The Pagan Music List 29
The PAGAN MUSIC LIST 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.
Previous collections in this series have been archived here, and new collections of reviews will be posted monthly (supporters get early access to new collections—find out more here).
We also provide a constantly updated index of artists that we have reviewed by name and genre.
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Collection 29
Ofdrykkja, Lindy-Fay Hella, Artesia
Ofdrykkja
Neo-Folk/Black Metal
Website: https://artofpropaganda.bandcamp.com/album/after-the-storm
Recommended Album: After The Storm
Originally a very dark and quite depressing Swedish Black Metal band which sang often of suicide, self-mutilation, and death, Ofdrykkja seems to have finally found something worth living for.
Their earlier music isn’t worth your attention, unless you really, really feel like wallowing. On the other hand, the meaning they’ve found in Nordic animist beliefs and connection to tradition has produced some really beautiful music.
Again, I really don’t recommend their earlier albums, but their album After the Storm (including the title track) is quite beautiful.
Though they’ve found hope, that hardly means they’ve stayed away from the darker side of things. For example, there’s their haunting rendition of the tragic Swedish folk song, Hårgalåten. Hårgalåten tells the tale of children who dance themselves to death after a cloven-hoofed stranger arrives, playing a violin: basically, the Pied Piper of Hamlin meets St. Vitus’s dance. The video is quite dark, so I’ve not embedded it here.
Lindy-Fay Hella
Nordic/Heathen, Neo-folk
Website: https://www.lindyfayhella.com/
Recommended Album: Seafarer
Best known as the female vocalist of the Norse band Wardruna, Lindy-Fay Hella has made guest appearances on projects for other bands (including FAUN) and also performs solo, backed up by Die Farne.
On her own, the music she does can seem a bit too experimental and almost schizophrenic, as if she seems never quite certain whether to appeal to pop audiences or neo-folk ones. Occasionally, this results in songs which sound like off-brand Björk. See for example her song, “The Lake.”
Regardless of this feeling of uncertainty, her music can be very beautiful at times, as with her song Seafarer.
Her appearance with FAUN for their song Galdra has already been mentioned in an earlier edition of this list, but it’s such a beautiful song that it’s most definitely worth mentioning again.
Artesia
Neo-Folk/Ambient
Website: https://artesia-official.bandcamp.com/
Recommended Album: Ténèbres, prenez-moi la main
For being one of the few mainland European Celtic lands to maintain its character and language, Bretagne has produced surprisingly few well-known musical acts. This is definitely strange, as the largest pan-Celtic music festival in the world, the Lorient Interceltic Festival, occurs in Bretagne.
Regardless, one band which got some well-deserved recognition was the Neo-folk/ambient band, Artesia. Formed more than two decades ago and now located in Paris, they continue performing, and released a new album last year.
Their most popular song is a very well-done cover of the song used in the soundtrack for The Last of the Mohicans, “The Gaels.”
All the songs on their latest EP, “Ténèbres, prenez-moi la main,” are also worth your listening, as well their previous EP, “Wanderings.” Here’s one particularly good song from that one, “En cette fin de jour” (in that day’s end)