Tuv talks about music

This page exists so I can share random thoughts I have about songs and artists I listen to which don't warrant an entire blog post. Will update this one whenever I feel like writing something down.

Skálmöld

Skálmöld are 6 really cool middle aged dudes from Iceland who make viking metal. I think I found them through a random music recommendation around 2014 so I've been listening to them for quite a long time. Unfortunately I have not gotten a chance to see them live but I do own a really cool band shirt in pride colours which they re-release and immediately sell out of every year.

Skálmöld are known for making concept albums heavily inspired by the poetic edda, the old norse religious texts. Because Icelandic is so close to old norse they can just read those in their original form which is sick. Side tangent but Icelandic is such a cool language. It's a Germanic language so it's related to English and Dutch quite closely but because it hasn't changed much in the past 1000 years it's grown far apart from even its scandinavian cousins in pronunciation. And the pronunciation is so sick. They have some really cool orthographical features like the letters þ (thorn) and ð (eth), and their vowels are pronounced in really interesting ways and change in different ways with accents too. Just reading a sentence in Icelandic out loud is fun to me, which makes it very convenient that Skálmöld's songs are all in Icelandic!

Anyway, concept albums. The band started by writing their own sagas based on the poetic edda to serve as the story for their albums. Their debut album, Baldur, is about a guy whose life gets destroyed by evil creatures and he goes on this journey to take revenge which he eventually does before he goes to valhalla. Also Odin is his dad, so he got some assistance. It's worth noting that Skálmöld's lyrics writer and bass player Snæbjörn, prefers writing about people he knows, so that's who he bases his characters on. So our titular character Baldur is actually named after his brother, who is also the band's rhythm guitarist. Album two, Börn Loka (Loki's Children) features the saga of Hilmar (named after lead singer Björgvin's son), who goes off to fight Loki's three children to protect his sister. Then they do a really sick live album recorded with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra (Sinfóniuhljómsveit Íslands) and three whole choirs! It also features a guest vocalist performance by Edda Tegeder on the song Hel, which was a massive inspiration for me as one of the very few female harsh vocal performances out there. We resume writing sagas on Með Vættum (with spirits) which follows the journey of Þórunn (named after keyboard player Gunnar's daughter) as she travels the four courners of iceland in the four seasons with four mythical creatures.

That's it for the sagas for a bit. Album four, Vögguvísur Yggdrasils, is based on the world tree and has a song for each of the nine worlds it's connected to. The followup, Sorgir (Sorrows) has eight tracks which tell four stories. The first four tracks are from a human persepctive, and the last four tell the same stories from the persepctive of the evil spirits causing the events. Recently I discovered their most recent album which I completely missed somehow, Ýdalir, which tells the story of the god Ullr as described in the poetic edda.

Anyway the reason I am here is because I just realised they have made songs about the majority of Smite 2 gods.

Smite 2 gods Skálmöld have written a theme song for: Odin (Óðinn), Fenrir (Fenrisúlfur), Jörmungandr (Miðgarðsormur), Loki, Ullr (Ullur)

Smite 2 gods Skálmöld have yet to write a theme song for: Thor, Sol, Ymir

Smite 1 gods Skálmöld have already made a theme song for for when they get added to Smite 2: Hel, Ratatoskur

Meshuggah - Bleed

Meshuggah are a Swedish metal band known for making what is called "algorithmic metal". They use lots of complicated rhythms which can only be explained through formulas, even going as far as to record an entire album with one cyclical rhythm which shifts each song. Here's a really cool quasi-isorhythm they did.

I think Meshuggah's most difficult to play song doesn't have any of that. It's entirely in 4/4 at the same bpm with only two different elements throughout the entire song: the single quarter note and the triple sixteenth note. The core of the song plays those in an alternating fashion. XXX-X XXX-X XXX-X. This seems excruciatingly simple, but the difficulty comes from the speed at which it is played. The bass drum and guitars follow this rhythm. The song was written by guitarist Frederik Thorendal, which becomes obvious when you learn that drummer Thomas Haake had to invent an entirely new bass drum technique to be able to play the song.

"Bleed", as the song is called, is a grind. Playing the triple and single in quick succession is incredibly exhausting, way more so than a constant double bass pattern. A constant double bass is like a sprint. Bleed is like a sprint where you have to speed up and slow down every 5 metres. Playing this rhythm will destroy you.

As the song goes on the band introduce more variations. XXX-X-X-X XXX-X-X-X is also a very simple structure. Later on it they use a shifting pattern where the amount of single notes increases and decreases every repetition. Whereas just XXX-X might be obliteratingly brain-dead, the variations introduce having to think about what you're actually playing constantly whilst still being very repetitive. It becomes not only physically but also mentally exhausting to keep going.

If you wish to experience for yourself just how difficult Bleed is, I can recommend the osu! map by TheKingHenry. It perfectly captures the essence of the song. It's grueling to get through. Conversely, Bleed is pretty interesting to listen to because of the pattern variations. I'd argue it's probably the angriest sounding song in my metal playlist, the triples a constant assault which just doesn't let up. It's the perfect song to listen to when you really have to get that rage out. The audible encapsulation of repeatedly punching someone in the face. After listening for 7 minutes you're out of energy to be angry. After playing for 7 minutes your legs/fingers/brains have turned to jelly.

So simplistic yet so difficult, that's the beauty of Bleed. A song so powerful you'd almost forget it has lyrics. What's it about? Oh yeah, having an aneurysm.

section 3

current ideas for a next section: honningbarna, kummer, gojira at vieilles charrues