![]() The seeds of Heilung were sown in a place just like this, their beginnings literally shrouded in smoke. This is Luna: half poodle, quarter pug, quarter chihuahua. They’re joined occasionally by a small black dog that bounds in front of the camera. ![]() Maria, Kai and Christopher are sitting in Heilung’s studio, their beanies and hoodies significantly less forbidding than the antlers and robes they wear onstage. On this particular plane, it’s a chilly December evening and we’re speaking via the distinctly 21st century medium of Skype. Their songs sound like transmissions from other planes (if Kai, who claims to travel between worlds, is to be believed, then they sometimes are). ![]() The two albums they have made to date, 2015’s Ofnir and 2019’s Futha, pulse with mind-altering tribal rhythms and wordless exhortations to long-gone gods – “amplified history”, they call it. Their live performances aren’t so much gigs as communal rituals, complete with warriors, bonfires and rune-casting. Heilung have materialised in metal’s collective consciousness like a spirit, despite possessing few of the traditional characteristics of a metal band. That experiment has become something else entirely. “Really it was just an experiment for the sake of playing around with this dark material that Kai came up with.” “I thought it would be a small niche little thing,” says Maria. Their expectations back then were minimal. And you have to feed it bigger and bigger pieces of meat to keep it happy and stop it eating you.”Ĭhristopher founded Heilung with Kai and Norwegian co-vocalist (and Christopher’s partner) Maria Franz in 2014. Christopher Juul, Heilung’s Danish-born producer and multi-instrumentalist, likens his band’s unexpected upwards trajectory to “a beast that is getting bigger and bigger.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |