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 Here is an index of all the artists And Genres we cover in our collections, with links to their reviews.

You can listen to the full list (constantly updated) with Spotify, or use this embedded player to preview a band.





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  COLLECTION #1: MARI BOINE, GARMARNA, ALCEST, L’HAM DE FOC, POETA MAGICA

The PAGAN MUSIC PROJECT is an attempt to create a comprehensive list of Pagan, Heathen, Esoteric, Animist, and related music that we listen to and love.

We include embedded YouTube, Soundcloud, or Bandcamp links when possible for each artist.

Spotify listener? Click on the embedded player to listen to the full playlist!

MARI BOINE

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(TRADITIONAL, FOLK, CHANT)

RECOMMENDED ALBUM: IDJAGIEDAS

WEBSITE: HTTP://WWW.MARIBOINE.NO/

Mari Boine is part of the Sámi, one of the few surviving shamanic/animist cultures in Europe. Her music makes heavy use of traditional yoik form (Sámi traditional chant), often mixing in pop, rock, and jazz elements into many of her songs. Her voice is often deeply haunting and the lyrics (sung in Lapp/Sami, as well as Norwegian and English) often warn against the destruction of nature and the deep racism against her people.

Two songs in particular are worth noting. The first is Gula Gula, whose lyrics speak of the despoiling of the earth and a call to indigenous unity across continents:

Hear the voices of the foremothers! Hear!
They ask you why you let the earth become polluted
poisoned
exhausted?
They remind you where you come from, do you hear?

Another song (and a favorite by this reviewer) is Diamantta Spaillit, a warning to sacred animals to flee the forces of civilization:

Big roaring beasts,
skeletons of steel
have found their way to our land 
They are roaring and roaring
digging and digging
looking for our reindeer of diamond 
Big giant beasts with greedy mouths are here
Run to your sacred place
reindeer of diamond
Run
don't let them find you

GARMARNA

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(TRADITIONAL, MEDIEVAL, ROCK, ELECTRONIC)

RECOMMENDED ALBUM: GUDS SPELEMÄN

ARTIST WEBSITE: HTTPS://WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/GARMARNAOFFICAL/


Garmarna is a Swedish band founded in 1990, one of the most prominent musical acts to revive ancient music in new forms. Most of their songs are old scandanavian ballads, recreated with traditional instruments (including the nyckelharpa and hurdy-gurdy) with some electronic elements. While most of their albums focus on pagan and folk themes, one sets the texts of Christian mystic Hildergard von Bingen to music as well.

This reviewer’s two favorite songs are both from the same album, which is definitely their best. The first (and probably most well-known) is Herr Mannelig, a folk song about a mountain troll who proposes marriage to a knight.

Sir Mannelig, Sir Mannelig
won't you marry me
For all that I'll gladly give you
You may answer only yes or no
Will you do so, or no?

The second, and much darker, song is Valruven (“Werewolf.”) The song tells the tale of a noble woman trying to hide her pregnancy by retreating to a cottage. There she encounters a werewolf who will not take her offers of wealth in exchange for her life…

“Oh dear wolf do no bite me—
I shall give my golden crown"
“A golden crown wouldn't suit me at all
Your youthful life and your blood must go”


ALCEST

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(METAL, NEO-FOLK)

RECOMMENDED ALBUM: KODAMA

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HTTPS://WWW.ALCEST-MUSIC.COM/

Alcest is a French metal project with aetheric vocals and an almost epic, mystic feel to their layered guitars. Drawing heavily on fantastic themes (including childhood experiences of “the other” by its primary member, Neige), Alcest’s music feels like stumbling through Middle Earth or fairy. Also, blends many other elements from outside metal (often to the ire of purists), but this makes Alcest much more accessible to those unfamiliar with metal than many other projects.

