Since its inception in 2015, the enigmatic ritual collective HEILUNG has been paving melodic paths to the past with their unique and mystifying sound. Evading all conventional genre tags and the confines of any specific labels, the group aptly self-describes their sound as “amplified history,” emphasizing their ability to connect modern society with the rudiments of humanity’s beginnings through music. HEILUNG once again journeys back in time with its new chapter, ‘Drif;’ however, unlike previous offerings that centered around prehistoric northern Europe, album number three will explore other great rudimentary civilizations outside of Europe.
“All the songs on ‘Drif’ have their own stories,” adds HEILUNG throat singer and one of the band’s three composers, Kai Uwe Faust. Each has its place and sense of belonging, with inspiration not only from Northern Europe, but from the ancient great civilizations,” explains the band. “We took the ancient surrounding advanced civilizations in account, because our ancestral Nordic civilizations did not just pop up, exist and disappear in isolation. Already in the Bronze Age, we found silk on German land that was imported already from the far, far East 3000 years ago. From the Viking age, we found beads that were brought there from present-day Syria high up in the Northern mountains. “Centrally important concepts, still in extensive use today, like the number Zero and all the mathematical universes deriving from it, the use of iron and the general concept of settling all originate from traditional high civilizations outside the north and still fundamentally changing our ancestor's world. “With singing these primordial songs we want to give tribute to these cultures, reconnect to the beginnings and remember that we all, from East to West, from past to present, are connected through the exchange of ideas and inspiring each other.” Meaning “gathering,” ‘Drif’ serves as more than merely a gateway that bridges history with modern day society, but is also a statement of the strength in unity and togetherness, which will come as no surprise to those who have experienced HEILUNG’s live ritual, in which every ceremony starts with a reminder that “we are all brothers.” “‘Drif’ means ‘gathering,’' explains HEILUNG. “A throng of people, a horde, a crowd, a pack. In symbiosis with the album title, ‘Drif’ consists of a flock, a collection, a gathering, a collage of songs, that much like little flames were seeking towards each other, to join, to bond, to create, and be greater together.” While HEILUNG features authentic and archaic instrumentation that ranges from rattles and ritual bells to human bones and throat singing, their captivating brand of music is far from primitive. Producer and founding member Christopher Juul implements subtle electronic elements that elevates the musical atmosphere and provides a more in-depth and layered soundscape. “This album has very clearly dictated its own path. Our attempts to tame it were repeatedly fruitless, and once we came to this realization, the creative flow surged forward with immense force. So much so that sometimes it felt like the songs wrote themselves,” the band adds.
Asja has nice vocals in it (throat singer), a good tempo and a sound that evokes Pagan rituals. The female vocals are simply mind blowing (fragile and yet strong): giving you goosebumps.
Anoana mixes all kind of voices (male, female, throat singing, …). The percussions lead. Towards the end you almost get an ecstatic feel.
Tenet has already been launched as a single and reminds me a bit of Wardruna (the link is not that far). The song slowly build up towards a climax. The end is more than just mesmerizing!
Urbani sounds like marching orders: an army on the road!
Keltentrauer starts with a spoken word in German. It’s a real story telling track, just a shame my German is not good enough to understand it fully.
Nesso starts slowly and has after a while an hypnotizing sound, for sure thanks to the vocals and the percussions.
Buslas Bann: a throat singer, percussions that build up the tension and a good rhythm.
Nikkal is mainly sung a Capella with a female choir. Sounds nice and fragile.
Marduk builds up slowly, with a whispering voice and an hypnotic sound. It’s a bit strange to close the album like this as it’s not the big bang but it is what it is.
I was happy to review this one, had high expectations but somehow I prefer Wardruna as they get me faster and better hooked to their sound. I’m pretty sure fans will say I’m wrong, but that is my personal conclusion. I still need to see them on stage and am willing to give it a try!
