We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Hyperborean Folklore

by SERPENT ASCENDING

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €8 EUR  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Hyperborean Folklore via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      €14 EUR or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Hyperborean Folklore via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      €23 EUR or more 

     

1.
Music: Jarno Nurmi Lyrics: excerpts from Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun, translated from the original text Markens Grøde (1917) by W.W. Worster * The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest The man comes, walking toward the north A strong, coarse fellow, with a red iron beard, and little scars on face and hands; sites of old wounds--were they gained in toil or fight? Maybe the man has been in prison, and is looking for a place to hide; or a philosopher, maybe, in search of peace. This or that, he comes; the figure of a man in this great solitude. Hours of this, twilight is falling, purl of water, like the voice of a living thing. Climb the slope, the valley half in darkness below; and beyond, the sky to the south. He climbs to the top of a hill, looking out. Oh, as if he loved his calling, a lumbering man in the forest. A bright idea; an inspiration, maybe, sent from God. ** Inger sat down on the door-slab. She was in pain; her face was aflame. She had kept her feet till Isak was gone; He and the bull were out of sight, she could give way to a groan without fear. Her time was come. She is perfectly conscious all the while, glance at the clock on the wall to see the time. Never a cry, hardly a movement; Strange cry in the bed, groan is heard; a blessed little voice; poor thing, poor little thing... She slips back on the bed. A minute passes; she cannot rest, the little cry down there in the bed grows louder, she raises herself once more, and sees--O God, the direst of all! No mercy, no hope. In less than ten minutes she had borne her child and killed it... *** He found the little body by the stream. He knew pretty closely where it must be, but he had left the matter idly as it was. Then chance willed it so that he should not forget it altogether. He found the thing under a heap of moss and twigs, kept down by flat stones, wrapped in a cloth, in a piece of rag. With curiosity and horror he drew the cloth a little aside— eyes closed, dark hair, a boy, and the legs crossed--that was all he saw. He could not leave it there in the light of day, He ran home for a spade and dug the grave deeper; but, being so near the stream, the water came in, He laid down the turf again on top, but a little green mound among the bushes. On the way she passes by a place she knows; a little child had once lain buried there; she had patted down the earth with her hands, set up a tiny cross—oh, but it was long ago.
2.
Music: Jarno Nurmi Lyrics: Excerpts from the Kalevala (1849), poems XVII and IX: Väinämöinen finds the lost-word and Origin of Iron, translated by John Martin Crawford (1888) * Do not walk in thine own virtue Do not work in thine own power Walk in strength of thy Creator; Hidden deep for many ages. Do not speak in thine own wisdom, Speak with tongue of mighty Ukko. In my mouth, if there be sweetness, It has come from my Creator. ** From the fire-place calls the old man, Thus the gray-beard asks the minstrel: “Tell me who thou art of heroes, Who of all the great magicians? Lo! thy blood fills seven sea-boats, Eight of largest birchen vessels, Flowing from some hero's veinlets, From the wounds of some magician. Other matters I would ask thee; Sing the cause of this thy trouble” To the court of all our trouble, To the highest hill of torture, To the distant rocks and ledges, To the evil-bearing mountains, To the realm of wicked Hiisi. Thence arose the violation, Thence arose the first destruction, Thence came all the evil-doings. To the caverns of the white-bear, To the deep abysm of serpents, To the vales, and swamps, and fenlands, To the ever-silent waters, To the hot-springs of the mountains, To the dead-seas of the Northland, To the lifeless lakes and rivers, To the sacred stream and whirlpool: Evil genius, thee I banish, Got thee hence, thou horrid monster. From the neighborhood of wizards, From the homes of the magicians, From the eaves of vicious spirits, From the haunts of fortune-tellers, From the cabins of the witches, From Ingratitude's dominions, From the rocky shoals and quicksands, From the ground with envy swollen. *** Thou canst find of words a hundred, Find a thousand wisdom-sayings, In the mouth of wise Vipunen, In the body of the hero; To the spot I know the foot-path, To his tomb the magic highway, Trodden by a host of heroes; Long the distance thou must travel, On the sharpened points of needles; Then a long way thou must journey On the edges of the broadswords; Thirdly on the edges of the hatchets.
3.
Music and Lyrics: Jarno Nurmi You hear the call in your dreams To wander where the hearts of mountains lay bare Behind the fells east from here Isn’t it purer here outside our sphere Where the endless forest nears You still have time though night lurks in the shades Barren but full of life The old ones whisper around the fire An old shack behind the stone head Is someone home, you go in unafraid A hawk’s flight seen through the windowpane In the wooden chest the treasure lies But treasures are never what you expect Return to home late at night Ordered into bed now A dream begins and draws you in Between trees that grow from soil to stars You see yourself walking With a bear's head upon your shoulders
4.
Music: Jarno Nurmi Lyrics: Excerpts from Gylfaginning in Prose Edda, translated by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur (1916) * Loath were the hills to me, I was not long in them, Nights only nine To me the wailing of wolves seemed ill, After the song of swans. ** Sleep could I never on the sea-beds, For the wailing of waterfowl; He wakens me, who comes from the deep-- The sea-mew every morn. ***

