In the modern Black Metal “scene”, one can easily come across countless one man projects. This is especially true in the realm of atmospheric Black Metal, where Australia’s Vindkaldr dwells behind a veil of mystery. However, Vindkaldr is not just another generic one man band with no direction or content. In addition to creating excellent atmospheric Black Metal, Vindkaldr has also released one of the best ambient albums I have heard in some time. In this interview I speak with the band’s mastermind Mauhulakh regarding the band’s albums, history, and the benefits of letting his music speak for itself.
Listen and purchase Vindkaldr’s music at http://vindkaldr.bandcamp.com/
- Greetings Mauhulakh! Thank you for taking the time to answer this interview with Barbarian Skull. Please tell us about the history and creation of Vindkaldr. Can you explain the meaning of the band’s name?
I have never seemed to be able to find other people to play music with, perhaps because I have different ideas about what that music should be and how the songs should be written. I don’t know, but I am also not very good at collaborating with others music-wise. For some reason I tend to take the back seat and let other people lead, resulting in music that I am not interested in playing. I eventually realized I was just using this as an excuse to not make my own music. This was around the time I first started listening to black metal. Bands like Burzum, Windir, Paysage D’Hiver, Striborg etc were very inspiring to me and I feel that the creative output of one person can sometimes be more interesting than that of a group of people. I liked the idea of doing it all myself, I see it as like being an artist and completing a painting. You have some idea of where you are going but every stroke you add changes that idea and you usually end up with something very different than what you had planned. The fact that the recording quality was irrelevant in black metal was very liberating as well. I didn’t need anyone else and I didn’t need a recording studio so I basically just started writing songs and recording them as I went.
In the Poetic Edda there are two poems centering on the hero Svipdagr. The second poem involves him seeking entry into Menglöð’s castle. He disguises himself as a frost giant named Vindkaldr and poses a series of questions to the gate-keeper Fjölsviðr in order to secretly learn how one might enter the castle. What he ends up discovering is that the gates will only open to one person and that person is Svipdagr himself and that in fact he had no need to disguise his true identity. When inside he is met by Menglöð and they become lovers. Menglöð is actually the goddess Freyja and Svipdagr is actually her future husband Óðr. Fjölsviðr is also a name identified with Óðinn. The name Vindkaldr from Old Norse simply translates to Wind Cold. I liked the name because it had many associations with important and interesting figures in this particular story and yet its translation was very simple.
- All of your music is performed by yourself and recorded in your home studio. You have also self-released a tape of your second full length album (Önd). Do you intend for Vindkaldr to remain a “DIY” band, or will you ever consider signing with a label?
It’s less like a ‘home studio’ and more like my bedroom with a usb microphone… That makes the creative process very easy and organic. I intend to remain a DIY band because that means I don’t have to rely on anyone except myself. I would sign to a label if the band was popular enough to warrant it and if it made more sense distribution wise, and more people who wanted to hear my music were able to. For now though, the Internet is just fine for me.
- You do not have an official website, and there is very limited information regarding you or the band available online. This is highly unusual in the “digital” black metal age, but also highly respectable. Do you believe that this level on anonymity benefits your music?
I don’t really see the point in having an official website and I don’t see the point in personally putting a whole bunch of stuff online that isn’t music. It’s all about the music to me. I guess some people are always going to be interested in information about the people behind the music, but it doesn’t matter to me if they can find that or not. Anonymity benefits my music in the way that people might start listening to it without any preconceived notions and just judge it for what it is. The underground metal community is also very supportive, so there would be no point in me trying to do any of my own ‘promotion.’ I think this is a very good thing for the future of music.
- Several unused songs from your first album (Stone As Flesh) were released on an EP titled “Their Ships Sail From The Moon”. How did you decide which songs to keep for Stone As Flesh? What concepts did you intend to express with the full length album?
I had recorded all the songs at the same time and just in terms of musical consistency the ones on the EP didn’t have the same feeling. I felt that they had a more Viking influenced early Windir sort of sound that didn’t suit the rest of the songs. Instead of discarding them I just decided to release them separately.
I didn’t really seek to express any concepts as such. It’s only about how the music makes you feel. Lyrics are relatively incidental for my music at the moment. That’s not to say that they aren’t important to me and that I don’t put time into writing them, but they should really only express an overall feeling and not something logical. Stone As Flesh was basically a collection of the first songs I ever wrote and recorded so the concept for myself was just basically to do it and see how it turned out.
- Önd is the first Vindkaldr album with long, epic song structures. The album features your longest songs to date, two of which total around 25 minutes each. Tell us more about the creation of Önd. Why did you choose this album for your first physical release? Will any other releases be available in physical formats?
The songs are long because I wanted to create a long and drawn out atmosphere. I also wasn’t particularly interested in traditional song structures and as a result the songs have many different parts that flow after each other. I wanted to make an album that drew you into an almost meditative atmosphere while still having well crafted parts, structure and melody. The albums title Önd refers to the ‘gift’ of Óðinn, which was breath or ‘soul,’ and I think that echoes the concept rather well. When I was writing the guitar parts to the songs, I didn’t feel like they should end and instead they kept flowing into more and more parts. I think the last song on the album was originally 45 minutes long when I recorded it. One of my big influences for the album was the drone band Earth. You are meant to listen, but it is also meant to take you to another place, I think I achieved that to a certain degree.
I wanted to have a physical release for Önd because I felt like it was my first true effort in making a unified album. The first album just felt like an experiment in seeing if I could even make a collection of songs by myself. After the experience of releasing the album on physical format myself I realized just how much time, effort and money it takes. I would rather focus on just making music. I do plan to release further albums on cassette at some point, but they will most likely be very limited releases.
- You have also released an ambient album titled “Ambient I”, which is one of my favorite ambient albums to be released within the last few years. I assume based on the album title that there will be further ambient albums from Vindkaldr? Do you believe there are any parallels between ambient and atmospheric black metal?
Thank you for your comments about the album. There will definitely be more ambient releases, as it was a process that I very much enjoyed. I had not used a keyboard in this manner before so it was an interesting journey for me to go on. There are definitely parallels between ambient and atmospheric black metal. When I was writing the songs for the ambient album I felt like I was creating the same sort of music I had always created just in a calmer and more tranquil medium. Black metal creates the same atmosphere just in a harsher and more aggressive medium.
- What else can you tell us about the future of Vindkaldr?
There will be another album out very soon that I am still working on. I will try to leave myself some time to make a few copies onto cassette, but the band will then be on hold as I am travelling overseas for an indefinite amount of time. If I can find a cheap keyboard I might try to release an ambient album while I am over there…
- Thank you Mauhulakh for this interview, any last words are yours!
Thank you for the interview and thank you for your interest in supporting independent music.