Je Suis D’Ailleurs (I’m from elsewhere) is a particularly poignant ballad for anyone who feels they don’t belong to in this modern capitalist world:

I take off with a leap
To glide above the ground
But I fall, mystified
And with an inward scream
Body unresponsive
I've forgotten the ease
Of an era long gone
I am not from this land

Autre Temps (Other Times) also speaks to this sense of loss, but reminds that nature will continue even if our civilizations will not:

A faraway prayer carried by the evening wind
Animates the leaves in their languorous dance
It's the hymn of the old trees, sung for you
For those somber forests which are now asleep
So many seasons have passed without waiting for us


L’HAM DE FOC

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(TRADITIONAL, FOLK, MEDIEVAL)

RECOMMENDED ALBUM: COR DE PORC

WEBSITE: HTTPS://LHAMDEFOC.BANDCAMP.COM/


L’Ham de Foc was a musical collaboration between two Valencian musicians, Mara Aranda and Efrén López, both deeply versed in the traditional Catalan, Galician, Arabic, Sephardic, and other musical forms from the Iberian Peninsula. Their songs are soaked with mysticism, and each of their three albums is worth a listening (but Cor de Porc is probably their best).

The song Un Nom is both gorgeous and also deeply interesting for its references to traditional Iberian witchcraft:

I had nothing to lose, so I gathered the seed,
dry and black, I guarded it like gold in my handkerchief,
I still hoped that it would find comfort there.
And in the soil of a pot I planted it at sunset,
a cradle in case it grew just as the witch had said,
from its roots she promised me a child or two.
And I had to pick a hare's ear, find a cat's claw
a Digitalis minor from the mountainside and old fern

And Lluna d’Algeps (Siren or Angelic Moon) is perhaps the best example of the countless sea-mourning songs traditional to all coastal regions in Europe and the Meditteranean. This song in particularly shows a common theme to many of them, a deep reverence for the sea and its spirits who take whom they desire:

A siren moon was combing its hair with a fish's spine
as a merchant of silver crowns navigated the sea. 
A moon made of plaster dances lecherously with him,
adorning his belt with its serpent hair, as the stars come out


POETA MAGICA

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(TRADITIONAL, MEDIEVAL)

RECOMMENDED ALBUM: DIE EDDA-VOL 1

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HTTPS://POETAMAGICA.BANDCAMP.COM/

Poeta Magica is a highly-prolific medieval re-constructionist band who focuses on traditional instruments (including reconstructions of dead instruments), archaic tuning, and other more “academic” aspects of ancient music. Their discography itself can be used as a useful reference for those curious about the wealth of folk and pagan music that survived throughout the middle-ages, and their live performances are re-enactments themselves.

The lyrics of Diogan Gwench’hlan (the prophecy of Gwench’hlan) are purported to be by the last known surviving druid of Bretagne, Gwench’lan (6th century). It is a curse upon the Christian ruler who blinded him and killed his fellow druids:

O Cormorant, cormorant, say,
What is the thing with which you play!
The Chieftain's skull: I am about
Both of his red eyes to gouge out;
Out of the sockets red blood pours:
He has done once the same with yours.


Diana Vitrea is a famous 12th century song about how good sleep is…especially after sex. In fact, the song isn’t really about sleep at all, but about what you do just before. The text contains various pagan references, including referring to the moon as Diana. It’s part of the Carmina Burana, a collection of pagan and popular music compiled by Catholic theologians for “research” purposes.

When Diana's crystalline
lantern rises late at night,
shimmering with undershine
from her brother's rosy light:
when the gentle Zephyr's breeze
whiffles little clouds with ease…

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COLLECTION #2: Laboratorium Piesni, Volkstrott, Corte di Lunas, Wolves in the Throne Room, Valravn

The PAGAN MUSIC PROJECT is an attempt to create a comprehensive list of Pagan, Heathen, Esoteric, Animist, and related music that we listen to and love.

We include embedded YouTube, Soundcloud, or Bandcamp links when possible for each artist.

Spotify listener? Click on the embedded player to listen to the full playlist!