Track-list 1. Asja (5:17) 2. Anoana (4:57) 3. Tenet (13:05) 4. Urbani (2:55) 5. Keltentrauer (8:26) 6. Nesso (7:54) 7. Buslas Bann (5:03) 8. Nikkal (3:04) 9. Marduk (8:34
Guest musicians: - Annicke Shireen, Emilie Lorentzen, Mira Ceti, on track: 1, 2, 3 and 8 - Jacob Hee Lund and Nicolas Schipper on track: 1, 2, 3 and 7 - Ruben Terlouw, Pan Bartkowiak, Marijn Sies, Gwydion Zomer, Isabella Streich, Martin Skou, Samiye van Rossum, Nadia Kalamieiets, Edward Boyter, Nina Cornelia Schilp, Mitchell Bosch, Gwydion Zomer and Katalin Papp on track: 2, 4 and 5 - Vilja Christine Agger, Ea Christine Agger and Michael Berberian on track: 3.
For the fans we have the meaning of all the songs underneath (I wrote the review before reading this as I wanted to have my own fantasy at work):
Asja:
This is a love song. Maria sings to the listener of love, recovery and prosperity, chasing away evil and welcoming love. The piece contains a quotation of some lines of “Hávamál”, combined with a selection of blessing words meant to provide help to the listener in a troubled time. Kai brought his part back to us after a month of isolation, fasting and meditation in nature. Only the spirits know the full meaning, but we do know that the context is love, prosperity and protection. The sonic composition of this song is made up of very basic elements and consists of body sounds, drums, leaves, straw-brooms, bowed lyre and vocals. Asja is Heilung’s take on a more traditional folk song. We would expect the pre-Christian people of Northern Europe to have perceived this as a magic song: performed with intent as an entity with its own power and agenda, which, once summoned through sound, follows its design and creates the desired outcome. This is our voice being sent out there with the intent to heal and bring progress and prosperity.
Anoana:
This is a spell from the beginning of the Dark Ages. The lyrics for this piece are mainly taken from bracteates: golden, circular coins or amulets found in Northern Europe that date from the 4th to 7th centuries CE. They are often fitted with a decorated rim and loop, which indicates that they were meant to be worn and perhaps provide protection, fulfil wishes or for divination. The bracteates feature a very significant iconography influenced by Roman coinage. They were predominantly made from Roman gold, which was given to the North Germanic peoples as peace money. A small number of the bracteates found are inscribed with runes and some of these inscriptions are nearly impossible to interpret. While Maria’s parts of the song are taken mainly from bracteates discovered in Norway, Kai's part is exclusively taken from Danish finds, all of them with inscriptions that provide no answers, only questions. Runologists do not even attempt a translation. Even though it might sound like it, no sampled sounds or modern instruments were used to create Anoana. The piece is played 100% acoustically on ancient instruments that have been heavily altered, morphed and filtered in post-production to achieve a larger than life deep dive into the amplification of the recorded sounds. In Anoana, the listener has the chance to delve into a collection of likely encoded spells from the Migration Period and get a touch of magic from the Dark Ages. The intention of the piece is to playfully reconnect to an incantational language of a period where the North was richer in gold than any other region. Our forefathers presumably enjoyed a time of great prosperity and it may make us rethink how dark these ages really were.
Tenet:
Tenet is a palindrome in every respect: all individual musical parts, melodies and instruments (and even at times the lyrics) play the same both forward and backwards. The song is based on the so-called “Sator Square”, the earliest datable two-dimentional palindrome, first found in Herculaneum (Italy), a city buried under the ashes of the erupting Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, at that time part of the flourishing Roman Empire. What is particularly interesting with this palindrome is that not only does it read forwards and backwards but also diagonally in both directions.
S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S
Its translation has been the subject of much speculation through time and no clear consensus has been found. A lot of myths have evolved around this little square, and inscriptions of it have been discovered all the way up to 19th century Scandinavia as a protection against theft, illnesses, lightning, fire, madness, general pain and heartache. It can be found carved in churches (Skellerup, Denmark) or in books about black magic. Eight times it was carved in runes, the inscriptions of which have been discovered in Iceland, Norway and Sweden.Some rune sticks from Bergen contain the square alongside Christian evocations: in Tenet, Heilung picks up the odd mix of old Norwegian and late Latin phrases, mixed into benevolent wishes to ensure good luck or health. Syncretism, as we see it today in South America, i.a., where an indigenous healer wholeheartedly chants the name of Christ in the traditional healing songs, was maybe not uncommon in mediaeval Scandinavia. As the magic square travels through time, culture and countries, most of our European ancestors were probably familiar with it. Heilung has with this piece thus chosen to indulge in many languages from different time periods and regions, starting out with Latin, then onto Proto[1]Germanic, Old Norse and Gothic. The unusual melody of the piece is created with a special code system employing numbers, runes and Latin letters taken from the square itself, and deciphered in a complicated system to give birth to Heilung’s first melodic palindrome.
