One thing that I was not expecting from Varg Vikernes was another album of electronic music. Now, I'm no hater; I actually dig his oft-maligned mid-90's "prison albums" that saw the former Mayhem member and convicted murderer/church-burner composing primitive, earnest synthesizer soundscapes from inside his cell. The minimalist neo-classical weirdness and elliptical folk of Dau�i Baldrs and the strange Wagnerian ambience of Hli�skj�lf both have a kind of crude majesty about 'em, and to be honest with you, seem to mainly get trashed by people who have never actually listened to the albums in full. Either one of them would have fir right in on the Projekt label around the time of their release. Still didn't expect to see Vikernes return to this sort of synth-based sound, though, as he always seemed to play down that period of his "career" whenever I read one of his post-prison release interviews. After a couple of interesting albums in full Burzumic mode, Vikernes has brought us Sol Austan Mani Vestan (which translates to "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", drawing from the pagan spiritual themes that Vikernes works to evoke through his music), an eleven song album that does indeed sound like it's picking up where Hli�skj�lf left off, again blending together elements of dark kosmische ambience, electronic minimalism and medieval music into hypnotic, repetitive arrangements. One big difference between this new album and his mid-90s electronic works is the production, which has definitely improved, and sounds much more contemporary; the instrumentation has expanded beyond the icy whooshing synthesizers to include the sounds of industrial percussion, upright bass, and acoustic strings. The tracks range from minimal dark ambient pieces that ripple
with ringing metallic bell tones to more folk-flecked arrangements, formed around trance-inducing tribal rhythms and layered instruments that swirl around his clouds of ghostly Moog. Vikernes cited Tangerine Dream as a big influence on Sol Austan, and you can definitely hear it on tracks like "Haugaeldr", "Heljarmyrkr" and "H��", which are far more classically kosmische sounding than anything he's done in the past; fans of all of this neuvo-Teutonic ambience and Klaus Schulze / Ash Ra Tempel / Tangerine Dream worship that's been popping up lately would love those moments of Sol Austan...
Available on both CD (in jewel-case packaging) and on limited edition 180 gram colored vinyl in gatefold packaging.