Skáld: Pagan Honours and Innovation
With the rise of interest in paganism and folk music, the musicians who look to honour the tales and traditions of bygone ages are met with a challenge. While the popularity of the genre allows for further expansion into histories and rituals within their music, it does bring concerns of the very things they’re trying to save becoming diluted. On SKÁLD’s latest record Huldufólk, the group delve into the hidden world of trolls and elves, and pursue a different tactic to recreating old stories. We caught up with Christophe Voisin-Boisvinet about the process and the ways in which SKÁLD are both innovating and honouring the old ways.
SKÁLD’s latest release appears to have an expanded ensemble of contributors. However, not all is as it seems. “There aren’t that many more people than there usually are, but on previous releases we didn’t show everyone in the credits,” Christophe clarifies. “This time everyone is centre stage, whereas before there were maybe three of four people who represented SKÁLD. This time around, I wanted to include everyone who took part.”
“There is one main difference between this and the previous releases,” Christophe notes. “Those were focused around one main, solo vocalist, and this time we decided to have two groups, a male and female choir of four people each. This is a concept we had for al long time that we’ve finally managed to bring to fruition.”
The use of more choral vocals works on several layers, one mainly to shine a light on the hidden people referred to in the album title, Huldufólk. “It represents the theme within the album. I wanted to focus on two different groups, the trolls being represented by the male vocals, and the elves by the female. Sometimes they all come together and everything coalesces to represent SKÁLD on a more general level.”
There’s a sense that SKÁLD are preforming in an ancient way, like a community would pass those stories to each other verbally in years gone by. However, more than that, this feels an immersive experience, to be recounted the tales by the very characters within them, a theatre of sorts permeates from this record unlike any past. “Our aim was to bring to the surface fairy tales and legends that have been buried for a long time and bring them to the present. Our aim was to do this live on stage, but if we’re managing this just on the studio album then that’s brilliant.”
Ever conscious of the present, SKÁLD are aware that while the overall awakening in popular culture to paganism and the music around it, and like anything that becomes mass-consumed, there is a tendency to homogenise.
Folk music might appear to sit firmly in the realm of Viking mythology, but SKÁLD realise the scope for further exploration of ancient cultures is vast. “It’s true that the previous recording we left the realm of Vikings, we’ve looked to stories that were even older,” Christophe agrees. “Things that come from civilizations that have been lost with the passing of time. We wanted to take that one step further, to take stories previous generations surely knew but that have been lost to us.”
“We read an incredible amount of stories to get to what we have on the record,” Christophe explains, delving into the main focus of his studies. “There are two main ideas I was looking for. Firstly, I was looking for a feeling of melancholy or nostalgia. An idea of rediscovering something that we used to know, but maybe we’ve lost. The second was magic, something we could reinstate into the tracks, a spell or something I could translate into an enchantment.”
Bringing forward parts of mythology and folklore that have been lost to time is the central inspiration for SKÁLD. However, more than that it’s a way to bridge the gap to the past, a way for the musical community to come together to experience storytelling and folklore in an innovating way. “The instruments initially I tried to experiment with lots of different wind instruments, and I actually wasted a lot of time with those instruments because I removed all of the by the end, because it wasn’t leading to what I originally intended to do at all,” Christophe recounts. “What we did in the end was kept hurdy-gurdies and string instruments. That had like an ancestral drone and creaking sounds which really are in line with the stories and movements I wanted to create.”
The pursuit of fresh ways to express these ancient stories is ultimately a big part of what Christophe is aiming for with the band. “It is something I want to help move forward for myself and for SKÁLD, but also for pagan folk music in general,” he explains. “It’s music that has a rise in interest all over the world, but the downside is that often people will use the same instruments, the same drones and drums, and things are sounding similar. Sure, the melodies are different but there are common shades throughout. I believe we have to change this to come extent. On future releases I wanted to use lithophonic sounds, and use water to produce musical sounds; generally, to use nature and what’s all around us to produce the music we make.”
Huldufólk is out now via Decca/Universal Music.
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