Browsing Tag

Pagan Folk

Ariana Saraha & Flight Behavior showed us the true tribal roots of folk in Grandmother’s Tears

Posted on 26 June 2022

Here to remind us of what folk music was before it was commercialised and dominated by The Lumineers is the world music album, From the Wild, from Ariana Saraha & Flight Behavior.

The opening single, Grandmother’s Tears, takes contemporary frustrative energy and stretches it back a millennia through a soundscape inspired by infinitely more than the grand sum of human construction and destruction. With each element of nature a potential muse for Ariana Saraha & Flight Behavior, it’s almost surreal that they’re of this era. After listening to the lyric “Grandmother’s tears, they have fallen. Four thousand years”, which will haunt my contemplation for quite some time, I scarcely seem rooted in 2022 myself.

Ariana Saraha & Flight Behavior’s album, From the Wild, is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Kveda verse Pagan poetry in their latest Nordic folk single, ‘Thorkell Streep’

Posted on 20 May 2021

Kveda is a folk music project that digs far past the roots of contemporary music right into the arcane core of Viking folklore. Their pagan sound may be niche, but their latest release, ‘Thorkell Streep’, is steadily racking up the streams since the release on April 4th.

Their latest release proves that Kveda has exactly what it takes to reach the same heights as acts such as Heilung who have given music fans a taste for soundscapes that speak to you on a tribal level.

With lyrics taken from relic poems and manuscripts and their diverse instrumental arrangements that includes historic instruments  such as bouzoukis, mandolins, nyckelharpas, violas and lyres, Thorkell Streep would struggle to be more authentic. The release that comes with hauntingly mystic chants is as enlivening as it is hypnotizing, hit play and immerse yourself in the meditatively powerful release.

Thorkell Streep is now available to stream via YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast