to This World, and Sahg. (His black metal band Jotunspor is quite underrated.) Runaljod – Gap Var Ginnunga (Indie, 2009) has been my daily soundtrack for a while, grounding me with its serene yet powerful calm. The project explores Norse pagan history through traditional instruments, outdoors field recordings, and good ol’ synth magic. Above is the video for “Løyndomsriss” (artistic collaborator Gaahl makes a cameo appearance), though it is not the record’s strongest track. I recommend streaming the album excerpts here and reading Kvitrafn’s comments here.
Despite the Norse focus, the music reminds me of Buddhist chants and even traditional Middle Eastern music with its Phrygian tonalities. The French act Deleyaman comes to mind, as well as American ambient doom band Celestiial. Western expressions of “ancient primal forces” tend to converge on similar sound sets; maybe the musicians have all been brainwashed by – take your pick – yoga, Korg, Real World Records; or maybe they’re truly accessing some fundamental energy that crosses cultural divides.
As I age, I grow increasingly less concerned with heavy metal’s cultural baggage and more interested in its elemental energy: the thunder of doom, the anti-light of black metal. If I went blind, I’d hope I could enjoy metal as much as I do now. So I close my eyes and let the music make the images. Maybe stuff like this is the distillation of metal down to a more fundamental wavelength. So we lose the urban industrial Weltschmerz of electric guitars; but perhaps we regain power from a past time. Maybe the point is not the destructive storm, but the stillness afterwards.
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Alone (2LP: 400 black, 100 white)
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