Sonnenheim by Of The Wand And The Moon
The Perfect Blend of Folk and Goth Sounds
© Linda Yu
Jan 12, 2009
A Dark Folk Singer-Songwriter
Of The Wand And The Moon is the solo project of Danish singer-songwriter Kim Larsen, who has collaborated with melancholy rock bands such as Saturnus and The Loveless.
Technically, OTWATM fall into the interesting European scene known as neofolk, which is a combination of acoustic folk music with Goth influences, shoegaze influences, and lyrics based upon Norse mythology. Some other neofolk bands are Death in June, Current 93 and Agalloch.
Sonnenheim, which is Larsen's 2005 album, is the most overtly pagan of all his releases, sort of different from the preceding album, which was titled Lucifer.
Sonnenheim means "House of the Sun" in German, and there is a giant Maypole on the cover, which gives some clue to its contents. Like on the 1999 album Nighttime Nightrhymes, the theme of the album's lyrics alternate between pagan beliefs and lost love, sometimes combining both, as in the track "Winter Solstice".
A Romantic Concept Album
From listening to this album, one can definitely hear how Larsen has matured in terms of both composition and lyrics. There's a lot more spoken samples, assorted percussion instruments, pretty church-like bells, and Larsen even makes the accordion sound goth. One notable example of this creativity is the song "Nighttime in Sonnenheim". Here, Larsen is able to make a song about feasting with one's friends sound melancholy and really pretty at the same time.
Although all of his albums are well produced and well composed, the songs on Sonnenheim have an organized flow that makes this sort of a concept album.
The tracks are arranged in a manner in which they describe a story: the protagonist has good friends and a girlfriend in the beginning of the album (Nighttime in Sonnenheim, Summer Solstice), then is betrayed, then has some more hope (Wonderful Wonderful Sun), then is betrayed again, and goes into a fit of depression for the rest of the album. The realism of this is one good feature of Sonnenheim.
Pagan Roots
One feature of Of the Wand and the Moon, and Sonnenheim in general, is that Larsen makes a lot of obscure references to the runes, which are used like Tarot cards by Norse pagans. Here are some lyrics from the first single off this album, "Hail Hail Hail": "Beneath an altar... powerful runes I saw, Sowilo Tiwaz and Elhaz inverted".
One common way of hexing someone in ancient Norse times was carving something in runes under a piece of furniture. Sowilo means sun, Tiwaz means the god of protection, and Algiz means divine protection in general. To have these runes inverted gives them the opposite meaning, which means that it's quite some curse.
Overall, Of the Wand and the Moon are a stellar exemplar of neofolk music, and their album Sonnenheim is one of the best to come out in the past several years. Whether one is interested in mystical lyrics, depressing and unique music, or male singer-songwriters, Sonnenheim is an excellent album to buy at their official website:
http://www.ofthewandandthemoon.dk
 |
