Wardruna

Norwegian musical project Wardruna was shaped in 2003 by previous Gorgoroth drummer Einar “Kvitrafn” Selvik. Motivated by his long-held desire for the Aged Norse language as well as the Elder Futhark (the Norse runic alphabet), he developed something really ancient-sounding. The task utilized mostly historic traditional instruments, a few of them home made, such as for example hide-covered body drums, goat horn, Kraviklyra (Norway’s oldest known stringed device), and lur (birch trumpet); lyrics mainly in Aged Norse; and guttural shamanic performing. He teamed up with vocalists Gaahl (né Kristian Espedal, also of Gorgoroth) and Lindy-Fay Hella, and jointly the three created truly gorgeous, dark, haunting music that bore components of folk, globe, and ambient, but transcended these labels. Causing the spirits of character as well as the freezing darkness from the Norwegian wintertime night, it had been not dissimilar compared to that of Finnish music group Tenhi, but sensed more historic, and got a distinctly Norse taste. In ’09 2009, the trio released their debut record Runaljod: Distance Var Ginnunga, the to begin a well planned trilogy of albums which would, when used jointly, cover all 24 words from the Elder Futhark. The runes weren’t just letters; these were strongly connected with magic, and each was taken up to come with an occult meaning and mystical power. Selvik got all this into consideration, recording many of the tracks in places from the particular rune involved, sometimes outside. The Runaljod trilogy was finished with Yggdrasil in 2013 and Ragnarok in 2016. Gaahl amicably still left the music group in 2015. Selvik brought a lot of his knowledge towards the music for the next season of it dilemma series Vikings, which he proved helpful in cooperation with composer Trevor Morris; he also afterwards made an appearance as an professional on the present. In 2016 he teamed up with Enslaved’s Ivar Bjørnson to create the music group Skuggsjá.