Tag: music

Pagan Musicians Masterpost

arcadiansatyr:

Here’s a list of pagan bands/artists for your listening pleasure! Feel free to add more if you know them:

  • Damh the Bard – Folk (Celtic)
  • Blackmore’s Night – Folk Rock (Renaissance)
  • Castalia – Rock (Wiccan/Greek)
  • Elaine Silver – Folk/Acapella (Faerie)
  • Emerald Rose – Folk (Celtic/Wiccan?)
  • Enya – New Age  (Not actually pagan, but very calming/spiritual)
  • Faun – German Rock (Celtic/Norse)
  • Fleetwood Mac – Soft Rock (Again, not pagan, but spiritual)
  • Stevie Nicks – Pop/Folk Rock (Lead singer of FM, very witchy)
  • Fugli – Folk/Spoken Word (Shakespearean Faerie)
  • Gary Stadler – New Age Composer/Pianist (Celtic/Faerie)
  • Fehu – Folk Rock (Norse)
  • Wendy Rule – New Age/Rock (Faerie)
  • Heather Dale – Folk Rock (Greek)
  • KIVA – New Age/Chants (Greek/Celtic)
  • Spiral Dance – Folk Rock (Greek/Celtic)
  • Heather Alexander – Irish Folk/Acapella (Celtic/Arthurian)
  • Lisa Thiel – Acapella/Folk (Faerie)
  • Moonstruck – Rock/Metal (Wiccan/Celtic)
  • Lucidian – Folk (Wiccan)
  • Llewellyn – New Age (Arthurian/Healing Spirituality)
  • Robert Gass – Chants (Mother Earth Spirituality)
  • S.J. Tucker – Folk Rock (Celtic-ish, just generally Witchy)
  • Spiral Rhythm – Chants (Perfect for drum circles)
  • Threefold – New Age (Wiccan/Celtic)
  • Gheorghe Zamfir – Instrumental Pop (Pan pipes)
  • Loreena McKennitt – New Age/Folk Rock (Celtic)
  • Heidevolk – Folk Metal (Norse/Celtic)
  • Wolfchant – Viking Metal (Norse)
  • Arkona – Russian Pagan Metal (Norse)

Nordic Culture / Folk music against Fascism

edda-for-dummies:

Many American alt-right and neo-nazi freaks like to think that modern “Nordic culture” is somehow theirs to dictate over, based on family roots. So let’s take a look at one of the bigger contemporary names in Nordic folk music.

Glittertind is a band producing folk metal and rock in alternating ways – album Djevelsvart is closer in sound to death metal, while Blåne for Blåne is closer to “grandparent folk” or contemporary indie pop. Himmelfall combines folk pop and symphonic metal influences together with church music.

Listening to the songs might make you want to believe that “viking music” is all about fatherland and warfare. That “white” Nordic music-makers would stand for the ideology of American nationalists. You couldn’t be more wrong.

Some (youtube-driven American right-wing) listeners have complained about Glittertind “losing their original drive” and “mixing pathetic
litberal politics in their music”.
Truth is, however, that Glittertind
has been political for many years. Neo-nazi appropriation of their
music, originally based on Nordic history and modern culture in a way
that seek to preserve and share them, might well be the reason for
breaking genre boundaries more freely on newer albums..

Nordic culture is very far from American bipartisan issues and always has been. We’ve just never liked Nazis.


Landkjenning (2009) includes a namesake song “Glittertind”
with lyrics based on a war-era poem celebrating the quiet resistance
Norwegian citizens carried out against Nazi Germany under the
occupation. The opening line “Vi tror mest på freden / Vi eier ikke
sverd” translates to “We believe foremost in peace / We own no sword”.


Djevelsvart (2013) includes a song “Sprekk for Sol” written in honour of a fan murdered in the June 12th Terror attacks, 2011, committed by a right-wing radical in Norway. The victim was called Torjus Jakobsen Blattmann. Singer Torbjørn Sandvik

has described the June terror attacks as “the most devil-black moment in Norwegian history”.

So “stinkende ensamme nisse, åndpest av hat” (stinking, lonely goblin, a plague-spirit of hate)

is all the recognition a neo-nazi terrorist deserves in Glittertind’s lyrics.

Blåne for Blåne (2015) was published to celebrate the end of WWII and the end of Nazi oppression in the Nordic countries, in honour of the generation of grandmothers and -fathers who stood against fascism. It has been the favourite of many in Norway because of its earthier folk tone and hopeful messages of freedom, perseverance and friendship.

Himmelfall (2017) tells of the strong Protestant Christian history of the Nordic countries. It tells of not only the good ideas of equality and education brought with it, but also of the brutality of religious wars between differing Christian churches in Europe during following centuries.
Himmelfall single “Forføraren”

or “The Seducer” is a “A heartfelt sigh to the tragic mix of religion and politics, and a comment in advance of the presidential election in USA” (from Glittertind’s Facebook page). It’s also definitely more country-folk in tone, so it’s made just for the close-minded Trump-followers who Glittertind would rather not have as their fans.