Laboratorium Piesni

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(Chant, Traditional)

Recommended Album: Rosna

Website: http://laboratoriumpiesni.pl/en/

Laboratorium Piesni (polish: Song Laboratory) is a female-run collective music project, founded in Poland in 2013. The vast majority of their songs are from Polish and Eastern European folk traditions, though they also incorporate other sources. They also host workshops to help people develop their voice and “awaken the human musicality.” Laboratorium Piesni’s primary musical focus is polyphony (multiple voices with little to no musical accompaniment), which is the dominant form of ritual and folk music for animist cultures, also surviving into Europe as a dominant form into the 1500’s. This music is also known as “acapella,” but many groups have moved away from this Christian label (“acapella” literally means, “in the way of the chapel”).


Rozna Livada is a traditional Slavic folk song. Common to innumerable songs from this region, it is a mourning song, in which a woman grieves the loss of her lover to war and invasion. It gained a new popularity during the independence wars against Yugoslavia. The song plays upon the word Rozna, which can mean both “dew” and “pearl,” depending on whether one is speaking Serbian, Croation, or Bosnian.

Dewy meadow, green grass,
dewy meadow, aman! aman!
green grass…

The girl, she made strings of pearl
strings of pearl, aman! aman!
She wept upon the grass

The oppressors took away her dear one
the oppressors, aman! aman!
took away her dear one…


Also from the same album is Ой ляцелі жураўлі (Oh, the flying cranes), a haunting Belarusian folk song about the cycle of human life::


Oh the flying cranes,
They sat in a field on fertile land, ,
Yes, speaking of fertile fields,
Either better early,
Or better late
in the early planted fields,
There is growing rye, and wheat 
And later on the fertile fields,
Are only weeds and bent grass…

Volkstrott

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(Rock, Punk, Medieval)

Recommended Album: Todeskunst

Website: (none)

NOTE TO SPOTIFY LISTENERS: Volkstrott is sadly NOT AVAILABLE VIA SPOTIFY

Volkstrott is what happens when you throw a violin and a bagpipe into a german punk band who’s just found out about the Black Plague. incredibly fun and tragically short-lived, Volkstrott only has two (hard to find) albums and very little internet presence.

Their most fun song deserves to be played really loud whenever you’re worried about the coming collapse of Empire. Wenn der Tot in der Stadt kommt:

Hurrah, Hurrah!
Death has arrived in the city,
and we are all invited!

And an equally fun song about being kidnapped by faeries, Reisst die Mauern ein

Let us seduce you, to silliness and dance
Only as long as the violin plays, with passion and elegance
As long as the music plays you are not alone
But when this dance ends, it will be even worse for you…

La Corte di Lunas

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(Rock, Medieval)

Recommended Album: (see note)

Website: https://www.cortedilunas.com/

Note to Spotify listeners: the following tracks are not available via Spotify, so additional songs by the band have been selected for the playlist

La Corte di Lunas (court of the moon) is an Italian medieval rock band who do some rather brilliantly creative covers as well as their own songs. Traditionally quite active in medieval music fests in Europe, they’re currently on hiatus (according to their website).

A great example of what I mean by “brillantly creative covers” is this song, a melange of a Blackmoor’s Night song (which uses the even older medieval French drinking song, Tourdion) with Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters.”

And perhaps their best original song, Dream:

Once in a dream of a night I stood
Long in the light of a magical moon…


Note: We contacted the band regarding how to find their albums, as they currently do not have distribution. They advised fans to contact them directly either through Facebook or by email (info@cortedilunas.com) for direct distribution.

Wolves In The Throne Room

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(Black Metal)

Recommended Album: Thrice Woven

Website: https://wittr.com/

Wolves In the Throne Room is a black metal band from the Pacific Northwest of the United States whose lyrics blend grief for the destruction of nature with hope that comes from that very nature itself. While Black Metal is known for misanthropy, Wolves in the Throne Room makes clear their disgust with modern civilization is one of disappointment for what humanity has become.