about

=== ORDER NOW ===

EU store: metalodyssey.8merch.com
US store: metalodyssey.8merch.us

COMPACT DISC
(incl. Bandcamp Digital Download and Streaming)
• Limited to 200 copies
• Jewel Case
• 8-page booklet with lyrics

12"LP - Out October 2022
(incl. Bandcamp Digital Download and Streaming)
• Ltd 200: 100 black vinyl, 100 gold vinyl***
• 140gr. vinyl
• 350gr. gatefold sleeve, 3mm spine
• 2-page insert
• Black inner sleeve
• Outer plastic sleeve

*** exclusive to our Eshops
____________________

Active since 2008, SERPENT ASCENDING is the solo project of Jarno Nurmi, a musician with a past in DESECRESY, SLUGATHOR, NERLICH and other Finnish death metal bands. SERPENT ASCENDING has always been Nurmi's personal probe to sink into the esoteric and the occult, and on the new album "Hyperborean Folklore" it is used to plumb Fennoscandian mythologies, drawing on fascinating poems from Kalevala and other ancient texts for the lyrics.

After the seminal demo collection of "The Enigma Unsettled" (2011) and the blackened death metal debut of "Aṇaṅku" (2016), "Hyperborean Folklore" shifts the band's sonic center of gravity even more towards epic metal. The death metal component is still there, but it is admirably fused with a heavy metal classicism that surprises and intoxicates, especially because it is combined with a melancholic vibe and a hypnotic - if not psychedelic - approach. Jarno Nurmi's voice - now a piercing growl, now the solemn declaim of a bard - is thus lost in a misty red blanket of guitars, together with the senses of the listener.
"While Aṇaṅku had many shorter songs, now ideas are knit together more carefully to form larger song structures with more time to build atmosphere, tensions and ways to release them," says Nurmi. "I have given myself more freedom to wander into directions that felt unsuitable on 'Ananku.' There are a lot of influences from heavy metal and black metal, progressive rock, etc. I feel that I have really managed to capture something more essential than before."

The cover painting of "Hyperborean Folklore", the work of Tommi "Desecresy" Grönqvist, sums up the album perfectly: SERPENT ASCENDING ride in the night until the beginning of time, up to the mythical Nordic roots of Creation, to retell the epic stories and dramas of gods and men.

credits

released June 17, 2022

Jarno Nurmi - all instruments and vocals

Written, performed, recorded and mixed by Jarno Nurmi
Mastered by Patrick W. Engel at Temple of Disharmony

Cover art by Tommi Grönqvist
Logo and art direction by Francesco Gemelli

______________
Cat. Nr. IVR169

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

I, Voidhanger Records Italy

Obscure, unique, and uncompromising visions from the Metal Underground.

contact / help

Contact I, Voidhanger Records

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Hyperborean Folklore, you may also like: