WARDRUNA enrich souls with a livestream of consciousness.
RIKSSCENEN, OSLO
Norway’s continuum-revealing visionaries reawaken the senses
DEPRIVED BY THE pandemic of the opportunity to celebrate Wardruna’s hugely successful new album, Kvitravn
(No.1 on itunes for its first three days, charting high globally), in an appropriately collective setting, rather than letting the moment pass, band mastermind and multi-instrumentalist Einar Selvik has opted instead to stream the event live from Riksscenen, Norway’s national centre for folk music. In a pre-show interview with Hammer’s
former editor-in-chief Alexander Milas, whose Twin V productions recently shot a series of interviews with the artist, an as-ever stoic Selvik is earnest in his intention for the show, to bring people together and in so doing evoke one of Wardruna’s core tenets: collective spiritual reawakening. As Einar puts it: “We are going to try and do our best to visit you, to reach you.”
A raven’s call reverberates amidst icy winds as Einar and Wardruna’s only other permanent member, Lindy-fay Hella, stand to the fore with vocalist Katrine Stenbekk of Norwegian folkpop act Kalandra, whose brilliant cover of Wardruna’s Helvegen has nearly three million Youtube views. They’re backed by the rest of the band, all clad in black, clasping ancient instruments. Ceremonies commence with Kvitravn’s
title track, a marching introduction that underlines Einar’s creative focus – not seeking to recreate music from the past but to craft something new, relevant to the modern human condition, with methods of old. Deerskin drums pound as a hypnotic rhythm is drawn from Einar’s moraharpa, a keyed fiddle from the 1600s. He resonates solemnly in harmony with the striking Lindy-fay, the raven feathers adorning her shoulders offsetting her red hair.
The rousingly harmonic Skugge
follows, Einar reaching outward with arms and voice. You can see how much he feels it, as the camera pans to view him through the iconic eye on the deer antler-topped staff adorning his mic stand. When the tempo accelerates it’s spellbinding, more séance than music, as the ritual percussion elevates the urgency. It’s captivatingly catchy too, strangely bringing to mind the recent penchant for social media sea shanties and the realisation that they’re broadly performing the same function: reaching into the past at a time of great social dissonance to find togetherness in time-tested, stirring harmonies.
Each of the 13 tracks performed offer uniquely captivating moments.
Solringen’s plaintive call is hair-raising. A simple rhythm is beaten on wood, a solitary flute plays as the band stir, and Einar’s repeated incantation provides the core that the other elements of nature’s symphony grow and flourish around. Bjarkan’s low-end drone and chattering, log-beaten percussion are bound by a nurturing, resonant undercurrent, connecting to something beneath our existential angst. So much of the music is built around sonorous, interlacing percussion. It’s primally rousing even without Lindy-fay’s bottled lightning; where Einar reassures, she startles, with spectacular, at times seemingly inhuman range.
Raido arrives to much fanfare in the comments. “It’s OK to weep” says one fan; a thread full of emotional people connecting through ceremony is a vindication of Einar’s intentions.
Voluspá marks the mid-ceremony as Einar performs alone. It highlights the stark power and versatility of his rich baritone. Urur, named after an extinct breed of cattle, makes a spectacle of the bronze Lur, a horn that encircles the head of Eilif Gundersen and arcs upwards, evocative of the horns of the titular beast that inspires its clarion call. The lowing of cattle turns to wolven howls with Grá’s pared-down, percussive ravening. Rotlaust Tre Fell is a visceral thunderbolt. Einar theatrically gesticulates in earnest communion with the urgency they’re generating, his face contorting, wild-eyed at the crescendo as he delivers his final guttural incantation, his raised hand gnarled into a claw and channelling a fearsome, dark force in contrast to the rest of the set. For closer Helvegen, the band stand surrounded in torchlight, bringing a primitively flickering glower to the ceremony as proceedings end with a second Einar vocal solo, closing a song sung to herald the passing from life to death that has become their signature, spinetingling finale.
Of the many livestreams during the pandemic, few have captured the electricity of a live performance. Tonight is so slickly produced, so harmonically resonant, so spiritually captivating as to eliminate the physical and technological distance, filling a hole inside you didn’t realise was empty. Wardruna’s magic is difficult to quantify in that to do so, to over-think rather than surrender to the moment, is to miss the point. Einar Selvik has set out to reach us, and in allowing us to disengage the head and refuel our hearts from a wellspring of naturally primal, positive energy, he and the band have achieved that triumphantly. TOM O’BOYLE