Heathen gods and themes of return to old ways abound in their songs, as well as other mythic and esoteric ideas. This is not by accident: band members repeatedly make clear in interviews that pagan and esoteric ideas influence their music. (see for example this interview)

The Old Ones Are With Us tells of a ritual feast with elements many of our readers will recognize:

Laughter and song in the night
Bring tears to their eyes
And my soul thaws
In the decadence of night
The dead world stirs

Here In the halls of Anwyn.
The food of the dead lie untouched

And Mother Owl, Father Ocean is a short, dark-ambient track (note: not representative of the rest of their music!)

Look to the sea
To how you feel
Here I walk
It understands
It remains

VALRAVN

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(Medieval, Electronic)

Recommended Album: Koder På Snor (or digital available via iTunes)

Website: none

A valravn in Danish lore is a raven that had consumed the flesh of humans and thus gained their knowledge and consciousness, and sometimes the ability to shapeshift into humans. Valravn’s music evokes this shapeshifting theme, imagining not what would happen if modern people re-interpreted ancient music, but what would happen if it were the other way around. Like Garmarna and other Scandanavian acts, Valravn made heavy use of both traditional and electronic instruments, but produced many more “danceable” tracks than others.

Valravn started as an acoustic folk band (Virelai), and performed from 2005-to 2013. In 2009, they said of their music: “Valravn aims at testing the extremes of Nordic roots music and their application here and now; in that process we are open to outside influences. The point of departure is on the cusp of something very ancient and something brand new.”

My favorite song of theirs is Kelling, a Faroese song about old age, heart-break, and dancing anyway…

Hag lies on the doorstep dead
Cannot eat neither butter nor bread
Love she bears in her breast
Cannot eat for self pity 

Stand up and dance

Hag lies on the doorstep dead
Her heart is broken,
cannot dance
embrace her,
take her with you

Stand up and dance


Kroppar is another song in Faroese, a song of resistance:

Stand up
We have fallen
Stand up
Again, and again

She searches everywhere
Between light and shadow
The bodies are falling
But the light is coming

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COLLECTION #3: Kate Rusby, Fejd, Gyvata, Dunkelschöne

The PAGAN MUSIC PROJECT is an attempt to create a comprehensive list of Pagan, Heathen, Esoteric, Animist, and related music that we listen to and love.

We include embedded YouTube, Soundcloud, or Bandcamp links when possible for each artist.

Spotify listener? Click on the embedded player to listen to the full playlist!

COLLECTION #3: Kate Rusby, Fejd, Gyvata, Dunkelschöne

KATE RUSBY

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FOLK, TRADITIONAL

WEBSITE: http://katerusby.com/

Recommended Album: Hourglass or Underneath The Stars

Earthy, rich, and full, Kate Rusby’s voice sounds like autumn fields, stony brooks, and warm hearths. An English folk singer, Kate Rusby’s focus has been on both traditional English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh songs, as well as many of her own. She grew up playing music in her parents’ traditional ceilidh (traditional Scots/Irish gaelic) band until performing solo at 15, and according to various interviews, her primary love is the traditional songs she learned from them and her “old ballad books.” There is also a distinctly rural motif in much of the music she sings, a connection to land through the music of the land and those who lived upon it.

Also, many of the traditional songs she performs are folk tales in themselves. For instance this one, off her most recent album (Life In A Paper Boat), tells of a wounded knight who seeks healing from a witch:

Pale was the wounded knight, that bore the rowan shield,
And loud and cruel were the raven’s cries as he feasted on
the field:
“Green moss and heather bland, will never staunch the flood,
There's none but the Witch of the Westmorland
can save thy dear life's blood.”

Sho Heen is a hauntingly beautiful lullaby. “Sho Heen” is the English transliteration of the Irish word seoithín, which is the word one says to a child to calm them to sleep.

“Sleep my friend now I'll watch o'er you
The moon is here and the stars adore you
Close your eyes and you'll sleep just fine”
Said my guardian angel once upon a time

Sho Heen Sho lo, lu la lo, lu la lo
Sho Heen Sho lo, lu la lo, lu la lo

And a third song from her, my personal favorite, “Annan Waters,” one of many folk songs involving drowned lovers. Listen to it when you really need to feel something:

He's ridden over field and fen
O'er moor and moss and many's the mire
But the spurs of steel were sore to bite
Sparks from the mare's hoofs flew like fire
The mare flew over moor and moss
And when she reached the Annan Water
She couldn't have ridden a furlong more
Had a thousand whips been laid upon her.

FEJD

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(Rock, Metal, Folk)

Recommended Album: Storm

Website: http://www.fejd.se/

Fejd means “feud” or “strife” in Swedish, and there is a rousing, martial quality in Fejd’s music, like vikings riding off to war. Their songs combine all the best elements of 80’s metal with traditional Scandanavian instruments like the sackpipa (Swedish bagpipe) and Nyckelharpa (a keyed violin), as well as other ancient European instruments to consistently beautiful effect.

While Fejd’s music is best listened to as albums (especially at the gym), quite a few of their songs stand well alone. Their song Offerrök (Offering Fire), which starts out their pretty amazing album Storm, evoke all the elements of a traditional Heathen communal ritual:

Gods are revered, runes are carved, the bard composes
Ancient warriors are hailed in our tale
Brage toasts, the guild honours, mighty sounds the song
The bloodlines are strengthen and sealed 
Nine days the blót will last, let us rejoice
Wild dances in delight in the hallway of the god temple
Nine days the blót will last, let us rejoice
Wild dances in delight
The smoke from the fire of sacrifice rises towards the sky

And Den Skimrande is a love song for a dead woman:

Look, she's floating, with the dísir in the fog
So shimmering and cold 
That day cloaked its sacrifice for kind entities
Around her white shoulders, a mantle for the God of those who were hanged
Watch the flower buds by the grave, they speak of years that've passed
Their happiness has vanished, in a cloak of sadness.

Gyvata

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(Traditional, Folk, Chant)

Recommended Album: Su Vėjužiu Kalbėjau

Website: http://www.donis.lt/gyvata/Gyvata.html

Hypnotic vocals evocative of waves upon the shore and sparse musical accompaniment defines Gyvata, a Lithuanian folk project comprised of young music students. Gyvata means “serpent,” a word used by the Theosophist writer (and defender of ancient Lithuanian paganism, Romuva) Vydunas. Gyvata is the word Vydunas uses to describe the spirit that animates a people through its language, stories, and songs, a spirit which then connects them to the rest of the world.

Their album Su Vėjužiu Kalbėjau (“I spoke to the wind”) is primarily composed of songs about young love. Vai auga auga (“Oh grows, grows”) references the folk custom of divining the chances of love by flowers (in this case, rue):

Go to the rue garden, speak to a green rue
Oh speak to a green rue
Speak to a green rue, marry me lassy
Oh I shall go to my garden
Be green, be green the green rue,
I shall not marry this year

In Eina našlaitėlė, an orphan envies the life of nature, declaring it would be better to be a tree:

The orphan cries by the roadside…
Roots for feet,
twigs for hands,
each leaf a love note…

better than to be a parent
who has no parents…


Dunkelschöne

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Medieval, Folk, Traditional, Rock

Recommended Album: Irfind or Nemeton, available direct from band (see Note)

Website: https://www.dunkelschoen-musik.de/home.html/

I forgot about Dunkelschöne until doing a search for a song today. That led me to spend much of the rest of my evening happily listening to their music again. Forgetting about them is a bit understandable: the German Medieval Rock scene is so large that many smaller bands tend not to get much recognition. Dunkelschöne (beautiful darkness) is one of those bands, one that really deserves to be known more widely, especially because of Vanessa Istvan’s really addictive vocals, both fierce and friendly.


My favorite song of theirs (until I so rudely forgot about them) was Liebster, a rendition of one of those German folk songs that gets really creepy when German choirs sing it. Better from a medieval rock band, trust me.

