Tuhat Kuolemaa Sekunnissa is a neofolk outfit from Finland. Their music is dreamy, earthy, and yet also muscular. It feels carved from hard wood, bristling with a raw and rough texture that feels good against one’s …
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29 Nov 2011
Tuhat Kuolemaa Sekunnissa is a neofolk outfit from Finland. Their music is dreamy, earthy, and yet also muscular. It feels carved from hard wood, bristling with a raw and rough texture that feels good against one’s … 21 Sep 2011
True to their name, Finnish experimentalists Somnivore have served up a dream-laden sonic voyage with their album Clergy of Oneiros. Using found sounds, samples, noisescapes, and a stately sense of drama, they’ve created an unsettling, absorbing, and subtle piece of otherworldly … 1 Sep 2011
Tervahäät is highly recommended for fans of folk music, ambient music, doom metal (although I stress that is is not metal by any stretch), and lovers of nature in its colder incarnations. It is not for those who cannot tolerate darkness and depth – the shallow and easily satisfied should look elsewhere. This album is both dark forest and reflective waters, and invites us to find ourselves in surprising new ways and … 16 Jul 2011
Tuhkankantajat is darkness tempered with ecstasy; raw and sophisticated; deeply interior yet verging on the boundless. These Finnish masters have been quietly forging rich new possibilities for neofolk, and it seems to me only a matter of time for their influence to pervade … 10 Jul 2011
Hailing from the cold but beautiful climes of Finland, Key are purveyors of dreamy and evocative neofolk. Their new release Silver Moon Slumber is a beautiful album, at once trancelike and atmospheric. Loaded with unique groove, and resonant with inflections from New Wave, this release conjures cold but joyous landscapes in the mind’s … 28 Jun 2011
Medicine is a kind of ambient/experimental/jazz monster, a cold and misty dream, a delirious wandering into the frigid canyons and plateaus of frosty Niflheim. Medicine? This is shamanistic medicine, seidhr medicine, medicine of the heart, the spirit, the soul. Ordeal medicine, dancing with death, drawing us into mystery, puncturing the thin skin of self-evident, everyday … 23 Jun 2011
Forest of the Soul is the newest project from Nechochwen’s Andrew Della Cagna and Aaron Carey. Given the excellence of Nechochwen’s folk-black metal fusion, I had high hopes for Restless in Flight, which sees Della Cagna’s intimidating multi-instrumentality paired off with Aaron Carey’s talented guitar playing. Excellent though it is, I unfortunately fear that this release does not sit as well with me as Nechochwen’s … 19 May 2011
2010, Three Hands Press, 152 pages Review by Nadine Drisseq The late Andrew Chumbley, whose arcane yet wizened style caused a stir when his Azoetia was … 20 Feb 2011
Whether delving into psych-folk head-trips, wild western digressions, or good old foot-stomping punk anthems, Cult of Youth are always in total control – and yet always feel on the very brim of total chaos. These guys are an unstoppable … 18 Feb 2011
Presented as a limited edition vinyl release, Possessed by the Forest Queen is a splendorous invocation of the divinity of nature. With it US outfit Lasher Keen have well and truly proved themselves a dark and rising star in the world of folk … 18 Feb 2011
The Seven Deadly Sins: Luxuria is a digital-only free double album compilation of post-industrial music. Organised by Schattenspiel, the release is part two of a series of compilations exploring – and indeed celebrating! – each of the seven deadly sins from Christian mythology; Luxuria is otherwise known as lust. Being a free release, you really cannot go wrong, so if anything in my review piques your interest then do not hesitate to check it … 22 Jan 2011
Anitya is the final instalment of The Joy of Nature’s three part alchemical trilogy, The Empty Circle. I will state immediately that it represents a more than fitting crown to the series. Its eerie fusion of folk, ambient, and world music influences creates endless dream states and liminal visions, subtle and absorbing allusions to the lapis, the elusive goal of the alchemical … 21 Jan 2011
Sig:Ar:Tyr’s combination of metal, folk, and ambient influences gives it an appeal that draws in the listener regardless of their usual music genre preferences: Godsaga is a solid continuation of a legacy of music which really transcended conventional genre boundaries…highly recommended for anyone who likes inspiring, mythic, and stirring Heathen … 4 Jan 2011
As the movie started, I felt a sense of relief to be watching an animated film that isn’t CGI. Don’t get me wrong, Pixar films are gorgeous. But sometimes the perfect textures and flawless three-dimensional perspective gets almost a little inhuman. The two-dimensional, stylized animation of The Secret of Kells feels refreshingly warm, clearly influenced by the marginalia of the illuminated texts that form the central motif of the … 25 Dec 2010
The concept of Manifest Destiny is – as the name and artwork suggests – to give a host of American underground/post-industrial acts the opportunity for exposure to the world. Spanning neofolk, martial pop, industrial, psychedelic, and dark ambient influences, The CD includes both some well known names and some more obscure artists as well. Unfortunately as is often the case with compilation CDs it is a bit of a mixed … 21 Dec 2010
The magic for me lay in the descriptions of Asgard. Every time I read a chapter devoted to the characters there I had to lie down and take a nap and dream. I found the book to be a terrible inconvenience at work where I am allowed to read but sleeping is seriously frowned upon! The dreams were amazing and while I read the book I felt as though I were living in two worlds. My life in Asgard was as real as my life … 7 Dec 2010
The Bells Before Dawn is a voyage into neofolk marked by minimalist arrangements, deep male vocals, and a passion for history and … 19 Nov 2010
Voluspaa was born in Norway in the mid 1990’s black metal scene, but despite having been around for a while, Asa is their debut full length release. The wait was worth it: Voluspaa mastermind Freddy Skogstad has done a brilliant job orchestrating these epic, atmospheric, and evocative songs into a beautiful collection of folk-infused black metal (and at times…the … 17 Nov 2010
Runa means mystery, and to me the word mystery conjures a dark, cloud-stained horizon, a pregnant foreboding, a sense of awe in the face of the wilds of nature. This album is an exploration of the spirit of the runes (eight of them to be exact), and insofar as it evokes exactly these same images…I have to pronounce it a brilliant … 10 Nov 2010
I guess the old Nietzschean Gay Science comes to mind in listening to this recording – because although it lightly dances across one’s ears, it certainly is not frivolous or light-weight. There’s a seeming effortlessness to the creative spark of this music, which celebrates darkness and light; intimacy and … |
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Opuscula Magica Volume I: Essays on Witchcraft and Sabbatic Tradition by Andrew D. Chumbley