Mornings are the perfect time for me to listen to music. My partner is not yet awake, so I don’t want to make too much noise, and my brain has not yet warmed up enough to do anything too demanding. And the first thing I listen to on a Monday morning is the week’s new Discover Weekly playlist.
This week I was lead round in an interesting circle. The first track I liked was ‘Set Me On Fire’ by Birdmask. It’s a pop song in structure, with great big drums that raise the pressure, an organ and choral harmony, and lyrics of self-destructive guilt.
Something about the vocals reminded me of Carl Espen – Norway’s entrant to the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest – and his song ‘Silent Storm’, a ballad of existential longing. Unlike ‘Set Me On Fire’, the tone is both hopeful and patient despite his inner turmoil. Espen’s song is about the pain of loneliness; Birdmask’s is about the pain of togetherness and the responsibility it brings.
I assume Spotify recommended Birdmask to me because I had liked a track last year by Zeal & Ardor – I discovered later that both are projects started by Manuel Gagneux. The track I had saved was an electronic instrumental called ‘Sacrilegium III’, and the connection was not at first obvious.
In the artist description for Zeal & Ardor we find some clues: Manuel draws a parallel between the Christianisation of African-American slaves and the spread of Christianity in Norway, both happening under systemic coercion. If Black Metal as a Norwegian genre is a reaction against religion, he asks, what if American slaves had had the same reaction, rejecting Christianity and taking up worship of the devil?
Listening to their most popular track, ‘Devil is fine’ will make immediately apparent what is meant by their phrase, ‘satanic spiritual’, though you will need to try other tracks on the album to hear the influence of black metal. Returning again to ‘Sacrilegium III’, I think perhaps I hear now church bells in the melody.