I had in the night a dream
a very difficult dream
In my garden grew
a rosemary tree
the garden was a cemetary
the flowerbed was a grave
From a green tree fell
Crowns and flowers
That I collected in a jug
That fell from my hands
And shattered on the ground
Oh lover, wake me
Oh lover, are you dead?

Another of my favorite songs from them is Dornenweich (Thorn-Hedge):

Your tears are crystals, given timidly to the thin light.
In the old marble halls you can hear the dust breaking.
Silently, a topaz weighs softly on thin mosses.
Glass-spun, almost destroyed, mist shines from the grass.
Golden-green sunspots mate with darkness.
Behind thorny hedges sounds the song of eternity.



Note: While their music is also available on Amazon, CDs can be ordered directly from the band by emailing them at dunkelschoen-musik@web.de

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Collection #4: The Moon & The Nightspirit, Hedningarna, Seiðlæti, Luc Arbogast

The PAGAN MUSIC PROJECT is an attempt to create a comprehensive list of Pagan, Heathen, Esoteric, Animist, and related music that we listen to and love.

We include embedded YouTube, Soundcloud, or Bandcamp links when possible for each artist.

Spotify listener? Click on the embedded player to listen to the full playlist!

The Moon & The Nightspirit

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Folk/Neo-Folk, Traditional

Recommended Album: any, but especially Regő Rejtem and Ősforrás

Website: https://www.themoonandthenightspirit.com/

The Moon & The Nightspirit is a Hungarian duo whose ethereal music lives up precisely to how they self-describe, as inspired by “moss-grown forests” and “forgotten mystic places.” Evoking their Hun ancestry in their instrumentation and vocals (including throat-singing) mixed with North African influences, their songs feel deeply old on a level rarely found in other Pagan bands. As well, Mihály Szabó and Ágnes Tóth are both well-versed in occult and esoteric thought, and speak about it with startling poetry, as in this response (https://obscuro.cz/interview-with-gergely-cseh-from-the-moon-and-the-nightspirit/) to a question about their album, Holdrejtek:

The lyrical concept of the new album revolves around the duality and unity of the micro- and the macrocosmos, the hidden depths of seeds and the stellar-manifested universe. The album on the one hand is a dedication to the unseen, yet all-permeating forces that slumber in the arborescent depths, deep inside the growing seeds and blooming burgeons, the secret heart of Nature that throbs in all the creatures of the earth. On the other hand a dedication to the nocturnal, star-veiled, dream-woven face of the world, the secret Nature, the lunar sanctuary, the shelter of the weary and matter-bound spirit and soul.

My absolute favorite song of theirs, in which you can probably best hear their musical brilliance is Ég Felé (skyward)

A world lies dormant
Deep inside the seed,
A slumbering desire,
Seeking inner light,
Forgetting outer dark

And lo she rests
On a path ephemeral,
Breaking down her own walls,
From the soil of hoary earth
To the realm sidereal


And both the lyrics and music of their song Éjköszöntő sound perfect for the beginning of a witch flight:

Silver-shaded Mother of Night,
by the skirts of gray cloud,
come, long-sought,
and cover us now with thy mantle,
star-inwrought

Awake stellar-manifested world,
mystery-enfolded realm of stars,
cradle us in thy somniferous arms,
weaver of dreams, Mother of Night

Hedningarna

Traditional, Folk, Rock, Punk

Recommended Album: Hippjokk

Website: none

Hedningarrna was one of the first bands to mix Scandinavian folk forms with rock music (they started in 1987). As such, their songs are much less constrained by genre and have a fascinating (but not always palatable) punk and experimental feel that lives up to their name, which means “the Heathens.”

Their song Min Skog probably best exemplifies this point:

Why should I cut down my trees even if they look poorly
You sit there complaining about worsened view from your house
All my trees I'll let them stand, sear or supple does not matter
Yes they may rot and fall down on you I wish they'd end your clamour


A little more danceable is this song:

Seiðlæti

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Traditional, Chant

Recommended Album: Þagnarþulur (only album released)

Website: https://seidlaeti.com/

Though some suggest that Nordic & Heathen music often skews heavily towards archetypal “divine masculine” forms, Seiðlæti is a prime example of how this isn’t the case. Seiðlæti is two musicians from Iceland, Unnur Arndísardóttir and Reynir Katrínarson, whose songs focus heavily on Frigg and other Norse goddesses. They also host seminars on these goddesses and appear occasionally at conferences (for instance, this year at the Glastonbury Goddess Conference).

