Nhor - Self-Titled (2009), Upon Which Was Written Within the Stars (2010), Whisperers to this Archaic Growth (2011)

Hailing from Herefordshire, Midlands, in the UK, are Nhor. One of my favourite projects that I have discovered in my time away from this blog.

Nhor is a one-man project from Herefordshire, Midlands (UK). He draws influences from forests, mystery, eschatology, astrology, the earth, storms, mist, wind, rain, nature, the night sky, Beren & Luthien, the Starks, loneliness and sorrow. Nhor’s music is very difficult to describe, it floats from ambient to doom-laden black metal.

 Quote - last.fm "Nhor"

Listening to Nhor has definitely had an influence in opening my music tastes, such as that of which tends to my yearning for nature and culture related to thus, through music. You see, Nhor's first two releases were completely comprised of neo-folk and neo-classical. From this, I have discovered so much beautiful folk metal, but more so, beautiful neo-folk and neo-classical. Amongst both the new and old BM I still need to share, this aforementioned neo-folk/classical shall too, come in time.

And of course, to add to this, Nhor has also released a BM album, Whisperers to this Archaic Growth, much in the vein of Cascadian BM. With another album along such lines to be released possibly in the coming months. What I really enjoy though, besides the music, is the nature/pagan aesthetics and references. But more specifically, that is originates from Europe, and isn't corrupted by some sort of racist paradigm. For example, there is some Eastern Europe (but not limited to) BM, especially pagan BM, that I fundamentally like musically and enjoy the nature references/sounds. However, some are linked either overtly, or indirectly, to racist paganism.

I personally have no reason to identify with Norse paganism anyway, the pigmentation of my skin dictates such. But I see how there are some things to learn from such in a culture more connected with the natural world.

Nhor is a classic, without being too technical, yet not too simple. Cascadian-style BM with that neo-folk/classical spirit to take you on a journey to a place, serene, amongst the trees.

Official website (tumblr)
Myspace
Facebook <-------------------- YUCK! Facebook, not Nhor.
Big Cartel

Album Name: Nhor

Band: Nhor

Genre: Ambient/Folk, Atmospheric Black/Doom Metal

Year: 2009

Country: UK

Track Listing:

1.	A Pale Glimmer	03:51
2.	Giantess	07:08
3.	Sune	05:33
4.	Of Moth & Moon	03:08
5.	Saithana	05:50
6.	The Branches Are Gathered	05:57
7.	A Heart of the Growing Cold	05:10
		36:37

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Album Name: Upon Which Was Written Within the Stars

Band: Nhor

Genre: Ambient/Folk, Atmospheric Black/Doom Metal

Year: 2010

Country: UK

Track Listing:

1.	Pericynthion	04:34
2.	Periastron	03:58
3.	Apocynthion	07:11
4.	Apastron	03:12
		18:55

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Album Name: Whisperers to this Archaic Growth

Band: Nhor

Genre: Ambient/Folk, Atmospheric Black/Doom Metal

Year: 2011

Country: UK

Track Listing:

1.	Whisperers to This This Archaic Growth	06:12
2.	Ciwth	09:36
3.	Aspen Crown	06:37
4.	Beneath the Burial Leaves of a Dying Earth	08:59
		31:24

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Tad Piecka - Discography

And here's the person behind the amazing Petrychor project.

Fingerstyle guitar inspired equally by folk traditions and modern orchestral composers, following in the footsteps of traveling solo musicians.

Other projects he is involved in include Tremolite, Beware of Safety and Petrychor.

- Quote last.fm ("Tad Piecka")


So as I said, Tad Piecka is the person behind Petrychor. I found out a little while ago, and have been checking out his solo stuff, some such as I present here. However, it's confirmed as being him behind Petrychor now that he has created a Petrychor section at his official website.

Tad Piecka's solo acoustic music is in one word, majestic. It's completely instrumental, very melodic, soothing, and quite diverse. He uses a few different instruments here, blends folk styles (American and Irish according to him), and his fingerstyle and finger picking is a real stand out here.

It's truly beautiful.

It's funny, even before Tad Piecka put up info about Petrychor on his website, upon discovering him as the protagonist of Petrychor, when I heard his solo acoustic stuff, I could hear and feel the parallels in the music instantly. His style really is unique, and if listening the acoustic elements of Petrychor is something you would be into, definitely check this out.

And remember he has some other interesting musical projects too.

Official website
Tad Piecka @ bandcamp (Download for free here, or pay what you want)

Fingerstyle guitar and harp guitar pieces composed in Boston and various towns in Ireland, inspired by many different styles of folk music. Everything is live without overdubs.

