The Mighty Sieben – Sex And Wildflowers Label: Dark Vinyl Records – DVLP-10 Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl Country: Germany Released: 27 Oct 2014 Style: Neofolk
Black vinyl, limited edition of 150 copies. Comes in a gatefold sleeve..
The fourth Sieben album, released in 2003. Reissue.
Sex & Wildflowers was an artistic turning point for Howden (once more) and saw the introduction of his trademark looped violin work. It also produced songs that still populate his live performances to this day. Love’s Promise and Virgin In The Green are songs that still prove popular with his live audiences.
Empyrium – Über Den Sternen (2 × Vinyl) Label: PRO304 LP Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album, 180g Etching Country: Germany Released: 26 Feb 2021 Style: Symphonic Metal, Neofolk, Black Metal
With their sixth full-length, «Über den Sternen», an allegorical German rendering of their band name meaning «Above the Stars», EMPYRIUM still draw from the magic and spirits of wild places, nature’s beauty, and human relics of ages long past. «Über den Sternen» echoes this reconciliation of the old with the new on a musical level as well. The Franconian duo is putting more emphasis on the electric guitars and harsh vocals again, which marked their first two albums and stood strong upon the band’s melodic black metal foundations. Yet EMPYRIUM also revisit the dark folk style, which the Germans had progressively embraced on their third and fourth albums.
What used to appear to be a crossroad in their musical development has now merged into one breath-taking sound. The combined force of mastermind, multi-instrumentalist, clean and extreme vocalist as well as producer Markus «Schwadorf» Stock and classical singer Thomas Helm, who lends his amazing voice also to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, is painting a radiant sonic picture. It comes with the melancholic grounding of the sophomore album «Songs of Moors & Misty Fields” (1997), adds brushstrokes of the fairy-tale tempera colours of «Where at Night the Wood Grouse Plays» (1999), and also makes use of a few hues from the palette that DEAD CAN DANCE have infused with world music, which EMPYRIUM have already employed on «The Turn of the Tides» (2014). The crowning varnish is diligently crafted from rougher elements that reach all the way back to the Germans’ legendary debut » A Wintersunset…» (1996). EMPYRIUM have reconciled their early vintage sound with the acoustic expression of later recordings.» Staying true to the Romantic tradition, EMPYRIUM continue to take inspiration for their lyrical flights of fantasy from the local myths, ancient places, and natural wonders of the Rhön Mountains and their Lower Franconian homeland in the West of Germany. A circle is closing, and with EMPYRIUM’s label Prophecy Productions, which were originally founded with the mission to release the band’s debut album, celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2021, it happens in more than one way.
Kinit Her – The Poet & The Blue Flower (Vinyl, LP) Label: Avant! – AV!025 Format: Vinyl, LP, Limited Edition, Grey Country: Italy Released: 15 Jul 2013 Style: Experimental, Neofolk, Industrial
Through kaleidoscopic composition, constitution of voice, and timbral experimentation, Nathaniel Ritter and Troy Schafer continue to braid their string of works as Kinit Her. Their discography has grown strong over recent years with releases on such esteemed labels as Alt.Vinyl, Small Doses, Pesanta Urfolk, Reue um Reue, and now, AVANT!; this repertoire has become a powerful force that is harmoniously reliable and unpredictable in theme, atmosphere, and trajectory. On The Poet & the Blue Flower, Schafer and Ritter endure in architecting a unique system of auditory mysticism. Falling in an undefinable territory of the post-industrial and neofolk landscapes with both strictly structured song-like fragments and more free-associative passages throughout its 8 tracks, this album features the exalted rhetoric that is Schafer’s stoic orchestral arrangements, Ritter’s tidal electronics and the continually evolving vocal deliveries of both men.
Lyrically, The Poet & the Blue Flower continues with Kinit Her’s recent bent of drawing on poetry from Germany’s early 20th Century post-romantic literary underground. With this record, they drift slightly from Der Kosmikerkreis to the poems of literary and political philosopher Rudolf Pannwitz serving as their sole inspiration. Pannwitz’ poetry effortlessly escalates Kinit Her’s themes of the entanglement of Heaven, Earth, and those who believe to be dwelling in some intersection thereof. Visual accompaniment to Kinit Her’s music, as it was on the recent The Cavern Stanzas, has been graciously provided by the brush of Gianluca Martucci. Mastering courtesy of James Plotkin.