Their song Saga is likely the best on their only album (though they’ve another coming out soon).

She comes as magic, limitless in a carousel of worlds, infinite is she.
Tears of happiness flow, moistens my skin the whole atmosphere, my ground to play.
Where ever I am, where ever I dream always back, within I return.

Luc Arbogast

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Folk, Traditional

Recommended Album: Aux Portes de Sananda

Website: http://www.lucarbogast.fr/

I had the chance to meet Luc Arbogast briefly at a bar in Strasbourg, France. He looked somewhere between a skinhead and a Berber pirate (still does, but now with an added daddy bear aesthetic).

Thing is? I didn’t know who he was until years later, stumbling upon a video of him performing a song live at a festival. I fell out of my chair, as do most others when hearing his voice.

Rather than tell you more, just watch this:

The one who travels through the worlds
With his only luggage, his freedom
Evolves on the expanding earth
Further, farther, walking
In the footsteps of ancient peoples
Where loneliness perishes

Yeah, Luc sings contratenor, and does so damn beautifully. The juxtaposition of his body and voice led him to be quite the media sensation here in France for several years (including an apperance on “The Voice”). But moving beyond his voice (it’s hard to do, I know), Luc Arbogast’s renditions of medieval songs are superb. Here’s one of my favorite, an old Italian song about a woman who attempts to poison her husband.

Oh maria, beautiful maria
In your garden there is a snake
Take from it and make a wine
Give it to him, and I can be thine

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COLLECTION #5: ARKONA, Eivør, ADVERSUS, PERKELT

The PAGAN MUSIC PROJECT is an attempt to create a comprehensive list of Pagan, Heathen, Esoteric, Animist, and related music that we listen to and love.

We include embedded YouTube, Soundcloud, or Bandcamp links when possible for each artist.

Spotify listener? Click on the embedded player to listen to the full playlist!

ARKONA

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MEtal

Recommended Album: Slovo

Website: https://label.napalmrecords.com/arkona

Arkona is a female-fronted slavic Russian pagan metal band whose been around for almost 20 years. Their members are all practictioners of Rodnovery, the revival of traditional Slavic polytheism whose popularity has been growing in Europe. Their songs heavily evoke Slavic myths and gods, and their name itself is a tribute to one of the last Pagan temples to be destroyed by the Christians in Europe (Arkona was a citadel temple devoted to the Slavic god of battle, Svantovit).

Lead singer Maria 'Masha Scream' Arkhipova is incredibly talented, and is known to be one of the first woman metal singers to employ typical growling metal vocals so well that her voice is indistinguishable from a male growl.

Arkona has eight albums, of which the best is their 2011 release, Slovo, which uses more folk instruments and melodies than other albums. It’s also probably their most accessible album to listeners who have not yet developed an ear for metal.

My all time favorite of their songs is Zimushka (“Winter”). With gorgeous vocals, the lyrics tell of a woman who kills her husband in anger only to then miss him so much in the winter that she follows him into death.

She went to the green garden
And called her husbands name
Oh, husband, you are my husband
You are my darling

You are husband, my husband
Yes, you are my darling
Oh, you are my darling
Yes, we shall go home.

Another accessible song from the same album is Stenka na Stenku (“Wall on Wall”). Stenka na Stenku was a mass bare-fisted brawling ritual devotion to the Slavic god Perun that appalled both Christian missionaries and Tsars alike.

Wall to wall
Fears away
Lightning rune on this day of Perun
Calls again to go into a fist fight
Hey, walk, Slavic brethren!
Hey hey, more fun!
Oh, oh, fight again!

