Garmana are a Swedish band that mine the kind of dreamfolk that evoke Wicker Men and pagan rites (they probably sing about toothpaste or the nine different ways of smiling for all i know) and sweet West Country girls in floaty dresses, weighed down by linen bangles and headbeads.
If this was american or english it'd be considered psych-folk or neo-wyrd ur-A-Cid or something but i won't hold that against them.
To me it's enough that it's the kind of stuff you hear at 4 AM at Glastonbury Festival when you're on your way back from the Green Fields after an argument over spilled orgone energy or a trip to the med tent where someone's rung bells at your leg instead of giving your Paracetamol because sometimes, you know, your energy field is distracted by Dion Fortune psychic attacks...
This track is simple; built of thuds and drones and angels and wind and soaring strings and tiny bursts of static.
At times it reminds me a little of everyone's favourite hysterical dementors Comus (though it lacks the malevolence and the, er, hysteria) and since someone recently e-mailed wanting more info on Comus I figured I'd put a track of theirs up as well, it's been awhile.
4 comments:
Garmarna's songs are mostly modern arrangements of traditional scandinavian folk songs, which are almost universally dark, morbid, and grisly. seriously, some of them make death metal seem tame in comparison. it's what happens to a culture that doesn't see sun for months at a time.
eg, the song you posted involves a stepmother casting a spell and turning the narrator into a gray wolf. the spell is finally broken after many years when the wolf catches up with her, kills her, and drinks the blood of his unborn brother in her womb. and, uh, then becomes a gallant knight...
--anders
Thanks anders for blowing away any notion that this band's "folk music" has anything to do with floaty dresses. Nordic folk music (and indeed a lot of the REAL folk music in many cultures) has a high body count. Think Nick Cave's "Murder Ballads" in a language other than English. These songs were the local TV news murder roll before there was television.
Loki, you can read the liner notes and lyrics for this album at http://www.noside.com/nsd6028note.html
For this album, the gore index reads: 3 dead (1 stomped to death by a horse, 1 swallowed up by the earth, 1 serial killer of women murdered by an intended victim), 1 deranged woman having sex with nineteen guys, and just for fun, 1 pregnancy lasting 9 years.
--drew
excellent... this kind of thing is why i started this blog in the first place..i like the song even more now...
Hi Loki~
It's me~ The guy who emailed you regarding Comus.
This is great!
Thanks for that song.
Really appreciate this one.
All the best pal~
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