This album was used as the source material for my electronic EP, Castles Rebuilt.

- Quote tadpiecka.bandcamp.com ("On Cunning and Castle Building")

Album Name: On Cunning and Castle Building

Band: Tad Piecka

Genre: Folk

Year: 2008

Country: USA

Track Listing:

1.	Little Boom	02:24
2.	Oso Delicioso	04:17
3.	A Thin Layer of butterscotch	03:36
4.	Snakes	04:38
5.	Slow Beacon Calling	05:37
6.	Commons	04:40
7.	Bring Up	01:28
8.	Quixotic Conundrum	02:29
9.	Killarney	02:39
10.	The Trees are Like Sentries	04:07
11.	Rattle	04:40
Total playing time		40:35

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Unlike On Cunning and Castle Building, this EP was put together with a singular theme in mind. Inspired mainly by traveling music, all of the tracks are fingerpicked, save for Kittyhawk which is mostly tapped. As always, everything is recorded live without overdubs. 

 - Quote tadpiecka.bandcamp.com ("A Feather to the Cheek is Comfort to the Vine")

Album Name: A Feather to the Cheek is Comfort to the Vine

Band: Tad Piecka

Genre: Folk

Year: 2008

Country: USA

Track Listing:

 

1.	Intro	00:41
2.	The Gift of Elocution (Part I)	05:23
3.	A Feather to the Cheek is Comfort to the Vine	03:35
4.	Ojo	01:59
5.	The Gift of Elocution (Part II)	06:17
6.	Kittyhawk	05:51
7.	Shoehorn	02:49
Total playing time		26:35

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More American and Irish folk played with modernist techniques, a touch of Philip Glass, and my oldest fingerstyle song finally rerecorded (Porblem No. 17).

 - Quote tadpiecka.bandcamp.com ("Stars Are Stars and Yours Are Yours")

Album Name: Stars Are Stars and Yours Are Yours

Band: Tad Piecka

Genre: Folk

Year: 2009

Country: USA

Track Listing:

1.	Stars Are Stars and Yours Are Yours	04:50
2.	A Feather to the Cheek Is Comfort to the Vine	03:13
3.	Porblem No. 17	04:26
4.	Nary a Nastier Dish	06:42
5.	Farishta's Folk I	04:41
6.	Farishta's Folk II	04:19
7.	We Call Each One by Name	02:33
Total playing time		30:44

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Nechochwen - Algonkian Mythos (2008) & Azimuths to the Otherworld (2010)

And some Native American stuff from the US.

The name Nechochwen literally means “walks alone” in the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) language.  It was a name given to me about 16 years ago by a friend.  It’s not necessarily an “alter ego” or stage name, just another name I am known by.  I started recording music under the name Nechochwen to connect with other musicians and people with an interest in early American history and American pre-history.  I am using the sounds available to me to create musical textures and scenes representative of western Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley in years past.

When Angelrust folded... ... I decided to concentrate on this music for a while and explore the Indian side of my ancestry a bit more.

- Quote here.

Nechochwen are a project of Aaron Carey (also of Angelrust and Harvist) expressing the Native American Indian side of his ancestry. Again, this stuff is heavy on the folk elements, which by no means demeans it, but infact emphasizes the pagan/folk/cultural/indig elements trying to be expressed in this music. To a lesser degree, there are doom/black metal parts to give it that extra kick, that raw angry emotion, just in case you thought the history of indigenous people in the US (and elsewhere) was all flowery.

Pretty cool stuff, especially if you're all about the folk.

Personally, I'd love a bit more metal in it for me. But it's still really amazingly beautiful. Soothing and calm.

By the way, Andrew Della Cagna is a guest on some of the music here.

Nechochwen @ myspace

Peter: The new album Algonkian Mythos tells stories of your Native ancestors.  What do you hope the listener will get from listening to the album?
Nechochwen: The album’s subject matter is the Northeastern United States in the second half of the eighteenth century into the early nineteenth century.  Not all of the topics or characters are Algonquian in origin, some are Iroquoian.  All these people interacted and either directly or indirectly affected each others’ way of life and belief systems.  I want the listener to learn something and get transported to that dark era.  For those who are already familiar with this subject, this music is for you.  These are compositions to keep history alive.  Try to picture the sights and smells that go along with the music.

- Quote here.

Album Name: Algonkian Mythos

Band: Nechochwen

Genre: Folk/Black Metal

Year: 2008

Country: USA

Track Listing:

1.	A Blistering Fusilade	00:53
2.	Fallen Timbers	04:45
3.	Algonkian Mythos	05:28
4.	Coffin of the Flesh	02:45
5.	Talgayeeta	04:00
6.	Gnadenhutten	03:57
7.	Cut-ta-ho-tha	03:53
8.	Pilawah	02:00
9.	Nilu-Famu	07:19
10.	West Across the Missi-theepi	03:48
Total playing time		34:56

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Album Name: Azimuths to the Otherworld

Band: Nechochwen

Genre: Folk/Black Metal

Year: 2010

Country: USA

Track Listing:

1.	Allumhammochwen: The Crossing	07:52
2.	At Night I May Roam	04:01
3.	Gissis Mikana	04:18
4.	Red Ocher	06:04
5.	The Eyes of the Mesingw	01:45
6.	Charnel House	04:38
7.	Graves of Grandeur	03:22
8.	Confluence	03:10
9.	Noameatha, You Are the Ghost in the Water	02:30
10.	The Forgotten Death Ritual	01:41
11.	Hunting Among the Stars	03:43
12.	Four Effigies	08:52
13.	Azimuths to the Otherworld	05:30
14.	Graves of Grandeur (Reprise)	03:23
Total playing time		59:36

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In the Sea of Trees - Demo I (2010)

I'm not the first to share this (honestly, I rarely am), but I'll share this anyway.

In the Sea of Trees is an LA-based project, and straight from the source's mouth:

In the Sea of Trees inspired by the aokigahara forest of mt. fuji. My music is somewhere between (post) folk/black metal/ neofolk along with more traditional folk musics (old time, bluegrass, gypsy, celtic). I play Mandolin, Violin, Acoustic Bass, Saw, and Washboard in these songs. I am planning on adding acoustic guitar, some percussion and banjo on my upcoming songs. 

While my music is completely instrumental I am completely outspoken about a lot of issues such as green anarchy, veganism, feminsim, anti-racism, etc... pro-equality, pro-collapse.

Aokigahara (青木ヶ原), also known as the Sea of Trees (樹海, Jukai), is a 35 km² forest that lies at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan. The forest contains a number of rocky, icy caverns, a few of which are popular tourist destinations.
The forest, which has a historic association with demons in Japanese mythology, is a popular place for suicides; in 2002, 78 bodies were found, despite numerous signs, in Japanese and English, urging people to reconsider their actions.
Due to the wind-blocking density of the trees, and an absence of wildlife, the forest is known for being eerily quiet.

- Quote Wikipedia ("Aokigahara")


In the Sea of Trees is certainly beautiful acoustic music. Melodic folk at it's best. I can definitely see how it is influenced by, of course folk, but also folk (black) metal (specifically of the North American variety). However, I do not see where any BM is present. Perhaps it will surface in later releases, or perhaps I simply have misunderstood the description given to me about this music. Irrespective of that, I love it. And with solid radical left and green politics to match, it's definitely something worth checking out.

And by the way, this is perhaps some less "happy" folk than say Blackbird Raum, for those interested in such.

http://www.last.fm/music/In+the+Sea+of+Trees

Album Name: Demo I
Band: In the Sea of Trees
Genre: Folk
Year: 2010
Country:
Track Listing:

1.	Decaying Existence	09:57
2.	Downcast and Lurid	04:47
3.	The Darkening Skies	03:30
4.	The Discontention	06:31
Total playing time		24:45

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Blackbird Raum - Discography

And now for some folk, without metal.

The first thus far in this blog, but this is really a stand out.

"Raum is a great earl, he is seen as a black bird... he stealeth wonder-fullie out of the King's house and carry it whither he is assigned, he destroieth cities and hath great spite unto dignities of men, he knoweth things present, past and to come, and reconcileth friends and foes."

Pseudomonarchia daemonum
Johann Weyer

- Quote Anti-Politics ("Blackbird Raum")

Blackbird Raum formed out of the nucleus of a squatter community living in abandoned buildings and greenbelt treehouses in Santa Cruz, CA, in the early 2000's. Finding themselves living without electricity, they began to learn to play folk instruments from each other and other members of the traveling punk/folk culture. They all grew up playing in anarcho-punk, indie and ska bands and then, knowing next to nothing about traditional music, slowly gathered together the skills to create a new genre of music, based somewhere right in the middle of punk and folk.

Refusing the retro cliches of many of their contemporaries, they write entirely original music (in both senses of the word) that is reflective of the world they live in: a realm of abusive police, ecological devastation, creeping ambiguity and vague fear, but also a strong sense of community and a deep love of a natural world constantly on the verge of collapse. They jump back and forth between extremely fast metal-influenced jug band dance numbers and quasi-medieval chant-and-drone while doing herky-jerky hardcore-influenced time signature gymnastics. They toured the country in a tiny truck, playing mainstream folk festivals, punk houses, squats and all ages clubs. When they aren't touring, they play various American and European traditional music, hang out in the woods, raise children and read a lot of library books.

- Quote Black Powder Records ("Blackbird Raum")

Blackbird Raum is a band from Santa Cruz, California, where they have become a prominent part of the downtown street life. They are well known for their influence on Gypsy Punk but are generally considered to be the founders of a new genre. Influenced by American String Bands of the 1920's and Modern Anarcho-Punk such as CRASS, their music brings together rhythms of olde-tyme music with lyrics that reflects the sense of impending collapse of the current civilization that pervades much of green anarchist culture in modern times as well as criticizing the human and environmental destruction caused by the current civilization. The lyrics and song names often contain references to historical events, mythical creatures and cultural icons, such as a song titled "Silent Spring", which references the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Blackbird Raum has been on several tours, such as the “burnin’ gasoline while there’s still such a thing,” tour a cross-country tour and a 2010 tour to Alaska. They have appeared both as street performers and on stage at Northwest Folklife, a folk festival based in Seattle, Washington.

- Quote Wikipedia ("Blackbird Raum")

What kind of music is Blackbird RAUM? We have no idea, leave the name of the genre for some hack critic to invent. We're influenced by american string band music of the nineteen twenties, anarcho-punk bands like CRASS and a score of other disparate and incongruous bullshit too numerous to mention.
How we think of ourselves: in the same way that gypsy bands like Taraf de Haidouks feel equally comfortable playing village weddings and large concert halls, we're equally comfortable playing squats, parking lots, and riots as we are playing big folk festivals like Folklife in Seattle. In the same way that your local klezmer band act as emmisaries from their tightly knit jewish community to the world at large, we act as emmisaries from your local tightly knit community of anarchists and squatters to the outside.

- Quote Anti-Politics.net ("Blackbird Raum")

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So what can I say? This might not be (black) metal, but this is some of the most amazing music around. Certainly drawing from the historical context of the American vagabond, and sound wise gives the feelings of playing music by a campfire, being amongst the natural world, or simply waiting at a crew-change. The acoustic nature of their music makes it so much more organic and Luddite than electrical dependent metal could ever be. The lyrics are as radically Green as any anti-civ BM act around.

Some of the most positive music I listen to.

-------------------

Official Website
Officical Myspace
Old Website

Album Name: Purse-seine
Band: Blackbird Raum
Genre: Folk/Punk
Year: 2007
Country:
Track Listing:

1.	Pistol Dance	05:04
2.	Honey in the Hair	04:10
3.	We Believe in Us Versus Them	03:36
4.	Coal...	04:13
5.	Witches	03:55
6.	Sadie's	02:52
7.	It Is a Poor Sack	02:43
8.	Ars Goetia	04:08
9.	A Life in the Corn Syrup	03:20
10.	Cities	04:56
11.	Fortuna, I Am a Spear Fisherman	11:36
Total playing time		50:33

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Album Name: Swidden
Band: Blackbird Raum
Genre: Folk/Punk
Year: 2008
Country:
Track Listing:

1.	Valkyrie Horsewhip Reel	03:12
2.	California/Fetid Adder’s Tongue	03:33
3.	Rubicon Drawn	02:31
4.	Silent Spring	04:21
5.	Witches	03:54
6.	Greymare	00:30
7.	Story from Strawmouth	02:40
8.	Woodwose	03:05
9.	Shot Coplifting	01:39
10.	Unregistered Firearm/Ravachol in Valhalla/Crom	06:14
11.	A Rat in My Dream	01:08
12.	Still Sick (years after the draft)	03:04
13.	Honey in the Hair	03:21
14.	Coal	04:12
15.	Germinal	04:25
16.	Everyone up to the Wall	03:09
Total playing time		52:00

DOWNLOAD Album Name: Under The Starling Host Band: Blackbird Raum Genre: Folk/Punk Year: 2009 Country: Track Listing: 1. Turning Away 02:39 2. Catherine's Wheel 02:34 3. Lucasville 03:21 4. Allturningbacksinthemeadowandwaitwhilebonesarethrown 00:55 5. To the Barricades! 02:36 6. William 02:18 7. The Helm of Ned Kelly 03:26 8. Crumbs 02:18 9. Snare 02:36 10. Ensemble Suicide 04:28 11. Old One Eye 00:55 12. Conquest of Bread 02:26 13. A Rat In My Dream 00:44 14. Path of Raven 03:23 Total playing time 34:39     DOWNLOAD