Eivør

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Folk/traditional, Electronic, Pop

Recommended Album:

Website: https://Eivor.com

Eivør Pálsdóttir is a Faroese singer with a gorgeous, haunting voice. Listeners may already know her from some of her soundtrack work (The Last Kingdom, God of War). Eivørs songs mix electronic and pop elements with more traditional instruments and her own traditional throat singing and sometimes sultry, sometimes innocent vocals, while drawing from her rich Nordic heritage for her lyrics.

Trøllabundin (Spellbound, or literally “troll bound”) is a love song in the metaphor of enchantment.

Spellbound I am, I am
The wizard has enchanted me, enchanted me
Spellbound deep in my soul, in my soul
In my heart burns a sizzling fire, a sizzling fire

Spellbound I am, I am
The wizard has enchanted me, enchanted me
Spellbound in my heart's root, my heart's root
My eyes gaze to where the wizard stood



And Brotin (Broken) summons the listener to release from their sorrow through the imagery of witch initiation:

How do you unbind this knot in your soul
How do you break out between the narrow bars
Into an open world that can hold you
Dancing wildly in the black night
Don´t know the morning yet
Our broken hearts
Take one step at a time
I know that you are not unlike me
Under covering skin
Woven from the same fabric
Longing for happiness just like me
Dancing wildly in the red night
Don´t know the morning yet
Fighting against the current
Taking one step at a time


ADVERSUS

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Electronic, Weird

Recommended Album: Winter, So Unsagbar Winter

Website: http://www.adversus.de/

I finally get to tell the world about my secret little addiction, Adversus. Adversus is absolutely crazy, utterly incomprehensible, and the best trip of your life. If you were to mix Japanese video game music with opera, laudanum, underground drum&bass, and a renaissance festival, you have Adversus.

Their lyrics (are those lyrics or channelings?) evoke esoteric, existentialist, and alchemical themes firmly situated in German romanticist poetics. But more fun and wild are their transitions and progressions which will each time leave you saying “wait what just happened to the song I was listening to three seconds ago???“ But don’t worry: it will change back, or change again, who knows? Just keep listening. They’re addictive, insane, and the best time of your life.

Seelenwinter (Soul-winter) is oh-my-gods-what-is-this? fun, and is about the dark night of the soul (nigredo) and especially becoming yourself again after lost love:

Sink in the everlasting tide
Drown in the deepest green lakes,
Float like a corpse down the river
Be silent forever on the seabed.

Only the soul winter knows the names
Those who are not resurrected
Because the grim of winter knows no mercy.

Learn to suffer
And truth at last will shine in you.

Klingentanz (blade-dance, or war fury) describes the redirection of unhealed personal pain into misplaced rage against the world. It’s also the best song for cardio I’ve ever found.

Everything won and so much lost
Died in pain and reborn in steel
Ashes to ashes and hope to grave
I look at myself and ask the question
What ever moved me to tears?
And then follow the star that leads me to the end

PERKELT

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Folk/Traditional, Medieval

Recommended Album: Diary of a Trollwoman

Website: https://perkelt.com

PerKelt is a UK-based band who accurately describe themselves as “Pagan Speed Folk.” Their renditions of both traditional and modern songs are delightful in their simplicity, and yeah—they’re pretty fast! Also, I’m pretty certain their name is a play on a traditional Eastern European goulash (the lead singer is Czech).

For an example of the speed of their songs, take their rendition of the traditional Occitan song, Ai Vist Lo Lop (I saw the wolf), one of the first songs my (tragically defunct) own band learned and played. Their recorder work is a lot fast than mine.

Less fast and quite beautiful is their version of the traditional song from 16th century English troubador John Dowland, If My Complaints Could Passions Move, a song noted for its undertones of same-sex affection:

Can Love be rich, and yet I want?
Is Love my judge, and yet I am condemn'd?
Thou plenty hast, yet me dost scant:
Thou made a God, and yet thy power contemn'd
That I do live, it is thy power:
That I desire it is thy worth.