We did the layouts for many of Ildjarn’s albums on a computer I had access to. What album covers did you create and is the impetus and process of creating them distinct from the musical process? You previously mentioned that you were the collaborator with Ildjarn for the visual elements of various projects. The last song also appears on Svartfråd and I did the vocals on that version. I did the vocals on all Ildjarn-Nidhogg recordings and also on Sort Vokter except for on “Hatefulle Tanker…” where I, Ildjarn and Harald all sang, and “Bak to Lysende Øyne” where both me and Ildjarn sang, but he did the prime vocals. Regarding vocal duties, what were your contributions in this area to Ildjarn–Nidhogg? The demos I uploaded were my concepts, like the Ildjarn stuff was his, so they were planned to be released as Nidhogg-demos. Ildjarn - Nidhogg was a 50/50 collaboration, and we always had clear idea of where we wanted to go, both with the metal and the ambient stuff. But we had the same love for the proto-scandinavian black metal sound, shaped by athory and picked up by Mayhem with Dead, and so on. I didn’t have any guiding influence on Ildjarn. What sort of guiding influence did you have on Ildjarn, and how was this different from your role in Ildjarn–Nidhogg? Ildjarn continued releasing his own records, and me and him then sporadically made music together, culminating with “ Hardangervidda“. Samoth liked it and decided to release it on Nocturnal Art Productions. We recorded Norse in two sessions in 1993 which is discernible on the differences on my vocals between the a and the b-side. Nature evokes most of all awe and calmness. I’m lucky enough, now, to live right by the forest, surrounded by small lakes and mountains. Nature is a big part of my life, and I’m not comfy living in the city. I found some old lyric sheets which indicates that we initially called ourselves Nivlheim, but at the time of “Norse” we had landed on Ildjarn - Nidhogg, because Ildjarn had already started using the Ildjarn-name. After doing all sorts of stuff, even some noise/experimental, me and Ildjarn focused on the Black Metal sound, as it was where our hearts lay. Me and Ildjarn had played together in different constellations, and Ildjarn also played with Samoth and Ihsahn in Thou Shalt Suffer. Ildjarn is his own project, and he started recording under that moniker in the early 90’s. We had the same interest in metal and started hanging out together and experimenting musically in different directions in the basement at Akkerhaugen where we recorded “Norse” and “ Svartfråd“.Ĭan you describe the formation of the musical project, Ildjarn, and how you became involved? Me and Ildjarn met when starting secondary scool at Bø Gymnas, Telemark in 1988. How did you first meet Ildjarn, the person? Read on for the thoughts of one of the last embodiments of a genuine black metal mentality… Much of black metal would benefit from seeing into the mind of this primal artist concerning his contributions to the aforementioned nature-metal projects and his own artistic endeavors. Expansive and transcendent, like all good black metal from the Norse tradition, it transports the listener away from a failed functionalist time into a mindset of possibility and exuberant cosmic exploration.
It embraces the world as a living organism in the pre-Christian tradition and brings out the fierce natural instinct for survival and power as well as the ambiguous lack of safety inherent to the frontier. Using short songs structured around the transitions of song inspired by lyrics, Nidhogg creates albums that immerse the listener in a dark world of excitement: like the primeval forest come alive, this music pulses with the poetry of life in the wild. These projects, while initially rejected by an increasingly faddish black metal “scene,” quickly gained fans for their use of elegant short melodies within ambient songs of abrasive noise fused with aggressive Oi rhythms and black metal riffs. History reveals little about Nidhogg, the musician known for his contributions to Ildjarn, Sort Vokter and Ildjarn–Nidhogg.