Urbani:
This is a song that has been sung in the Roman army. In his biography of Gaius Julius Caesar, the Roman historian Suetonius provides us with a record of this song. It is said that veterans performed the piece with a heavy mocking undertone during Caesar's march of triumph in 46 BC in Rome. The Emperor is called a squanderer of tax money with a questionable sexuality and his political actions are ridiculed. Suetonius leaves us no clue of how it was sung, so we had to dive into the meagre records of Roman military music. A late Roman poet, Prudentius, talks about song structures in sets of four beats, counting up to twelve. The legionnaires' voices are supported by the banging of their spears (pilum) against the shields and we hear an endless amount of heavy military shoes (caliga) hitting the ground. The rhythm is in the so-called “forced march speed” still in use in some armies of our time. To recreate the sound for Heilung, we took our field recording equipment and stomped back and forth over a reconstructed Viking Age bridge outside Albertslund Viking Village (Vikingelandsbyen) a few hundred times. On Trajan's Column in Rome, horn players are depicted marching with or rather in front of the legion. They play an instrument called Cornu (horn). A beautiful example was unearthed in Pompeii. It was used to manage the movements of the legion on the battlefield. The horn can produce very powerful, thrilling, even frightening sounds. One of the instruments audible in this piece is a reconstruction of the Cornu.
Keltentrauer:
This is a poem written 20 years ago with the aim of leading the listener into the Iron Age. The piece describes a clash of cultures: Celtic tribes colliding with Roman attitudes and military machinery. It is a fictional battle, conjuring up/evoking visions of warfare in the first century BC. In the beginning, we hear the Celtic people’s army in all its martial beauty gathering in front of the Roman troops. Having just marched in, the Romans now stand still and silently waiting in perfect formation. The chieftain of the Deer People, an impressive man, steps in front of the line, undresses and walks naked towards the Roman army leader while his comrades sing a war chant. He offers the mounted officer a chance to solve the dispute in a battle of champions. After ancient habit, only the best warriors would meet on the battlefield and so decide the outcome in a court of weapons: a lifesaving tradition of the Iron Age farming cultures where most warriors were also farmers, fishermen, blacksmiths and so on. The Roman officer, with a purely professional army behind him, does not deign to answer and has the chieftain shot down by his archers. This incurs the wrath of the Celts and an indescribable bloodbath unfolds. Several historians of the time suggest that women took part in battles alongside the men: not merely to have their back, but also actively engaging in combat. The Romans, prepared for the imprudent attack, mercilessly slaughter them all and we hear desperate cries of both men and women. Following the Celtic habit of committing suicide to avoid captivity, even the last warrior meets his end. While the last flags fall, we hear a once-proud warrior lament the downfall of his people, regretting having lived to see the sacred land of his ancestors now unprotected and open to a ravaging foreign army. The poem itself is in New High German, whereas the chants and shouts are in Gaelic, a fellow Indo-European language, but of the Celtic Branch.
Nesso:
This piece is an ancient healing spell to pull sickness out of the leg of a horse. In early medieval Europe, sickness, disease and pain were often imagined as taking the shape of demonic worms crawling around the body. Songs and spells against worms are thus a big part of ancient European healing magic, not only for humans, but animals as well. Nesso is rooted in the conceptualisation of a time where people perceived the work of spirits and unseen entities in every event of their life. Every disease, every weather phenomenon had intent, genius and soul. The concept of dead matter and beings without intelligence and cause was not known and likely not graspable for our ancestors. The church, of course, opposed these habits strongly. Although interestingly enough, the clerics themselves preserved some of the incantations. The one we use in this piece is one such, called “Contra Vermes” (against worms), dated back to the 9th century. In this particular spell, the incantation aims to make the worm move to the outside of the body and get caught in an arrowhead. The arrow was then shot into the forest, as the forest was seen as the home of spirits, demons and sickness. We do encounter a controversy in translation and interpretation in this piece, as the Old High German word for “arrow” has another possible meaning: “hoof frog” (triangular underside of a horse’s hoof), which is the part that would have to be removed, since this is where the worm is caught.
