Back in the 1990s, most people couldn’t stand Ildjarn and side-project Sort Vokter. These bands were seen as too simple, primitive, nihilistic, raw and amoral for even black metal.
One web site — our direct ancestor — praised the releases to the skies, claimed they were brilliant, and aggressively advocated them, culminating in an interview with the mastermind behind Ildjarn himself. We were ridiculed, mocked, scourged, spit upon, etc. until suddenly people woke up and realized the brilliance of Ildjarn.
Ildjarn mocks deconstruction. Modern people love to deconstruct things into tiny little statements that are true but also incomplete; Ildjarn took many tiny states, and using them like spatter-paint making a silhouette on canvas, used them to create a vision of a much broader and pervasive truth, as exemplified in the phrase “Forest Poetry.” Ildjarn is naturalism that does not retreat to happy Disney Land where all the animals are fuzzy and cute. Ildjarn is feral reality coming back through the (poetic) beast within.
Many years later, label Seasons of Mist has opted to re-release the classic of the Ildjarn era with new artwork and hopefully minimal remastering if any. These releases are already available for pre-order in the Seasons of Mist online shop.
We encourage all people who have not experienced Ildjarn to listen and revel in the simple coordinated profundity of this primal black metal band. These mighty slabs of minimalist metal will be available on August 16, 2013.
Ildjarn – Ildjarn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg7Fkt3SWKA
Ildjarn – Forest Poetry
Ildjarn – Strength and Anger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0TDaAmp7DM
Tags: ambient metal, Black Metal, budget riffs, ildjarn, microsymphonies, Thrash
For a lengthy expression of passionate misanthropy, do read this:
http://www.anus.com/metal/about/interviews/ildjarn/ildjarn-ildjarn_is_dead/ildjarn-final_statement.pdf
I hope these aren’t digipaks.
Well, the Septic Flesh reissues were in jewelcases, as was the first Seth album. For a company that releases stuff like Deathspell Omega, SoM seem to be remarkably on the ball when it comes to reissues, apart from giving them terrible new cover art. Luckily, that doesn’t seem to be a problem with the Ildjarn ones, though I still would have preferred the original artwork. Anyone know if there’s plans for other Ildjarn stuff like the Landscapes double album or Ildjarn-Nidhogg?
They also have a habit of brickwalling the sound, but most Ildjarn releases are already bad in that aspect.
http://www.esquire.com/features/the-crack-up
At this point I’ve heard all his old stuff, but I’m really eager for the lost never before released stuff that was due to come out as a split with Hate Forest. Even though it’s probably just a handful of tracks that sound like all his other tracks.