The sonic side:
As in all Heilung’s pieces, all sounds are of natural origin before being moulded between Christopher’s firm hands. In Nesso, we are utilising the most ancient way of recording sound: singing directly into a resonating copper string tuned to the same note, echoing ghosts from the past. The beastly components consist of animalistic, impersonated footsteps in gravel and hay. The male underlying vocal imitates the worm being exorcised by Maria singing the spell. No live horse was harmed in the creation of this piece. The deep singing voices are played at half speed, imitating the slowing of time often experienced in near-death situations. The bowed lyre (jouhikko) being played in this song has a similar function as bowed instruments used in healing rituals for animals by, e.g., nomadic Mongolians. Maria was placed in a mind-space where an animal very dear to her was dying. The tears and pain in her voice are therefore very real and recorded in one take.
Buslas Bann:
This is a curse. Buslas Bann is inspired by the rune spell of Busla from “Bósa saga”: a legendary saga written in Iceland around the 13th century. The Icelandic original contains incredibly coarse language. We find rune carvings related to the curse in the stave churches of Nore and Lomen (Norway) and many other places of early mediaeval Scandinavia, but inscriptions have also been found on the almost a century older rune stones from Gørlev (Denmark) and Ledberg (Sweden). The general translation of these inscriptions is difficult, but it is believed that it could be a protection from beings that bring damage, also taking Busla’s curse into consideration, which could be some kind of spell of release at least. Here Heilung also dives into the field of runic lore. In the song, you hear some runes taken from Ole Worms “Runir seu Danica Literatura Antiqvissima” published in 1636. In the saga, the actual rune spell that Busla knows is not mentioned. We start out singing the devastating words that are supposed to bring downfall and terror. Line byline we change it into a blessing, like sun follows rain and spring follows winter. It finishes with six blessing staves that celebrate the all-unity and ensures the aid of the supporting spirits. Only living with the cycles of nature can give us the power to sing the evil powers of winter away come spring. The understanding that the seed has to die in order to spark vitality can bring back our joy of life in the face of death and we can celebrate that short moment of perfect balance for example at the equinoxes. Music and dance is the primal language of mankind. In it, we can experience the divine harmony woven through all of existence. The echoing yells heard in the background are recorded in a lava desert in Iceland to bring the listener sonically closer to the birthplace of the piece.
Nikkal:
This is a song from the Bronze Age. The song was found carved into clay tablets in the Canaanite city of Ugarit (modern-day Syria) and is dated at 3400 years old. It is currently the oldest surviving complete work of annotated music. The tablets contain not only lyrics and notes, but are also believed to contain instructions on how to tune the harp or lyre-like instrument for the song. The ancient composer's name is unknown. The song is written in an Ugarit dialect, which differs significantly from other sources of the period. The translation is not easy, as might be expected, and various researchers have made differing translations and interpretation attempts. However, we do know as much as that the piece is a hymn to the goddess Nikkal, the daughter of the Summer King and the wife of the Moon God. Her name means “Fruitful Great Lady” and she is equal to the later Sumerian Ningal, mother of Inanna (later worshipped as Ishtar, goddess of, i.a., love, war and political power). The piece contains appeals to her for fertility and cleansing, according to the circulating translations. In one of the scientific interpretations of this ancient song notation, we find two harmonising melodies for the harp-like instrument accompanied by the lyrics for the song. Heilung has applied these melodies, probably originally intended for the instrument, to the vocals and lyrics and composed a third melody, most prominent in the lower register, weaving the existing two melodies together.
Marduk:
This is the 50 names of Marduk. Transported by handmade singing bowls of bronze, we arrive at another poem. From the ruined library of Assurbanipal in Nineveh (modern-day Mosul, Iraq), the lyrics for this piece emerge, quietly whispered. It is the fifty names of Marduk, the highest god of the Mesopotamians. Although the clay tablets bearing the text date back only to the 7th century BC, according to assyriologists, the origins of the text lie in the first Babylonian dynasty (1894 - 1559 BC). "Enuma Elish'' is the original title of the Babylonian creation myth, which finishes with the list of Marduk's names and royal titles on the seventh tablet.
